"Heaven on Earth." Any second now.

To follow up on last week's News Brief article on the birthday celebrations for King Tony, er, (deep breath) "His Majesty Maharaja Adhiraj Raja Raam," the leader of the organization that teaches Transcendental Meditation, here is the first of two video excerpts that serve to illustrate the kinds of things that are said during these events, which are generally not all that accessible to the general public.

These comments were culled from a few hours' worth of video on the Maharishi Channel, and come after a lengthy period of Vedic performances and recitations, and a fair amount of rather incomprehensible speech-making by the leaders of the "Global Country of World Peace," as the leaders of the organization call it.

Here we have John Hagelin, in the full "raja" crown and costume, taking his turn of bestowing accolades on King Tony, as I call him. Perhaps some are used to seeing Hagelin in a suit selling TM in a Western setting, as he was during last month's New York "press conference" and gala with the David Lynch Foundation. This is not that. It's more a throwback to some bizarre royal court.

I've previously written about how the TM movement, internally, takes the form of a millenarian cult, that is, its existence is centered on some future drastic transformation of the world brought about by the group's anticipated actions or even its very existence. Here, Hagelin makes that kind of expectation among his peers very explicit. He also alludes to the leader's alleged immortality, a claim that's occasionally been made as a benefit of some of the TM movement's programs throughout the latter part of its history.

Transcript of Hagelin's remarks. Note that these are three short excerpts edited together in this video.

All of us and the whole global family are filled with feelings of loving wishes for Maharaja's absolute fulfillment on every level, and long life in immortality, and absolutely glorious achievements leading to the transformation of life on Earth.

...the first sovereign ruler of the Global Country of World Peace that administers the world, ultimately responsible for the purity and perpetuation of Maharishi's knowledge, and through that knowledge, the transformation and destiny of the whole human race.

...Maharishi chose Maharaja Adhiraj Raja Raam as the natural representative and natural leader of this precious movement which will in short order transform the world and realize the fulfillment of Maharishi's legacy.

In Memory of our Departed Transcendental Meditation Friends

One of the readers of TM-Free Blog, Karina, wrote this a day ago in one of her comments:

"...Recently, there seem to be so many deaths of family and friends in the loose knit TM and ex-TM circles, that sometimes I think we should also have an "In Memory Of..." website, both for the TBers and us TM-free types. We may not agree on the worth of MMY, the TMO, or even TM yet we still feel the connection with one another...."

While I don't want to start a new website, I am offering this post as an opportunity for readers to write about TMers we loved and lost.

Please feel free to write anything that your heart moves you to write: recent losses, long-ago losses, list of people lost, feelings, reflections, memories, stories, anything. You needn't be politically correct, or be pro-TM or anti-TM or anything. Just a place to write what you wish.

Thank you, Karina, for this excellent suggestion.

Lying: A Core Practice of Transcendental Meditation. (A Seven-Part Series.) Part 1: Broken Promises

When I learned TM in 1971, my initiator promised me that if I practiced TM for 20 minutes twice a day I would become enlightened in eight to eleven years.

I've heard that Maharishi originally taught, "3-5 years." When enlightenment didn't come after 5 years, he said, "5-8 years." Then "8-11 years." What did he say after that?

What did he promise you?

Later we were taught that TM 20 minutes twice a day plus the occasional weekend residence course would bring us to enlightenment.

When Maharishi first introduced the "Six-Month Courses," which were the predecessors to the TM-Sidhis courses, he said, "One six month course is enough to enlighten some people, two six month courses is enough to enlighten most people, and three six-month courses is enough to enlighten a horse!"

He also promised us that by learning his TM-Sidhis program we would be able to walk through walls and to become invisible. (Later these two promises were eliminated.) Also that we'd have increased friendliness, compassion, happiness, physical strength, control of hunger and thirst, ability to see the motion of the stars, ability to see into our body any illnesses and to heal them, and to levitate.

He also promised us that if we did TM, we would have "support of nature," which translated more or less as having our wishes fulfilled almost without effort.

We were told that our houseplants would grow better, and that unhealthy behaviors would spontaneously drop away. (How long has the cigarette smoker, David Lynch, been practicing TM?)

He promised we would be able to "do less and accomplish more."

He promised us that if we did the TM-Sidhis we would have "perfect health." Also immortality. (Ask Gina, contributor for this website, for stories of Sidhas dying of horrible diseases in Fairfield.)

