Lies My Guru Told Me

An oldie but a goodie
                                     

Lies My Guru Told Me

(For my own good, of course)

By Michael D. Coleman, Ph. D.

One of the wonderful things about email on the Internet is the "democratization" of knowledge. We can compare notes with others around the world easily and quickly. No authoritarian structure can block it. Dictatorial structures hate free dialogue.

Recently I have been "listening in" to an on-going dialogue among three friends who have been sharing stories of their time with Maharishi. This made me realize that even 25 years after leaving the TM Movement, I have not come clean with myself and with others about the lies Maharishi encouraged me to believe and required me to tell others.

This is an open letter to anyone within the TM movement who is beginning to feel that they must be "crazy" because of the dissonance between what they are aspiring to and what the TM movement actually seems to be doing. It is also for everyone who has left the TM movement to validate your
sanity.

Let's begin with a short catalogue of lies with a brief commentary on each. I will give a deeper treatment of several. There are too many lies, with new lies coming out each year, to comment on them all.