--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Vaj <vajradhatu@...> wrote: > > On May 18, 2011, at 3:40 PM, Xenophaneros Anartaxius wrote: > > > Perhaps a useful question is this: just how deep does the > > "purity of the teaching" have to be to ensure that a meditator > > has a correct experience of TM, or some other technique. From > > what teachers told me, there seem to be two elements. A mantra, > > and the correct way to use it, which is the right start of > > meditation, and then everything mostly takes care of itself. > > The simple answer is it needs to be an intact line with an > appropriate delivery method. We now know two things: > > 1. Maharishi was NOT authorized by Swami Brahmananda to teach > nor was he trained in how to do so.
While, from what I hear, this is true, that doesn't matter to me. The *whole TM technique* was made up. So was the puja. Big whoop. > 2. Puja diksha is an authentic method for mantra initiation, > but it requires a) an authentic teacher, which Mahesh was not, > and b) an authentic means. The "puja" Maharishi created is a > hodge podge of different goods, tacked onto one another. The > important thing here is that we now know that the puja is > largely derived from a student of Swami Brahmananda who was > a poet and scholar. When Brahmananda was told of this poem, > poem, he explicitly asked Mahesh to destroy it and throw it > into the Ganges. Mahesh instead kept it and used it, against > the direct wishes of his guru. Again, big whoop. I don't buy *anyone's* definition of "authentic," including yours, Vaj. While I under- stand your right to believe in the Woo Woo Theory Of Mantra Delivery, I don't see it as fundamentally different than the TM TB's theory of why the puja is so important. Both are based on a belief in the essential Woo Woo nature of the puja, or of it some- how "enlivening" the mantra, and both are based on things somebody said, and that you seem to have accepted as true. I've received mantra-based teachings adorned with bells and whistles (a puja or something like it) and I've received them with no fanfare whatsoever, the mantra just being delivered (spoken aloud) to a group of people in a room, all at once. I have never perceived the slightest difference. Some may claim to, and that is their right. But I cannot help but laugh at those who cling to the idea that TM is somehow a "science," but who then cannot even for a minute conceive of it not being taught without the Magical Woo Woo Ceremony. To me clinging to the puja as magical while denying that they believe in magic is akin to denying that the TMO is fundamentally a religious organization while attending the performance of a yagya. Just doesn't compute.
