Looks like Curtis wonderfully summarized the absurdity of all the mantra madness. I have similar feelings about what would happen if the occasional movement claims that the mantra list was vetted as being meaningless by the Berlitz language people were challenged. Berlitz, for me, would be the last people to ask about the esoteric internals of the religious traditions of India, but this is, of course, a marketing operation we're talking about.
But to clarify, as I understand it, the mantra list, as well as all the TM movement's supposedly "secret" or "private" material at minet.org and elsewhere, is all public domain worldwide and was not copyrighted anywhere. That may not apply to the efforts of other groups to copyright those mantras or similar things elsewhere. Such attempts involving very similar lists or instructions would be unlikely to stick if challenged, if only because of the long history of them being in the public domain in one place or another, or otherwise being ineligible for copyright protection. It's also true that "Transcendental Meditation" was trademarked only in certain countries, including the U.S. In the UK, if memory serves, it was ruled to be a generic term and thus not eligible for trademark protection, perhaps the incentive for the subtle renaming of TM program elements using the "Maharishi" prefix which might be trademarkable in such places. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "curtisdeltablues" <curtisdeltablues@...> wrote: > > Judge in case of use of copyrighted mantras. > > J: Will the witness please state the mantra given to you by this > unauthorized teacher of Vedic Meditation. > > Guy with a shirt that has a picture of the milky way with an arrow pointing > to earth. and: "You are here" > > "Uh I'm really not supposed to say it out loud or I lose the value of it as a > sound that takes my attention inward." > > J: "If you don't answer the question you will be held in contempt of court > punishable by 18 months in prison and a $3,500 fine. > > Witness: "Uh OK, it was something like hwrammne. > > J: "What?" > > Witness "urrhwummne" > > J: "Is that the mantra that is copyrighted?" > > Lawyer for the movement: "Uh, well, it uh..." > > Judge: "Yeah that's what I thought when I first saw this case. Court > adjourned and the plaintive will pay all courts costs. > > Mantra guy: "But now my mantra doesn't work." > > Judge: "You might want to try Judge Judy. I think she would enjoy that." >
