OOPS! New York Times promotes cultic Transcendental Meditation

On February 12, 2019, Marisa Meltzer, NYT's Wellness Columnist's article describing Transcendental Meditation could have been a purchased advertisement by the organization. She describes the meditation as a 20-minute exercise that could be performed anywhere (click here to read the article), but does not question anything about the method or organization, accepting all as promoted.

While the writer seems to enjoy the twice daily rest, she fails to review the cultic aspects of the larger organization. She does not mention upselling to further courses, TM-Sidhis' mystical so-called powers, Ayurvedic therapies, gemstones, architecture, nor an elaborate global network of businesses, people, and finances.

The article unintentionally describes the early stages of succumbing to cultic influence. After listing a host of celebrity promoters of TM, she wonders "Could TM give me the artistic vision of George Harrison?"

Describing TM's private instruction, she describes the small room with a puja ritual, an altar with fruit and flowers, kneeling to a Sanskrit chant, as if none of this would be in conflict with a so-called "scientific technique". She was sworn not to divulge her secret two-syllable mantra. She does not. 

She mentions follow-up sessions, checking of meditation, an old video of Maharishi, then continues to meditate on her own at home. The TM office is described as simple, "lacks the decor of some of today's buzzy wellness clinics. Instead there's a staff that seems genuinely devoted to teaching and will hold your hand through the learning process." The current cost of learning TM, "based on a sliding scale of income, from $500 to $960 for the course. There are discounts and scholarships for students, veterans, domestic abuse survivors and other populations."

Sounds harmless enough.

This piece promoting Transcendental Meditation exposes the author already beginning to ignore her critical thinking. The piece normalizes secretiveness of TM's mantra, kneeling before an altar during a Sanskrit chant to learn a supposedly scientific practice. There is no information about the organization or its many controversies. 

The concluding description of her meditation experience is no different from merely day dreaming or taking a walk twice daily, "but letting them (thoughts) just happen and not act on them for 20 minutes has given me some perspective for the rest of my day. What if I let more of my thoughts just sort of travel in and out without taking the time to obsess over them?"

So, why not just daydream twice daily or take a walk without the expense and cultic allure of Transcendental Meditation?

Perhaps Maharishi was correct that charging people to learn Transcendental Meditation would assure their continued practice and involvement, and willingness to promote.

I'll take a walk.

Review of "Greetings from Utopia Park; Surviving a Transcendent Childhood" by Claire Hoffman

Greetings from Utopia Park; Surviving a Transcendent Childhood

by Claire Hoffman

(2016) HarperCollins Publishers, New York, 265 pages

Claire Hoffman offers a tender and honest memoir about her childhood in Transcendental Meditation’s mecca in Fairfield, Iowa. Born in 1977 to parents practicing Transcendental Meditation (TM), Claire lived in TM’s Iowa community from age 5-16. For those seeking a full exposé about TM's lifestyles, this would not be the story for you.

The preface opens with the author in present time, in her mid-thirties. As a successful journalist, she is a happily married young mother living away from cult origins. She returns to her former community to resolve what she labels as youthful cynicism. She wants to believe and thus registers for an advanced TM program to learn to fly. Belief versus cynicism is the thread winding through her narrative.

Clare then weaves a beautifully written story from the 1970’s seduction of her hippy parents by the Beatles’ guru during TM’s heyday. The young adults find Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s promise of inner tranquility, world peace, and eventually a community with other meditators to be a welcome respite from their own abusive childhoods. Claire is their second child. When her father stops practicing TM, succumbs to alcoholism, and abandons his young family in New York City, her mother lacks the means to support her children. Initially they relocate from New York to the Florida home of Claire’s grandmother, then resettle in Fairfield, Iowa with Maharishi’s so-called “Ideal Society” outside his university. 

Young Claire eagerly anticipates enrolling in her third kindergarten that year to join classmates who share a lifestyle and also practice TM’s childhood mantra meditation, or “Word of Wisdom” - she quickly learns she will not attend Maharishi’s private school because the private tuition is prohibitive. Instead, she and her brother attend a local public school where classmates taunt them as “Ru’s”, short for “Guroos”. An anonymous sponsor eventually enables Claire and her brother to attend Maharishi’s school. She happily dons the requisite blue jumper and bow tie to blend with other children who together sing Maharishi songs, learn their guru’s teachings interwoven with the three R’s, and receive grades for meditation.

When they move into one of two hundred dilapidated trailer homes in “Utopia Park”, Claire and her brother merge with a close-knit subculture of unsupervised children who create excitement while parents daily attend hours of group “Program” meditation. A few unusual childhood deaths provide a shadowy backdrop to other childhood mishaps. She has a close brush with a man who befriends children and targets Claire alone for physical exploration; she runs from his apartment while he showers with the bathroom door open. She mentions others’ stories of wild teenage explorations, fathers who have affairs with teenage babysitters, and easy access to recreational drugs. She describes her world as “binary”, divided between those who follow Maharishi’s teachings versus those who are not to be trusted. Their mother struggles financially through a series of jobs with meditator companies and a series of heartbreaks with sequential boyfriends. In contrast to her family’s struggles, Claire provides a brief overview of TM’s history and mentions Maharishi’s multibillion dollar global empire.

