I've been cleaning out my files, and I came upon notes from my conversation with an exit counselor back in 1987. I hope you will enjoy reading some of his comments:
"Of all the groups I have dealt with, some of the most severe casualties have been in TM. This is in direct contradiction to TM publicity. Meditation techniques are not appropriate for everyone, because some people have difficulty distinguishing between the inner content and outer content of their minds. Such people can go into a psychotic state from doing meditation, because these techniques loosen boundaries between the conscious and the unconscious. For the average person, this is a pleasure, because most people have too many boundaries there. But for a minority of people, it is dangerous to have the boundary more porous."
[Editor's comment: When I saw the film "David Wants to Fly," I had the good fortune to find Dr. Herbert Benson, author of "The Relaxation Response"
sitting right behind me! I introduced myself to him, and he told me a
few stories. Included was, "I observed the course in Fuiggi, Italy.
Since I am an M.D., when I and course participants got off the plane in
the U.S., I did sign a bunch of them straight into mental hospitals."]
"So it was normal for people in TM to "freak out" -- to have highs, lows, get emotional."
[Editor's comment: In the TM world, careening highs and lows were considered normal, even positive. It was called unstressing, and we were told that it meant the person was throwing off old stress.]
I suggested to the exit counselor that TM had a special hook for the average Westerner because it backs up its beliefs with appeals to science. He replied, "Scientology also bombards people with statistics."
"If you have a busy, multidimensional life, to sit down for 20 minutes is okay. But if meditation becomes a goal in itself, it's bad. It's like fasting. The first time you do it, it feels good, healing. But if you continue to fast, it turns on itself. The mind is similar - it needs information and stimulation. Without outside stimulation, it stimulates itself. Thus, inner material comes out. The person becomes increasingly swallowed up in their inner world, and outside decisions and the outer world become more difficult."
"I feel TM has a callous view of people. I've treated one of Maharishi's lovers. She was seduced and abandoned by Mahesh. She became psychotic. He promised he would marry her; then she was told, "You're being sent to Switzerland."
[Editor's comment: This strikes me as Mahesh being callous, not the TM organization. But I believe he set the tone, and did make policy for the TMO that was callous.]
"Dr. Herbert Benson's book 'The Relaxation Response' demonstrates that one can create TM-like results without TM. By any autohypnosis technique, one can do this. TM's marketing insisted that TM was distinct."
"True scientific research shows that anyone can have a TM-like response. Almost all psychologists discredit TM research as self-serving and flawed. For instance, the research on reduced crime is totally without controls, confounding factors, etc. That research is extremely specious. All TM research is designed to hook people in. The TMO allows scientific proofs but not scientific critiques. When you were in TM, you were only exposed to the research that they wanted you to see."
[Editor's comment: Is TM research still in disrepute? I think much less so. It's being taught in some public schools and veterans' organizations. And I believe the Surgeon General recently had an amiable discussion with a leading TM proponent.]
Hope you enjoyed this trip down memory lane.
Showing posts with label unstressing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label unstressing. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 16, 2015
Wednesday, October 15, 2014
TM Town Struggles into 21st Century
TM Town Struggles into 21st Century: Mental Health Problems lead Fairfield to Re-Evaluate Core Doctrines
As you probably know, the beloved actor/comedian Robin Williams, who suffered from depression, committed suicide on August 11, 2014.
In the weeks following Williams' suicide, residents of Fairfield, Iowa, USA, home to Maharishi University of Management and to several thousand TMers, have been inching suicide out of the closet. Researchers noticed that Iowa has a higher rate of suicide than the national average. And Fairfield has a higher rate of suicide than the average Iowa city.
Fairfield residents have been dragging their feet around suicide prevention for years. This is due not only to the American stigma around mental illness. It is also exacerbated by TM official and unofficial doctrine. Just a few of them are:
- Maharishi disapproved of Western psychotherapy.
- If you saw a psychotherapist, you could be disqualified from attending a TM course.
- TM is supposed to make you emotionally healthy, therefore if you report emotional problems, you are making TM look bad.
- People with emotional problems have been advised to do more asanas or learn the TM-Sidhis, rather than to seek professional help.
- People with emotional problems have been told they are "unstressing" rather than being advised to seek professional help.
- When people have had emotional problems (including hospitalizations and suicides), the TM organization has tended to hide the information or blame the person for being too emotionally unstable to begin with.
- People with emotional problems have been misdiagnosed by TMers as being in higher states of consciousness.
A fascinating report on the blossoming of open discussion on mental health problems in Fairfield is found here:
http://littlevillagemag.com/suicide-in-fairfield-iowa-town-struggles-with-mental-health-awareness/
"Fairfield Cares," a grassroots organization helping to increase honest conversation about mental health problems of TMers holds meetings and lectures. And Maharishi University of Management, after 40 years of denying counseling to their students, are adding counseling to their health services. However, they state that it is offered as an "adjunct" to TM, since, according to TM doctrine, scientific research shows that TM improves mental health, making people happy and stable.
The TM organization (TMO) doesn't publicize any of the research which shows that sometimes TM causes or exacerbates mental illness. Until I discovered TM-Free Blog, I believed what the TMO taught - that every research study ever done on TM showed that TM produces only benefits. You can find many articles on TM-FreeBlog about emotional problems that some people have experienced due to T.M. You can find information on the suppressed research on the far-right column of TM-Free Blog's home page.
What have been your experiences with the TMO and mental health?
As you probably know, the beloved actor/comedian Robin Williams, who suffered from depression, committed suicide on August 11, 2014.
In the weeks following Williams' suicide, residents of Fairfield, Iowa, USA, home to Maharishi University of Management and to several thousand TMers, have been inching suicide out of the closet. Researchers noticed that Iowa has a higher rate of suicide than the national average. And Fairfield has a higher rate of suicide than the average Iowa city.
Fairfield residents have been dragging their feet around suicide prevention for years. This is due not only to the American stigma around mental illness. It is also exacerbated by TM official and unofficial doctrine. Just a few of them are:
- Maharishi disapproved of Western psychotherapy.
- If you saw a psychotherapist, you could be disqualified from attending a TM course.
- TM is supposed to make you emotionally healthy, therefore if you report emotional problems, you are making TM look bad.
- People with emotional problems have been advised to do more asanas or learn the TM-Sidhis, rather than to seek professional help.
- People with emotional problems have been told they are "unstressing" rather than being advised to seek professional help.
- When people have had emotional problems (including hospitalizations and suicides), the TM organization has tended to hide the information or blame the person for being too emotionally unstable to begin with.
- People with emotional problems have been misdiagnosed by TMers as being in higher states of consciousness.
A fascinating report on the blossoming of open discussion on mental health problems in Fairfield is found here:
http://littlevillagemag.com/suicide-in-fairfield-iowa-town-struggles-with-mental-health-awareness/
"Fairfield Cares," a grassroots organization helping to increase honest conversation about mental health problems of TMers holds meetings and lectures. And Maharishi University of Management, after 40 years of denying counseling to their students, are adding counseling to their health services. However, they state that it is offered as an "adjunct" to TM, since, according to TM doctrine, scientific research shows that TM improves mental health, making people happy and stable.
The TM organization (TMO) doesn't publicize any of the research which shows that sometimes TM causes or exacerbates mental illness. Until I discovered TM-Free Blog, I believed what the TMO taught - that every research study ever done on TM showed that TM produces only benefits. You can find many articles on TM-FreeBlog about emotional problems that some people have experienced due to T.M. You can find information on the suppressed research on the far-right column of TM-Free Blog's home page.
What have been your experiences with the TMO and mental health?
Sunday, February 09, 2014
TM Marketing Timeline
Guest contributor Michael H. Jackson has written this thought-provoking article for TM-Free Blog. Thanks, Michael!
-------------------------------------------------------------------
TIMELINE: Maharishi Sells the Soporific of TM and All Its Adjunct Programs
1950's: Maharishi begins to sell TM; tells people they can live 200% of life and even get enlightened.
Beginning in 1961: Maharishi begins to market his teacher training courses to train people to teach TM, in essence giving him as many salesmen and saleswomen as possible all over the world to sell him and his brand of meditation, and later all his other goods, products and services. He also begins offering and selling in-residence courses to give people longer experience in meditation.
1967: After announcing he is retiring back to India, he meets the Beatles, and every reporter in the world shoves a camera and microphone in his face.
1967 on: Capitalizing on his Beatles-fueled notoriety, Maharishi continues to sell TM as a means of spiritual rejuvenation. At some point Maharishi sells "advanced techniques" for the devoted to accelerate their race to enlightenment, including techniques to sleep better and quit smoking. Maharishi also, in response to questions about time, states that 3-5 years is how long it takes to get enlightened through the practice of TM. This time frame is later expanded to 10 years or more after many complain they have been meditating longer than 5 years and are still not enlightened.
Early 1970's: Maharishi realizes that all the long-haired hippies who are coming to him asking all kinds of spiritual questions are not going to give him what he wants. He realizes it's their parents who have the money, so he begins to market TM to "the responsible people of society" from the cradle of science - and dubious pseudo-science at that.
Merv Griffin learns TM and gives Maharishi a big boost by having him on Merv's talk show. Lots of people get initiated into TM on the strength of their love for Merv.
Early to mid-1970's: Maharishi continues to use celebrity endorsements from Clint Eastwood, Mary Tyler Moore and others to try to keep the Merv wave going. It doesn't last long.
1974: With initiations and therefore revenues down, Maharishi secretly begins to experiment on TM teachers, charging them for the privilege of being human guinea pigs on expensive courses as Maharishi develops his own version of the sutra yoga of Patanjali. Very secret.
1976: Ignoring the massive amounts of physical and emotional distress (called "unstressing" by Maharishi) that some initiators experience during the sutras courses, Maharishi directs all TM centers to reveal the TM-Sidhi Program for regular folks. TM loses much of its scientifically-backed credibility upon Maharishi's announcement that he can teach people to fly. Many people, including some TM teachers, distance themselves from TM at this time.
