Dear Rick, Had it not been for what you said about Maharishi and secrecy, I doubt I would have posted anything about this matter. But something alerted in me when I read your comment.
I think it was the toothpaste. :-) You will see that I have added a ninth reflection, for me, the most important one of all. The only way anything can change here is if either Bevan or someone else can communicate to us something about Maharishi which somehow is inclusive of his behaviour with women--women, that is, who caused him to feel intense physical desire. Perhaps with Bevan (or this other person) such a portrait of Maharishi can emerge. But that would mean writing a book--it is I believe a book that Bevan's soul desperately would want him to write, but Bevan, he is likely to deny to his soul this satisfaction. Robin --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Robin Carlsen" <maskedzebra@...> wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb <no_reply@...> wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, wgm4u <no_reply@> wrote: > > > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Rick Archer" <rick@> wrote: > > > > > > http://www.liloumace.com/Maharishi-Mahesh-Yogi-Celibate-Guru-had-a-love-affair-Judith-Bourque_a2078.html > > > > She smiles as she plunges the dagger deep into the heart and > > soul of MMY's reputation, and for what?, a few coins of silver > > for her cheap book?, is Judith Bourque MMY's Judas? or a > > tormented soul hiding beneath flower covered dresses? > > Seems to me that the person who destroyed his *own* > reputation was the guy who plunged his dick deep into > Judith Bourque and a number of other women. > > If you're looking for a "tortured soul," it seems > to me that it would be the person who did this while > claiming to be celibate. If MMY 'the great pretender' only nailed a couple of broads in his lifetime with all that money and power, he was a pretty poor Don Juan, don't cha think? ;-) Come on Turq, you know you and I would be nailing them all and probably have a harem to boot! That's a silly comment. He "nailed" quite a few, but he couldn't exactly go hog wild and yet retain secrecy. It's amazing he was able to keep it as secret as he did. I believe that may be why he placed such emphasis on secrecy and confidentiality in general. Those in positions of authority knew things on a need to know basis. Neil Paterson wouldn't tell you what brand of toothpaste he used. RESPONSE: I think this comment by Rich to be apposite--and holding within itself a level of sophistication that begins to go to what the reality is. I have never had that thought: "I believe that may be why he placed such emphasis on secrecy and confidentiality in general". It seems it could be true. For myself, I think there are a number of things to think about if one assumes the veracity of Judy Bourque's testimony (corroborated most unforgettable in Robert McCutcheon's "Afterword and Witness Testimonial"): 1. Maharishi either did not care to preserve his integrity in this way, and therefore does not have a conscience, or else he was unable to control his carnal desires, and surrendered himself up to his concupiscence involuntarily, as it were. Judith was, after all, a beautiful woman: she certainly would put his enlightenment to the test (in this way, enlightenment--Maharishi's at least--requires some vow of celibacy, which presumably Maharishi gave in the course of his commitment to Swami Brahmananda Saraswati). 2. Were TM to be what Maharishi claimed it to be:--Nature's way of coming to know the Unified Field, Nature's way of knowing the final truth about nature, Nature's way of fulfilling one full potential as a human being--*Nature would never allow the exponent, the personal embodiment, of this truth to be compromised in this way*. Nature would have supported Maharishi's celibacy. The fact that Nature did not do this, tells us everything we need to know about the finality of Nature's commitment to the truth of TM, since guarding the reputation of Maharishi in this way would have been a sine qua non. And, as well, what Nature ['Nature' here designates the source of truth, the source of 'creative intelligence', the ultimate arbiter of what is real] really thought of Maharishi is revealed in allowing Maharishi to disgrace himself in this way. That is, not in the act of having a physical relationship with Judith Bourque, but in his implicit presentation of himself as someone incapable of succumbing to the insistence of his erotic feelings. 3. Maharishi must have known somehow that the truth would eventually come out about him. He did nothing to prepare his disciples, or his successor, for this scandal, a scandal who reverberations would never cease, because of how impressive and beautiful and believable Maharishi was in terms of radiating out from himself the truth of his very Teaching. Imagine, had someone posed theoretically the questions to him: Maharishi, what would should a disciple of a Master do or feel if that Master, who was sworn--one must believe, happily so--to celibacy, violates that vow and demonstrates by doing so that he is a prisoner of something other than his own pure consciousness?" Maharishi was never able to compute the inevitably consequences of his having indulged--however sincerely at the level of romance--his carnal desires in this way. What Rich brings out attention to seems to offer up an answer to this: Maharishi thought he, as it were, could behave in