Their father becomes sober and reenters the lives of his now adolescent children to explain that they live in a cult. Her father is a writer who encourages his children to express themselves. As Claire prepares to enter high school, her anonymous sponsorship for Maharishi school evaporates. She enrolls in Fairfield’s public high school along with other TM kids who are stigmatized because their families cannot afford Maharishi School. She finds her way with “townie” teens. After a drug laden party at an abandoned rock quarry, sixteen year old Claire can no longer tolerate the confusing lifestyle. She apologizes to her mother and joins her father in California to finish school and pursue mainstream education and lifestyle.

The story jumps forward fifteen years to find Claire, an accomplished professional, flipping perspective on her early years. She holds a faculty position with the University of California and has published articles in the New York Times, Washington Post, and Rolling Stone. With a supportive husband and crying baby, Claire has a crisis of meaning in her seemingly mundane life. She misses her community and connection to a higher purpose. In an ironic twist, she writes she misses the “safety” of her childhood community. 

TM luminaries David Lynch and Bobby Roth invite Claire to meetings in Los Angeles with Hollywood celebrities recently recruited to Transcendental Meditation, causing her to question her youthful cynicism. She feels that her negativity from a TM childhood should not interfere with celebrities’ benefitting from TM. Lynch and Roth meet individually with Claire, tempting her back to her roots. The memoir concludes as it began. Claire attends advanced meditation retreats and returns to her childhood home to learn TM’s advanced meditation to fly, bouncing on high density foam. She experiences the inner bliss that initially captivated her mother. However, she fails to mention the $5,000 price tag for TM’s advanced flying program; she does not disclose her mystical meditation mantra nor advanced techniques. When Claire's daughter learns her “Word her Wisdom”, she reveals her meditation mantra is “wisdom” which Bobby Roth verifies. Claire is surprised that it’s not a meaningless sound, but fails to mention TM’s touted meaningless sounds are derived from Hindu deities.

In the Epilogue she reflects that utopia didn’t exist, but the quest for bliss, satisfaction and inner peace were hard to relinquish. She states the TM Movement was not a failure, and that her community was not fooled. She acknowledges their sincere desire to build utopia and pursuit of a shared dream… “what mattered was the believing. The willingness to believe is everything.” She admits that today “. . . one of the hardest things to see are the staff members who have worked there for decades, giving their time and their lives to a cause that is no longer there. Their guru is dead and the fortune he amassed from his followers is being fought over in Indian probate court.”

The author tenderly describes both idealism and frank details of destructive neglect in her childhood community. However, when summarizing TM’s scientific benefits, she does not question research methodology, nor mention alternatives.

In the acknowledgements section Claire thanks lifelong friends, alluding to other experiences, “I know you all have different lenses with which you view our shared past but I hope you recognize the one you read here.” She thanks Bobby Roth for “his openhearted invitation to me to keep Transcendental Meditation in my life, despite my cynical and questioning heart. It is in many ways thanks to him that I still practice - and enjoy - meditation today.” She is grateful for her mother’s love and hard work to raise her children, stating that this memoir “is really just a bumbling, inept love letter to her and to the religious experience, even though it may not always feel like it.”

Claire’s humble and honest memoir is a quick read. I recommend “Greetings from Utopia Park” for one perspective on making sense of a confusing cult childhood.

As reviewer, I must state my inherent bias. I was also raised in TM. My conclusions differ from those expressed by Claire Hoffman in “Greetings from Utopia Park”. Claire and I share many personal connections, much as would distant cousins in a small community. Some TM kids, now adults, tell me Claire’s story mirrors their own. Others share more gruesome tales. Unlike Claire Hoffman who concludes with an upbeat note about TM, my own cynicism remains unabated even as I love people from my past. I suspect that Bobby Roth and David Lynch lured Claire back to the dissociative high of TM’s prolonged meditations because her journalistic skill risked exposing their organization. In this memoir, Claire does not reveal TM’s mystical mantras nor the price tag of TM’s advanced programs, thus sheltering key first steps to cult indoctrination. She glosses over mention of TM’s many costly add-ons and monastic programs. When reading that Claire’s daughter’s mantra is “wisdom”, I wondered - did the TM Movement change mantras from Sanskrit to English after Maharishi's death? Or only for Claire’s daughter? In either case, there is no magic.

Second Hand Cult Abuse - Fifty Years

A TMFree Reader sent the following story in a small series of emails.
She gave permission to post the story minus names.
This resembles stories of many who lost loved ones to TM, or have TM family members.

**********************************

I have been reading some blogs over the past few days and wonder if anyone is interested in my experience with TM?  I have communicated with ++++ a number of times. It comes in waves, at the moment I have been following the Pandit riot.  Anyway to cut a long story short I am a 70 year old grandma in Australia whose marriage and life was messed up for a very long time due to the fact my (ex) husband's obsession with TM.

Has anyone looked into the effect on families, i.e. those partners who are not TMers and what they are put througyh and what numbers divorce?  I would very much like to be in touch with other such persons here in Australia. I am sure there must be a number just like me.

MM visited Australia on 7 Dec 1967. Husband was asked to organise accommodation, media etc. We picked MM up from the airport in our little car. MM wrapped his sari around him pushed me aside and squeezed into the front seat leaving me carrying a 16 month old and heavily pregnant to attempt to get into the back seat.  It started right there. I was pushed aside over and over for 20 years until finally I said enough. I am still getting over the constant TM bashing (like a non smoker who inhales cigarette smoke I was contaminated).

