---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <LEnglish5@...> wrote :
Certainly, wanting to be certain that I haven't wasted 20 minutes twice a day for 40 years, is part of the issue (not to mention another 15 minutes twice-a-day doing the TM-siddhis for the past 30 years). But... Think about it: if the effects of TM can be gained from reading a book, everyone should be reading that book. On the other hand, if what TM teachers teach is special in some sense, people need to know that too. Consider the latest research coming out of Africa on PTSD. The studies are overwhelmingly positive and are bound to show "regression to the mean" at least somewhat in any replications, but what if TM really CAN have such an effect consistently on certain people (at least war refugees living in Africa with no other support for stress at all) with PTSD? This is HUGE. While, objectively speaking, it would be nice if other practices had the same or better effect, MBSR is taught over a 2 month period, and researchers don't even bother doing a followup measurement on PTSD symptoms until 3 months after people complete the 8-week course, and even 20 weeks after they first start learning mindfulness practices, they still don't have as good an outcome as even the less-dramatic studies on TM and PTSD in veterans have found in a fraction of the time. I always waned to be a TM teacher, but never thought I was mentally stable enough to become one. Even so, I can help out a little bit, if the practice really is worth what the research suggests it is worth. If the practice isn't as worthwhile, I want research done that will credibly find the truth, period. And TM isn't meant to be a hypertension therapy per se so the fact that it has such benefits is very interesting. I didn't know that Maharishi pooh-poohed aerobic exercise. I always heard "engage in as much dynamic activity as possible without hurting yourself." The flipside, of course, is why you care? I met you online what, 15-20 years ago? You weren't as anti-TM as you appear to be now, even though you made clear that you no longer practiced it. What changed? L Gee Bawee, Lawson sounds so much more balanced and reasonable in this post than you did in what he is responding to. What could this mean? Maybe you aren't all you think you are, maybe you have no idea what kind of a narrow-minded, chest thumping hypocrite you appear to be. You are trying to put us all on on purpose, right? ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <turquoiseb@...> wrote : The part that's difficult for me to understand, Lawson, is how you could possibly CARE so much about whether the technique of meditation you once learned "wins" and is proven "best" in scientific studies. Could it possibly be that you were brainwashed for years by being told that by MMY and his TM teachers that it *was* "the best," and now feel as much of a compulsion to "prove" it as they did? Try to imagine someone spending as much time as you spend promoting TM and proselytizing its supposed benefits for something they had once bought, like, say, a car. It would be pretty weird to see someone that evangelistic about a Ford, or a Chevy, seemingly driven to prove it "the best" and spending hours every week trying to do so, right? You did notice that the only therapy/treatment to be rated A and I (thus "the best") is something that Maharishi once decried as terrible and a waste of breath, and thus life, right? He used to pooh-pooh and discourage any kind of aerobic exercise until students at MIU started failing standardized fitness tests. Interesting that dynamic aerobic exercise kicks his technique's butt in this study.