He also promised us that by "flying" together we would create world peace and good will between the family of nations. Also that it would bring favorable weather condition. (Hurricane Katrina, tsunamis, global warming, anyone?)

He also promised that TM would raise our intelligence, improve our health, our family life, our social relationships, and our financial success.

He also promised us that practicing TM twice a day for 20 minutes would lead to spontaneous right action - that what we did would be "life-supporting" for ourselves and for those around us.

He promised that TM would make Christians better Christians, Jews better Jews, Moslems better Moslems, Hindus better Hindus, Buddhists better Buddhists....He promised that TM was not at odds with any religion.

He promised that TM asked no change in lifestyle: not in beliefs, not in diet, not in clothes, not in socializing, not in sexual activities, not in medical preferences, not in daily activities....

He promised that TM worked for everyone. And that it had no negative effects on anyone.

He promised that the ceremony (puja) during personal instruction was not religious in nature. He promised that TM itself was not religious in nature. He promised that the mantras were not religious in nature. He promised new student that they would not have to participate in the initiation ceremony.

He taught that "that which we put our attention grows stronger." Medical clinics, counseling clinics, and workplace safety measures were all reduced to discourage "putting our attention on negativity."

We were promised that 1,000 people "flying" together would make world peace. Then 5,000. Then 5,000 pundits flying and chanting together. Then many communities of flyers and chanters all over the world would create world peace.

He promised that eliminating south-facing doors would eliminate most obstacles to success and disharmony.

He promised that communities having a large percentage of people meditating would have a very harmonious civic life. (See the Fairfield Ledger newspaper, Fairfield Iowa, with a giant percentage of the population practicing TM and the TM-Sidhis. Read the police blotter and other daily reports for suicides, rapes, murders, mental hospital commitments, traffic accidents, robberies, fires, drug use, adultery, divorces, etc.)

What promises did Maharishi and the TM organization make to YOU? Which promises did they keep? Which ones did they break?

The Charisma of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the Founder of Transcendental Meditation

About a month ago, I attended a 2-hour workshop on healing through movement. After this brief workshop, I wanted to immediately buy the presenter's book, take his classes, do home practice off his audiotapes, immerse myself in his technique and philosophy, and become a true believer, practitioner and follower.

I had to shake myself awake! It was only because of my years in recovery from TM that I so quickly recognized that I was thinking irrationality. Why would I become a "true believer" after only 2 hours?

I picked apart my reactions, and realized that what I had been reacting to had been the teacher's "charismatic" presentation. Here is what he did that won me over:

1. He appears absolutely sure of the truth of his knowledge.

2. His teaching encompassed sweeping areas of life (health, biology, movement, evolution, physiology, healing, the brain).

3. His teaching was internally consistent.

4. He promised us great things.
(fluidity of movement, no more aches and pains, healing of chronic injuries).

5. He backed up his promises both with fascinating anecdotes and with quotes from science.

6. He appeared knowledgeable about his competitors' products, and discredited them in a way both loving and condescending.

7. His teaching was original and off the beaten track.

8. His personality was attractive (a happy, warm man.)

9. He promised his technique would give me exactly what I longed for (relief from chronic pain and healthy aging.)

Put this all together, and it was so easy to take the internal steps from, "How nice if this were true," to "Wow, there is some evidence that this is true," to "This must be true. How lucky I am to have found it!"

Upon reflection, I could see how closely this brief experience paralleled my experience with Maharishi. Each of the qualities I experienced in this exercise teacher, I also experienced 40 years earlier in Maharishi:

1. Maharishi seemed absolutely convinced of the truth of his knowledge. No gray areas.

2. Maharishi's teachings encompassed physical, mental, emotional, social, financial, governmental, educational, philosophical and spiritual regeneration.

3. His teachings were internally consistent. (If you didn't dig too deep.)

4. He promised great things for us: enlightenment, having the support of nature and inner peace; and later he also promised us perfect health, immortality, and world peace.

5. He backed up his promises with endless fascinating anecdotes of people who he said had benefited from TM, as well as appeals based on scientific research.

6. He described what he said were the different types of meditations, and explained why his meditation technique was superior. He quoted scientific research to back it up.

7. His teaching was original and off the beaten track.

8. His personality was attractive (joyous, bubbly, happy).

9. He promised that his technique would give me exactly what I personally longed for (peace of mind, self-esteem.)

So it wasn't surprising that at the naive age of 19, I fell under the sway of Maharishi and his teachings.

What were your experiences of the persuasive powers of Maharishi?

