The Dream Tiger

Several decades ago, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi gave the following comment (paraphrased here) on one of my courses:  "If a person has a dream that a tiger is chasing him, it doesn't help him at all that under his pillow he has a gun.  A waking-state gun is no protection against a dream-state tiger.  Likewise, if a real tiger is attacking, it doesn't help that in one's dream, one has a gun." Mahesh was trying to illustrate his teaching that what applies in one state of consciousness cannot automatically be transferred to another state of consciousness.

Of course we students already knew a lot about waking and dreaming.  In this lecture, he was attempting to explain three additional states of consciousness to us.  He had told us that if we practiced TM regularly, enlightenment awaited us.  In succession, we would attain "Cosmic Consciousness," then "God Consciousness" and then "Unity Consciousness."  (Historical note:  He later changed the name from "God Consciousness" to "Glorified Cosmic Consciousness.")   These, he said, were increasingly advanced states of "enlightenment."  He was using the tiger metaphor to explain that we shouldn't even bother planning for what we would do once we were enlightened, since once we were in that state, our experience of reality would change so much.

He never said it outright, but we all believed that he was in Unity Consciousness.  (Historical note:   When he announced a few years later that there was a state above Unity Consciousness, called "Brahman Consciousness," we all believed that he was at least in that state.)  I'm thinking over his tiger illustration now, and I wonder if he was not only telling us not to make plans for ourselves in "higher" states, but also that he was in such an exalted state himself that we were in no position to pass judgment on his actions.  That's one of the messages I took away from his lecture.  That anything he did, we should probably believe and obey, because he had a different, higher way of looking at the world.

Did you believe that we should not judge Mahesh according to the rules that the rest of us live by?  Was there ever a time when he did something that you felt critical of, and then reminded yourself, "We can't judge Mahesh by our standards"?     

Book review: "Roots of TM: The Transcendental Meditation of Guru Dev & Maharishi Mahesh Yogi" by Paul Mason

Thank you, Paul Mason, for this book! 


The TM movement has an official story of how TM came to be spread to the world.  That story comes from the mouth of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.  But we know that Mahesh loved to embroider stories.  So - what does independent historical research reveal about Guru Dev, Mahesh, and TM?


Paul Mason doesn't give us his personal conclusions.  Rather, he researches and relates the facts, and lets us decide for ourselves.  What I have decided is that the procedure of Maharishi's Transcendental Meditation, of how to think the mantra, is virtually identical to one of the several meditation techniques taught by Guru Dev. 


But other aspects of Mahesh's Transcendental Meditation differ from his master's teachings.  Although Mahesh claimed to revere Guru Dev as "Divinity Incarnate," he disobeyed a number of his guru's wishes, and as the years progressed, altered more and more of his master's teachings.
 

From Guru Dev's instructions to meditate one hour, Mahesh decreased it to 30 minutes, then to 20 minutes.  From the necessity of sitting cross-legged to the acceptability of sitting in a chair.  From insistence on a straight spine during meditation to the acceptability of slouching.  From no money accepted, as per Guru Dev's strict rule, to a set fee. 


And then there is the choosing of the mantra, which is part of a guru's responsibility.  According to Guru Dev, only a perfect master is qualified to choose a mantra.  Guru Dev said (p. 98), "…[I]t is very difficult to obtain a perfect teacher.  The traditional Indian Scriptures are full of mantra…but until someone will tell which is fit…the pile…will really be next to useless…[O'bserving the energy and inclination of those devoted to spiritual achievement, in accordance to their qualification…the experienced guru…deduces the mantra of one's favored god which would be of benefit to the spiritual seekers."

Maharishi did not dispense the same mantras that his guru did.  Maharishi said, (p. 263), "It is very difficult for me to find what [mantras] he was using.  Because initiation is all in private.  And I was never interested in who was given what [mantra].  I was interested in myself."  

Not holding to Guru Dev's dual criteria for choosing mantras, (see above: aspirant's "energy and inclination" plus "favored god"), Mahesh reduced the criteria to only one: "favored god."  Mahesh explained (p. 259), "The gurus choose from the tendencies, from the cut of the face…I don't go into all these vibrations, botherations.  I ask [the aspirant] 'Which god you like?'…Ask him directly, 'What he likes?' and that is it." 

