--- In [email protected], "Hugo" <richardhughes...@...> wrote:
>
> Noisy flying rooms were the norm for a long time until
> one day Marshy happened to be walking past the one at
> Seelisberg (I think it was) and later asked what all the
> noise was about as YF should be done silently. After that,
> it was. Easy as that.
>
> Clearly, expectations of the type of behaviour expected
> have a part to play in this.
I was hoping that someone would weigh in on
this. I remembered the incident having been
mentioned, but couldn't remember the details,
and Yahoo Search is not working for me.
THIS is the story that makes "mass hysteria"
the only plausible explanation for such public
displays of idiocy. The same thing finally
happened in Fiuggi, after the course leaders
threatened to send the "twitchers" home and
not make them teachers. Suddenly most of the
twitching stopped or, if it was still present,
was suppressed and no longer put on display
as if "something good was happening."
That's why I use the word "indulging" when
referring to the people who do this. It's just
like "coming back to the mantra." If they have
the ability to NOT indulge in it ("it" being
either pursuing thoughts in meditation rather
than coming back to the mantra or barking/
grunting/shouting/twitching/making an ass of
yourself on the foam), then the phenomenon is
clearly a candidate for "mass hysteria." If
when the mass hysteria is no longer indulged
by those in power it suddenly stops, then it
never needed to be indulged in the first place.
I think that the ultimate source of such phen-
omena can be found in a fundamental piece of
dogma that most TMers bought into during the
three days of checking and have never examined
since to see if it was true: "TM is 100% life-
supporting."
This, in my opinion, is complete and utter bull-
shit. It is used as a thought-stopper to "explain
away" negative physical and emotional side effects
of TM or the siddhis as "unstressing." It is also
used as a club to bash anyone who complains of
something that clearly is NOT "life-supporting,"
like developing headaches in meditation. The
response in those cases is to blame the victim:
"It's YOUR fault...you must be 'straining on the
mantra.'"
The fault, IMO, lies in the dogma itself. and the
blind acceptance of it by far too many otherwise
intelligent people who would never stand for it
if it were told to them, say, by the salesman who
sold them the car that is now billowing smoke
from its engine compartment. Can you imagine being
told by that salesman, "It's OK...it's just some
normal unstressing on the part of the car. Take
it easy, take it as it comes. Everything will be
fine because it's just not *possible* for this
to be an indicator that something is wrong with
the car. The car is 100% perfect."
And yet tens of thousands of people bought this
hook, line, and sinker when TM teachers told it
to them. They *accepted* physical ailments or
physical discomfort as "something good happening."
They *accepted* emotional imbalance so strong that
it destroyed marriages and friendships and lives
and kept them in many cases from being able to
hold a job in the real world.
All of these things just HAD to somehow be *their*
fault, for either having created the "stress" or
"bad karma" that "came out" this way, or for being
Off The Program. I'm pretty sure that most people
here have met TMers who have turned indulging in
these negative behaviors into almost a full-time
*career*, and have excused their indulgence in
emotional outbursts or rudeness for *decades*
as "unstressing."
I call it what I think it is -- indulging. And
indulging for the poorest of all possible reasons,
to keep from ever examining that fundamentally
flawed piece of dogma "TM is 100% life-supporting."
Belief in this crap is why Levi Butler is dead.
Some schmuck of a Dean believed so strongly that
nothing bad could ever happen in a "100% life-
supporting environment" that he allowed *murder*
to happen.
And he probably still works there as a Dean. THAT
is how strongly TMers believe in this crap dogma.