As long as I'm talking about Maharishi's public appeal, I wanted to comment on Maharishi's physical appearance. It's ironic that TM teachers became known for looking "corporate" (business suits, clean shaven, etc.), - Maharishi had a strict dress code - because in fact, Maharishi looked like the quintessential "flower child." He had the long hair, flowing beard , beads, carried a flower, sandals or bare feet, sat cross-legged, talked about love. In fact, his only lapse was wearing a dhoti instead of blue jeans and a tie-dyed shirt! Which came first - Maharishi, with flower children emulating him? Or flower children, with Maharishi imitating them?

Wishing for immortality

There's a section of the Maharishi University of Management website that contains an archive of the school's yearbooks - most of them from the days when it was called Maharishi International University, from 1975 through 2004. They're a fascinating window into some of the often unwritten history of the TM movement - some of them show what projects were important at the time, and some show how the claims that were made, the language that was used, and the expectations among people involved with TM, changed over time.

This is an example of one of those claims or expectations. Back in the early to mid-1980's, some years after the TM movement introduced the "TM-Sidhi" program that featured bouncing on foam rubber and calling it "flying," the movement rolled out its own version of "ayurveda" and other dubious products. Around that time, primed by the expectation created by gatherings with names like "Taste of Utopia," there was a lot of talk about "immortality." Some might claim in hindsight that most people didn't take those claims seriously. But some obviously did.

This is a 1986 yearbook advertisement for the local Maharishi Ayurveda store. It suggests that for at least some around the MIU and the TM movement at the time, the expectation of a lifetime of more than 200 years among those who participated in the TM movement's programs was perfectly normal. It wasn't something that could easily be found in print, but it was obviously a common enough belief that this ad was accepted and printed in the school's yearbook. Putting the last line in quotes makes the claim perfectly deniable; it could be defended as the statement of some random person who could have expressed the hope of being around for a 200 year class reunion. Unlike the movement's direct claims made when marketing its products, it seems to originate from the expectations that were generated among meditators, from the people who bought the movement's claims, hook, line and sinker.

"Unhooking" from TM Beliefs

If you have been reading TM-Free Blog for some time, then you are probably familiar with the theory that at TM residence courses, participants, by meditating many times a day, experienced reduced critical thinking ability which left them susceptible to having Maharishi’s beliefs installed into their minds without their consent. Many of us, myself included, returned home from these courses with new beliefs that we had not freely chosen.

In the “Comments” section of my TM-Free Blog essay “Post-Hypnotic Suggestion and Trance Logic,” published 2/06/09, Gina has wittily and brilliantly compiled a list of many of the beliefs she was taught by the TM movement. Since Maharishi’s teachings changed from week to week, each of us who spent time in the movement will have a different list. One technique that I have found helpful in “unhooking” from the TM movement is to make my own list, look at every item on it, decide whether I actually believe that item or not, and if I believe it only because Maharishi said it was true but I have no other reason for believing it, to consciously remove it from my beliefs, and to break the taboo and do it.

By doing this, I have discovered that, for me at least, all the beliefs are linked together in my brain. Therefore, as long as I believe and continue to obey even one proscription, I find myself reeled into the entire Maharishi belief system.

For example, when I first attempted to separate myself from the TM movement, I came up with two strategies: choosing a new mantra for myself, and meditating in the lying-down position. I thought that by meditating in this manner I had broken Maharishi’s hold over me. It was only when someone encouraged me to cease any sort of TM-related meditating for the sake of my recovery that I gave up my new and improved technique. When I gave it up, I discovered that even though I had changed two variables in the TM technique, I had still been meditating two times a day, 20 minutes each time, morning and evening, before breakfast and before dinner, on an empty stomach, starting with one half minute of silence and ending with two minutes of silence, and using the mantra in the exact way Maharishi had taught us.

It was only when I quit meditating all together, I realized just how thoroughly I still believed. I found myself fearfully thinking, “Oh no! I can’t give up meditating. It is my safety net, assuring me physical health, mental health, spiritual progress, support of nature and superiority to other people!” Stopping meditating all together helped me break the pull of those beliefs. And when I stopped meditating, I felt as if a weight of grief had been lifted from my shoulders.

I have also discovered that, for myself at least, it is important for the sake of my recovery to unearth, question and reverse every single tiny little insignificant belief associated with TM. (I believe this is what Sudarsha, one of the contributing writers for TMFree, has referred to as "clawing ones way out of the Maheshistic belief system, one millimeter at a time.")

