From: salyavin808 <no_re...@yahoogroups.com>
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <awoelflebater@...> wrote : ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <noozguru@...> wrote : On 05/24/2014 06:41 PM, awoelflebater@... [FairfieldLife] wrote: >>>---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <steve.sundur@...> wrote : >>> >>> >>> >>>Michael, >>> >>> >>>You just miss the point. I am no great TM defender. But you start with a misguided notion of what the practice of TM is capable of doing. And on that basis you make connections about what problems can be attributed to the practice of TM. >>> >>> >>>There are many things I think are out of whack in regards the TMO culture, but I know, from experience, with my own 21 year old son, that this is a difficult period of ones life to navigate, with or without the practice of TM. >>> >>> >>>And from my own difficult adolescence, the most the practice of TM was able to do for me was give me a few minutes of respite each day. >>> >>> >>>I would wager, (or at least hope), that any parent within the TMO culture who felt they had a child at risk would take any necessary steps to address that risk. >>> >>> >>>I knew the parents, or at least the father of the boy who committed suicide a few years ago, Daniel S. He did not live in any kind of fantasy world about TM. >>> >>> >>>You make this silly statement that if my beliefs are so strong, I should consider working full time for the movement. To me that points out a blind spot in that you seem to have taken every claim made about TM at face value, never figuring in a discount that most people would naturally take. >>> >>> >>>And when it fell short, you developed a vendetta. >>> >>> >>>This has been my point all along. I don't think it is about taking the TM promises so literally - it is all so literal how MJ is 'reading' these claims and then presenting them as proof that TM doesn't work. It's almost as if he believes that those who practice TM are incapable of making a mistake or being sad or getting divorced. Come on. Get a grip. No one believes that just by learning a meditation technique that you are going to become super-human, infallible and perfect. And no one is buying the fact that because a meditator has decided to end their life that it completely invalidates the entire TM practice and condemns the Movement as being one big fraud. The world is never so black and white. >>> >>> >>>But that was the promise, do you remember the Science of Being book? >>>Apparently TM is better than psychiatry because it solves problems on the >>>level of the all powerful unified field and not on the level of thoughts and >>>emotions - which are obviously shallow in comparison. This is standard SCI >>>thinking and TM teachers to this day will parrot it, championing TM over >>>regular therapies. >>> >>>Exactly. Almost the *entire* premise of "Maharishi's teaching" has been -- >>>since the beginning -- that nothing is needed to solve ANY problems in life >>>other than regular TM and a good "checking" every so often. And this premise >>>has been a LIE, that entire time. >>> >>> >>> >>>I think the trouble starts when people take Marshy and the TMO at their word >>>and ignore their own emotions, it's easy to backtrack after a disaster and >>>claim that it wasn't supposed to be taken seriously but people do. As we all >>>know, it isn't better than other therapies so they should scrap the >>>superiority complex and stop all this "invincibility" nonsense. >>> >>>If they were so convinced of the supposed field of "invincibility" >>>surrounding them, why are they so paranoid about someone "Off The Program" >>>sneaking in to the domes and disrupting things? Why would they need "dome >>>badges?" Why doesn't their awesome Woo Woo keep out the "wrong" people and >>>protect them? >>> >>> >>> >>>MJ isn't reading these claims anymore than I was when I pointed out that >>>someone going postal with an AK47 during a World Peace Assembly doesn't skew >>>the results, it is the results. >>> >>>Exactly. What is "supposed" to be happening -- whether on a course or in a >>>community in which the "proper number" of TMers has been achieved -- is >>>something that has never existed outside the fevered imagination of >>>fanatics. The only thing that matters is what DOES happen. According *to the >>>TM movement's own PR and sales spiels*, suicide amongst TMers should just >>>not be able to happen. And yet it *has* happened, and often. So the claim >>>that such things "can't happen" is a LIE. This is *obvious* to non-fanatics. >>>The question is how so many of the fanatics can't admit to believing in and >>>living a LIE. >>> >>> >>> >>>The drug doesn't work so they should change the marketing strategy to >>>something a bit more realistic. It's not unreasonable to say it. >>> >>> >>>It's "unreasonable" if the marketers are stuck with having to parrot the >>>things that the original founder of the marketing scheme originally >>>said...forever. That is the situation that the TMO finds itself in. They >>>can't "weaken" the vast volumes of Maharishisez Dogma, >>>because...uh...Maharishi said it. "And he was enlightened, so we know that >>>he was right and these 'facts that people talk about are wrong." >>The "facts" about TM as I see them are this -- it's an OK beginner's >>technique of meditation that provides a little rest, when done no more than >>20 minutes twice daily. Done any more than that, it's a powerfully >>pscyhoactive technique with extremely unpredictable results that can lead to >>psychosis, despair, physical symptoms not unlike Tourette's Syndrome, >>depression, and suicide. Done as a "prelude" to systematic indoctrination and >>brainwashing about how "special" it makes the people who do it, it may be >>even more dangerous in the long run. One can in time "get over" a period of >>"TM course psychosis" and regain some semblance of their physical and mental >>health. Many have never and in all likelihood will never get over the sense >>of specialness and elitism that they have been indoctrinated to believe >>about themselves -- that shit lasts a lifetime.
