--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "boo_lives" <boo_li...@...> wrote:
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "sparaig" > <LEnglish5@> wrote: > > > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "shukra69" > > <shukra69@> wrote: > > > > > > There is nothing in doing TM that conflicts with > > > doing any religion as currently practiced. There > > > is no insult to any intelligence. > > > > There are specific religions which followers of obsess > > about the fact that TM mantras are used in religious > > ceremonies in India. These same people become very > > worried when I point out that some religions consider > > photocopying of religious art for any reason (including > > homework assignments for art class) to be a religious > > act in that religion or that witnessing the local > > Indian dancers doing a rain dance would be > > "participation" in someone else's religion. > > > > Likewise with hearing "sacred music" from the wrong > > religion (or any music at all) on the radio. > > > According the tm movt if a meditator attends a lecture > by some "guru" or saint then that person has jeopardized > their meditation practice and cannot be allowed to > meditate in the domes because they will contaminate the > experience. I'm not even talking about doing some other > practice, just attending a meeting. > > Yet you seem to agree with the tmo that spending many > hrs per day mentally doing mantras and sutras taken > from classic hindu texts and ceremonies has nothing to > do with hinduism. This seems a contradiction to me. Don't know whether that's what Lawson had in mind, but shukra's original assertion (quoted at the top) to which Lawson was responding refers only to practicing TM, not the TM-Sidhis, much less group program in the Fairfield domes. Vaj's objection was also couched only in terms of doing plain-vanilla TM: "I'm speaking in general of Abrahamic religions. If they were told and given full disclosure up front: hey guys and gals, this is a meditation method based on mentally repeating the seed syllables of Indian Tantric pagan goddesses to awaken this goddess within you (creative intelligence) and allow you to achieve a thought-free (transcendental), peaceful state--they most likely wouldn't go for it." (The "allow you" part of the above isn't accurate, of course, except as something that may happen during meditation. Achieving a thought-free state is a means to an end, not the final goal.) Don't know whether shukra would limit his assertion to plain-vanilla TM either, but only if he did would I agree without qualification. The more one gets into the teachings and the advanced practices, the dicier it gets. > personally i don't think the tm/sidhi program is > necessarily hindu, Doesn't have to be for there to be conflicts with non- Hindu religions. (On the other hand, some of MMY's teaching conflicts with some traditional understandings of Hinduism.) > though i do think most people in the domes are part > of the maharishiism religion. Ultimately, I think it's possible to understand religions in general, including "Maharishiism," as versions of a subjective science (in the Ken Wilber sense) rather than as purely belief systems. In that case, conflicts would have to do with what *works*, which is a whole 'nother kettle of fish. And most religions these days have lost touch with their subjective-science nature in any case. I still think the most important thing to bear in mind is that if, as a religious person, you don't believe in what another religion teaches, practices of that other religion that don't involve conscious professions of faith in its teachings cannot conflict with your own beliefs, just as a matter of logic.