For instance, on my TM Teacher Training Course in La Antilla, Spain in 1974, Maharishi instructed us to never blow out candles, (specifically, candles used during TM initiation) but to fan them out with one’s hand. More than ten years after leaving TM, I realized that I was still fanning out candles. I believed that this was certainly an inconsequential rule, but I decided that for the sake of my recovery, I would stop fanning out candles as an experiment. So I blew out the next available candle, and to my surprise, I found fear and a number of beliefs parading through my mind: “Oh no! Blowing out that candle was a bad move! My life force goes out of my body when I blow out a candle! That weakens me! My life force is precious. It needs to be preserved. My body is a delicate vessel, especially since I have been spiritually purifying it all these years. Preserving the life force will lead to enlightenment. Therefore having sex is bad. Hmm, is this why I have been uncomfortable hugging my partner? Is this why I’ve been scared to have sex?”

It was amazing how many significant beliefs and behaviors were connected to that one minor proscription. So in the spirit of recovery, I am listing all the beliefs I can remember that I imbibed during my time in the TM organization between 1971 and 1981. Maybe they will remind you of beliefs you didn’t realize you still had. Or maybe they will inspire you to write up your own list. If you'd like, share your list in the “Comments” section. What have been your experiences with “unhooking” from the beliefs that Maharishi taught?

MY PERSONAL LIST OF TM BELIEFS

Ingesting:
Don’t eat: meat, poultry, fish, eggs, onions, garlic, mushrooms, peanuts, chocolate, coffee, tea, cooked honey, brown rice.
Eat lots of: nuts (especially almonds), fruits (especially oranges), milk products (especially yogurt), honey, white rice.
Don’t partake of cigarettes, alcohol, recreational drugs.
Do the TM “grace” before meals, silently, with eyes closed.

Meditating:
Never miss a meditation.
20 minutes each time.
Twice a day.
Don’t say the mantra aloud, or write it, or think it outside of meditation.
Don’t teach anyone except by the approved 7 steps.
Meditate in a sitting position.
Do not meditate when the stomach is full.
Meditate before breakfast and before dinner.
Don't meditate right before bed.
Start with ½ minute of silence, and end with 2 minutes of silence.
Put pets out of the room when you meditate – they will drain your energy.
All other meditation techniques are inferior- don’t do them.
Use the mantra in this manner: (well, you know what I mean).
TM is not a religion.

Hatha Yoga:
Lie down for the amount of time instructed before doing hatha yoga. (Specified time, taught on different courses, varied from 10 minutes to 30 minutes.)
Do the yoga postures that you were taught by the TM organization.
Do them in the order taught.
Do them for 10 to 20 seconds each.
Do them in the manner taught.
Do the yoga postures immediately before doing pranayama (yogic breathing exercises.)
Do pranayama the way it was taught in the TM organization, for the amount of time taught, and immediately before doing TM.

(Side note: I recently took a hatha yoga class. Boy, was I pleasantly surprised at how much benefit and pleasure I got from doing the postures the way my experienced yoga teacher taught them! We did postures that I didn't learn in TM, and we held them a lot longer than 20 seconds, and we did them in a different order, and she showed me better ways to do some of the postures that I had learned in TM. [I’d been doing at least one wrong for 20 years with no results.] Personally, I recommend taking a yoga class, or learning from a yoga book, or even practicing hatha yoga from a yoga magazine, to get unhooked from "TM asanas.")

Clothes:
Only wear natural fibers.
Don’t wear hand-me-downs.
Wear bright colors.
Women, cover up your arms and legs.
If Maharishi touches your coral bead necklace, he has "blessed" them.
Wearing the beads next to your skin will help your spiritual growth.
Don't let anyone touch the beads after Maharishi has touched them, or it will undo the blessing.
Dignified clothes are best.

Mental Health:
Psychotherapy is bad for you.
Don’t see a therapist.
To heal emotional problems:
- do TM
- go on residence courses
- do more asanas
- bath more frequently ("Psychological problems are caused by not bathing frequently enough." - Maharishi Mahesh Yogi)
- read the Ninth Mandala (Sama Veda) out loud.

Sex:
Sex is bad for you.
Having sex slows down spiritual growth.
One of the worst things you can do for your spiritual progress is to have sex if you're not married.
When you have sex, you exchange karma with your partner.
Only lifetime celibates can achieve immortality.
Don't have public displays of affection.

