After thinking over the last day about where Maharishi went wrong, I have reached the following conclusions:
He starts out as a naive Indian student and seeker. By naive I mean he knows very little about the West, or the rest of the world outside India. I suspect too that he was probably kind of a geek as a householder, physics student and all... He is fortunate through his seeking to find Brahmananda Saraswati, and commences his study with him. He also decides he will be a celibate monk, etc. Through his association with Guru Dev, he derives a clear understanding of Reality, and finds he can speak about it clearly too. I think what was going on here was a couple of things: Maharishi comes from India where Hinduism and the knowledge of the Veda are relatively commonplace. When I think about his early exposition of his teaching, there is not a lot of content, just some mantras and their proper use, derived from his closeness to Guru Dev. Profound knowledge to be sure, though something which could be derived relatively quickly with the proper guidance, if one is already operating within a supportive cultural context for such knowledge. Combine this with his ability to speak well, and possessing a charismatic personality, and who emerges? Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Then as he spreads his message and the knowledge of the mantras, absorbed by him from Guru Dev, he enjoys enormous success. The success is due to him having a systematic and practical technique to back up his speaking. However, he remains a naive monk from India. He also has the ambition to enlighten the world. Given his experience up til then, and 'cooking' in Guru Dev's presence for years, it seems a reasonable ambition. As he becomes more and more successful, beyond his wildest dreams I am sure, he begins to see that those around him are granting him unlimited power over them. He now begins to equate the rudimentary knowledge that he has perfected, the teaching of TM mantras, with himself. He also sees that to ever admit that he is less than perfect will possibly jeopardize his teaching amongst his followers, and consequently his ambition to enlighten the world. Here we come to the good part: So now, Maharishi finds himself in a position where he has a lot of power, unfulfilled desires, and little knowledge about the West. A potentially explosive combo for sure. He begins to act out his unfulfilled desires for sex and hobnobbing with the rich and powerful; pretty common desires in the world. At the same time, he is aware from the feedback he has received that he is seen as a realized Master (and he is probably pretty high on himself at this point too...). This sets up the key quandry for Maharishi: If he acts on his desires and is open about it, he will disappoint the vision of himself that his followers, and he himself, has of himself, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the celibate monk. If he doesn't act on his desires, this 'guru' business just isn't all that much fun, is it? So he makes his fatal mistake: He will act on his desires for sex and hobnobbing with the rich, only he won't admit it to his public, and possibly not to himself as time goes on... And it works for awhile, however unbeknownst to Maharishi, Guru Dev has planted a time bomb of sorts associated with this type of deception. Unlike a businessman or politician who indulges in the abuse of power, the sins of a meditator, including Maharishi, will come to light more quickly with far more devastating consequences, for the simple reason that the use of the TM mantra leads to an irrevocable expansion of awareness. And what you are aware of, you are accountable for. This expansion of awareness in Maharishi and those around him meant that on a subtle feeling level he was literally broadcasting his hidden desires, while at the same time attempting to keep them quiet on the surface. Like the wife of a husband who is cheating on her, those around Maharishi knew on a subtle level something was wrong, but their infatuation with 'the monk from India' illusion kept them from seeing it clearly, and calling him on it. This then led to the dyfunction common in such situations. The impact on Maharishi's organization was devestating, especially so because of the ongoing expansion of awareness experienced by the group. There is obviously no way to support the very selective expansion of awareness; it leads to warping of the mind. As all of us here can attest, with our ongoing meditations, awareness expands 360 degrees, not selectively as we may wish it to. To make a long story short, this was the undoing of Maharishi. Although he has continued to grow and change, he has never been able to put the genie back in the bottle. His organization, mirroring his need for deception has become necessarily deformed from what it might have been, similar to an inflating balloon which is being stepped on. The purity of the teaching remains. TM can still be taught effectively by all the teachers who would do so. However, Maharishi's ambitions have been curtailed by Guru Dev because he abused his power. Jai Guru Dev, Jim --- In [email protected], Rick Archer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: <snip> Around 1990 one of the big donors once sat in a room with me > chatting and very seriously told me that Maharishi had > told him something like the more money you have, the > more evolved you are. > > So Maharishi feeds these people this kind of thing all > the time. > > I just sat there dazed....I mean how do you answer > something like that. He sure was in his own puffed up world... 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