Briefly my ex husband (of over 20 years) did the teacher training course in Fiuggi in 1972. We had been living in Italy for 2 years and I was sent home along with my +++ children ++++. He stayed for 3 months. This was upsetting for the children and put even a bigger burden on me. Starting children in school alone, opening the house after a rental of 2 years, getting used to Australian way of life etc.  He had been meditating since the early 1960s but it did not seem a big problem back then.   

When my husband returned from Fiuggi in 1972 he announced almost immediately he returned that sex would have to fit in with his duties as a TM teacher, i.e. none before or during...what a shock for a young 27 year old to be told essentially that our sexual relationship would make him "impure". That I would have to "book" him ahead of time. He didn't say that in so many words but for all those years that is what I carried inside me. Our married sex life was over really. 

Anyway "Down the Rabbit Hole" has left a big impression on me. I do so identify with what and who my husband became in those years after Fiuggi.  I think you call it "disassociation"? wonderful word and describes him exactly.     

He did his teacher training in TM in 1972 in Fiuggi as I said and we had just completed a 2 year stint in Genova where he did post doctoral work at the University.  I observed a changed person when he came home 3 months later. He was glassy eyed for weeks and talked of little else than the film the TMers had seen at the end of the course...The Beatles Yellow Submarine!!  I was so exasperated. I had spent 3 months learning to live back in Australia with 2 little boys beginning school. The "disappearance" of their father for such a long time had a long term effect on our eldest son who was very stressed at beginning school without his Dad around.

TM replaced a father who should have been around for his children. He never had time to take his sons to sports etc and was minimally involved in their lives. As for me I spent school holidays alone with the children as +++ chose those times (Uni holidays) to go on his extra TM courses.    

But those 25 years were a big part of my life and should have been healthy happy ones. I am also very angry with myself for tolerating so much for so long. Why didn't I leave so much earlier and had the chance of beginning a new life without him or TM?   But gradually I began to believe there was something wrong with me because I didn't embrace TM. I put 150% into our marriage because I thought if I worked harder he would care more for me. The more I did the less he did, so the last few years he sent all his spare time meditating and running marathons. My mother in law asked me why I worked so hard!

Fortunately I prevented ++++ taking the +++ children++  out of the highly prestigeous school they had managed to gain entry for. He wanted to put them in a newly opened TM school (as I suspected the school lasted all of 6 months). Thankfully I won that one. 

Recently +++ has spoken to the family about having a unit with the door "facing the right way". My son thought he meant Feng Shuey (dont know how to spell it)...but I realise now that it is another directive from the movement. It's just never ending.  In short TM I have believed for a very long time is an addiction for some people, or rather for people "in the hierarchy of the movement".  +++  was/is very influential in the movement in Australia. I know now that a lot of our money was syphoned off to the movement which is why I never had access to our bank accounts etc.    

Mostly I dont think about TM these days (unless at one of the grandchildrens' parties and their grandfather is there, then I get all shaky which seems ridiculous). When I begin to read some of the stories online which I do every now and then it takes me days to get over reading about things I was so close to. I really dont understand it as I have been alone for 25 years now. A counsellor told me, much to my horror, that I was emotionally abused. No he never laid a hand on me but I know that it was abuse. Being made to feel a 2nd rate human being on the "enlightened scale" , being called crazy, are not the acts of a so called "enlightened" person are they? Problem is my children and friends think of him as a quiet gentle person. They also think I should "get over it". I had noone to speak with about this in those 20 years as we lived interstate. Had we been near parents and friends he wouldn't have got away with his actions and behaviour. Because I was the one to initiate a divorce I was treated very badly by his parents for some time. Ironically toward the end of mother in law's life she confided in me that they both "live on another planet"!!! Whoa why didn't she speak up sooner? 

Anyway I do feel for you having been in a real family tradition of TM. I truly don't know how you cope.  Joe was great..I know some TMers have referred online to his "mental condition". That seems a standard comment about ex TMers who speak out and must originate somewhere in the movement?  I also came across an item referring to MM saying bad things would happen to those TMers who did not conform to his wishes, or some such thing.  In Weggis one of the little TM children I spoke of referred to an Australian couple whose little girl was born deaf...he, all of 8 years, said Maharishi told those people not to marry and that is why they had a deaf baby....scary?

I am amazed and truly horrified at the recent riot in Fairfield and the details surrounding it. Haven't the authorities done anything about these people?  My ex husband spent 10 years on the Fairfield University Campus after we divorced (with wife #2 also a teacher). He was a Prof of Mathematics and no dill, or I didn't think so for a long time.

We also spent 6 months in Lucerne Switzerland where husband was wired for the brain wave stuff. I saw a lot of neglected children in Weggis (children of very well known TMers and was horrified at the lack of time education and care taken of these children (who latched onto me as a sort of 2nd mother as I wasn't involved in the TM side of things).

I would love to hear of anyone in a similar position to me.  You see even now writing this I feel a sense of guilt and fear.  Discussing TM brings on a trembling and agitation I can't explain.  I have seen and heard what the movement is capable of over a period of 50 years.

Sincerely

  

Grandmother in Australia

Meet Mumosa!

To enhance your enlightened enjoyment!

A new site http://mumosa.com exposes fallacies of Maharishi University of Management and life in Fairfield, Iowa - the North American mecca for the Transcendental Meditation Movement.

Enjoy!

Rekha Basu : "There's a little disconnect" in TM Pandit Compound

Rekha Basu states "There's a little disconnect" when pandits for peace threw rocks at a sheriff, during a stealth 6 a.m. operation to remove their leader for an undisclosed reason.

In summary, there needs to be some oversight about this suspicious situation.