Miscellany:
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi is a supernormal person. He is not a person like you and me.
Women, stay in bed for the first three days of your menstrual cycle.
Don’t criticize, don’t gossip.
When you say curse words or dirty words, you create a demon.
That which you put your attention on grows stronger.
Many sidhas putting their attention on something causes results.
Social and political action is a waste of time.
Do not place on the floor any flowers that you will be offering.
Do not sniff flowers that you will be offering.
Sleep with your head facing east.
Be in bed by 10:00 p.m.

Oh yes, and fan out your candles – don’t blow them out.

Transcendental Meditation, Maharishi, and Immortality

I received an interesting email today and thought I'd share it. The anonymous author represents himself as someone who knew the Maharishi face-to-face. I look forward to reading your comments below on the ideas my correspondent puts forth.

Maharishi, in our first lecture on my TTC, talked about “getting an Absolute Body”; in other words, becoming immortal in the flesh. My first reaction on hearing of his death was: you were lying or you were deceived, Maharishi, to be speaking about deathlessness in the body when you yourself were unable to avoid physical death. For me, the greatest illusion that was implicit in all that Maharishi did and said, was that he was beyond the laws of the physical universe. That he therefore could determine his own destiny—and this especially included the matter of the contingency of his own death. That he actually died of old age explodes the very basis of the hallucination he impressed upon the consciousness of all of us who were so convinced of his spiritual authority and superiority: that we could even aspire to a kind of changeless biological integrity. Maharishi proved in the example of himself that he was powerless to effect any difference in his own ultimate fate as a human being.

But here’s what I really want to say, something that cannot of course be empirically confirmed: Maharishi did have a human soul; that soul now is getting confronted by the powers which mete out the consequences of one’s deeds in this life. And in this process Maharishi is getting humiliated, disgraced, and punished—this is a spectacle that is being witnessed throughout the entirety of invisible creation. If I may say it, I think Maharishi was in some very personal sense the enemy of his creator; he was born to hate his creator. But—and yes, this is only but my intuition—his individual integrity (which became corrupted over the course of his lifetime) is being weakened in his post-death existence, and therefore his influence, objectively, over his followers is attenuating. Whether they know this or not.

Maharishi is face-to-face with the reality of who he allowed himself to become, and yet his ordeal can never bring about contrition or shame; it is too late for that. It never was in Maharishi to take moral responsibility for his actions. Maharishi is a damned soul—whether you think about that metaphorically or literally. Certainly all the powers of evil in the universe got behind Maharishi to make him capable of giving extraordinary mystical experiences to thousands of human beings (including myself). Experiences which had no real efficacy at all in making an individual a more beautiful human being. These powers (the mantra demons especially) on the contrary ultimately sought (and still seek) to alienate human beings from reality. And this is what happened to each and every person who practiced Maharishi’s techniques. The damage done by Transcendental Meditation and the Sidhis is incalculable—and I have seen this in every person who has been devoted to Maharishi. The whole thing (at least outside of India) will inexorably come to an end: within a decade I predict everyone in the TMO will be living virtually on faith alone.

There was something about Maharishi’s death that signaled the ironic declaration of what reality thinks of him and the validity of his techniques. It seems to me the whole TM phenomenon was the most marvelous deception ever perpetrated upon the human race. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi was the arch-seducer—even of the very best of persons. But I believe only the baby-boomer generation felt the real power of this false grace; it cannot be efficaciously transmitted to successive generations—and won’t be. We are going to see the gradual disillusionment of those who most believed in Maharishi. Some day perhaps we will know who Maharishi really was. For myself (who got to know him face-to-face) he turned out to be the antithesis of what I first thought he was: from the most charming and inscrutable sage to the most subtle and treacherous scoundrel.

I want to be clear, I agree with much and disagree with some of what our author has written. But I think he represents his viewpoint clearly and well -- and I believe many people will agree with what he wrote.

On my TTC in 1978, the Maharishi also talked about physical immortality being possible through the Transcendental Meditation program. He said something to the ffect that since change is always taking place in our bodies anyway, that change could improve our health rather leading to death. He said that physical immortality was possible through TM. I don't remember the words exactly. He went on to say some physical substances, some preparations might help this process. I believe he was alluding to Rasayanas and ayurvedic preparations, although he did not use those words. Also, he did not use the phrase "Absolute Body" on my TTC, although I may simply have forgotten this phrase.

If you are interested in sharing your experiences with Transcendental Meditation, whether anonymously or not, consider emailing me at jmknapp53@gmail.com.