If I have not caused many on FFL to despise me, this post will go a long way towards that end, not that it is intentional and even though I am going to have some fun with this, I am writing in a serious vein.
My Description of the TM Movement The First Level of the Movement: It all started with Marshy, a scribe by caste, erroneously or deceitfully (take your pick) described for years as being from the warrior caste. This may have been due to white folk not understanding the difference between kayastha and kshatriya. Marshy was a follower of Swami Bramananda, and became his secretary. He was told by the Swami that he was a businessman and Marshy was no particular favorite of the Swami, just his scribe. After Swami Bramananda's death, Marshy wandered around for a while, then began to claim a special relationship with the Swami he did not have. Lying from the beginning, he eventually told everyone that Guru Dev, as he called the Swami, had given him the mantras and the charge to give the knowledge of spiritual freedom in enlightenment and the means to achieve enlightenment in this life to the people of the world. Marshy's wanderings eventually led him to the United States and England. In England he evidently like the appearance of the British gals who came to learn wisdom at his feet and began a decades long practice of attempting to seduce the ladies who came to him for spiritual guidance and enlightenment. Marshy also became very enamored of money and did all he could to collect as much as he could get, of course he wanted it to fund his world-wide movement which was dedicated to the betterment of mankind, tho much of his attention in the afterhours was devoted to womankind. His association with the Beatles led to a great deal of unexpected publicity which he used to the fullest extent possible to gain more converts. In those days his pitch was: the more people doing TM, the better the world would be. In a pre-cursor of what would become routine fear mongering with him, he made hints that nuclear war was a possibility if enough people did not do TM. As time went by he became more and more manipulative and began to concoct wilder and more outlandish schemes to defraud people of their money, gain their personal love and allegiance and for a few decades, get sex from those of his followers who were willing. Allegations have been made that in the times he was not successful in seducing women, he sent to India for Indian men to satisfy his sexual needs. Eventually, even with all the absurd fantasies he was promoting – enlightenment through TM, levitation and other super powers through the TM Sidhi program, perfect health through his brand of Ayurveda, improvement of life through his brand of Indian astrology, removal of "bad karma" with Hindu sacrifices (yagas), he became increasingly bizarre as his own set of karmas became manifest when he became increasingly senile. Eventually he led a Howard Hughes existence, cut off from the world by those who had everything to lose by revealing his actual mental and medical state. And so he died, reviled by those who saw through his façade, adored by those who allowed the Vedic wool to be pulled over their eyes.