a way which would metaphysically somehow keep the universe itself from divulging the truth about his inability or unwillingness to live out the truth which he so powerfully and explicitly imposed upon those who were most devoted to him. 4. The extent to which none of us at the time (early to mid seventies) could possibly come to believe Maharishi did what Judith Bourque has told us he did, tells us how profound our thraldom was to Maharishi. I know for myself I would put my very life on the line in my conviction that Maharishi lived his life as a true and perfect celibate. Why his very presence, the holiness he radiated, the strength of his integrity and personality: all this created an impression which was intrinsically and objectively incompatible with imagining him acting as something other than a brahmachari--and the sense one gets from Judy's account of her love affair with Maharishi is that, in the presence of this woman he loved, he was unable to be what he was so wondrously able to perform in his more public persona as the great Master who had come to the west to bring us initiators total fulfillment, and a sense of what a unconquerable form of spiritual and personal integrity would look like, and feel like, and act like. 5. It is entirely possible that Maharishi could, in principle at least, have been a householder (who did not flinch in the face of "the mud of the world"), been in Unity Consciousness, and still inspired people to take up TM and to seek enlightenment. It was not strictly speaking his enlightenment which is brought into question here (although I think the final validity of enlightenment is necessarily and inescapably challenged by the *context* within which this behaviour occurred); it was the deception of himself as a person, the sense of acting as if--and pulling this off impeccably--what Judith Bourque tells us could not possibly be true, and projecting this truth so credibly and powerfully that we would have had to have almost a nervous breakdown to even assimilate the idea of what Judith Bourque has now forced us into considering an historical fact. What the issue here is, is not Maharishi's love affair with Judy Bourque, it is the immense effort and determination Maharishi made to present an image and reality (which I totally and unreservedly accepted *at the level of my experience*--this had nothing, then, to do with Maharishi's performance: I was certain reality, Nature, *wanted* me to apprehend Maharishi exactly as he presented himself: In Unity, a celibate monk, devoted to Guru Dev, having sacrificed everything to be what he was--which was much more than someone enlightened: Maharishi was the successor in some sense to Christ--at least this it the way it played for me and I believe hundreds, if not thousands, of other serious TM teachers)--the image and reality of someone who was as perfect as he implicitly wanted us to believe he was perfect. 6. Maharishi led a double life, and yet one could never see on his face or in his behaviour the consequence--at least in some fatal way--if this contradiction. This was the extraordinary thing: that Maharishi probably did a better job in his performance as the most believable brahmachari than any true brahmachari ever did. See how all the most holy monks in Rishikish came to pay their respects to Maharishi the very morning after his first assignation with Judith Bourque. They, these enlightened monks, could never have conceived of Maharishi doing what he did the night before--and Judith describes Tatwalababa massaging Maharishi's feet "after we have been together". Again, it is not the man Maharishi was that we judge here; it is the fact of his being "His Holiness"--as a successor to "His Divinity"--his Master--the fact that Maharishi acted as if he was as pure as the driven Vedic snow. Maharishi, in his appearance, in his bearing, in his presence, in his personality, in his speech belied the truth that Judith Bourque has documented. And this is the excruciating truth which creates an unbearable conflict in the heart of those who love Maharishi the most, and have given--and are still giving--their lives (and even in many case, their physical integrity) to Maharishi and his cause. I know for a fact that was I forced to realize that what Judith Bourque has told us was really true, I would never have become a Teacher of TM, and I would never have surrendered my soul to Maharishi. This transcendence of sexual desire, this was very much front and centre in the context of Maharishi, in the person of Maharishi. Why, had someone ever asked him about his own sexual desire, I would have made a guarantee that he would, in his answer, demonstrate that his vow of celibacy, the grace of his Master, and his own enlightenment, lifted him wholly and completely above this level of human vulnerability. Maharishi, for me, was spontaneously, innocently, perfect beyond any temptations of the flesh--not just because of his enlightenment, but because of the context of how that enlightenment played: which was to made it seem he was as holy as any human being could ever be. It is almost as if Maharishi was given the grace to conceal the truth about himself. That--to stretch this paradox even further--Nature wanted it to seem as if what Maharishi was radiating and expressing (that he was perfect and as a perfect brahmanchari beyond eros) was real, and therefore, as it were, Nature covered up for him! even as Nature permitted him to 'fall'. 