"Ram" is a common shanti mantra given to the general public. The
journalist probably heard it wrong as "Rum" which is hilarious and might
might make someone drunk. According to some including Bhavagan Das in
his autobiography Maharishi used "Ram" in the first days of TM. The
reason TM uses beej mantras is because anyone can use them without any
special ceremony. I think MMY was looking for a system anyone could
teach. MMY also used shaktipat when teaching in the early days.
Keeping mantras secret might have also been just to keep Indians from
blowing whistle on the project as nothing special. Except for a select
few, westerners of course in the 1960s and 70s knew about nothing
mantras nor mantra shastra so would not have understood this.
On 02/26/2014 11:30 AM, cardemais...@yahoo.com wrote:
Among the many different forms, Simmons said he teaches mantra-based
meditation in which someone sits quietly and repeats a single word –
in his case, “Rum” – for a period of 20 minutes. He has one meditation
session in the morning at his Los Angeles home, then drives over to
his ex-wife Kimora Lee Simmons’ home for another session from 6:45
a.m. to 7:05 a.m. with his two daughters, Aoki Lee, 11, and Ming Lee,
14. They’ve been meditating together for three years.