Rekha Basu, journalist for the Des Moines Register, explains Vedic City and Pandit compound clearly to non-TMers. In this video interview she reviews the noble purported goals of the TM Movement, the financial and cultural contributions to the larger community, and the pandits' apparent totalitarian controlled living situation :






She provides an excellent overview of the Pandit compound in the video interview and her article "Maharishi Vedic City: Inside the compound with Rekha Basu".

Ms. Basu investigated only the pandit compound. So she understandably made a mistaken assumption in introductory remarks, stating that Vedic City private homes are for faculty of Maharishi University of Management.  In reality, MUM faculty live primarily on campus, because (like the fenced-in pandits) MUM faculty are compensated with room and board and a minimal stipend. The only MUM faculty who live off campus either have an outside income, personal trust funds or married into wealth.

Vedic City private homes are owned by private TM devotees.

The psychological totalitarianism of the TM Movement extends beyond the physical pandit enclosure.

Thank you, Rekha Basu!

Inside Pandit Compound with Rekha Basu - Des Moines Register

This morning's Des Moines Register featured Rekha Basu's visit to Vedic City's Pandit Compound :





Read the full article and enlightening comments at :
Maharishi Vedic City: Inside the compound with Rekha Basu

Ms. Basu wrote an eloquent summary of the conditions of these young men.

She reported in such a way that insightful readers will question implications between the lines.
As she said in the above video "Decide for yourself".

Hopefully this report brought up enough questions that an external investigation will ensue.

TMFree hopes that investigators will fully evaluate the circumstances of this camp.
Where there is smoke, there is often fire.

Transparency is necessary.

One correction to the Register's article - TMFree is NOT Gina's blog.
TMFree is a co-moderated blog with several contributors listed in the right side bar. Mike Doughney "owns" the blog. (Thank you, Mike!)

Pandit Protest or Freedom Cry

ABC’s KTVO TV in Iowa March 11, 2014 reported on a “Pandit Riot” that took place at the gate to Vedic City’s pandit compound after TM officials arrived with sheriff support at 0600. They planned to remove one of the compound’s leaders for unspecified disciplinary action and possible return to India :

According to the televised report, dozens of the Indian men who receive $50 monthly stipend (with $150 presumably sent to families in India) surrounded the sheriff’s vehicle, threw rocks and broke a squad car light. The sheriff called for other law reinforcements from Wapello County for support.

The Global Country of World Peace or Vedic City authorities must have suspected some unrest to justify requesting sheriff support to escort this pandit leader away. 

The pandits protested their leader’s departure. Law enforcement officials could not understand words that were shouted in Hindi. News reports do not mention any attempt by law enforcement to understand the pandits.

News reports do not address (lack of) a Hindi interpreter. There is no mention if the shouting men were later provided an objective interpreter or offered impartial legal representation.

Credit goes to the sheriff who avoided escalating an altercation by successfully backing his vehicle away through the unarmed crowd. The sheriff’s office did not press charges since no one knows who assaulted the vehicle. Vedic City agreed to cover costs for the sheriff’s auto repairs.

The sheriff expressed incredulity that these men “held no respect for the law” when they mobbed his vehicle.  

The pandits were escorted back inside their square mile of fenced compound.

TMFree previously posted concerns about the pandits’ captivity in a previous three part series that can be read by clicking here.

The recent “riot" might be a desperate attempt by these caged men to communicate to the outside world. 

One woman interviewed for the televised report stated that these pandits WANT to stay impounded together, rather than return to their family squalor in India. However, if the pandits want to stay impounded, why did 163 of them escape within the last year? Their absence was not reported by the sponsoring TM organization that holds their passports. 

AlJazeera's review of January 27, 2104 “Indian Vedic students go ‘missing’ in the US”  

can be read by clicking here.

Vedi City's pandit situation resembles this animated United Nations’ video about modern human slavery :

These young pandits receive slave wages of room and board plus $50 / month. $150 per pandit is supposedly sent to their families in India. They may spend their $50 at small store in their compound. They rarely leave the compound. Their “job” is to inspire donations from TM True Believers for mystical chants that TM leaders promise will assure good weather, economic prosperity and world peace. For video clips, click here.

If these men want greater rights, they could be desperate enough to vie for attention from law enforcement.

Raja John Hagelin, Maharishi's Raja of North America (aka Dr. John Hagelin in the films “What the Bleep Do We Know” and “The Secret”) Bill Goldstein, spokesman of The Global Country of World Peace, and John Revolinski, an administrator for the pandit campus, said the majority of these pandits began living in TM’s pandit compounds as children. This sounds suspiciously like child trafficking.  See “Students inquire about pandits during forum” by clicking here.

Revolinski referred to the pandits’ group dynamics. He did not discuss the group dynamics of the larger community which colluded to keep these men inside a fenced compound.

Some reports state the pandits have R-1 Visas. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Web Site defines R-1 visas here.  A key excerpt below :

“An R-1 is a foreign national who is coming to the United States temporarily to be employed at least part time (average of at least 20 hours per week) by a non-profit religious organization in the United States (or an organization which is affiliated with the religious denomination in the United States) to work as a minister or in a religious vocation or occupation.   …

To qualify, the foreign national must have been a member of a religious denomination having a bona fide non-profit religious organization in the United States for at least 2 years immediately before the filing of the petition."

Forgive our confusion. For decades the TM Movement stated they are a non-religious organization. The TM Movement used this non-religious argument to infiltrate public schools and the American Veteran’s administration through the David Lynch Foundation.

