I may be the only one left enjoying the conversation about the puja... but here is something I thought of this morning. The movement wants TM in schools but they have a dilemma. TM was invented out of a religious tradition. Maharishi has said that we need to recognize the source of the knowledge when we teach to keep it pure. There is also a deeper belief that the puja does some kind of magic to the mantra and this is a religious belief. So if the movement really wants to teach a secular mediation they could say this instead of doing the puja before teaching someone:
Before you teach someone, and without the picture of the Hindu Pope in front or an alter the teacher says to the student: "Before we teach TM we always start by acknowledging the tradition of meditation teachers who have given us this wisdom of integration of life. The closest to us in this line was Maharishi's teacher Guru Dev, who was a religious leader in India. Maharishi secularized his teaching so that anyone from any background could enjoy meditation without interfering with their own beliefs and background. As meditation teachers, we always remember the source of our tradition and promise to maintain the purity and effectiveness of how Maharishi instructed us to teach. Now let's begin." Of course this will never happen because the movement believes in the puja AS a religious act with magical properties. What I just said would satisfy the brochure level claim that the purpose of the puja is to keep the knowledge pure by acknowledging the tradition. It also makes explicit the religious source of TM without the Vedic two-step song and dance. This of course does not address the mantras or the religious assumptions in the 3 days of checking. But I am offering this not as a serious suggestion (I was born at night but it wasn't LAST night) but as an indicator for the lack of seriousness in the movement for teaching TM in a truly secular way. My suggestion would be considered absurd in the movement because it ignores the religious superstitions that surround the "imparting of the mantra." My suggestion would be only the first step in actually secularizing the teaching. But the movement would never consider even this one step. They want it both ways, all the religious magic of the puja as well as the front of a secular practice. And thy have gotten away with this slippery move for the most part pretty well. Right up till they try to put it in schools. Here, the shell game becomes transparent, and their lack of sincerity in offering a truly secular meditation to schools becomes obvious.
