Outsiders have no clue what TM means let alone the infinite amount of
meditations
available. Take a poll of 'meditators' (including Yoga people), and they have
0 interest!
--- In FairfieldLife@ yahoogroups. com, "authfriend" <jst...@....>
wrote:
>
> --- In FairfieldLife@ yahoogroups. com, TurquoiseB <no_reply@> wrote:
> >
> > So no, Judy, I've never been religious. And yes,
> > I have always viewed most religion as the *anti-
> > thesis* of self discovery. Still do.
>
> Total agreement.
>
> If I could follow up:
>
> But you now believe that TM is a religion, not a
> means of self-discovery?
I believe that many in the TM movement have
turned basic TM into a religion, one that has
something but not everything to do with its
origins *as* a religious technique. I believe
that the environment of the *TMO* is very
definitely religious in nature currently, and
is actively seeking to hide that.
> Because it seems that for
> a few years, at least, you were having the
> experience of self-discovery as a result of the
> practice.
I was pursuing my own self discovery while
practicing the TM technique. I am not con-
vinced that all of the "discovery" happened
"as a result" of that practice. In fact, I
think that a lot of it just happened, similar
to the way that shit just happens.
*At the time*, I would have "credited" TM
for those experiences; now I would not and
do not.
I am trying to be as precise as I possibly
can here.
> What if you had learned TM and continued to
> meditate but never became a TM teacher or went any
> further with the techniques or teachings? Would you
> ever have come to be uncomfortable with the practice
> because you felt it was religious?
If I had never become a TM teacher, I am
fairly confident that I would have given
up on the TM technique at the five-year mark.
One of my reasons for attending TM Teacher
Training was to either "jumpstart" the tech-
nique such that I began perceived sufficient
benefits from TM to continue practicing it,
or quit altogether. The jumpstart worked,
for a number of years, but then when I no
longer perceived sufficient benefit, I quit.
I did NOT stop TM because I thought it was
religious. I stopped primarly because as
far as I could tell it was doing nothing
to further my self discovery.
Secondarily, I guit because as a TM teacher
I was being asked to lie and do other things
on a regular basis that I found to be con-
trary to my own ethics and repulsive to my
values.
Thirdly, I quit because the TM movement was
clearly going in a direction I did not want
to go -- towards becoming more of a cult,
and away from openness and transparency. The
question of whether that "direction" was in
the direction of becoming more of a religion
would not and did not occur to me. It was
just no longer an organization I wanted to
be associated with.
> If you had stuck with basic TM but then read the
> translation of the puja years later and been told
> the mantras were the names of Hindu deities, would
> that have soured you on the practice?
No. Not me personally. It would have soured
some friends who *started* from a fairly
religious background; I did not. At the time,
all I would have cared about was that it
seemed to work.
I now see that "seeming to work" period as
more of a *contrast* between my life up till
then, practicing no form of meditation reg-
ularly, and then practicing *some* form of
meditation regularly. *Of course* I felt
some benefits at the start. When I stopped
feeling those benefits, I moved on and found
other techniques from which the sense of them
"working" and providing continuing benefits
did not "fade" and has not faded in any of
the years since.
> Would it have
> become less about self-discovery for you?
No. It would have been irrelevant.
But it would not have been irrelevant to, say,
the former Catholic priest who shared a trailer
with me at Humboldt. If the origin and the
nature of the mantras had not been hidden from
him, he would never have begun TM. Some months
later, he *did* learn about those origins,
and dropped TM like a hot potato. He also
felt betrayed and lied to.
That's because IMO he *was* betrayed and lied
to, by people like yourself who were trying to
"protect" him from knowledge he "didn't need"
to know.
> You say, "The vast majority of religions -- modern
> and ancient -- strove to *prevent* that kind of inner
> exploration rather than facilitate it."
>
> Would it be fair to say Hinduism is one of the
> minority of religions that still strives to facilitate
> inner exploration?
Absolutely not, not in my opinion. Mainstream
Hinduism *in India* probably attempts to limit
and prevent the mystical experience as much as
the Catholic Church does, and stresses faith
more than anything else. But many of the "off-
spring" of Indian Hinduism, transplanted to
the West, found that Westerners were more
interested in inner exploration than they were
in faith, and so it became more of the focus
of their teachings.
Westerners had -- in the 50s and 60s -- Had It
Up To Here with faith. They didn't WANT any
organization or teaching that required them to
have faith. They wanted EXPERIENCE. That, IMO,
was one of the reasons for the psychedelic
revolution in the 60s.
Yoga, transplanted to the West, and meditation,
transplanted to the West by Yogananda and MMY
others, appealed to that desire for experience.
Maharishi, in my opinion, provided a "baby
steps" technique of meditation that could
provide a little of that experience, hoping
that Westerners would *settle* for a little,
and for "baby steps."
They did not. When (from my perspective, having
been there at the time, whereas you were not)
large numbers of TMers and TM Teachers began
to *leave* the TM movement, feeling that they
had "plateaued out" on the baby steps technique
of TM, Maharishi introduced the siddhis, to try
to keep them around. That worked on some. It
did not work on me. I took the course and con-
sidered it Just Another Baby Step. I was looking
for something more, and left in search of it.
Others found *enough* in TM and the siddhis to
stick around. Or to stick around longer than I
did. Some are happy with what they learned from
Maharishi to this day. I am happy for them if
they feel that way.
Me, I needed more, and went in search of it,
and from my point of view found it. The issue
of whether TM and the TMO constituted a religion
were NEVER a part of my decision to "go forth"
in search of something more.
However, for the former priest who shared my
trailer at that Humboldt course, NO AMOUNT
of "payoff" from TM would have enticed him to
stick around once he found out the origin of
the mantras and the translation of the puja.
He would not have trusted Maharishi or any
of the members of the TM movement if they
told him the time of day, much less that they
had his "best interests" in mind by hiding
this information from him originally.
So, bottom line, the issue of whether TM or
the TMO were a religion had nothing to do with
*MY* walking away from TM. But that issue was
and will continue to be important to those
who feel a loyalty to a particular religion,
and later find that information was hidden
from them that caused them to (in their own
eyes) violate the tenets of that religion.
That is essentially what you have been advo-
cating lately.