Yet, the pandits received visas to work for an “organization which is affiliated with the religious denomination in the United States”. 

TMFree addressed religious aspects of TM many times, for example "Is it a religion, or a dessert topping?"  and "Still "not a religion": Video of puja, the religious ritual central to TM Initiation".

Vedic City issued a TM-speak statement on March 11, 2014 which can be read here, and stated that :

“A very harmonious meeting was held with the entire Pandit group immediately after the incident to discuss what transpired. An internal review of the situation is being conducted with an aim to avoid any such repeat incidents in the future. “  

No investigator had contact with the pandits. Will an outsider speak directly to these men?

How can law enforcement assist the containment of voiceless innocents inside an isolated compound?

Some reports said these men were promised an education and job training. Does chanting for a net of $50 monthly equal a career?

Pandits are human beings whose concerns should be heard. These are not the mute Orca whales whose captivity in San Diego SeaWorld garners press attention through animal activists.

An objective legal investigation into this should be initiated by people outside of Jefferson County, Iowa. Authorities of southeast Iowa already demonstrated both lack of objectivity and collusion with Vedic City through seven years of silence about these men confined to one square mile in a cornfield.

The pandits may have learned that drama attracts attention after fire fighters responded to a small fire in a pandit mobile home on November 8 2013, as reported here.

Another fire on March 3, 2014 was reported here.

If these men are desperately calling for help, they might be succeeding.

Some walls come tumbling down

Updates and summaries of recent newsworthy events for the TM Organization will come shortly.

We at TMFree apologize for delays in keeping our readers updated with the latest.
We maintain this web site in our non-existent spare time, thus are not able to write daily.

Less than 3 weeks ago, we could not keep up with exposing the manipulations funded by David Lynch Foundation's million$, as their promotional machine steam rolled media outlets.

Now we cannot keep up with summarizing the damning publicity coming out against the TMO.

Thanks to the dogged efforts by others who joined the fray,  David Lynch Foundation pulled out of San Francisco Schools last week.

DLF's withdrawal from San Francisco schools coincided with Iowa new articles about a rebellion from the confined so-called pandits.

Infinite appreciation to the many who contributed efforts through armchair activism online!

And thank you for understanding TMFree's delay in posting updates.

Invincible Combustion - Pandit residence enflamed

Fairfield Ledger of March 3, 2014 reported that firefighters responded to a fire within Vedic City’s pandit compound on Sunday afternoon March 2. There were no injuries, but the burning roof of a residential mobile home collapsed and the building was destroyed. The cause of the fire remains unknown.

The original article can be viewed here : Fire destroys residence on pandit campus 

San Francisco High School Rejects TM's "Quiet Time"

Wallenberg High School of San Francisco canceled “Quiet Time” program effective 2014. 

The David Lynch Foundation had used celebrity endorsement and donations to sponsor this stealth entry for Transcendental Meditation into public schools. 

Thanks to SF Parents Against TM in Public Schools for their activism to educate school administration and faculty about the many facets of this superficially benign program. And thanks, once again, for David Sieveking’s documentary “David Wants to Fly” about the wizardry behind Maharishi’s Oz. 

Thanks also to Attorney Ford Greene for professional services rendered to educate school administration about academic controversy with cultic organizations.

Cheers for a successfully targeted stone from concerned citizens against a global goliath.

David Wants to Fly Trailer English from Lichtblick Film on Vimeo.

Human Trafficking in Vedic City? Missing Pandits

January 24, 2014…  hi India, Chicago’s weekly Newspaper for America’s Indian immigrants, published an in-depth article Pennies for Pandits  about 163 Vedic Pandits  missing from Vedic City. 

 This news flash was repeated by Al Jazeera, India Today, Times of India , ndtv, the thehindu, deccanherald, and more.

The report stated that :


“Under the project to recruit Maharishi Vedic Pandits, publicity literature is distributed in Indian villages, mostly in Hindi speaking areas, among people living under the poverty line. Children are enrolled with the permission of their parents, who are promised that their wards would be given education up to 12th standard, after which they would be turned into Pandits or masters of the art of Hindu religious rites and services.”

And

“Investigations by Hi India have found that the kids of the programme, enrolled at the tender age of five years, were rarely provided education beyond fifth standard. After investigation by the newspaper, it came to light that these Vedic Pandits were brought to the US from India and were kept in makeshift trailer homes to be guarded by round-the-clock guards.”

“According to the report, a contract is drafted in English but the copy is neither given to Pandits nor is it translated or explained to the fifth-grader emigrants who do not even understand English. The contract states that they will be given $50 compensation while in the US and another $150 in India. This $150 is not given on a monthly basis to the families of the Pandits but, rather, is considered as bond money.”

“The Chicago consulate, however, says the GCWP has never returned or deposited any passport and neither has it shared any missing person information. According the sheriff's department and police department of Fairfield, Iowa, no missing person report has ever been filed by the GCWP.”

In 2012 TMFree posted about Iowa's fenced pandit compound in a linked 3-part series. The 3rd essay can be read by clicking on  "Pandits for Profit".

Cultnews shared the story at this link : The truth about TM compound that Oprah Winfrey failed to see : Course Participants or Captive Pandits.

Four days after Hi India's report,  Raja Hagelin attempted to quell anxiety among TM’s true believers with an insider email. 