But Maharishi knows what he is doing, because those who are left in the TM fold, who can stomach his ridiculous and unfounded claims, could possibly (and hopefully, from his point of view,) be hooked for life. Maharishi claims that the TM-Sidhi practice is "10,000 times more powerful" than practicing TM alone.
The race to inner space is on, and those who have the money rush to become supermen or superwomen through the practice of the TM-Sidhis. Maharishi markets the new program at one point with exactly that blandishment: "Learn TM-Sidhis to become a superman."
Due to intense and ongoing physical and mental distress (still called "unstressing") on the part of MANY participants of the new program, Maharishi announces that from now on, one has to take OTHER courses, such as the TM-Sidhi Preparatory courses, to qualify for the TM-Sidhis themselves. Odd that an enlightened man couldn't have foreseen that happening. More money is taken in through the TM-Sidhi Prep courses.
Late 1970's to early 1980's: Problems crop up with TM-Sidhi revenues. People begin to question how a program that is 10,000 times more powerful than TM alone, which in itself is supposed to bring enlightenment within 10 years, has not yet produced any enlightened individuals. Also no one actually levitates, which brings up more questions.
Maharishi states that there are stages of levitation, hopping like frogs being the first. He later amends that to shaking being the first and hopping being the second. Since people are already at stage 2 (hopping like frogs on floors covered with thick foam), Maharishi claims that very soon people will be flying above the taxis, and that TM teachers will be running to the mountains to get away from all the people who want to learn TM.
Maharishi shifts the emphasis from getting enlightened more quickly through TM-Sidhi practice to the effect of the practice of TM-Sidhis in groups. Maharishi claims group practice will reduce negativity in the spiritual and psychic atmosphere, and eventually lead to world peace - another fine marketing ploy to redirect TM believers' attention away from what they are not getting to promises of future rewards. Maharishi emphasizes the importance of living and working in the same locale so as to be able to practice "program" together. This also has the effect of concentrating the people who are contributing regular revenue to Maharishi into a group that can help manage group point of view to keep the believers believing.
1986: Revenues need a boost. Maharishi reveals that he, with his amazing enlightened consciousness, has delved into and revealed the full value of natural law in the ancient Indian system of health care called ayurveda. Of all the rishis and holy men and women in India, only Maharishi was able to revive the real deal of ancient ayurveda that had fallen into corruption over the years.
(A little research will reveal that Maharishi actually didn't cognize or know anything about ayurveda, and relied on ayurvedic practitioners like Dwivedi, Balraj Maharishi and Triguna, whom he flattered into working for him.)
"Maharishi Ayurveda" gives a plentiful opportunity to market goods and services to true believers who were once told that all they needed to lead a high-quality life was TM 20 minutes twice a day.
Ayurvedic consultations, herbal formulas, massages and various therapies are marketed and sold.
A month or two after ayurveda is rolled out, Maharishi reveals that another part of ayurveda is jyotish, a form of astrology practiced in India. This was after years of Maharishi warning TM meditators not to do or be involved with astrology. Maharishi never gives any explanation on why astrology is suddenly acceptable, except to say that his "Maharishi Jyotish" is superior to Western astrology.
Now Maharishi and the TM Movement recommend that everyone get a yearly jotish chart done to improve the quality of one's life and be able to discern if one has any negative karma that one could then alleviate with jyotish remedies. These remedies include wearing very expensive gemstones, using certain kinds of mantras to curry favor with whatever planet is out of whack in your jyotish chart, and having Hindu sacrifices or prayers called "yagyas" done for you regularly. Yagyas cost from $1,000 to $1,000,000 apiece.
What came to be known with typical hubris as "Maharishi Yagyas" becomes an important source of revenue for Maharishi and the TM Movement.
1970's or 1980's: Maharishi solicits funds for constructing many different kinds of buildings called by various names that purport to have various purposes. Most of these are never built, and no accounting is ever given as to the whereabouts of the funds that had been raised for them. Most of the ones that are built fall into disuse or are sold. This includes Maharishi Veda Land, a vedic-themed fantasy park that the TM movement heavily marketed, promoted and raised money for. It was never built.
1986 on: The emphasis is on selling TM, TM-Sidhis, teacher training courses, various kinds of in-residence courses, ayurveda and all its herbal and massage and consultation products, jyotish charts and jyotish remedies, especially yagyas, for unpleasant karma. At one point a "vedic observatory" was offered, or rather a plastic model of an astronomical observatory that supposedly was used in ancient India. This was offered for several thousand dollars, and all one had to do was look at it a few minutes a day to get the good vibrations from it.
1990's: Maharishi announces to his TM teachers that the emphasis is to be on selling TM and all its adjunct programs to the millionaires and billionaires of the world. From time to time Maharishi asks the wealthy people of the world and the governments of the world to give him huge amounts of money so that he can formulate courses to create world peace. The amounts he requests range from $20 million to $1 billion.
1990's(?): Maharishi begins to offer various healing techniques from various Indian healers, using what sound like shamanic techniques - blowing the breath on the client, making various kinds of sounds directed toward certain parts of the client's body and so on. These cost from several hundred dollars to more than a thousand for each session.
1990's and 2000's: Maharishi continually exhorts the world to give him money to create permanent groups of people practicing the TM-Sidhi program and Maharishi Yagya program. Much money is donated, few of the groups are ever created.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
TIMELINE: Maharishi Sells the Soporific of TM and All Its Adjunct Programs
1950's: Maharishi begins to sell TM; tells people they can live 200% of life and even get enlightened.
Beginning in 1961: Maharishi begins to market his teacher training courses to train people to teach TM, in essence giving him as many salesmen and saleswomen as possible all over the world to sell him and his brand of meditation, and later all his other goods, products and services. He also begins offering and selling in-residence courses to give people longer experience in meditation.
1967: After announcing he is retiring back to India, he meets the Beatles, and every reporter in the world shoves a camera and microphone in his face.
1967 on: Capitalizing on his Beatles-fueled notoriety, Maharishi continues to sell TM as a means of spiritual rejuvenation. At some point Maharishi sells "advanced techniques" for the devoted to accelerate their race to enlightenment, including techniques to sleep better and quit smoking. Maharishi also, in response to questions about time, states that 3-5 years is how long it takes to get enlightened through the practice of TM. This time frame is later expanded to 10 years or more after many complain they have been meditating longer than 5 years and are still not enlightened.
Early 1970's: Maharishi realizes that all the long-haired hippies who are coming to him asking all kinds of spiritual questions are not going to give him what he wants. He realizes it's their parents who have the money, so he begins to market TM to "the responsible people of society" from the cradle of science - and dubious pseudo-science at that.
Merv Griffin learns TM and gives Maharishi a big boost by having him on Merv's talk show. Lots of people get initiated into TM on the strength of their love for Merv.
Early to mid-1970's: Maharishi continues to use celebrity endorsements from Clint Eastwood, Mary Tyler Moore and others to try to keep the Merv wave going. It doesn't last long.
1974: With initiations and therefore revenues down, Maharishi secretly begins to experiment on TM teachers, charging them for the privilege of being human guinea pigs on expensive courses as Maharishi develops his own version of the sutra yoga of Patanjali. Very secret.
1976: Ignoring the massive amounts of physical and emotional distress (called "unstressing" by Maharishi) that some initiators experience during the sutras courses, Maharishi directs all TM centers to reveal the TM-Sidhi Program for regular folks. TM loses much of its scientifically-backed credibility upon Maharishi's announcement that he can teach people to fly. Many people, including some TM teachers, distance themselves from TM at this time.
But Maharishi knows what he is doing, because those who are left in the TM fold, who can stomach his ridiculous and unfounded claims, could possibly (and hopefully, from his point of view,) be hooked for life. Maharishi claims that the TM-Sidhi practice is "10,000 times more powerful" than practicing TM alone.
The race to inner space is on, and those who have the money rush to become supermen or superwomen through the practice of the TM-Sidhis. Maharishi markets the new program at one point with exactly that blandishment: "Learn TM-Sidhis to become a superman."
Due to intense and ongoing physical and mental distress (still called "unstressing") on the part of MANY participants of the new program, Maharishi announces that from now on, one has to take OTHER courses, such as the TM-Sidhi Preparatory courses, to qualify for the TM-Sidhis themselves. Odd that an enlightened man couldn't have foreseen that happening. More money is taken in through the TM-Sidhi Prep courses.
Late 1970's to early 1980's: Problems crop up with TM-Sidhi revenues. People begin to question how a program that is 10,000 times more powerful than TM alone, which in itself is supposed to bring enlightenment within 10 years, has not yet produced any enlightened individuals. Also no one actually levitates, which brings up more questions.
Maharishi states that there are stages of levitation, hopping like frogs being the first. He later amends that to shaking being the first and hopping being the second. Since people are already at stage 2 (hopping like frogs on floors covered with thick foam), Maharishi claims that very soon people will be flying above the taxis, and that TM teachers will be running to the mountains to get away from all the people who want to learn TM.
Maharishi shifts the emphasis from getting enlightened more quickly through TM-Sidhi practice to the effect of the practice of TM-Sidhis in groups. Maharishi claims group practice will reduce negativity in the spiritual and psychic atmosphere, and eventually lead to world peace - another fine marketing ploy to redirect TM believers' attention away from what they are not getting to promises of future rewards. Maharishi emphasizes the importance of living and working in the same locale so as to be able to practice "program" together. This also has the effect of concentrating the people who are contributing regular revenue to Maharishi into a group that can help manage group point of view to keep the believers believing.
1986: Revenues need a boost. Maharishi reveals that he, with his amazing enlightened consciousness, has delved into and revealed the full value of natural law in the ancient Indian system of health care called ayurveda. Of all the rishis and holy men and women in India, only Maharishi was able to revive the real deal of ancient ayurveda that had fallen into corruption over the years.
(A little research will reveal that Maharishi actually didn't cognize or know anything about ayurveda, and relied on ayurvedic practitioners like Dwivedi, Balraj Maharishi and Triguna, whom he flattered into working for him.)
"Maharishi Ayurveda" gives a plentiful opportunity to market goods and services to true believers who were once told that all they needed to lead a high-quality life was TM 20 minutes twice a day.
