--- In [email protected], "curtisdeltablues" <curtisdeltablues@...> wrote: > > --- In [email protected], "richardnelson108" <richardnelson108@> > wrote: > > <Snip> > > > You, on the other hand, have this buring desire to make him the devil, even > > though you say you have "transcended" your TM practice. > > Don't you have anything better to do with your time? > > > > > I believe Vaj's contributions here are more sincere than that. If you accept > the premise that there really IS a tradition of knowledge of yoga, and if you > believe that Maharishi has corrupted it, then it all makes sense why Vaj > would care. It comes from taking the knowledge very seriously. >
"A" tradition? Please. MMY always portrayed his "technique" as a revival of something lost. For those who don't believe anything was lost, that is automatically a distortion. But, then you look at the countless arguments and disagreements about what meditation really is, and you realize that it is far more complicated than "lost" vs "found" or "right" vs "wrong." MMY may have believed this simplistic world-view whole-heartedly, or he may have been content to simplify things for his students. My own take is that he was well aware that there are different beliefs and practices and that his specific focus was on those that are claimed to be "dhyan." Anything he says about meditation should be taken in the light of this implicit assumption: all meditation techniques originate in dhyan practices, and dhyan has gotten distorted over the years. > When we were all earnest TM teachers in the centers, if we had heard some guy > was skipping the puja and selling TM mantras we would be incensed to our > bones. We would be motivated to expose the person as a fraud and we would > consider it our duty for the sake of the innocent public who was getting > ripped off according to our POV. And? That is what TM teachers were taught. I assume that MMY believed there was something special about the puja in some sense or he wouldn't have insisted on it. Certainly he could have sold far more mantras had he skipped it himself. > > I don't share a confidence in whatever traditions of yoga Vaj is into, but I > at least give him credit for being really into it and experiencing something > that was compelling enough for him to come to the conclusions he has about > the problems with Maharishi as a teacher and the limitations of TM as a > practice. > Since MMY set himself up as the great reformer, it is inevitable that all the non-reformed people would automatically denounce him as a fraud, etc. I don't fault Vaj for representing what he believes to be true as true, but I occasionally get put off by what I see as his inability to recognize his own issues: e.g., that he never "got" TM, at least in my opinion. > I started thinking of posting something with the whole rap about the Ayur > vedic doctor who Vaj said was unhappy with Maharishi and Richard said was > still very much into him. Having had a front row seat for the contentious > relationship between Maharishi and Triguna I find both POVs to be credible > and non contradictory. Maharishi was a hard-ball guy but he had resources > that these guys wanted. So depending on what day you spoke to Triguna you > might get the perspective that he was furious that his services were being > charged for in DC in contradiction to the Charaka Samhita. (Or maybe he was > pissed because he didn't get a cut but only sold the medicines.) Or you > might get a whole flowery speech about what a great guy Maharishi was and how > wonderful it was that he was bringing Ayur Veda to the world. Same thing > with Dr. Lad who was salty about Maharishi using his materials without > recognition after he refused to participate with Maharishi's proprietary > program. > > And then throw in a whole heap of Indian's tendency to piss and moan like > drama queens about everything. > > So I don't get the impression that Richard is some one-dimentional TB, he > seems sincere and has added a lot to this discussion from his experience. > And I feel the same way about Vaj. Because you both care about these topics, > it makes the discussions more interesting for me. > Aside from a few sociopaths and/or trolls, I suspect that you can make the claim that everyone who bothers to post on the internet has some stake in what they are talking about. Lawson