When he initiated Christians, Jews and Muslims, he could not very well ask, "Who is your favored god?"  And what could he possibly have asked when teaching atheists?!  So he made another change - to assign the mantras by age and sex.  I couldn't find any evidence in "Roots of TM" that there was any precedent for this criteria.  Later, Mahesh simplified the criteria yet again, to choose by age only.  Even in this he was inconsistent.  One year he would use one set of mantras and age; another year he would use another.  On occasion, he even broke these simple rules, for instance when he instructed some initiators to use teenage mantras for all adults, age 20 through 120.


And most paradoxically, was Mahesh disobeying his master by even teaching meditation?  Guru Dev had stated (p. 96), "…[N]ot everyone can be a guru.  Actually only members of the Brahmin caste are in the position to be a guru…."  Mahesh was from the Kshatriya caste, so according to his own guru, he was prohibited from teaching meditation.  (By the way, Mahesh was the secretary at the ashram.  Did you know that?) 

So how then did Mahesh justify teaching meditation?  Page 143:  "I thought, 'What to do, what to do, what to do?'  Then I thought, 'I should teach them all in the name of Guru Dev.  I should design a system, a system of puja [ritual or ceremony] to Guru Dev. ' "  This decision did not follow the letter of Guru Dev's teaching; do you think it followed the spirit of Guru Dev's teaching? 


What went through Mahesh's mind as he made these changes?  Did he tell himself that he was not really changing Guru Dev's teachings?  Did he tell himself that some of his divine Guru Dev's teachings were imperfect?   Did he decide he had surpassed his guru?  Did he rationalize that the changes didn't matter because he was teaching "inferior" Westerners?  What do you think? 


"Roots of TM" helped me understand the fourth possibility more.  As I read, I realized how different Mahesh's world was from the Western world.  I realized that underneath India's veneer of westernization, the traditional Indian ways are vibrantly alive.  It is entirely a different world view from the West's.


For instance, Guru Dev taught (p. 81):  "The man who gives suffering to the cow goes to hell.  [Intermixing of Indian culture with Western culture] has caused ignorance of the Hindu scriptures, that the cow and Absolute Divine Truth are the same.  This devout scriptural knowledge is disappearing."  


Or, on p. 47, Mahesh relates how it is to be brought up properly in an Indian family.  "The children...are told to bow down to your mother, your father, your elders, your school teacher.  It provides a great shield of security and assistance for the child....[as] this later on develops in devotion to Almighty...."


And this excerpt from the chapter "Yoga Teachings of Swami Brahmanand (Guru Dev.)"  Pps. 98-99, (paraphrased by this editor), "The principal teaching of Swami Brahmanand Saraswati was that one should routinely practice a system of [mental repetition of a word of benefit to the spiritual seeker] in order to...realize the purpose of one's life.... Realization comes from doing word repetition....By practicing, sins are destroyed...."


From p. 231, "During his stay in San Francisco, Maharishi received his first press coverage in the USA, and was rather surprised that the meditation had been dubbed a 'non-medicinal tranquilizer.'  His comment was, 'Cruel!  I feel like running away, back home.  This seems to be a strange country.  Values are different here.' "


This book is filled with gems.  Arrange them together in different ways, and many questions can be answered about Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, his guru and his Transcendental Meditation. 

Paul Mason is one of the world's leading English-language experts on Transcendental Meditation, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and his guru, Swami Brahmanand Saraswti (Guru Dev).  He has written, co-authored, and translated from Hindi and Sanskrit over seven books on these topics.  He is a former co-editor for TM-Free Blog.   

levitation

Obviously there's nothing new about the whimsy of levitation. It's been around since Aladdin and the Flying Carpet! That Mahesh should shoot himself in the foot with such nonsense only speaks to the extremely low opinion he had of our intelligence (and high opinion of his ability to fool others).

Mahesh was not delusional but simply knew he could get away with just about anything having, as he obviously felt he had in the palm of his hand, huge numbers of delusional and highly gullible true-believers. Convincing true-believers to give you their money is easier than taking candy from a baby.

Here's a fun film. At around 38 minutes or so into the film, the magician, whose abilities are quite remarkable, purports to interview a monk who can levitate. The scene is quite interesting and well set. Believable, too, except for all the candles and the cameraman who could have but somehow clearly did not film between the "monk" (actor?) and the wall behind him.

Had Mahesh got Doug Henning to build him some setup like this, he'd have had millions upon millions of followers within a week. There would have been huge waiting lists to not only learn TM, but Mahesh could have asked any price for his ersatz "spiritual development" or whatever he was getting away with pretending his TM and 'sidhi' concoction was all about. 