Ayurvedic consultations, herbal formulas, massages and various therapies are marketed and sold.
A month or two after ayurveda is rolled out, Maharishi reveals that another part of ayurveda is jyotish, a form of astrology practiced in India. This was after years of Maharishi warning TM meditators not to do or be involved with astrology. Maharishi never gives any explanation on why astrology is suddenly acceptable, except to say that his "Maharishi Jyotish" is superior to Western astrology.
Now Maharishi and the TM Movement recommend that everyone get a yearly jotish chart done to improve the quality of one's life and be able to discern if one has any negative karma that one could then alleviate with jyotish remedies. These remedies include wearing very expensive gemstones, using certain kinds of mantras to curry favor with whatever planet is out of whack in your jyotish chart, and having Hindu sacrifices or prayers called "yagyas" done for you regularly. Yagyas cost from $1,000 to $1,000,000 apiece.
What came to be known with typical hubris as "Maharishi Yagyas" becomes an important source of revenue for Maharishi and the TM Movement.
1970's or 1980's: Maharishi solicits funds for constructing many different kinds of buildings called by various names that purport to have various purposes. Most of these are never built, and no accounting is ever given as to the whereabouts of the funds that had been raised for them. Most of the ones that are built fall into disuse or are sold. This includes Maharishi Veda Land, a vedic-themed fantasy park that the TM movement heavily marketed, promoted and raised money for. It was never built.
1986 on: The emphasis is on selling TM, TM-Sidhis, teacher training courses, various kinds of in-residence courses, ayurveda and all its herbal and massage and consultation products, jyotish charts and jyotish remedies, especially yagyas, for unpleasant karma. At one point a "vedic observatory" was offered, or rather a plastic model of an astronomical observatory that supposedly was used in ancient India. This was offered for several thousand dollars, and all one had to do was look at it a few minutes a day to get the good vibrations from it.
1990's: Maharishi announces to his TM teachers that the emphasis is to be on selling TM and all its adjunct programs to the millionaires and billionaires of the world. From time to time Maharishi asks the wealthy people of the world and the governments of the world to give him huge amounts of money so that he can formulate courses to create world peace. The amounts he requests range from $20 million to $1 billion.
1990's(?): Maharishi begins to offer various healing techniques from various Indian healers, using what sound like shamanic techniques - blowing the breath on the client, making various kinds of sounds directed toward certain parts of the client's body and so on. These cost from several hundred dollars to more than a thousand for each session.
1990's and 2000's: Maharishi continually exhorts the world to give him money to create permanent groups of people practicing the TM-Sidhi program and Maharishi Yagya program. Much money is donated, few of the groups are ever created.
2000: Maharishi creates the "Global Country of World Peace," a non-existent country that exists only in the minds of the true believers in Maharishi and everything he says. This is interesting because in...
2002: Maharishi creates what he calls "the global development currency Raam Mudra." The Raam is a generally unrecognized and nearly unusable currency that Maharishi claims he created to alleviate poverty in the world. The only places the Raam is used are in TM facilities and communities. In these communities, one Raam is said to be worth ten US dollars. The TM organization attempts to sell the Raam to anyone who will buy it.
2004: Maharishi and Dr. Benjamin Feldman, Minister of Finance and Planning of the Global Country of World Peace, announce that the Raam development currency is now backed by gold. No word is given on who owns the gold or where the gold is located.
Today the TM organization says, "Some might claim that since there is no gold or other material asset backing up the issue of the complementary currency, it will lead to inflation. This is not a valid argument, because the RAAM is backed by material assets—the new and more profitable crops that can be grown in the nation’s precious soil, and the underutilized energy and creativity of the people of the nation." Source http://www.globalcountry.org/wp/finance-and-planning/
No word from the TM movement as to what happened to the gold that once backed the Raam currency.
2005: Maharishi creates the Raja training courses. Maharishi charges $1,000,000 per person for these courses.
He also tells all TM teachers (whom Maharishi has retitled "Governors of the Age of Enlightenment") that they will no longer be permitted to teach TM until they take a "Refresher and Recertification Course." The TM teachers are required to pay for this out of their own pockets at a cost of a couple thousand dollars per person.
2005-2006: Maharishi rolls out yet another fabulous aspect of the vedas, this time called sthapatya veda, the "science" of vedic architecture, an Indian version of feng shui that promises all sorts of benefits for people who live in a home with a proper alignment and orientation.
Maharishi claims that he suddenly realized that the whole world needed to redesign all buildings in the world to conform not just to ancient Indian ideas of architecture, but to HIS version.
Maharishi is very clear that not any kind of sthapatya veda or vastu veda would do, only his brand, appropriately called "Maharishi Sthapatya Veda." All others are off-base. Maharishi is also very adamant that if one lives or works in a building with a south-facing entrance, all sorts of problems would occur in that individual's life and family.
No word on why TM (which was once all one needed to improve life on all physical, mental, emotional, spiritual and relationship levels) and the TM-Sidhi program (which is 10,000 times more powerful than TM alone) would be ineffective if one were not living in a Maharishi Vastu Veda home.
2008: Maharishi dies. Since that time, the leaders of the TM movement are using David Lynch and his foundation to market TM as a scientifically-backed and proven program. They are attempting to sanitize the image of TM using the exact same marketing techniques and even the same language that was used by the TM movement in the early 1970's.
Using celebrity endorsements and TM practitioners who are placed in news media outlets such as Soledad Obrien, George Stephanopoulos and various writers for the Huffington Post, they are marketing pre-TM- Sidhis-program TM, ignoring or minimizing all the other programs and aspects of the TM movement. It is my understanding that when potential students visit Maharishi University of Management in Fairfield, Iowa for their Visitors Weekend, the gold-crowned, silk-robed "rajas" who administer the TM movement are never seen nor mentioned, just to pick one example.
I may have missed some things, but that's a part of the TM timeline as it has unfolded.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael H. Jackson is a former TM junkie who feels learning TM was one of the biggest mistakes he ever made. He lives in South Carolina running his own computer repair business and working part time as a freelance writer.
2002: Maharishi creates what he calls "the global development currency Raam Mudra." The Raam is a generally unrecognized and nearly unusable currency that Maharishi claims he created to alleviate poverty in the world. The only places the Raam is used are in TM facilities and communities. In these communities, one Raam is said to be worth ten US dollars. The TM organization attempts to sell the Raam to anyone who will buy it.
2004: Maharishi and Dr. Benjamin Feldman, Minister of Finance and Planning of the Global Country of World Peace, announce that the Raam development currency is now backed by gold. No word is given on who owns the gold or where the gold is located.
Today the TM organization says, "Some might claim that since there is no gold or other material asset backing up the issue of the complementary currency, it will lead to inflation. This is not a valid argument, because the RAAM is backed by material assets—the new and more profitable crops that can be grown in the nation’s precious soil, and the underutilized energy and creativity of the people of the nation." Source http://www.globalcountry.org/wp/finance-and-planning/
No word from the TM movement as to what happened to the gold that once backed the Raam currency.
2005: Maharishi creates the Raja training courses. Maharishi charges $1,000,000 per person for these courses.
He also tells all TM teachers (whom Maharishi has retitled "Governors of the Age of Enlightenment") that they will no longer be permitted to teach TM until they take a "Refresher and Recertification Course." The TM teachers are required to pay for this out of their own pockets at a cost of a couple thousand dollars per person.
2005-2006: Maharishi rolls out yet another fabulous aspect of the vedas, this time called sthapatya veda, the "science" of vedic architecture, an Indian version of feng shui that promises all sorts of benefits for people who live in a home with a proper alignment and orientation.
Maharishi claims that he suddenly realized that the whole world needed to redesign all buildings in the world to conform not just to ancient Indian ideas of architecture, but to HIS version.
Maharishi is very clear that not any kind of sthapatya veda or vastu veda would do, only his brand, appropriately called "Maharishi Sthapatya Veda." All others are off-base. Maharishi is also very adamant that if one lives or works in a building with a south-facing entrance, all sorts of problems would occur in that individual's life and family.
No word on why TM (which was once all one needed to improve life on all physical, mental, emotional, spiritual and relationship levels) and the TM-Sidhi program (which is 10,000 times more powerful than TM alone) would be ineffective if one were not living in a Maharishi Vastu Veda home.
2008: Maharishi dies. Since that time, the leaders of the TM movement are using David Lynch and his foundation to market TM as a scientifically-backed and proven program. They are attempting to sanitize the image of TM using the exact same marketing techniques and even the same language that was used by the TM movement in the early 1970's.
Using celebrity endorsements and TM practitioners who are placed in news media outlets such as Soledad Obrien, George Stephanopoulos and various writers for the Huffington Post, they are marketing pre-TM- Sidhis-program TM, ignoring or minimizing all the other programs and aspects of the TM movement. It is my understanding that when potential students visit Maharishi University of Management in Fairfield, Iowa for their Visitors Weekend, the gold-crowned, silk-robed "rajas" who administer the TM movement are never seen nor mentioned, just to pick one example.
I may have missed some things, but that's a part of the TM timeline as it has unfolded.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael H. Jackson is a former TM junkie who feels learning TM was one of the biggest mistakes he ever made. He lives in South Carolina running his own computer repair business and working part time as a freelance writer.
Thursday, July 25, 2013
Video Interview with Steven Hassan
In the following short video, Steven Hassan, of FreedomOfMind.com interviewed Gina Catena about Transcendental Meditation during the International Cultic Studies Association conference in Trieste, Italy on July 6, 2013. This interview was impromptu and unrehearsed.
Ex-Transcendental MeditationTM (TM) Gina Catena with Steve Hassan July 6th 2013 from Steven A Hassan on Vimeo.
Sadly, only a few hours after filming this interview, another young person who was raised with TM met a tragic death before a train, in the precise location where another suicide took place a few years before.
My (Gina's) postscript to the interview: I don't think TM causes ALL the problems experienced by many devotees. However, TM often creates a smokescreen which masks underlying problems, thereby rendering the root problem untreatable. The smoke screen can become an expensive and dangerous distraction.
