--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Llundrub" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
"... discovered that the basic TM practice as we know it is incomplete and really more of a first level kind of introductory practice. And that the whole "knowledge package" presented by MMY is kind of cobbled together from assorted sources and presented as the whole picture while in reality it is just neo-vedic mumbo jumbo with the main purpose of just placating psuedo seekers with a promise of effortless spiritual growth." I am not sure who wrote the above. I tend, however, to agree to some extent. Maharishi made it up as he went along, trying to understand the West and marketing his wisdom by trying to make it increasingly `just what the Americans wanted'. He started out with a single `way' of using one mantra, ram /raam/. That `way' of using the mantra was, actually, all he ever had and is still the whole thing, the only thing. But, it's brilliant; especially when you decide you've had enough of what Maharishi is offering (and the craziness his organization seems to demand). Moving on to explore other offerings in the spiritual market, one finds that Maharishi's `way' of returning to the base or foundation of whatever new practise you are exploring is ideal for discovering just what you are working with. I give Maharishi a lot of credit. Maybe he started out in England sitting on a dirty deerskin (someone told me that his deerskin was Guru Dev's ... probably apocryphal, but a nice thought) and was overwhelmed by success. In the 10 years I knew him, he could be quite the naïveté about things ordinary to Westerners – we, on the other hand, were just as naive about the things he was full of (no surprise there!). But, as Rick says he learned, absolutely YES: Maharishi equated $ with success, material as well as spiritual ... because the material can only come from the spiritual (and this is precisely how his reasoning on the matter goes). Hence, he tells us how "advanced" he is by printing his own money! Does this make him a bad person, a charlatan, a corrupter of youth, a fraud, etc.? That can only depend on where you are coming from. That single gift of his "way" of returning to the base or foundation of meditation is beyond measure. Maharishi often made it clear that he didn't like the hangers-on. Trouble was, he needed someone to help; hard-working as he was, he simply couldn't do it all. So the hangers-on eventually morphed into his rather loony organization which tries to shape things in its own warped image of how things should be. It must be very sad for Maharishi to have such vision and to have to depend upon such blindness. What might have been? Who knows. What is? Well, what is is what is and what you make of it. Despite having been party to many of Maharishi's fits of pique and downright meanness on occasion, I am still quite fond of him. Would I want to be part of his inner circle? NO, NO, NO, NO. NO. My thoughts on the matter: take what he has given, an almost magical `way' and go about enjoying your life. G To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
