On May 28, 2011, at 11:44 AM, curtisdeltablues wrote: > I'm pretty sure we have heard his opinion on this. He believes that > Maharishi corrupted it and that TMers are incorrect to believe that he > reformed it. He may also believe that except for a few special people, the > tradition itself had gone into some disrepair. He does seem to believe that > there are people capable of passing on the correct information in the right > way, and that he has met some of them. (Feel free to jump in at any time Vaj > considering this is your head we are autopsying!
I just happened to read this. Understand I don't read all of the posts here, I read who I want, as I have time or interest. Just because I do not respond to an email does not mean I'm avoiding, or hiding or some other imagined reason. I have a life. Yes, I already have very clearly talked about this before. In mostly non-commercial constructs, mantra shastra is alive and well. TM is not one of them. But that is an interesting hodge-podge and may suit some. Some prefer McDonalds drive-thrus and others prefer gourmet meals. > >> >> Two, what does not make sense is why Vaj misrepresents, >> in very specific and documentable ways, the basic >> instructions for practicing TM when he claims to have >> been a TM teacher. It's not just a matter of not using >> TM lingo, it's misrepresentation of the mechanics. >> (Extensive documentation on request.) > > I believe you here in terms of your perspective, but since I have gotten in > to this snare myself from time to time I see it differently. When you have > been out of TM for a long time and have applied other points of view to the > teaching, you come up with your own understanding that can be really > different from the TM one. And it makes little sense to go back and parrot a > POV you have long since rejected. Especially since he has studied systems > with excruciating details of mental states, it seems likely that he would > view our TM practice in a very different way. He might have his own take on > all sorts of details of what we do. It's not fair to call it excruciatingly detailed when it's really rather simple. You can parse it as complex or you can parse it simply. > > Crappy example but its what I can come up with now. Lets say that there was > some kind of practice that actually WAS more effortless than TM. In > comparison the practice of TM might seem contrived and having a quality of > effort that was objectionable to a practitioner of this system. They might > commit the ultimate blasphemous phrase that TM requires effort and their > practice does not. If it really was their experience, then it would be true > for them, but it would seem like he had no understanding of TM wouldn't it? > I think some of this is going on in how Vaj describes TM, which in his mind, > is a superficial version of the high octane one he is into. This whole reality of the over dogmatization and lack of understanding of effort and effortlessness in TM - and how it is understood in mantra meditation (and meditation in general) - is indeed one of the problems (insufficient knowledge and understanding) with TM indoctrination. It's actually not a subject up for debate or dissension, as the tradition of meditation TM comes from defines these distinctions quite plainly and clearly. > >> >> Neither of these smacks of intellectual honesty. How >> can a "sincere" comparison between teachings be made >> when one of them is consistently and willfully >> shortchanged? > > I sense his implied condescension concerning TM practice since he believes he > is doing something much deeper and better. I recognize a full mantra tradition and I recognize what TM is. One has had repeatable, replicated results for centuries, the other provides well known and well understood relaxation effects for about 50 years. One addresses the whole person, beyond just a mental continuum, the other addresses mentation and the relative disappearance of mentation. > I am still not sure I can see motive for your intellectual honesty angle. And there is none. Judy is a chronic liar. She often throws red herrings and twists and misrepresents what people say. Why she's so chronically dishonest, while still imagining herself to be some savior of honesty is beyond me. That's a question for mental health professionals. > He has said that he enjoyed the benefits of TM until he found something > which he feels is better. So he acknowledges that TM does the stuff I enjoy > from my practice. But then he claims that there are practices that lead you > to sit in a state of no thought for days at a time. Personally I would > rather sprinkle thumb tacks on my Cheerios and eat them than sit in any state > for more than say an hour. But from his POV, if you accept the premise that > this is valuable, then it is also really clear that TM doesn't deliver that. > (Or hasn't to me, which suite me just fine.) So I'm not sure he is > shortchanging it as much as he believes if comes up short. That's relatively correct. However, everyone's different. There may be some rare individuals, with exceptional predisposing factors who it jives for. But that's very likely rare or even nonexistent. > >> >> Again, it's like a devout Roman Catholic scholar >> putting down Martin Luther because his teachings >> didn't accord with those of the Vatican, rather than >> making a reasoned case for the Vatican's teachings >> being more authentic and for why Luther's were a >> corruption. > > > >> >> One may be sincere in one's beliefs about the value >> of a tradition, but when the sole basis for the >> negative judgment of a different tradition is that >> it's different from the tradition one favors, it's >> hard to accept it as a serious argument. > > In my mind this was the exact rap Maharishi ran on us. The best he could do > is call other systems like Yogananda's an airplane compared to his jet. And > even on the surface, the fact that Maharishi departed from the most > fundamental and obvious principles in his own tradition is clear. You have > to buy into his view that he is a super special reformer whose place in > history is unique to make that all OK. So from Vaj's perspective he is > viewing Maharishi the way Maharishi viewed people teaching concentration > techniques. It is more than that he favors a certain system, he has open > contempt for what he believes Maharishi has done to destroy the system he > values. (of course I may be completely full of it since I am just inferring > what Vaj thinks about all this from his posts here.) I don't know if I'd be that harsh. I'm more concerned with his lacking of care for others, esp. re: over-meditation. > > > Vaj might >> as well be a fundamentalist Christian arguing that >> Jesus is the only way to salvation because the Bible >> says so and that TM is demonic because that isn't >> what *it* teaches. > > Or that the knowledge got lost and people like Maharishi cashed in on > people's ignorance. Meanwhile there is some esoteric group of people that > have maintained the tradition and Vaj studied with them. True. There are a good number of good mantra teachers out there today. Really, they're more accessible now in the US than ever in the past.
