Vaj said: In traditions which use mantra as a path, the initial part of the path the mantra is used for "transcending". Later, in order to get the full benefit of the mantra, it's meaning is investigated at different levels. There is more to a mantra than it's translation into vaikhari (vocalized speech). -- Transcendence is the beginning stage, meaning comes later. --------- I have no reason to argue with this; but if we go back to the basics of Maharishi's "transcendental" meditation and look at the core teaching found in the checking procedure, we find something that I think is really, really astounding and has been there for nearly 40 years: "when we close the eyes, naturally we feel some quiet, some silence".
Quiet and silence come naturally. The mantra is somewhat artificial, a tool, one among many, to keep us on track so that the natural part can take place. The Buddhists generally use the breath as this basic or core tool, keeping mind and body together. Where I see an important distinction to be made between what Maharishi teaches (or at least what he taught when I spend a couple of years with him) and what the Buddhists teach is that "meaning" comes quite early in the Buddhist teaching. One learns the intellectual basics if not first then concurrent with the experience of sam�dih; i.e., knowing what you are doing, understanding what is going on is on an equal footing with the practice/experience itself. I didn't see this, particularly, in the `old days' when the emphasis was on *just meditate and the rest will come by itself*. I am not so sure that "meaning" comes by itself. In a Buddhist sense, as far as I understand it, meaning and insight are synonymous while meaning and intellectual-knowing are not. Meaning and insight or meaning and understanding have to be supported by two things: teachings (intellectual-knowing) and experience (sam�dhi). I didn't see this so much in the TM tradition, which is why I got fed up with Maharishi's "teachings" which seemed to be more like crabgrass spreading across a lawn than a well thought out teaching taking us from point A to point B in a comprehensible and meaningful way. In both cases, Buddhist and TM, you can just do the basic meditation and find that you feel pretty good and that life smoothes out some the of wrinkles we were stumbling over before. But I am not sure that Maharishi's teachings are any help in this regard, there is just more and more to do, learn, "buy" to take the place of beneficial, meaningful teachings leading to greater awareness and the "meaning" of the transcendent. I'd appreciate your thoughts here. 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/
