--- In [email protected], "Rick Archer" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > On Behalf Of do.rflex > > > Rick mentioned "a number of instances" besides that one. > Perhaps he will clarify. > > Maharishi often referred to himself as a master. Not always > in the first person, but often as "a master does this" or > "a the master does that," obviously implying that he was > one and does things that way. There are passages in his > Gita commentary like that. Another more specific example > was something he said to a friend of mine (no Nabby, I > wasn't there. My friend told me later). He said, "A time > comes when a master decides to get personally involved > in the disciple's evolution." He was dangling a carrot > in front of my friend.
I agree with Rick that Maharishi used the term often, and often attempted to convey the impression that he was such a master. That said, however, I honestly think that the story on this is that Maha- rishi isn't all that bright or a scholar, and his entire feeling for what a "master" entails is based on just that -- a feeling. He found himself -- a bhakti by nature, *not* a scholar -- in an ashram headed up by someone (GD) who, if all reports are to be believed, "invited" being considered a "master" because he handled himself with mastery. The respect that people had for him (GD) was because of the way he lived his life, not because he demanded it. This implied master-disciple relationship was further enhanced because it was *normal* in Hindu society; almost everyone who was attracted to the ashram grew up on stories of "spiritual masters" and the tales of how students were "supposed to" act around them. So *that* was Maharishi's "education" in what a spiritual "master" was -- seeing one in action, and the way that all of Guru Dev's students treated him. Segue to Maharishi going out and trying to teach on his own. He naturally expected everyone to treat *him* the same way. They didn't, because he had done nothing to deserve it. He didn't display any of the mastery of conscious- ness that GD had; he didn't display much of Guru Dev's famous equanimity and self-effacement and humility, and in fact, he often displayed the opposite. *And*, Maharishi was dealing with Westerners who had *not* been brought up to *assume* a master-disiple rela- tionship with a spiritual teacher with whom they had chosen to work. So IMO Maharishi set about *training* his students in how to treat him. He did this via example. Those who kowtowed to him and treated him the way he expected to be treated (that is, with the awe and reverence and the unquestioning obedience Maharishi had felt for GD) got praised and elevated to high positions within his organizations. Those who did *not* treat him that way got ignored or scorned or yelled at or, if they couldn't be manipulated into treating him the way he wanted to be treated, got sent away in disgrace. The latter was often the most effective "teach by example" technique; all of the students had been told since Day One how "unique" TM was, and how it was the "highest path," and most of them actually believed it. Shemp and Nabbie still do, obviously. So they're not *about* to blow their shot at the "highest path" by doing something that could get them kicked out. The bottom line, as I see it, is that Maharishi has always demanded that his students *treat* him as a "spiritual master," one who gets intimately involved in the lives of his students, without ever doing much of anything to *deserve* being thought of or treated that way. He really doesn't, as far as I can tell, have any of the *knowledge* of WHAT TO DO to be the kind of master who gets intimately involved in the karmas of his individual students; when he tries, he often fucks it up. There is a great deal of training and spiritual literature surrounding what it takes to be that kind of teacher, and to have that kind of relationship with one's students, and the *responsibilities* implied by accepting that kind of relationship *as* a "master." Suffice it to say that the responsi- bilities are much greater for the master than for the disciple. As far as I can tell, Maharishi has read none of this, knows none of this, and has always just been faking it, based solely on *his* imagined relationship with Guru Dev. He wants to be revered as if he had a Ph.D. in being a spiritual "master," but he's never even earned a B.A. HE NEVER DID THE HOMEWORK. Vaj and Bharitu and I and others have met teachers who HAVE done the homework. I don't think any of us are in the market for a "master," but if we were, we've seen a few people who would qualify for that position. In my honest, considered opinion, Maharishi does not qualify, and never has. Yet he demands that his students treat him *as if* he qualified. It's all about pretense. Maharishi pretends to be the kind of teacher one can legitimately relate to as a "master." A lot of the students, who have been to some extent brainwashed by all the bhakti stories into wanting a "master," pretend to have that kind of relationship with Maharishi. And then, to cap it all off, when these same pretender-students who basically have moodmade themselves into believing that they have a true master-disciple relationship with the pretender-master go out and interact with their families and people in the real world, they *deny* that they are in a master-disciple (really master-slave) relationship with Maharishi. They pretend that he's just a teacher that they revere because of all the scientific mumbo-jumbo and because he "invented" TM. It's all pretense, from the top to the bottom. And that's my honest, considered opinion on the subject. *Only* opinion, and others are free to have contradictory opinions, but this was mine.