7. What is just as inconceivable is that Maharishi--as a man inside the context of having been a lover--never revealed this side of himself. His love was for Guru Dev; he would never consider compromising that one love--let alone betraying that true love--by participating in an experience that even Maharishi himself knew was on the face of it absurd, dangerous, and incongruous. And yet he went ahead and did this. But in having made love to a woman, none of us who adored him every saw even the trace of this in his face, in his vibration, in his radiance, in his energy, in his very beingness itself. One would have thought that if what Judith Bourque has told is is true, then Maharishi somehow would have had to bear the consequences of this; and this would, however imperceptibly, show up in his performance. It would almost like discovering Saint Francis secretly sponsored dog-fighting. I know that sounds harsh, but the idea of Maharishi transferring his love for his Master--and the Holy Tradition--to a woman and and an experience which he knew was ephemeral, which he knew was impossible to sustain in his public persona, why this just defies the imagination--he does mine, anyhow. I trusted Maharishi in this way, not on the basis of simply his enlightenment, but on the very form that enlightenment took, which was as a traditional celibate Saint. None of us saw the man who engaged in an act which all of us know is not something we have complete control over. Maharishi losing all sense of self-control, even in the mystery of erotic romance, seems more than implausible to me--*given how he seemed always when I was in his presence*. No, it makes no sense to me whatsoever. And Maharishi never became a pretender in this way; he walked the talk in this sense: Nothing about him seemed disturbed, conflicted, anxious, divided: he seemed to be living inside of a depth of bliss and integrity which would make sexual desire seem a frivolity, a game, an illusion of pleasure. 8. How can one remain true and faithful to Maharishi and his Teaching and his mission and somehow incorporate this truth about him into one's experience of him? I think, except for someone to whom he somehow consciously revealed this side of him--perhaps there was one or two persons whom he knew knew this about him, and yet the way he communicated to them, they accepted this paradox, this would-be indictment of him, this ignominious defeating of his alleged integrity--this is almost impossible. I know that I could never do it. I wonder what kind of violence one has to do to oneself in order to reconcile the truth of Judy Bourque's testimony with the belief that Maharishi was the perfect Saint that he made these persons believe he was. One thing we know for sure: He was the most extraordinary personality of my lifetime--no one is even close--and that he did influence the world, I believe, in ways that no one has even recognized. Whether for good or for ill, that remains to be determined. 9. Maharishi did not leave within the memory of Judith a sense of how his greatness as a Guru flowed into his nobility as a man; which is to say, if Maharishi was all that we thought he was, and all the he projected he was, why was he unable to make Judith (or anyone else he physically loved) remember the integrity of himself just as a lover, as a human being apart from his enlightenment? This seems the most serous failing of all, Maharishi's conspicuous failure to take moral and psychological responsibility for his actions in the context of himself as a lover. At the very least, Judith Bourque should have been left with the sense of the the grace and wisdom and nobility of this human being--including some mysterious if perhaps unarticulated explanation for why they were lovers, why they could no longer be lovers, and how Judith Bourque should look upon this experience, say, forty years later. Maharishi was, it seems, bereft of the human resources which were existentially required of him to integrate this affair into his life, and thus to make of it--in Judity's memory--something beautiful if tragic. Whereas the impression one gets from Judith's book is Maharishi was great as a Teacher, but he was considerably less impressive as a human being--not courageous and honourable enough to make this romance something intelligible albeit entirely comprehensible to both himself and to Judith. If the cosmos lived inside of Maharishi's consciousness, it is a cruel cosmos indeed which would leave a wound in Judith's heart--which it has. And that wound is caused not so much Maharishi's inability to live the life of a celibate monk; it is caused by the irresponsible actions of Maharishi in not anticipating what kind of consequences they would have--and how Maharishi would have to address those consequences. He never did. This is, for me, a greater disappointment than his breaking his brahmachari vows. Judith should have been left with the sense of what a beautiful human being Maharishi was, as she had come to know him within the vulnerability of himself as her lover. As it was all she was left with was her impression of him as her Master, and his unwillingness to take responsibility for what he knew would be the tremendous impact of his having selected her out to receive the form of himself as contained in his sexuality. The person, Maharishi, he does not emerge in any recognizably authentic and admirable form in Judith's book This is, for me, something to ponder very carefully.