We at TMFree send sincere condolences to the recently deceased's family, and to others with losses related to cognitive dissonance and depression often experienced with cult mentality.
Concern for such losses keeps us "here."
Ex-Transcendental MeditationTM (TM) Gina Catena with Steve Hassan July 6th 2013 from Steven A Hassan on Vimeo.
Sadly, only a few hours after filming this interview, another young person who was raised with TM met a tragic death before a train, in the precise location where another suicide took place a few years before.
My (Gina's) postscript to the interview: I don't think TM causes ALL the problems experienced by many devotees. However, TM often creates a smokescreen which masks underlying problems, thereby rendering the root problem untreatable. The smoke screen can become an expensive and dangerous distraction.
We at TMFree send sincere condolences to the recently deceased's family, and to others with losses related to cognitive dissonance and depression often experienced with cult mentality.
Concern for such losses keeps us "here."
Friday, November 09, 2012
SH*T RU'S SAY
Comedic Dogma from TM SGAs (Second Generation Adults).
Thanks to Lanie, Soangela and Chamolie!
Showcases crazy-making thought-stopping techniques of a TM-based upbringing.
(Do any other post-TM women, besides me, avoid pastel shawls?)
Enjoy!
Jai to Freedom!
Thanks to Lanie, Soangela and Chamolie!
Showcases crazy-making thought-stopping techniques of a TM-based upbringing.
(Do any other post-TM women, besides me, avoid pastel shawls?)
Enjoy!
Jai to Freedom!
Tuesday, October 06, 2009
Transcendental Meditation's Attitude on Mental Health
This essay is yet another of my trips down memory lane - this time, my memories of the TM organization's (i.e. Maharishi's) attitudes about mental health.
Back in 1970, before I ever learned TM, I had meditating friends who liked to tell me anecdotes about how rapidly TM improved mental health: "One man walked into the TM initiation room looking stressed and miserable; he walked out one hour later looking radiant," or, "This woman showed up at her therapist's office one week after learning TM, and the therapist said, 'My goodness! You seem so much better! What's happened to you?!' " I was 19 years old at the time, and I was very impressed. Now, with 40 years more experience under my belt, I would be less impressed. I would ask, "Did those benefits continue? Were there any harmful side effects?"
Back in 1970, the TM introductory lecture consisted of four speakers, each one speaking on a different topic: TM for mental potential, TM for health, TM for social behavior and TM for world peace. TM was presented as the solution to psychological problems.
After I was initiated, there were three days of follow up. We filled out forms that asked if we saw benefits in our lives yet. Almost all the people in my class had. The implication - which no one questioned - was that these changes were permanent, these benefits were from TM, and more benefits would be forthcoming soon.
The implication was that TM was both faster and more effective than psychotherapy.
My initiator had a condescending attitude towards psychotherapy. I think the rule back then was that if you were seeing a counselor more than once a week, you couldn't learn TM. My initiator said, "Either decide that the therapy's done what you wanted it to do, so you don't need it anymore and stop; or decide that the therapy isn't working, and stop. Either way, you can learn TM after you stop therapy."
Psychotherapy seemed to be a step down from TM. TM research was coming out showing that practicing TM produced mental health, and it produced it faster, less expensively and more holistically than psychotherapy.
This condescending attitude towards psychotherapy was explicit at the 1972 Humboldt College, Arcata, California, USA one-month course which I attended. Someone asked Maharishi about the value of psychotherapy. He replied that in the old days, people would go to their grandparents for advice, but nowadays, since families didn't live near each other, if you had problems you paid someone to listen to you. "Psychotherapy," he explained, "just stirs up the mud." It just made people worse. "Carl Jung's brother said that Carl was such an unhappy, miserable person. So how good could psychotherapy be?" Maharishi posited. (Someone in the audience pointed out, "Maharishi, Carl Jung was an only child." "Oh," Maharishi replied.)
If you were seeing a psychotherapist, you wouldn't be accepted for a TM teacher training course, or for an advanced teacher's course, (ATR), or for the TM-Sidhis course.
I had an initiator friend who was seriously depressed. I advised her to get professional help. She refused, saying, "But then I won't be accepted for an advanced course!"
What was the reason for this policy? Was it to keep meditators away from psychotherapists? Was it to keep meditators coming back to TM courses? Was it to keep meditators ignorant of the benefits of other methods? Was it to prevent unstable people from flipping out during rounding? Was it to keep knowledge of TM out of the hands of psychotherapists? I don't know, but it kept many meditators away from the help they dearly needed.
It also turned some meditators into liars. "Have you seen a psychotherapist?" asked the TM-Sidhis application form. "Well, I did see someone for career counseling," responded a friend of mine who received psychotherapy from a career counselor/psychotherapist. "Was he a therapist?" asked her TM interviewer. "Well, he did have a master's degree in English," she replied honestly. (And a doctorate in counseling, she omitted.) She was accepted for the course. "Filling out TM applications is an...'art form'," an initiator friend of mine wryly advised me.
Meanwhile, more scientific research continued to come out of the TM movement, showing that TM improved all areas of a person's life, including their mental health. These "independent scientific studies" have been criticized for inaccuracy and bias. For a critical analysis of TM research, click here:
http://trancenet.net/reserach/index.shtml
http://spacecityskeptics.wordpress.com/2009/01/07/how-to-design-a-positive-study-meditation-for-childhood-adhd/#comment-170
By 1975, Maharishi's "World Plan" was in full swing, promising that once a certain percentage of people around the world practiced TM, seven goals would be achieved, two of which were "to develop the full potential of the individual" and "to solve the problems of crime, drug-abuse and all behavior that brings unhappiness to the family of man." In other words, TM led inexorably to mental health.
Meanwhile, some people were attending TM Teacher Training courses and meditating for over 6 hours a day. Rumors were coming out that all that meditating was harmful for some people. Despite Maharishi's assurance that all manner of discomfort was "unstressing" and that "something good was happening," there were rumors of suicides, of people who became mute, of mental hospitalizations....
I was also starting to hear stories of people who after learning TM became more and more withdrawn and unsociable, and just sat in their houses all day and did TM.
In 1975 I visited my sister who was working at the Academy for the Science of Creative Intelligence in Livingston Manor, New York, USA. To thank the facility for letting me stay a few days, I offered to put their free lending library in order. The director at Livingston Manor instructed me to remove all books about psychology and self-help (and about other spiritual paths, too).
In 1977, I applied for the TM-Sidhis course. At that time, I had just been laid off from my job, my boyfriend had just broken up with me and had kept the apartment, leaving me homeless, and an accident had left me on crutches. I told my TM interviewer that I was a stressed out due to these pressures, and she replied that "TM should have strengthened you enough so that you would handle these challenges with calm and equanimity; therefore I have to conclude that you aren't emotionally stable enough for the course." (In retrospect, I wonder if she meant that this demonstrated that TM didn't work, or that I was somehow deficient.) The official cure for "emotional instability" and/or "unstressing" was to get your meditation checked, do more pranayama (yogic breathing exercises) and do more yoga asanas. That would set things right.
Another initiator friend of mine - I believe he got his Ph.D. in physics from an Ivy League college - gave me this thoughtful analysis of the genesis of mental illness: "People talk themselves into mental illness. I knew this woman who decided she had problems, and she just talked it into herself and talked it into herself, til finally she did become mentally ill."
In 1978 I got some counseling, and I became sufficiently "emotionally stable" that I was accepted for the TM-Sidhis course. In addition to learning the TM-Sidhis, the instructors used to read the English translation of the Ninth Mandala of the Rig Veda (a Hindu holy book) aloud to us for 15 minutes at a time. Jerry Jarvis (the former director of the Students International Meditation Society, U.S.) informed us that "the Ninth Mandala dissolves emotional hang-ups." Maharishi also helpfully explained that most mental illness was caused by not bathing frequently enough.
On the last day of the TM-Sidhis course, Maharishi begged us all to immediately move to Maharishi International University in Fairfield, Iowa, USA. He explained that our "flying" together on this recent course had prevented the outbreak of war, but the end of the course would create a sort of vacuum where there was even more chance than ever for war. I - and hundreds of others - moved to Fairfield that month.
I was depressed and anxious in Fairfield, doing my TM-Sidhis program two to four times a day. Was I unstressing? Was I simply too emotionally unstable? I felt that I needed counseling, but unfortunately there was no counseling department on campus. I had heard a rumor that such a department had once existed, but that Maharishi had told them to shut it down, as it just led to increased "negativity". I believe the counselors were transferred to the "academic counseling" office. So I contacted the academic counseling dept. and asked for an appointment. When I told the academic counselor of my emotional state, he encouragingly replied, "The only thing wrong with you is that you need a buddy!" (The buddy system was a TM tradition whereby you went everywhere with your buddy, and let them know if you were "unstressing.") One of the women in my dorm agreed to be my buddy, but since she continued to spend all her time with her friends from home, I never did find out if the only thing wrong with me was the lack of a "buddy." I did cheer up, however, when I moved to a dorm where I knew the people, and got a job I liked.
Several months later, an MIU friend confided to me that she was miserable, near tears, anxious, depressed, "unstressing." She went to a higher up and "confessed" that she had lied on her TM-Sidhis application form, and maybe she wasn't really evolved enough or stable enough to be worthy of living at MIU. The supervisor consoled her with, "No, if you're here, you were meant to be here."
A year and a half later, I started having anxiety attacks when I did the sidhis. These attacks were spilling over into my daily life. I left Fairfield about this time. Back home, I phoned the TM-Sidhis Administrators to ask them how to deal with the anxiety during my program. They never called me back. Eventually I stopped doing the TM-Sidhis.
A few years later, I read that several MIU students had ended up in the county mental hospital. How could that be, since TM improves mental health? An MIU professor explained, "Going to college is very stressful."
Others in Fairfield were also being hit with bouts of anxiety and depression, which was called "roughness" or "unstressing." When they complained about their condition, they were chided, "You're purifying the whole earth of its impurities, and you complain about unstressing!"