As TM's Raja of North America and their oft promoted "World Renowned Physicist" Hagelin stated :

“Over the weekend, a defamatory and wildly inaccurate article about the Vedic Pandit program appeared in a weekly Chicago Indian newspaper and was republished in part by other Indian media in the US and abroad."

Hagelin claimed that,

"The article attempts to cast blame on the Global Country of World Peace for the plight which some adult Pandits now find themselves in. These are Pandits who have left the Pandit campus and program and apparently are seeking employment, unlawfully, in the US."

"Some of the Pandits have returned, realizing this was a foolish thing to do, and their airfare has been covered to return to India. Others have not yet come to this realization and are likely being manipulated by unscrupulous employers who take advantage of their innocence. We are working with the press to correct this matter and already are getting a positive response from responsible journalists which may result in some positive publicity for the Global Peace Initiative."

 Hagelin’s message blamed the pandits themselves, while acknowledging that these "adults" have been held by the TM organization since childhood (!) :

“We have been dealing with a challenge in recent months where a few of the Pandits who have completed their 2-year stays or who say they need to go home to India for some reason are taken to the airport in Chicago. They then leave the airport without boarding the plane, in violation of the terms of their agreement with the Movement and apparently with the intention of violating the terms of their US visa. As you know, we always provide airfare to the Pandits when they come to the US and return to India, and our staff from the Pandit campus and volunteers from the community take the Pandits to Chicago and help them until they go through airport security."

"On a few rare occasions, Pandits have checked in for their flights and have gone through security and passport control — and then tried to leave the airport. In recent months, two such Pandits were stopped by authorities, but were released. This encouraged some other Pandits to try to leave in Chicago or even to slip off the campus."

"The law is that neither Global Country of World Peace that sponsors the Pandits in the US nor airport authorities can force these adult Pandits to board a flight."

"The Vedic Pandits seem to be doing this because they have heard stories that they can make what sounds to them like vast sums of money ($1,800 a month is often mentioned) working in low-level jobs at restaurants and other businesses. They seem to be dazzled by the idea of making a few thousand dollars, but they do not understand what it costs to live in the US or the legal implications of being in violation of the immigration law that result from their leaving the program. Most of the Pandits have been on Maharishi Vedic Pandit campuses in India in residence since ages 12 or 14, where they are honored and respected and all their needs are provided for."

Another message by Hegelin was sent on February 12, 2014, probably after TM attorneys had contacted news outlets :

“More than 30 Indian publications in the US and abroad have retracted the wildly inaccurate article about the Vedic Pandits that they had picked up from a Chicago Indian weekly. .....
This has ranged from direct retractions ....  to publishing the detailed text of our responses, to new positive news articles about the Pandits.”  

Hegalin claimed efforts at treating those retained inside the fenced compound as human beings by stating : 

“Dr. Prakash Shrivastava and Raja Bob LoPinto held 5 days of meetings with the Vedic Pandits at the Maharishi Vedic City campus, working with them about this situation, educating them about the consequences of Pandits going off on their own, and addressing any concerns the Pandits have.
This is already having a positive effect. Some Pandits who had left the Chicago airport without returning to India have returned to Maharishi Vedic City and been given flights home. The vast majority of the Vedic Pandits are very dedicated to their program and happy with campus life. "

To assure TM devotees that business continues as usual, another routine fundraising-for-pandits email was sent by Raja Harris and Arlene Kaplan on February 15, 2014, titled “Maharishi Vedic Pandits Creating World Peace”. They invited others to join them :

“Arlene and I wanted to warmly invite you to make your plans now to come to the Brahmasthan of India for next season, which starts the week of September 22 through the week beginning March 23, 2015. One important reason is that this coming season offers our guests two opportunities to attend the Navaratri Celebrations—the first from September 25 to October 3, 2014 and the second from March 20-28, 2015."

Claiming that :

"Listening to these nine days of recitations is said to bestow prosperity, health, longevity, knowledge and intelligence. Also lively during these Nine Days of Mother Divine are those impulses of Creative Intelligence responsible for helping to remove obstacles from the path of success and for helping to remove all kinds of fear, illnesses, and other negativity.”

One can register for such courses here : http://www.maharishiindiacourses.com

It will be interesting to watch this situation unfold. 

Study questions long term benefits of meditation

Lindsay Gellman reviews an analysis of science behind meditation in the January 6 Wall Street Journal, linked here : Meditation has limited benefits, study finds. 

As TMFree readers would expect, meditation is not the save-all panacea for which it's marketed. 

The majority of studies on Transcendental Meditation (TM) are NOT controlled studies, thus are weak. For example, TM studies do not compare TM with mindfulness meditation, prayer, buddhist chanting, nor with daily napping or exercise.

IF TM were compared with another contemplative practice, it would be impossible to know if the TM control group practices TM correctly because it's impossible to know what a person recites inside their mind. There is also no way to determine if a participant uses his or her correct mystical mantra, since the grid of reported TM mantras is not uniform. In another words, there is nothing scientific about the practice of trademarked Transcendental MeditationTM.

According to Dr. Herbert Benson, any word works as well as a TM mantra. Herbert Benson was co-researcher with Keith Wallace for the original TM studies in Scientific American. Benson then found identical results with other meditations and prayers that do not require secretive indoctrination. Benson called this The Relaxation Response.  

Lo! mediterranean siestas provide some benefit!

As Gellman summarizes in the Wall Street Journal :

"Although uncontrolled studies have usually found a benefit of meditation, very few controlled studies have found a similar benefit for the effects of meditation programs on health-related behaviors affected by stress," the JAMA report said.

