do.rflx wrote:
I look at the quantity of people like myself in that seemingly
'unique' and 'special' time frame who were 'lost' in the darker side
of the hippie daze [days], or just plain 'lost' - and because of TM
became positive and hopeful for probably the first time in many of
their lives. The life-saving transformation that happened to me must
also have been evident in hundreds of thousands of others in those days.
Bronte writes:
You guys make a point that needs to be considered: the fact that TM did save
a lot (most?) of us drugged-out hippies from a nose-diving lifestyle. I, too,
had that experience. The first time I transcended, the tears rolled down my
cheeks for 20 minutes. I had felt so isolated for so many years, believing in
nothing beyond the world of the senses. In that 20-minute session, I knew
beyond a doubt there was a God. I felt a sense of presence I hadn't known since
I was a little girl. All the noise in my mind had turned to stillness.
And TM quickly also changed my life, in ways much like other people's stories
already told here. So if the TMO, or New Age in general, is -- as has been
alleged -- manipulating people into becoming mindless zombies, or
nice-guys-turned-possessed (Hitler: a worst-case example) -- how can that
possibly be, when TM brought so much good into our lives? I've thought about
this a good deal, and I think it is a very important question.
What I come up with is this. TM did deliver experience of the stillest states
of awareness, that most of us had been too outward-directed ever to have
noticed before. It pointed us toward home. That was fantastic. But just as a
bad product offer can include a really good freebie giveaway, TM attached a
pretty big pricetag to the good that it gave us. That pricetag wasn't noticed
until we'd been meditating a long time, until we'd bought the philosophy hook
line and sinker. Kind of like those credit card deals that start out with zero
interest then slowly build interest until you're amazed to find yourself
swimming in debt.
The pricetag was, you pay a toll to the gods to ride the road to
transcendence. You get to pure consciousness using a toll road highway. At
first you're asked for only a tiny toll, no pinch at all. You're informed this
is the only way to the ocean -- taking the freeway is far too dangerous. So the
aspirant flies down the toll road, thrilled to be using it, paying 35 cents at
a tollbooth now and then. But as the years go by, the toll charge rises -- he
gets an advanced technique, he starts reading Vedas to the gods every day,
listening to chants -- his mantra gets "namah" added to it. Bowing, bowing
down. Delivering soma to the gods.
Longer and longer hours are spent meditating, and he's told this is good for
him. But his health is getting weaker now, he feels irritability where he used
to only feel peace. He has little time for personal pursuits because the
movement requires his fulltime service. (I'm not saying everyone who meditates
experiences weak health after a while, but a lot of people do.)
But the aspirant rarely complains because he's told he's getting so much good
from all this. He probably hasn't noticed a lot of progress in a long time. But
he believes -- why? Because of those first great initiatory experiences! Back
when the toll was 35 cents. Back when he visited his inner Source and came back
again, infused with its values, dynamic into activity. But now his energy is
going to Indra and Kali, Shiva and Saraswati. Pictures of gods line the walls
of his house. An alter is in his bedroom. And because he's not happy, perhaps
he starts to visit other gurus, hoping for renewal of those early days of
purity and joy. But instead he just accumulates more teachers, who teach the
very same things only rearranged a little. They give him a new mantra or a
special name. Maybe they give him a hug. He has so much invested already -- all
these years of his life! So he hangs on yet stronger, dedicating even more of
himself to spiritual advancement.
And he is taught to how to handle the frustration, that feeling he used to
get that his life was supposed to be more. That is just egoistic desire, he is
told. So he surrenders his personal needs. When his mind starts questioning, he
also has been taught the solution to that: know that the wise embrace paradox
-- nothing is real, no thing is true. Everything but the Absolute is illusion.
The aspirant surrenders mind and desire. He offers them on the alter of his
meditation, of his devotion. He sings more hymns to the gods. "Oh, Mother,
relieve me from this suffering." She does. The goddess does. The aspirant feels
better after meditation and chanting. His depression miraculously disappears.