Slowly, counseling slipped into the Fairfield TM community. People kept it a secret if they were receiving counseling - after all, they could be thrown off courses, and their friends might look down on them for "stirring up the mud" and for not following Maharishi's wishes. But as one Fairfield TMer apologetically explained, "Of course we don't want to go to counselors. But if there's a n\crisis - you know, like your husband's having an affair, or your kid's on drugs - well, then, you do it if you have to." She never did explain how a husband could be having an affair or a child could be on drugs if they were all practicing that mental health-producing technique, Transcendental Meditation.
Well, those are my memories of the TM attitude towards mental health. Anyone have any memories that they would like to share? (Anonymously is fine.) Or any other comments?
Back in 1970, before I ever learned TM, I had meditating friends who liked to tell me anecdotes about how rapidly TM improved mental health: "One man walked into the TM initiation room looking stressed and miserable; he walked out one hour later looking radiant," or, "This woman showed up at her therapist's office one week after learning TM, and the therapist said, 'My goodness! You seem so much better! What's happened to you?!' " I was 19 years old at the time, and I was very impressed. Now, with 40 years more experience under my belt, I would be less impressed. I would ask, "Did those benefits continue? Were there any harmful side effects?"
Back in 1970, the TM introductory lecture consisted of four speakers, each one speaking on a different topic: TM for mental potential, TM for health, TM for social behavior and TM for world peace. TM was presented as the solution to psychological problems.
After I was initiated, there were three days of follow up. We filled out forms that asked if we saw benefits in our lives yet. Almost all the people in my class had. The implication - which no one questioned - was that these changes were permanent, these benefits were from TM, and more benefits would be forthcoming soon.
The implication was that TM was both faster and more effective than psychotherapy.
My initiator had a condescending attitude towards psychotherapy. I think the rule back then was that if you were seeing a counselor more than once a week, you couldn't learn TM. My initiator said, "Either decide that the therapy's done what you wanted it to do, so you don't need it anymore and stop; or decide that the therapy isn't working, and stop. Either way, you can learn TM after you stop therapy."
Psychotherapy seemed to be a step down from TM. TM research was coming out showing that practicing TM produced mental health, and it produced it faster, less expensively and more holistically than psychotherapy.
This condescending attitude towards psychotherapy was explicit at the 1972 Humboldt College, Arcata, California, USA one-month course which I attended. Someone asked Maharishi about the value of psychotherapy. He replied that in the old days, people would go to their grandparents for advice, but nowadays, since families didn't live near each other, if you had problems you paid someone to listen to you. "Psychotherapy," he explained, "just stirs up the mud." It just made people worse. "Carl Jung's brother said that Carl was such an unhappy, miserable person. So how good could psychotherapy be?" Maharishi posited. (Someone in the audience pointed out, "Maharishi, Carl Jung was an only child." "Oh," Maharishi replied.)
If you were seeing a psychotherapist, you wouldn't be accepted for a TM teacher training course, or for an advanced teacher's course, (ATR), or for the TM-Sidhis course.
I had an initiator friend who was seriously depressed. I advised her to get professional help. She refused, saying, "But then I won't be accepted for an advanced course!"
What was the reason for this policy? Was it to keep meditators away from psychotherapists? Was it to keep meditators coming back to TM courses? Was it to keep meditators ignorant of the benefits of other methods? Was it to prevent unstable people from flipping out during rounding? Was it to keep knowledge of TM out of the hands of psychotherapists? I don't know, but it kept many meditators away from the help they dearly needed.
It also turned some meditators into liars. "Have you seen a psychotherapist?" asked the TM-Sidhis application form. "Well, I did see someone for career counseling," responded a friend of mine who received psychotherapy from a career counselor/psychotherapist. "Was he a therapist?" asked her TM interviewer. "Well, he did have a master's degree in English," she replied honestly. (And a doctorate in counseling, she omitted.) She was accepted for the course. "Filling out TM applications is an...'art form'," an initiator friend of mine wryly advised me.
Meanwhile, more scientific research continued to come out of the TM movement, showing that TM improved all areas of a person's life, including their mental health. These "independent scientific studies" have been criticized for inaccuracy and bias. For a critical analysis of TM research, click here:
http://trancenet.net/reserach/index.shtml
http://spacecityskeptics.wordpress.com/2009/01/07/how-to-design-a-positive-study-meditation-for-childhood-adhd/#comment-170
By 1975, Maharishi's "World Plan" was in full swing, promising that once a certain percentage of people around the world practiced TM, seven goals would be achieved, two of which were "to develop the full potential of the individual" and "to solve the problems of crime, drug-abuse and all behavior that brings unhappiness to the family of man." In other words, TM led inexorably to mental health.
Meanwhile, some people were attending TM Teacher Training courses and meditating for over 6 hours a day. Rumors were coming out that all that meditating was harmful for some people. Despite Maharishi's assurance that all manner of discomfort was "unstressing" and that "something good was happening," there were rumors of suicides, of people who became mute, of mental hospitalizations....
I was also starting to hear stories of people who after learning TM became more and more withdrawn and unsociable, and just sat in their houses all day and did TM.
In 1975 I visited my sister who was working at the Academy for the Science of Creative Intelligence in Livingston Manor, New York, USA. To thank the facility for letting me stay a few days, I offered to put their free lending library in order. The director at Livingston Manor instructed me to remove all books about psychology and self-help (and about other spiritual paths, too).
In 1977, I applied for the TM-Sidhis course. At that time, I had just been laid off from my job, my boyfriend had just broken up with me and had kept the apartment, leaving me homeless, and an accident had left me on crutches. I told my TM interviewer that I was a stressed out due to these pressures, and she replied that "TM should have strengthened you enough so that you would handle these challenges with calm and equanimity; therefore I have to conclude that you aren't emotionally stable enough for the course." (In retrospect, I wonder if she meant that this demonstrated that TM didn't work, or that I was somehow deficient.) The official cure for "emotional instability" and/or "unstressing" was to get your meditation checked, do more pranayama (yogic breathing exercises) and do more yoga asanas. That would set things right.
Another initiator friend of mine - I believe he got his Ph.D. in physics from an Ivy League college - gave me this thoughtful analysis of the genesis of mental illness: "People talk themselves into mental illness. I knew this woman who decided she had problems, and she just talked it into herself and talked it into herself, til finally she did become mentally ill."
In 1978 I got some counseling, and I became sufficiently "emotionally stable" that I was accepted for the TM-Sidhis course. In addition to learning the TM-Sidhis, the instructors used to read the English translation of the Ninth Mandala of the Rig Veda (a Hindu holy book) aloud to us for 15 minutes at a time. Jerry Jarvis (the former director of the Students International Meditation Society, U.S.) informed us that "the Ninth Mandala dissolves emotional hang-ups." Maharishi also helpfully explained that most mental illness was caused by not bathing frequently enough.
On the last day of the TM-Sidhis course, Maharishi begged us all to immediately move to Maharishi International University in Fairfield, Iowa, USA. He explained that our "flying" together on this recent course had prevented the outbreak of war, but the end of the course would create a sort of vacuum where there was even more chance than ever for war. I - and hundreds of others - moved to Fairfield that month.
I was depressed and anxious in Fairfield, doing my TM-Sidhis program two to four times a day. Was I unstressing? Was I simply too emotionally unstable? I felt that I needed counseling, but unfortunately there was no counseling department on campus. I had heard a rumor that such a department had once existed, but that Maharishi had told them to shut it down, as it just led to increased "negativity". I believe the counselors were transferred to the "academic counseling" office. So I contacted the academic counseling dept. and asked for an appointment. When I told the academic counselor of my emotional state, he encouragingly replied, "The only thing wrong with you is that you need a buddy!" (The buddy system was a TM tradition whereby you went everywhere with your buddy, and let them know if you were "unstressing.") One of the women in my dorm agreed to be my buddy, but since she continued to spend all her time with her friends from home, I never did find out if the only thing wrong with me was the lack of a "buddy." I did cheer up, however, when I moved to a dorm where I knew the people, and got a job I liked.
Several months later, an MIU friend confided to me that she was miserable, near tears, anxious, depressed, "unstressing." She went to a higher up and "confessed" that she had lied on her TM-Sidhis application form, and maybe she wasn't really evolved enough or stable enough to be worthy of living at MIU. The supervisor consoled her with, "No, if you're here, you were meant to be here."
A year and a half later, I started having anxiety attacks when I did the sidhis. These attacks were spilling over into my daily life. I left Fairfield about this time. Back home, I phoned the TM-Sidhis Administrators to ask them how to deal with the anxiety during my program. They never called me back. Eventually I stopped doing the TM-Sidhis.
A few years later, I read that several MIU students had ended up in the county mental hospital. How could that be, since TM improves mental health? An MIU professor explained, "Going to college is very stressful."
Others in Fairfield were also being hit with bouts of anxiety and depression, which was called "roughness" or "unstressing." When they complained about their condition, they were chided, "You're purifying the whole earth of its impurities, and you complain about unstressing!"
Slowly, counseling slipped into the Fairfield TM community. People kept it a secret if they were receiving counseling - after all, they could be thrown off courses, and their friends might look down on them for "stirring up the mud" and for not following Maharishi's wishes. But as one Fairfield TMer apologetically explained, "Of course we don't want to go to counselors. But if there's a n\crisis - you know, like your husband's having an affair, or your kid's on drugs - well, then, you do it if you have to." She never did explain how a husband could be having an affair or a child could be on drugs if they were all practicing that mental health-producing technique, Transcendental Meditation.
Well, those are my memories of the TM attitude towards mental health. Anyone have any memories that they would like to share? (Anonymously is fine.) Or any other comments?
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Acting Funny Around Money
This essay is a preliminary examination of the painfully dysfunctional way some of us acted around money when we were involved in the TM life. I invite you to take a walk with me down memory lane, and see if you, like me, remember moments during your time in TM when your thinking around money, or the thinking of those you knew, was seriously askew. Hopefully, this will be an opportunity to recall, to re-evaluate, and to heal. One question I have found helpful to ask myself is, "What thoughts were going through my head to permit me to engage in these seriously dysfunctional behaviors? " I also invite you, if you so choose, to invent a different ending - how the incident would have played out if we had been acting from a place of sanity and empowerment. If you would like, share your memories and alternate endings with us in the comments section.
