I met Mark Landau while he was with Maharishi and got to know more of him through subsequent personal correspondence and posts he made here and on his own website and in direct mailings
He wrote to me of Maharishi sandals some while ago and I was intrigued as I remembered them well. I once had to massage Maharishi's blue feet after he had stood too long in the snow watching the Bluchers ski near Wiesensteig, where a few of us were holed up with him while he worked on "The Science of Being". A few comments are in order. Maharishi was a remarkable person, with great bouncing energy and enviable vibrations. None of the revelations about his private life can alter that. He was not a light weight and achieved more in his life than many. Of course his sandals will hold some of that vibration. Sri Aurobindo, whose ashram at Pondicherry I visited, would have stated that the larger truth often contains `irreconcilable facets' in a paradox. It is lasting shame we were never able to hear Maharishi discuss his own situation as it might have shed light on problems we have with sex, power and money. As a keen Wagnerian I was delighted with a slim book "Wagner the terrible man, and his truthful Art." In it he espoused the thesis that Wagner, like all great artists wrote from his wounded soul and tried in his art to integrate and reconcile what he was unable to do in his own life. His art thus sheds light on problems we have and in a way that helps us to find some measure of wholeness, if that is what we are seeking. If that is you, you probably love Wagner. If not you might well hate his operas. It is well possible that out of Maharishi's own needs came his remarkable attempts to unify life in Satchidananda. He was certainly the happiest person I have ever met and the fact that he fell short of an idealised perfection can't change that perception. One could love him and still wish to remain far away from his organization. I see no difficulty in admiring and despising a person at one and the same time and for different reasons, or if despise is too strong, then loving him with his failings. I think that is the mark of true love as opposed to the blind and needy devotion of those who made a guru of Maharishi. I never needed to so am able to still think fondly and gratefully of him. Despite all we now know. In fact because of what we now know feel regret I was unable to hear him talk as a person with struggles and personal hopes. It could be maintained that the need to spout one's opinions is the very thing that will keep one unenlightened, whatever that actually means. Some people on this site can be mean, petty and remarkably opinionated and excessively loquacious on all possible topics, forming instant opinions at the drop of a written word, without the excuse that they are the long held cherished biases that form so much of each of us. Love, David