The report's findings show that meditation is perhaps less effective in alleviating stress-related symptoms than is widely believed, said Allan H. Goroll, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School-Massachusetts General Hospital, in invited commentary also published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine. "The studies overall failed to show much benefit from meditation with regard to relief of suffering or improvement in overall health, with the important exception that mindfulness meditation provided a small but possibly meaningful degree of relief from psychological distress," he wrote."

Prison of Indoctrination - TMO

The author of this unsolicited contribution requests to remain publicly anonymous for now. 
This person was raised in the Transcendental Meditation Movement.

Being born into a TM Cult family has lasting impacts on relationships both physical and emotional, personal and working.

The broad strokes can be traced back to a few things, most noticeable in my eyes are: Jyotish, the blabberish of your entire life being predetermined and predictable, and the built in assumption that you must be with another cult member (read true believer), or convert the one you have into a true believer. 

This has had a devastating effect on my relationships with non-TM friends, with girl friends, and significant others. How? 

Growing up as a second generation TM kid, you were constantly told what a special gift to be born into a family of yogi's, truly amazing, and that you, and others born into TMO families would bring about heaven on earth. 

The constant reinforcement through TM schools engrained in the pschye that no happiness would be possible, and no-one would truly know you unless they also were helping "heaven on earth" eventuate by joining the TMO. This ingrained brainwashing led to the brink of sex addiction - seeking a connection, but never allowing any emotional openness because "it would never lead to anything, they aren't TMO". 

Looking back, the callous way this destroyed any playful emotional connections, and removed any possible seeds of a relationship with meaning to flourish is the saddest thing to me. A 3 year relationship finally ended on the back of mental turmoil - I couldn't see her embracing the TMO, and closed myself off, ending it suddenly and refusing any chance of reconciliation. This relationship lasted this long almost in spite of myself - I was experiencing significant dissonance and attempted to live a "normal life", not meditating, making friends not within the TMO, and making a go of it. 

In spite of all this, I was conflicted throughout, wrestling with truly giving in and having a relationship about us, and not her or my beliefs. I failed, it failed, and I reverted back to several years of emotionally restricted physical encounters, despairing of finding someone "on my level" and fully TMO. 

Regular lectures from my TMO invested father throughout this period on how important it was to have a wife of the same background and values (read TMO faithful) were endured during this time, including strong positive reinforcement when I ended the 3 year relationship, saying it was the right decision, and discouraging me from second-guessing myself. 

Jyotish was the counter-punch one-two blow that landed regularly in conduction with the conditioning. Being told throughout childhood and adulthood that my life would be hard, difficult, and unhappiness would reign if my main focus wasn't on the spiritual side of life (read TMO only, no other), due to my particular chart combination, built in another reason to shut down any connection that wasn't interested in TM.

It took a lot to break that, to the point that the delightful person I'm married to was pre-emptively dumped after a month of dating because I couldn't see her becoming part of the TMO. Thankfully she didn't take no for an answer and persevered with me, held on even through being coerced into learning TM (she felt nothing, had no positive effects, and it bored her), and almost pushed into becoming a teacher of ™. 

The dissonance I experienced between the conditioning of being born into the TM Cult and cold, hard, beautiful reality finally broke through the veil and started the exiting process that is filling me with more self awareness than any of Mahesh's sleepfest mumbles ever did. 

Growing Up Enlightened 1990

Blast from the past. 1990 Book about Maharishi's Education for Enlightenment. The photo must have been taken between 1984-1987, since my daughter is in the crowd.

This book's cover photo brings a flood of warm memories for idealistic community, believing we were safe and protected, followed by bittersweet memories of the young faces who are no longer with us.

My young daughter beams from her spot cocooned in the community that she once loved, with her dearest childhood friends directly behind Maharishi's photo. Fortunately, my children were spared the full experience of Maharishi's education since we moved away shortly after this photo was taken. I never signed permission for my daughter's image to be publicized in this way, nor in other promo material of the era in which she was specifically highlighted. I'm sure other parents also did not sign releases for Maharishi International University Press' use of their children's images.

Let's see, from my personal connections ~ some of these graduates of enlightened education grew up to create successful lives in the outside world, after stumbling away of their own accord.

A few of those no-longer-kids work for the TM Organization, blogging on TM - MUM - David Lynch Foundation sites, recruitment officers for Maharishi University, DLF administrators, or videographers.

A few died needlessly, some were alcohol and drug related. I know of at least one who threw themselves (I choose respectful gender neutraility)  before an oncoming train, and another of a self inflicted gun shot with a gun purchased at Fairfield's Wal-Mart.

Another is incarcerated in an Iowa penitentiary, for child abduction with alcohol and weapons.

A few others suffer from dissociative and other psychiatric disorders, having spent early adulthood in an out of psychiatric institutions.

Others became teenage mothers with attendant financial and social challenges (like myself, as a result of statutory rape in the very small previous generation of TM kids). At least one of the young girls in this photo later did not know which of many potential candidates had recreationally fathered her children - the gene donors came from amongst smiling crowds of such group photos commemorating Maharishi's perfect society.

