--- In [email protected], "authfriend" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > --- In [email protected], "curtisdeltablues" > <curtisdeltablues@> wrote: > > > > "I still like my idea that "sounds whose effects > > are known" refers to *all* the bija mantras as > > a whole, i.e., they all have good effects, whereas > > words like "mike" and so on would have little if > > any effect." > > > > This is the heart of this for me. Why do we assume that > > effortlessly meditating with different sounds has a different > > effect at all? > > I can speak only from my own experience, but shortly > after I learned TM, I experimented using "Jesus" as > my mantra, with disappointing results.
While I do not dispute Judy's personal, subjective experience, I might suggest that it could have easily have been caused by "preprogramming." She had been told -- and told emphatically, as if it were Truth -- that the TM mantras were unique and caused uniquely beneficial effects. Having been told that HAD to have affected any "experiment" she later performed. All I can present as an alternative is my own experience teaching forms of meditation OTHER than TM. I taught classes to hundreds of people, NEVER using a "puja" or any other tradition form of "initiation." When the meditation involved a mantra (not all of the techniques did), the mantras were NOT the TM mantras, and were simply spoken aloud to a group of people in a large room, who then proceeded to meditate using them. Their experiences with the meditation were easily as deep and as clear and as subjectively beneficial as ANY of the experiences of my own students during the time I taught TM. I don't think there is ANYTHING special or partic- ularly beneficial or unique about either the TM mantras or the way they are used. And that's based on having practiced more than one technique of meditation, and on having taught more than one technique of meditation. I'm not trying to "sell" anything, or claim that any approach or any tech- nique is "better." I'm only presenting my exper- iences, just as Judy did.
