--- In [email protected], "salyavin808" <fintlewoodlewix@...> wrote: > > --- In [email protected], turquoiseb <no_reply@> wrote: > > > > Maharishi pandered to this desire to "know." The quote > > of his I find most telling is, "Every question is the > > perfect opportunity for the answer we have already > > prepared." > > I used to like that quote, until his contradictions > started to wear me down and the only rsponse I'd get > to sceptical questions was "just let it wash over you > and you'll understand it deep down" or "Don't be analytical" > or "Maharishi appears contradictory because his mind is > aware at the subtle levels of nature and natural laws change" > when the whole point of Laws is that they don't change! > > "When you're more enlightened you'll understand" classic > cult delusions all of them. Had great fun though!
I see all of these types of replies as the *result* of believing for years in "pat answers," which is not what he had in mind with his original quote. For the benefit of people here who never met Maharishi, and certainly never became TM teachers, this quote was told to prospective TM teachers on their training courses, as an incentive to learn what can ONLY be described as "pat answers." He or some other stand-in teacher would state a question that we were likely to be asked, either by attendees at one of our TM intro lectures or by people who had already learned TM. Then we'd be given the "correct answer" to the ques- tion, be expected to memorize it, and be tested on how well we *had* memorized it. The idea was to have these "pat answers" filed away in our brains so that they came out automatically, and achieved their triple purpose. The first purpose, of course, was to instill a sense of confidence in people who, if they were at all honest with themselves, knew that they didn't know enough to be true spiritual teachers, and wouldn't even at the end of their course. By having them memorize a series of "pat answers," Maharishi hoped to make them parrots who would repeat *his* "pat answers" on cue. As anyone familiar with the resulting "TM speak" knows, this was frighteningly successful. :-) On my TTC, Maharishi went so far as to state openly the second of these purposes, especially for questions that could be seen as critical or skeptical of what we (as teachers) were saying. The purpose was to SHUT THE QUESTIONER UP. We were instructed many times in the value OF getting them to shut up and stop asking the questions that they were curious about, and just "come back to silence," and belief in what we were trying to sell them. He also taught us -- quite explicitly -- techniques for how to change the subject and move it back to something less controversial. This has become known as the "SIMS shuffle." The third purpose, in my opinion, was to get people *used to* accepting what the teacher said as not just pat answers (which they were, of course) but as *the definitive answers*. The more we practiced them as teachers, the more *we* believed them. The more we parroted them, the more our students believed them. The whole schtick was an exercise in training people in the master-disciple relationship, and in getting them to buy into "What the master says is true," whether it was or not. This phrase about the question merely being a cue for what you have already prepared was echoed in the TM checking procedure, with instructions that stated explicitly, "Whatever he says, we acknowledge by a word: 'Yes, good, fine,' etc." No TM checker was really listening to anything you said before they started with the "Let's close the eyes" bit. They were just waiting for you to finish so that they could practice more memorized speeches. Why I keep bringing this phrase up is to hopefully get a few of the more open-minded TMers here to think about what it means to *them*, and to what *they* were told by Maharishi. Those of you who cling to things that you were told by Maharishi in response to one of your questions, WHAT MAKES YOU THINK THAT HE WAS ACTUALLY RESPONDING TO *YOUR* QUESTION? Doesn't it make more sense that he was doing to you EXACTLY what he taught you to do to other people? That is, view the question ONLY as an opportunity to parrot a pat answer he'd already prepared.
