Fwd: what I am thinking about The Maharishi Years -- The Untold Story by Deepak Chopra
interesting ... I think Deepak was brilliant as a communicater, but he did not fully understand M.s teaching, and his books distorted it, altho he did inspire lots of initiations ... I think M wanted him close so Deepak could rest and learn better M's knowlege so he could present it accurately ... even in this note Deepak says: vedanta says "the material world is an illusion" Maharishi says the expanded awareness sees that relative is penetrated and permeated by the absolute so in the profoundest sense, the relative is the carrier, the dispenser of the absolute. the absolute manifests via the relative ... so it is not just an illusion. Seeing it simply as an illusion was the superficiality of the understanding before Maharisi came. I think Deepak never took SCI or teacher training, and tho he might have had many personal conversations with Maharishi, it seems to me from his writing that his understanding of Maharishi's knowledge was very incomplete ... and a little distortion can pervert the teaching. I think that may be why Maharishi wanted to have Deepak spend more time with him before he wrote more books, so popular, but misrepresentative ... In this message Deepak mentions surprise that an enlightened person would be materialistic (M talks about 200% of life, does not promote asceticism ) If I remember correctly, in his books Deepak was a proponent of positive thinking as well ... (M said "if a poor man repeats over and over I am rich, I am rich, I am rich that does not make him a rich man") Also, M said, "but the mountain doesn't moooove!! when the faith of the mustard seed moving mountains story came up ... I could be wrong of course, but I always felt Deepak's writing showed a lack of understanding of Maharishi's teaching.