It comes back, but it goes away when he meditates. He knows the gracious gods
are taking his pain away. Relieved of so much of what once made him a person,
he feels much less pain. Life seems to flow these days, quite easily. Almost
like he has to do nothing. He feels one with the universe much of the time. The
rest of the time he's irritable or depressed. Sometimes he rages at people. He
doesn't know why he's discontent sometimes. But his teachers have an answer:
surrender your ego completely. All this is just selfish, limited ego. The wise
man knows he is not the personality, not the one who desires, not the one who
does or the one who thinks. The wise man knows all
that is but ignorance. You suffer because you wallow still in illusion. Eschew
the ego. Surrender to the Self -- by way of our mantras, chants and hymns to
the gods. Then you will be free of the last vestiges of human suffering.
So the aspirant does this. He pays the ultimate toll. He allows his
personhood to be fully consumed. And who does he pay it to, the Absolute? No,
to the gods themselves. They it is who eat the fruit of the sacrifice. They it
is he bows down to every day, and now every moment, replacing his very thoughts
with the name of his assigned deity.
The Absolute didn't want him to surrender. It didn't mind his thoughts and
desires. It could have given him the wonderful things he once wanted. It waits
with open arms for anyone who comes to it, and is ready to grant every wish.
But the poor man on the toll road, who knew no other way, gave all he had to
the gods and his guru for the privilege of knowing the Transcendent. Yes, he
gets to have it in the end. But the price has been his personhood. The price to
the Transcendent has been the destruction of the soul of one of its precious
children. Only a zombie remains -- an empty shell through which the gods can
work their deeds and talk their talk, snaring new seekers and "selling" the
Transcendent to others.
But the ocean was never really up for sale. God never had a price tag. Heaven
was never intended to turn into a racket. The Infinite weeps for what is being
done on earth in its name. And all the while it sits there, free, for anyone
who will look.
So when Angela asks, what is really happening? I listen with both ears. I'm
looking beyond the appearances. I'm asking the tough questions. Am I scared of
what I'll find? Don't I have cherished assumptions, a world view that could
crash? That has already happened, and guess what, I'm still here. Because when
my world view crashed, it left but one thing behind. It left my Isness. I found
that I'm immortal, that I'm always joined with God. Nothing can ever sever me
unless I give it permission.
No one can take my personhood or my knowledge. I'm filled with dynamic energy
and original ways of seeing. In spite of many still remaining flaws, which I'll
work out because I've committed to that, I'm a fairly clear channel for my God.
Not god with a small g, but God the Infinite. God, as in the magnificent power
and love that created this world in hopes of making something joyous and
beautiful. The God who saw that dream lost by the ignorance of its children,
then railroaded by a few who started to remember and told the still-asleep that
they were gods.
TM gave us something. But that was the thing that was always free to us
anyway, had we only known where to look. It's something that still waits for
us, never demanding we pay a toll. It's there for the experiencing, without
gods or mantras, bajans or ego-suicide. It's just what we Are, and it just Is.
"do.rflex" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
--- In [email protected], "Rick Archer" <[EMAIL
PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> From: [email protected]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> On Behalf Of do.rflex
> Sent: Monday, October 15, 2007 10:51 AM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Mahesh and Hitler
>
>
>
> Absolutely. My case wasn't as extreme but Transcendental Meditation
> got me to stop drug use and to get my act together. My ultra
> conservative Irish Catholic father whom I'd considered an asshole,
> became one of my best supporters. After I'd practiced TM for about a
> year he told me, "That meditation saved your life, boy." And after I
> became a TM teacher my father asked me to initiate him. Now THAT'S a
> miracle! And if you had known my father, you'd agree.
>
> I had similar experiences with my parents. My dad was an alcoholic
and my
> mom was in a mental hospital. TM helped them both tremendously. My mom
> actually spent 9 months in Switzerland with MMY and came back quite
> transformed. I'm grateful to him for allowing her to come. It was a
gift to
> me, as he knew very well she wouldn't accomplish much there.
I look at the quantity of people like myself in that seemingly
'unique' and 'special' time frame who were 'lost' in the darker side
of the hippie daze [days], or just plain 'lost' - and because of TM
became positive and hopeful for probably the first time in many of
their lives. The life-saving transformation that happened to me must
also have been evident in hundreds of thousands of others in those days.
---------------------------------
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