To start the ball rolling, I will share seven true stories from my TM days of "acting funny around money." Some of these stories are humorous, but some of them have tragic outcomes. I think they all reflect how Maharishi's teachings wreaked havoc with our sanity around money.
1. When I was about 19, in 1972, I lent my boyfriend $100 for some emergency. He promised he would repay me. A few months later, I asked him for the money back. He didn't have it; however, he admitted that he had recently attended a TM weekend residence course. I was angry. "How could you go off and spend money on a vacation when you still owed me money?" He replied huffily, "Well, which is more important for the evolution of the universe? Returning the money to you, or going on a residence course?!" I could think of no reply.
What was going on? The answer is that my boyfriend and I had recently attended a one-month TM rounding course, where Maharishi lectured three times a day. Maharishi had taught us that meditating, and in particular rounding, was the most important thing we could do for the "evolution of the universe." So my boyfriend and I were both responding to Maharishi's persuasive words, pounded into our brains with the sledgehammer of rounding.
What might be a re-empowered, sane alternate ending? Perhaps it would be me saying,"I lent you that money with the understanding that you would pay me back as soon as your emergency passed. I did not volunteer to subsidize your contribution to the evolution of the universe. If that is your personal goal, fine. Amass some money and attend a TM course. But how dare you make me an involuntary patron of your dream."
2. When I worked at Livingston Manor, NY, USA as a volunteer/work-study student in 1975-76, we were given room, board, credits towards TM courses, and $25 monthly stipend (for toothpaste, stamps, etc.) One day the word came down from on high that our clothes were too "hippie." We were told that we were not to wear leather sandals any more. We objected, partly due to the expense. "Now come on," the higher ups told us, "you ladies can buy some very nice boots (boots were in style that year) for not much, only about $25." There was a brief awkward pause, as I, and I assume other volunteers, were thinking, "$25? That's the money I need for my toothpaste and shampoo. That's how much I earn in an entire month!" But I didn't say anything, and neither did anyone else.
Why not? Maybe because I was trained by the TM organization to not complain, to sit on my doubts, to not express an independent attitude. We were afraid of being considered troublemakers. We were often shut up with, "Well, this is Maharishi's express wish." That announcement would be followed by an ominous? an awkward? silence, in which it was implied that if you still disagreed, you were not a trustworthy member of the community.
What would have been an empowered, sane response? The volunteers could have said, "You're only giving us $25 a month. There's no way we can afford new clothes on that stipend. If you want us to buy new clothes, you need to raise our stipend." And then we should have all stuck to it.
3. Around 1974, a TM teacher I knew who had an engineering degree would get himself a high-paying full time engineering job. After six months, he would earn enough money to take a 6-week ATR ("advanced training and rest" rounding for TM teachers) course. At that point, he would quit his job and go on the course. (Six weeks were the longest courses they had back in those days!) After the ATR, he would start looking for another engineering job. The interviewers would naturally question him about his spotty work history: "You keep leaving your jobs after six months! Why should we hire you?" "Oh, no!" he would assure them, "Those days are passed. From now on I intend to keep my job for years." Companies kept hiring him, and he continued to quit after six months to go on another ATR, and then look for a new job again.
Rationale: Since we had been taught that TM was the best thing we could possibly do for ourselves, and that the more TM we did, the more we would have "support of nature," and things would magically go right, he risked his financial stability, his reputation, his resume, his job stability, his chances for promotion, his chances for a pension, by continually quitting his jobs.
Saner alternative ending: Clearly, don't keep quitting your jobs. I don't know how long his luck held out or if he eventually stopped getting hired. It would take a giant re-evaluation of his entire belief system to change this behavior. "If it's possible that Maharishi is not telling the truth, that rounding isn't going to make my life magically work, then I have to have contingency plans, like keeping a job."
4. About 1978, a TM teacher/governor friend of mine got engaged to a TM teacher. He hadn't learned the sidhis, and he didn't have the money to pay for the sidhis course. So she lent him the $5,000 for the course. He attended part of the course, but halfway through he was kicked off for roaming around the roof at midnight when he couldn't sleep. He never did pay her back. She eventually broke off the engagement.
Rationale: If you believe that the TM-Sidhis makes everyone a new person, a person with magical abilities, life-supporting decision-making capabilities and the support of nature, then getting engaged to a grown man who doesn't have a penny to his name and is willing to borrow $5,000 from his fiancee to learn the TM-Sidhis seems like a sane decision.
Alternate, non-dysfunctional ending: "Well, I am attracted to you. But you don't have a job. And you don't have any money. I certainly am not going to get engaged to you, or loan you money. If you think the TM-Sidhis are a good thing, why don't you go out and get the money from somewhere - get a job, or get a loan (not from me), and attend the course. When you come back after the course, let's see if you're the changed person we believe you'll be. Let's see if you get a job. Let's see if you become responsible. I'll decide then if I want to marry you."
5. 1979-1981, I was on the "Creating Coherence Course" in Fairfield, Iowa, USA. I was hired by Sidha Corporation International to work at the Super Radiance Art Glass factory. I was promised room, board, the ongoing course (use of the meditation hall and evening meetings) and $75/month stipend. For two months, all C.C.C. course participants working at the factory got everything promised, including the $75. The third month, our supervisor told us that the company wasn't making enough money, and they could only afford to pay us $30 each. No one protested. After that month, they never gave us a stipend again, for the 12 months I continued to work there. No one complained. No one said a word.
Interpretation: I, and I assume the others, felt like I was part of something giant and wonderful. I was helping to create world peace. (Remember, Bevan said, "If you leave Fairfield, you are personally responsible for World War III.") Also, I was scared to complain. If I did, they might have labeled me a "troublemaker" or an "unstresser" or "ungrateful," and then I might get kicked off the course, or denied admission to advanced courses. And I was too spaced out from meditating five hours a day to be able to think it through clearly. I assumed that if a TM-owned company was making the decision, it must be a "life-supporting" decision. I also didn't want to complain to outside authorities and make the TM movement "look bad."
Saner solution: Discuss the situation with the other course participants. Come up with a plan, such as to threaten to quit if we were not paid the stipend we were promised, or to report the company to outside authorities.
6. 1981, M.I.U., Fairfield, Iowa, USA. I was friends with some work/study kitchen staff. They got room, board, an ongoing course (use of the meditation hall and evening meetings) and $75/month stipend. There was a special event - a TM fund-raising banquet in the campus' fanciest dining room. My friends cooked for, set up, and were allowed to attend the banquet, along with the rich contributors. After a fabulous meal and inspiring speeches, rich attendees promised hundreds and thousands of dollars for the latest TM venture (possibly the construction of the meditation domes at M.I.U.). My friends, inspired by the event, stood up and pledged half their stipends for as long as they worked at M.I.U. towards the project. I was horrified. What a sacrifice, to give up $37 a month, and to try to live on $37 a month. Let the wealthy people who could afford it do the contributing.
Interpretation: Guilt-tripping. Group pressure. Desire to feel important. Desire to feel part of something important.
Re-empowered alternate ending: Staff resist pressure, and do not pledge any money. Even better, demand a full accounting of all the finances of the TMO, and ask for a raise.
7. 1981, M.I.U. I had some stocks my parents had given me, and I was trying to figure out how to invest my new wealth most wisely. Some course participants overheard me, and encouraged me to buy an "investment ruby" through them. They encouraged me to sell my stocks, at a 30% loss, and to throw in most of my own personal savings, to buy the ruby. When I expressed reluctance, the broker actually shouted at me, "That's Age of Ignorance thinking!" He said that rubies were going to go up tremendously in value. After all, we were all sidhas, living in a community of sidhas, and any decisions we made would have the support of nature. He also emphasized that I had better invest immediately, before the prices started going up. Part of "Age of Ignorance thinking," he said, was that if you think negatively, then it was going to happen.
I had always been taught to "not put all your eggs in one basket," and I knew that before you invest, you should do plenty of research, and I also had been taught not to speculate - that "if it looks too good to be true, it probably isn't." However, those were rules for non-sidhas, and they didn't seem so persuasive against the broker's arguments. I did try to discuss my reservations with a friend, but she refused to talk with me about it, saying, "I can't give you any advice, because that would be going against Maharishi's latest instructions that we should all be self-sufficient." Not knowing what else to do, I did sell my stocks at a loss, and added in most of my personal savings, as the broker recommended, and bought the ruby. Within a year, the ruby's value had gone down to almost nothing. I now was virtually penniless. I lived hand-to-mouth for about four years after that, working desperately trying to make ends meet. During those four years, I remember having $2 in my bank account. I remember sneaking the rent envelope out of the mailbox because I didn't have the money to pay my rent. I remember carrying two meals in my knapsack because I couldn't afford to eat out. I remember picking wild apples and wild lettuce in Boston parks because I couldn't afford to eat out. I remember wanting to see a doctor for a suspicious skin condition, but not going because I didn't have the $20.
Why: Brainwashed. Magical thinking. After 1.5 years of hearing daily videos of Maharishi, I believed in the infallible ability of sidhas to have "support of nature," and in the collective power of groups of sidhas. Due to 1.5 years of rounding, I couldn't think it through clearly.
New empowered ending: Take my time, and research investment alternatives. Do not be swayed by TM thinking. But how much work and effort would that have entailed? Would it have even been possible, considering the environment I was immersed in?
So, there you have it - a few of my TM and money memories. How about you? Do you have a story you'd like to share, about how you, or someone you knew, acted "funny around money" due to their immersion in Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's belief system?
To start the ball rolling, I will share seven true stories from my TM days of "acting funny around money." Some of these stories are humorous, but some of them have tragic outcomes. I think they all reflect how Maharishi's teachings wreaked havoc with our sanity around money.
1. When I was about 19, in 1972, I lent my boyfriend $100 for some emergency. He promised he would repay me. A few months later, I asked him for the money back. He didn't have it; however, he admitted that he had recently attended a TM weekend residence course. I was angry. "How could you go off and spend money on a vacation when you still owed me money?" He replied huffily, "Well, which is more important for the evolution of the universe? Returning the money to you, or going on a residence course?!" I could think of no reply.
