--- In [email protected], TurquoiseB <no_re...@...> wrote: > > The ONLY way to keep this essentially religious > dogma from being taught in schools is to not > allow it to be taught there in the first place. > We simply cannot TRUST TM Teachers to "leave out" > the parts of the dogma that are directly derived > from Hindu thought when they present the three > nights of checking, let alone afterwards, as they > try to suck these students into "Advanced Tech- > niques" and the Siddhis. And *everyone* here > knows that that's exactly what they will do.
So, you might ask, what WOULD I support as a suitable use of David Lynch's money, to achieve his laudable goal of making meditation more available to students? 1. Open the program to *all* popular forms of meditation, not just TM. If a school agrees to the program, they cannot be agreeing to fund only the TM movement. 2. The "quiet time" periods are open to anyone practicing any form of meditation or contemplation. The only requirement is that you sit quietly and do not bother the other students for the allotted period of time. 3. No on-campus instruction. Lynch's fund can pay for TM instruction, but somewhere else, not on campus. If his fund doesn't want to pay for instruction in some other form of meditation, that is understandable. Perhaps those other forms of meditation will develop similar programs to subsidize teaching their form of meditation, or teach it for free. Hell, many of them *already* teach for free. 4. No on-campus "checking." Students can ask for checking or followup, and the school can help to arrange it with the meditation provider (not necessarily the TMO if the student is practicing some other form), but it should not be done on campus. By ANY of the providers. The temptation to evan- gelize is just too great, and cannot be resisted; history has shown us that. 5. No on-campus solicitation of students to "take the next course" or "get an Advanced Technique" or "learn the siddhis" or "go on a retreat or residence course." Again, by ANY of the providers. If they want to evan- gelize and recruit into their cult or religion, they have to do it OFF CAMPUS. Those are my positive thoughts on the matter. You guys can now pick them apart as you want. I really WOULD like to see more people med- itating. It's just that I see this initiative as a desperate ploy by the TMO to *sell more mantras to schoolkids*, because they are incapable of selling them to anyone else. The bottom line for me is that I think that this program, as it stands today, 1) violates the Constitution, and 2) forces school systems and parents to TRUST THE PROVIDERS. In my hastily-written program above, I don't think that either of those things are a problem. The other bottom line is that if there is any- thing that history should have taught us, YOU CANNOT TRUST THE TM MOVEMENT. If there is a way to evangelize, they will do it. Hell, they feel that it's their sacred DUTY to evangelize. If there is a way to fuck it up, they will find it. And if there is a way to use this system to funnel more money into the TMO, they will find that. I think my system is more fair -- to the kids, to the school systems, to the parents, to the providers of meditation instruction, and to the U.S. Constitution. If you don't agree, do better. Let's hear YOUR proposal.
