> > > It's said in Ayurveda that the thing that gives you that "sparkle" is > > your "tejas". If your tejas is diminished you look flat, lackluster. > > Check out someone who just took a psychedelic and you'll see this same > > flatness, this lack of "shine". Psychedelic depletes tejas. Deep, > > authentic meditation gives you tejas. This is why so many saints have > > this shimmer about them that everyone notices. > > > > So what does it tell you when a long-term meditator is gray or flat- > > looking (check out the visage of ole Doc Travis in Alex's video for a > > great example). Instead of being replenished transcendentally of > > tejas, they're languishing in a tamasic swoon. > > There's a curious amalgam of things happening here. One is that most of the zippy people have gone. Anyone in the TMO who had some get up and go has got up and gone. The dreary types are much more tractable and the TMO requires people to be compliant and to do as they're told, so they're the ones left behind.
Then in addition there's the tendency for any closed group to drift to extremes. In the various closed TM communities around the world the idea has developed that in order to be serious about getting enlightened you have to be dreary. So people in these communities are developing a kind of flat monotone way of speaking, when you talk to some of them it's like they're depressed, or on medication, or in early stage psychosis. It's really weird, they are quite put out by someone who displays any energy or liveliness. If you laugh or tell jokes or do anything that displays vitality they think you're being "not coherent". The other strange thing is that the extremists, who display that kind of monotone speech most clearly, are often the ones chosen to be the public face of the TMO. The lively people are kept in the background because they aren't thought to be coherent enough. So if a psychiatrist were to listen to the intonation (not what they say, but how they say it) of a public lineup of TMO spokespeople he'd conclude that they're in serious need of help Bizarre!