Some parents or other family members had needlessly ugly deaths because they sought medical treatment only as a desperate last resort when it was too late for cure. Rather than seeking appropriate medical care, such devotees died from illnesses which raged unchecked as they spent thousands of dollars for fraudulent therapies with Maharishi's ayurvedic products, magic yagyas (mystical prayer ceremonies), and magical rubies, sapphires, and other gems because they believed as Maharishi taught "We are not going to take help from medical Drs. as medical professionals give poison. So don't engage any medical Drs. for anything - absolutely whatever it is - even if they are in our Movement family... Hold onto the fact that we are the supreme authorities on health - we know how to create perfect health - we are challenging all governments in world."

These so-called enlightened children were left to pick up the pieces of their fractured families.

So much for the lauded Heaven on Earth!

When I texted this photo to my adult daughter, she quickly responded :

"Yeah, I think that's me with the huge naive grin, just behind the Maharishi photo, two heads away from J. Makes sense." She then identified her favorite teachers, then more memories :

"Second grade teacher was the woman who married J.H.'s mom's ex-husband. Now, that sounds cultish... Haha"

Thankfully my daughter only had a taste of the cult dysfunction.

Would you help The David Lynch Foundation bring this program to your neighborhood school today? Not me.

If you were here, or remember pertinent stories, please comment.

Maharishi's Biographer on Meditation

Update from Paul Mason, posted on November 20, 2013 :

On the strength of feedback given at TM-Free Blog, the contents of the http://www.thoughtfreemeditation.com

webpage have been revised, and in response to the request to bring it out in book form it will be published on 15 December, 2013. I want to thank you and everyone at TM-Free Blog for giving me the chance to share this information and to find out people's reactions. Hopefully, those who are interested in meditation can find enough to satisfy them without needing to get involved in any cult or money-making enterprise.
'The Knack of Meditation' is a not-for-profit publication and a FREE pre-publication copy is available online at:-
http://www.thoughtfreemeditation.com/The_Knack_of_Meditation_FREE_e-book.pdf
Thanks again to all at TM-Free.Paul  

   

Paul Mason, biographer of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, translator of Guru Dev's lectures, former co-moderator of TMFree.blogspot, and free thinking traveler extraordinaire submitted the following essay about meditation :

Are You Sitting Comfortably?

Let me tell you a story…

It was a snap decision, to buy the old wooden armchair from the secondhand furniture shop. I was seventeen years old, had the money spare, and on impulse suddenly decided I wanted to buy it. I had never bought an item of furniture before and I enjoyed the freedom of making a choice over what I sat on at home – I put it in my bedroom in a corner near the window. It didn’t cost a lot so I didn’t get to regretting it. I was working at that time, and recall that when I came home I would, more often than not, park myself down on my armchair, get comfortable and close my eyes for a while. It was my bit of lazy time. I would sit just watching my thoughts until there appeared to be no thoughts to watch. Then, I would open my eyes and look around at my bedroom and enjoy just being me and having all my stuff around me.

As it happened, my routine would soon become disrupted, I left that job, and indeed, I lost the habit of sitting in the chair.

I would not describe myself as a comtemplative person, nor would I say I am particularly patient, so I am not the sort of person that one would necessarily associate with being interested in meditation, in fact, I was not really, other than a mild curiousity about it. However, that was to change!

I first realised I needed to meditate when I felt an internal pressure, an unrest, an unfamiliar and intense discomfort, which I wanted to dissolve or remove myself from. But, though I experimented unsuccessfully at gazing at a candle I realised I just wasn’t ‘getting it’, actually, it was making matters worse, making me feel worse!

Some months later, whilst travelling with my girlfriend, I was given a pep talk on meditation, and I was persuaded to learn how to meditate, which occurred the very next day. The technique involved the repetition of a mantra, a special word which was meaningless to me, and the idea was that I should not sit there thinking my thoughts but to instead repeat the mantra until arriving at the source of thought, to a state of tranquil awareness. Well it sounded good but in truth the tranquil awareness did not happen for me, so, rather naughtily, and just to see what would happen, I decided to give up repeating the mantra, let go of thoughts, and see what happened. Well, the first thing that happened is that I heard clearly the sounds in the garden outside, and then, well….. The extraoridinary truth is that it happened just the way I had been told. I found myself in a state of tranquil awareness. I was delighted, utterly delighted.

I decided to keep the practice of meditation going, but forgot the little trick of letting go of the mantra, and it became more difficult to access that state of tranquility, which was a shame, because though meditation became a routine for me, it did not always give me the peace of mind I craved. But I consoled myself that one day it would all resolve and my meditations would get better, and perhaps they did, but I still did not find tranquility on tap.

Something happened to make me question again the practice of TM meditation. I had sat to meditate and somehow I could not think the mantra, I just couldn’t do it, try as I might to recall and repeat it, it just would not happen, so instead, I just sat and enjoyed doing nothing instead. The experience was just astonishing, time kind of stopped still, I was bathed in tranquility and satisfaction was here at hand.

Well, you would have thought I would have abandoned TM and just adopted a routine of sitting with my eyes closed and settling down naturally. But I didn’t. Such was the inculcation of the teaching of TM that I carried on with the practice, even though I had discovered something more satisfying. I think the reason for this is that the mind has difficulty remembering times when it was not busy, it tends to remember best those times when something was ‘happening’.

I have looked into the topic of meditation deeply, and in so doing have discovered many descriptions of how the practice of meditation is best done. So, I have collected them together for others to see, along with a simplified guide to how it can be practiced successfully, at www.thoughtfreemeditation.com - The site is not there to make any money, it has no advertisements and there is nothing to buy there, just information and quotations which you might find very interesting. Either way, thanks for reading my story.

Paul