Obviously, Mahesh didn't trust Henning; trust, in Maheshism, seems to be money-based: you pay a million $ and you get to become a "rājah" - 'course, we have no idea what the so-called rājahs know and anyone can waft about in flowing garments. If you look on the right hand column of our Blog, you'll see: Essential Documents and Articles - this may be all there is to know plus a few things the TMO would rather none of us knew!

The YouTube film is very useful. It illustrates how simple it is to WOW! people. Magicians are as old to humanity as the concept of entertainment. - TM as entertainment? No, not really. Benson and Wallace demonstrated that there really is something to TM, although I think Wallace's conclusion that there is alertness co-emergent with restfulness might be a strain on credulity. Way too often we have heard people either on the day of initiation or in follow-up say that they had no idea what was happening when they were meditating. But when cued, they would answer positively that they experienced what they had been suggested to have experienced. But at least the restfulness was measurable, TM really was a non-prescription tranquillizer (for many, for a while). 

Dr. Benson, of course, demonstrated with real science that his "relaxation response" had not only some validity but actually accomplished something.

On a purely observational scale, TM allowed not only rest, but when increased beyond 20 minutes twice a day, it engendered a susceptibility to suggestion that any hypnotist would envy - and/or a decreased interest in critical thinking. Many people, blindly following Mahesh, became those delusional, highly gullible true-believers only too willing to finance Mahesh's belief in himself and spend hours every day doing something that gave the same old results. There have been no new results since "rest" - which is something to think about.

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Now, randomly, we come to one of Mahesh's fiddled-with bits of pseudo-science, ADHD. This is also in the right hand column under Essential Documents and Articles. In the early days of TM there is definitely an experience of rest (how much/how little is indeterminate). I do not think that that is in any question by anybody. Beyond those early days, however, there is insufficient evidence to form any conclusion as the TM drop-out rate was consistently very high. Perhaps today, since TM teachers charge so much, dropping out becomes more problematic, amounting to acknowledging that one has throwing away a great deal of money for something of questionable utility. TM, for so many, has become an exercise in doing something over and over expecting different results, an expensive exercise in futility and, it would appear, pleasant hopelessness.

BUT it might well be this drop-out rate that Mahesh was most focused on when, recognizing that TM was only an exercise in rest for most, he began concocting more and more make-believe "solutions" to the world's problems to sell to more and more gullible people - making more and more money for himself and his family in India. He said "we'll use science to prove it" - meaning, we thought, that we'd use the scientific method to validate that what he claimed about TM was indeed true, because we believed that TM was what he claimed ... after all, we did TM, we experienced rest, we hadn't dropped out because we didn't experience rest! YET even more crucially, we believed in Mahesh ... just like some of the people in the crowd scenes in the YouTube film might have believed they were witnessing real magic. After all, many of those tricks are very difficult to explain.

What did Mahesh really mean about "using" science to prove "it" ... prove what, exactly? Who knows. Mahesh didn't chat. But it appears, especially from Mahesh's behaviour and craving for money, that he surely must have been spot-on aware that he couldn't possibly prove that TM did something it very clearly didn't do. Mahesh was cunning, not stupid.

So, all that faux-science? It endeavours to speak volumes of "proof" that Mahesh was what we thought he was; if TM looked legitimate, then it was obvious Mahesh was legitimate! The fiddled "studies" endeavour to validate Mahesh! All that junk science is simply manipulated to prove Mahesh was right, not that TM did anything other than generate or allow deep rest for some, but not all. His claims for TM, both before and after the Beatles, had come to nothing and after the Beatles dumped him he desperately needed proof about his legitimacy - because even those of us who were sincere believers were beginning to doubt! - I seriously question very, very much that anyone devoted to the idea that Mahesh was the real deal will give a toss about anything I have to say here - but for the rest of us, while we may want to enjoy the entertaining magic tricks, the prestidigitation and appearance of impossible things, we don't need to believe nonsense simply to validate one another's misconceptions and delusions about Mahesh and his clever tricks that swallowed our money.

Like magic tricks and entertainment, stories around the camp fire and the beginnings of theatre, TM is one thing, but it is not "spiritual development" in my opinion; nor is the relaxation response. It might be something to do instead of spiritual development, but it isn't spiritual development.

Of course, Dr. Benson has had the integrity to only focus on what his method actually does, what it can be demonstrated to actually accomplish; he has not needed to make false claims or pretentious accusations about the negativity in the atmosphere or CIA operatives trying to disrupt his empire (!). He has been up-front about what his method of relaxation accomplishes and has set an example for healers and compassionate people everywhere.