Transcendental Meditation and an Interrupted Life

Sometimes young adults make plans for what they intend to do with their lives. If you are a middle-class American, your plan may have looked something like this: attend college in my teens and 20's, attend graduate school in my 20's, start my career in my 20's, get married in my 20's, buy a home in my 30's, have children in my 30's...." Or maybe you had a different set of plans for your life.

Some people had a plan set up, and then TM came into their life, and somehow, their plan changed. Some people put their plan on hold or gave up their plan, and became deeply involved in TM (perhaps by becoming a TM teachers, or by working for the movement full time as a volunteer).

Some people who became deeply involved with TM have been satisfied with the life choice they made. But others spent a few - or many - years of their lives in the TM movement and then decided they wanted to leave. Some of them found that their time in TM caused a disruption in their life plan. For some, their originals plans were simply delayed by the years that they were involved in TM. For others, the rent in their lives lasted long after they gave up TM (for example, if the time spent in TM was followed by years of post-cult trauma syndrome.) For others, the original dream had to be modified due to the time spent in TM (for instance, if the person's life dream was to become a full professor, but after leaving the TMO they were now behind others their own age on the career ladder, and only made it to assistant professor.) For others, their dreams were not just deferred but now unobtainable, (for instance, by delaying raising a family for the sake of TM, and when they left the movement, being past child-bearing age.)

So, some of us have a great deal of grieving to do over the losses in our lives and of our dreams that we sustained due to our involvement in the TMO.

You may find that it helps you move through the grieving process and get on with your life by sharing some of your personal stories here - the life plans you once had, and how your goals were delayed or rendered impossible to achieve due to your involvement in TM. Even if you left TM many years ago, you may still have unfinished grieving to do. So, if you'd like, share your personal stories in the "Comments" section below. These stories may be very personal, so take care of yourself, and feel free to write anonymously.

(This post was inspired by John Knapp, the founder of TM-Free Blog, who has written about the losses we sustain due to time spent in a "toxic group"; and by Karina, one of TM-Free Blog's regular readers and commenters, who suggested this as a good topic for a post. Thanks, John and Karina.)

Still Dreaming After All These Years

Even though I left the TM movement in 1981, I still often dream about life in the TM world. I have even had some dreams more than once. I thought I was the only one still dealing with TM in my dreams.

Recently, in chatting with other former TMers, I discovered that other people too, even people who have been out of TM for decades like me, have dreams about TM. We even discovered that some of us have virtually the same dream! We were surprised to see how much fun it was to share our dreams. We were also pleased to find how healing it was, for us to tell each other our TM dreams.

Do you have TM dreams? If so, I invite you, if you'd like, to share them here. Dreams can be revealing, so please only share what you're comfortable sharing. Or send your comment anonymously - and make sure that the "Comments" page doesn't accidentally pull up your real name as well as your pseudonym.

To start the ball rolling, I will share some of my TM dreams.

1) I'm on a one-month residence course. I wonder what I'm doing here, since I'm of course now out of TM. I refuse to meditate for the entire course.

2) Maharishi is teaching a new meditation technique. Due to stupidity or stubbornness on my part, I have refused to learn it. Now I realize that this technique was "the big one" - if only I had learned it, then my life would truly be marvelous. All my friends who learned it are performing miracles, making great spiritual progress.

3) I attend a TM course and share TM-Free, minet, trancenet etc. type materials with the other course participants.

4) I'm on a TM course, and I refuse to learn an advanced technique. Then I regret it, because this is "the big one." I trick some course participants into telling me how to do the technique, and I realize it's a dumb technique that wouldn't have improved my life anyhow, and I basically already have that technique.

5) My sister (she was a governor in real life) is on a new 6-month course. She will for sure come out of this course enlightened or immortal or something like that. The world will soon be destroyed by pollution or nuclear bombs, and only the people on that course will survive. I regret that I've turned away from the TM path.

6) I'm living at M.I.U. again. "What am I doing here?" I ask myself. "Didn't I promise myself that I was through with the TMO?" I'm conflicted about leaving, however, and am scared about returning to the non-TM world.

7) The TMO is offering a new technique. I excitedly sign up for it, hoping I'll have a great breakthrough from it. At the last minute, I realize that their price of $500 for a one hour lesson is a rip-off - easy money for them and probably the technique will be of no benefit to me.

8) Maharishi wants to teach us a new technique, but to get it, we have to do the puja in front of him. I'm so embarrassed that I've forgotten how to do the puja after all these years of anti-TMing. I'm scared of what he'll do or say when I do it wrong.

Well, there they are. Now it's your turn to share, if you'd like, your thoughts about dreaming about TM.