What was going on? The answer is that my boyfriend and I had recently attended a one-month TM rounding course, where Maharishi lectured three times a day. Maharishi had taught us that meditating, and in particular rounding, was the most important thing we could do for the "evolution of the universe." So my boyfriend and I were both responding to Maharishi's persuasive words, pounded into our brains with the sledgehammer of rounding.
What might be a re-empowered, sane alternate ending? Perhaps it would be me saying,"I lent you that money with the understanding that you would pay me back as soon as your emergency passed. I did not volunteer to subsidize your contribution to the evolution of the universe. If that is your personal goal, fine. Amass some money and attend a TM course. But how dare you make me an involuntary patron of your dream."
2. When I worked at Livingston Manor, NY, USA as a volunteer/work-study student in 1975-76, we were given room, board, credits towards TM courses, and $25 monthly stipend (for toothpaste, stamps, etc.) One day the word came down from on high that our clothes were too "hippie." We were told that we were not to wear leather sandals any more. We objected, partly due to the expense. "Now come on," the higher ups told us, "you ladies can buy some very nice boots (boots were in style that year) for not much, only about $25." There was a brief awkward pause, as I, and I assume other volunteers, were thinking, "$25? That's the money I need for my toothpaste and shampoo. That's how much I earn in an entire month!" But I didn't say anything, and neither did anyone else.
Why not? Maybe because I was trained by the TM organization to not complain, to sit on my doubts, to not express an independent attitude. We were afraid of being considered troublemakers. We were often shut up with, "Well, this is Maharishi's express wish." That announcement would be followed by an ominous? an awkward? silence, in which it was implied that if you still disagreed, you were not a trustworthy member of the community.
What would have been an empowered, sane response? The volunteers could have said, "You're only giving us $25 a month. There's no way we can afford new clothes on that stipend. If you want us to buy new clothes, you need to raise our stipend." And then we should have all stuck to it.
3. Around 1974, a TM teacher I knew who had an engineering degree would get himself a high-paying full time engineering job. After six months, he would earn enough money to take a 6-week ATR ("advanced training and rest" rounding for TM teachers) course. At that point, he would quit his job and go on the course. (Six weeks were the longest courses they had back in those days!) After the ATR, he would start looking for another engineering job. The interviewers would naturally question him about his spotty work history: "You keep leaving your jobs after six months! Why should we hire you?" "Oh, no!" he would assure them, "Those days are passed. From now on I intend to keep my job for years." Companies kept hiring him, and he continued to quit after six months to go on another ATR, and then look for a new job again.
Rationale: Since we had been taught that TM was the best thing we could possibly do for ourselves, and that the more TM we did, the more we would have "support of nature," and things would magically go right, he risked his financial stability, his reputation, his resume, his job stability, his chances for promotion, his chances for a pension, by continually quitting his jobs.
Saner alternative ending: Clearly, don't keep quitting your jobs. I don't know how long his luck held out or if he eventually stopped getting hired. It would take a giant re-evaluation of his entire belief system to change this behavior. "If it's possible that Maharishi is not telling the truth, that rounding isn't going to make my life magically work, then I have to have contingency plans, like keeping a job."
4. About 1978, a TM teacher/governor friend of mine got engaged to a TM teacher. He hadn't learned the sidhis, and he didn't have the money to pay for the sidhis course. So she lent him the $5,000 for the course. He attended part of the course, but halfway through he was kicked off for roaming around the roof at midnight when he couldn't sleep. He never did pay her back. She eventually broke off the engagement.
Rationale: If you believe that the TM-Sidhis makes everyone a new person, a person with magical abilities, life-supporting decision-making capabilities and the support of nature, then getting engaged to a grown man who doesn't have a penny to his name and is willing to borrow $5,000 from his fiancee to learn the TM-Sidhis seems like a sane decision.
Alternate, non-dysfunctional ending: "Well, I am attracted to you. But you don't have a job. And you don't have any money. I certainly am not going to get engaged to you, or loan you money. If you think the TM-Sidhis are a good thing, why don't you go out and get the money from somewhere - get a job, or get a loan (not from me), and attend the course. When you come back after the course, let's see if you're the changed person we believe you'll be. Let's see if you get a job. Let's see if you become responsible. I'll decide then if I want to marry you."
5. 1979-1981, I was on the "Creating Coherence Course" in Fairfield, Iowa, USA. I was hired by Sidha Corporation International to work at the Super Radiance Art Glass factory. I was promised room, board, the ongoing course (use of the meditation hall and evening meetings) and $75/month stipend. For two months, all C.C.C. course participants working at the factory got everything promised, including the $75. The third month, our supervisor told us that the company wasn't making enough money, and they could only afford to pay us $30 each. No one protested. After that month, they never gave us a stipend again, for the 12 months I continued to work there. No one complained. No one said a word.
Interpretation: I, and I assume the others, felt like I was part of something giant and wonderful. I was helping to create world peace. (Remember, Bevan said, "If you leave Fairfield, you are personally responsible for World War III.") Also, I was scared to complain. If I did, they might have labeled me a "troublemaker" or an "unstresser" or "ungrateful," and then I might get kicked off the course, or denied admission to advanced courses. And I was too spaced out from meditating five hours a day to be able to think it through clearly. I assumed that if a TM-owned company was making the decision, it must be a "life-supporting" decision. I also didn't want to complain to outside authorities and make the TM movement "look bad."
Saner solution: Discuss the situation with the other course participants. Come up with a plan, such as to threaten to quit if we were not paid the stipend we were promised, or to report the company to outside authorities.
6. 1981, M.I.U., Fairfield, Iowa, USA. I was friends with some work/study kitchen staff. They got room, board, an ongoing course (use of the meditation hall and evening meetings) and $75/month stipend. There was a special event - a TM fund-raising banquet in the campus' fanciest dining room. My friends cooked for, set up, and were allowed to attend the banquet, along with the rich contributors. After a fabulous meal and inspiring speeches, rich attendees promised hundreds and thousands of dollars for the latest TM venture (possibly the construction of the meditation domes at M.I.U.). My friends, inspired by the event, stood up and pledged half their stipends for as long as they worked at M.I.U. towards the project. I was horrified. What a sacrifice, to give up $37 a month, and to try to live on $37 a month. Let the wealthy people who could afford it do the contributing.
Interpretation: Guilt-tripping. Group pressure. Desire to feel important. Desire to feel part of something important.
Re-empowered alternate ending: Staff resist pressure, and do not pledge any money. Even better, demand a full accounting of all the finances of the TMO, and ask for a raise.
7. 1981, M.I.U. I had some stocks my parents had given me, and I was trying to figure out how to invest my new wealth most wisely. Some course participants overheard me, and encouraged me to buy an "investment ruby" through them. They encouraged me to sell my stocks, at a 30% loss, and to throw in most of my own personal savings, to buy the ruby. When I expressed reluctance, the broker actually shouted at me, "That's Age of Ignorance thinking!" He said that rubies were going to go up tremendously in value. After all, we were all sidhas, living in a community of sidhas, and any decisions we made would have the support of nature. He also emphasized that I had better invest immediately, before the prices started going up. Part of "Age of Ignorance thinking," he said, was that if you think negatively, then it was going to happen.
I had always been taught to "not put all your eggs in one basket," and I knew that before you invest, you should do plenty of research, and I also had been taught not to speculate - that "if it looks too good to be true, it probably isn't." However, those were rules for non-sidhas, and they didn't seem so persuasive against the broker's arguments. I did try to discuss my reservations with a friend, but she refused to talk with me about it, saying, "I can't give you any advice, because that would be going against Maharishi's latest instructions that we should all be self-sufficient." Not knowing what else to do, I did sell my stocks at a loss, and added in most of my personal savings, as the broker recommended, and bought the ruby. Within a year, the ruby's value had gone down to almost nothing. I now was virtually penniless. I lived hand-to-mouth for about four years after that, working desperately trying to make ends meet. During those four years, I remember having $2 in my bank account. I remember sneaking the rent envelope out of the mailbox because I didn't have the money to pay my rent. I remember carrying two meals in my knapsack because I couldn't afford to eat out. I remember picking wild apples and wild lettuce in Boston parks because I couldn't afford to eat out. I remember wanting to see a doctor for a suspicious skin condition, but not going because I didn't have the $20.
Why: Brainwashed. Magical thinking. After 1.5 years of hearing daily videos of Maharishi, I believed in the infallible ability of sidhas to have "support of nature," and in the collective power of groups of sidhas. Due to 1.5 years of rounding, I couldn't think it through clearly.
New empowered ending: Take my time, and research investment alternatives. Do not be swayed by TM thinking. But how much work and effort would that have entailed? Would it have even been possible, considering the environment I was immersed in?
So, there you have it - a few of my TM and money memories. How about you? Do you have a story you'd like to share, about how you, or someone you knew, acted "funny around money" due to their immersion in Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's belief system?
Saturday, February 17, 2007
Mantras Part 4: unstressing, feeling the body and beyond
Mantras Part 1
Mantras Part 2: Some thoughts preliminary to an examination of the mechanics of TM
Mantras Part 3: the makings of the “TM Casualties” or what colour is your cloth becoming?
There is a significant difference between what Mahesh said (“For our practice we select only the suitable mantras of personal Gods.”) and understanding the concept that some things are endowed with spiritual significance. To endow a thing with spiritual or religious significance does not change the thing in any way. What changes is attitude on the part of those who subscribe to the endowment.
Mahesh clearly endowed his actions/teachings and "vision" with spiritual and religious significance and cultured that attitude in us. Remember The Spiritual Regeneration Movement ?
Unstressing
When bizarre behaviour began to erupt at Mallorca, Mahesh called it waves of bliss. He said something good was happening. He didn’t teach that the experience was just another experience and we were to experience the feeling until it resolved itself.
From my side, I see "unstressing" as the body-mind experiencing a crisis, cognitive dissonance in opposition to which it cannot restore its integrity: body and mind feel like they are coming apart and behaviours beyond will-power or aside from what one had previously considered her/his will-power display themselves. I think that many of us accepted Mahesh in toto rather than resolve a crisis.
Feeling the Body
Many of us were there, saw it, even experienced it. The checking notes as they appear on line now (Checking Notes or General Points) give excellent if somewhat inconsistent teaching regarding untoward experiences arising in meditation. But were these "general points" in the checking notes at the time? I would very much appreciate knowing if anyone has the checking notes from Mallorca or prior to Mallorca and could tell me or preferably show me how the understanding of "feeling the body" was taught.
I only remember a conversation with Jerry Jarvis, prior to Mallora. He said that 'it' probably shouldn't be called feeling the body but should be called continuing. At the time, however, this concept seemed a very minor consideration.
I do not ever recall any time when Mahesh explained "feeling the body" as anything integral or as a necessary element to know or practise with as part of long periods of rounding. I can recall no mention of feeling-the-body as a "stitch in time". Regarding the horrendous freak-out that was Mallorca and (to a lesser extent) Fiuggi, apparently very few if any others remembered or knew or thought about this, either.
Beyond
I knew that I was really seeking something.
In a story Ramakrishna* told, he said that the seeker is like a thief in the night, he slips into the darkened house, touches this and that always muttering not the gold, not the gold. But when his hand feels the gold, he knows, he grasps it and is immediately gone into the night.
In some way, I knew I was in the darkened house of ignorance and TM really had the feel of gold. Maybe it might have been just that; but much later I discovered that Mahesh was corrupted by his own greed and narcissism subsequently corrupting not only what he had purloined from his tradition and teacher, but those he taught as well. This is my perception to this day, based upon my interaction with Mahesh and observing his interaction with others.
But just because I had been hoodwinked by a charlatan whose motives I felt were highly suspicious, I did not cease seeking. I kept looking for the gold and now I feel I have found that gold and have been examining it in the broad daylight, questioning practitioners and teachers alike, watching, observing, certainly looking for the behaviours and attitudes with which TM allowed me to be familiar. I am also looking at criteria such as Lifton’s to see if I am being cheated. I wish I could have done this from the beginning with TM.
I have continued the search that began in the spring of 1964. I can only conclude at this time that there is much more to life than TM. There is more than imagining that if you believe something good is happening long enough something good will happen. There is more to life than imagining you have been spiritually endowed by using the suitable mantras for personal gods.
I am a Buddhist presently practicing in the Thai Forest Tradition of Theravada Buddhism. I have no intention of suggesting that this is better than or superior to what Mahesh or Guru Dev is teaching/taught. However, if you are or feel you might be or might have been a TM casualty, you might want to look at “feeling the body” as explained in the Buddhist teachings.
If, and only if after considerable reflection on your part you feel that this is a step, endeavour or exercise you feel confident in making read through The Anapanasati Sutta – A Practical Guide to Mindfulness of Breathing and Tranquil Wisdom and/or The Satipatthana Sutta.
I am suggesting nothing easy. But, if you will, notice that the teaching begins with following the breath and letting mind and body become calm. Do you remember from the checking procedure how, before any mention of mantra, after opening and closing the eyes, you felt some quiet and calm, just naturally?
Did you realize anything or ever think about this?
You already knew how to be calm and quiet. It is my opinion that Mahesh’s teachings beyond establishing this insight is nothing more than a distraction from that calm and quiet, sidestepping the only meaningful reality, your own innate, knowable reality.
How can there possibly be any other basis for happiness in the world than knowing your own specific reality?
Cultivating this calm-and-quiet is the object of the Anapanasati Sutta. The method and teaching above (A Practical Guide) has been extremely helpful for me and I feel that if it is only read as an explanation it is helpful to understand the concept of mindfulness in the Buddhist tradition.
Further, in the The Satipatthana Sutta, we read how the Buddha established mindfulness in four REALITIES, the primary four realities of the individual, the person, YOU.
The first foundation is, basically, feeling the body, getting settled in and comfortable with your own physical reality just as it is. Little by little, as the impediments to mindfulness come up, they are skillfully abandoned.
I want to leave off with the advice of Padmasambhava**, an 8th century CE Tibetan teacher, who summarized his advice on spiritual development like this:
As for the innermost advice: no matter what kind of disturbing emotion you feel, look into the emotion and it tracelessly subsides. The disturbing emotion is thus naturally freed. This is simple to practice.
This is for me the gold and legitimate teachers share this innermost advice but do not sell it.
_____________
* Ramakrishna late 19th Century Indian saint living in the Bengal
** Padmasambhava’s Advice from the Lotus-Born (‘Pointing the Staff at the Old Man’)
Mantras Part 2: Some thoughts preliminary to an examination of the mechanics of TM
Mantras Part 3: the makings of the “TM Casualties” or what colour is your cloth becoming?
There is a significant difference between what Mahesh said (“For our practice we select only the suitable mantras of personal Gods.”) and understanding the concept that some things are endowed with spiritual significance. To endow a thing with spiritual or religious significance does not change the thing in any way. What changes is attitude on the part of those who subscribe to the endowment.
Mahesh clearly endowed his actions/teachings and "vision" with spiritual and religious significance and cultured that attitude in us. Remember The Spiritual Regeneration Movement ?
Unstressing
When bizarre behaviour began to erupt at Mallorca, Mahesh called it waves of bliss. He said something good was happening. He didn’t teach that the experience was just another experience and we were to experience the feeling until it resolved itself.
From my side, I see "unstressing" as the body-mind experiencing a crisis, cognitive dissonance in opposition to which it cannot restore its integrity: body and mind feel like they are coming apart and behaviours beyond will-power or aside from what one had previously considered her/his will-power display themselves. I think that many of us accepted Mahesh in toto rather than resolve a crisis.
Feeling the Body
Many of us were there, saw it, even experienced it. The checking notes as they appear on line now (Checking Notes or General Points) give excellent if somewhat inconsistent teaching regarding untoward experiences arising in meditation. But were these "general points" in the checking notes at the time? I would very much appreciate knowing if anyone has the checking notes from Mallorca or prior to Mallorca and could tell me or preferably show me how the understanding of "feeling the body" was taught.
I only remember a conversation with Jerry Jarvis, prior to Mallora. He said that 'it' probably shouldn't be called feeling the body but should be called continuing. At the time, however, this concept seemed a very minor consideration.
I do not ever recall any time when Mahesh explained "feeling the body" as anything integral or as a necessary element to know or practise with as part of long periods of rounding. I can recall no mention of feeling-the-body as a "stitch in time". Regarding the horrendous freak-out that was Mallorca and (to a lesser extent) Fiuggi, apparently very few if any others remembered or knew or thought about this, either.
Beyond
I knew that I was really seeking something.
In a story Ramakrishna* told, he said that the seeker is like a thief in the night, he slips into the darkened house, touches this and that always muttering not the gold, not the gold. But when his hand feels the gold, he knows, he grasps it and is immediately gone into the night.
In some way, I knew I was in the darkened house of ignorance and TM really had the feel of gold. Maybe it might have been just that; but much later I discovered that Mahesh was corrupted by his own greed and narcissism subsequently corrupting not only what he had purloined from his tradition and teacher, but those he taught as well. This is my perception to this day, based upon my interaction with Mahesh and observing his interaction with others.
But just because I had been hoodwinked by a charlatan whose motives I felt were highly suspicious, I did not cease seeking. I kept looking for the gold and now I feel I have found that gold and have been examining it in the broad daylight, questioning practitioners and teachers alike, watching, observing, certainly looking for the behaviours and attitudes with which TM allowed me to be familiar. I am also looking at criteria such as Lifton’s to see if I am being cheated. I wish I could have done this from the beginning with TM.
I have continued the search that began in the spring of 1964. I can only conclude at this time that there is much more to life than TM. There is more than imagining that if you believe something good is happening long enough something good will happen. There is more to life than imagining you have been spiritually endowed by using the suitable mantras for personal gods.
I am a Buddhist presently practicing in the Thai Forest Tradition of Theravada Buddhism. I have no intention of suggesting that this is better than or superior to what Mahesh or Guru Dev is teaching/taught. However, if you are or feel you might be or might have been a TM casualty, you might want to look at “feeling the body” as explained in the Buddhist teachings.
If, and only if after considerable reflection on your part you feel that this is a step, endeavour or exercise you feel confident in making read through The Anapanasati Sutta – A Practical Guide to Mindfulness of Breathing and Tranquil Wisdom and/or The Satipatthana Sutta.
I am suggesting nothing easy. But, if you will, notice that the teaching begins with following the breath and letting mind and body become calm. Do you remember from the checking procedure how, before any mention of mantra, after opening and closing the eyes, you felt some quiet and calm, just naturally?
Did you realize anything or ever think about this?
You already knew how to be calm and quiet. It is my opinion that Mahesh’s teachings beyond establishing this insight is nothing more than a distraction from that calm and quiet, sidestepping the only meaningful reality, your own innate, knowable reality.
How can there possibly be any other basis for happiness in the world than knowing your own specific reality?
Cultivating this calm-and-quiet is the object of the Anapanasati Sutta. The method and teaching above (A Practical Guide) has been extremely helpful for me and I feel that if it is only read as an explanation it is helpful to understand the concept of mindfulness in the Buddhist tradition.
Further, in the The Satipatthana Sutta, we read how the Buddha established mindfulness in four REALITIES, the primary four realities of the individual, the person, YOU.
The first foundation is, basically, feeling the body, getting settled in and comfortable with your own physical reality just as it is. Little by little, as the impediments to mindfulness come up, they are skillfully abandoned.
I want to leave off with the advice of Padmasambhava**, an 8th century CE Tibetan teacher, who summarized his advice on spiritual development like this:
As for the innermost advice: no matter what kind of disturbing emotion you feel, look into the emotion and it tracelessly subsides. The disturbing emotion is thus naturally freed. This is simple to practice.
This is for me the gold and legitimate teachers share this innermost advice but do not sell it.
_____________
* Ramakrishna late 19th Century Indian saint living in the Bengal
** Padmasambhava’s Advice from the Lotus-Born (‘Pointing the Staff at the Old Man’)
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