I made a second reply to this, but I guess it got eaten. In it, I reiterated that it would be useful to get some corroboration to some of these recollections. I mean, Barry, would it be unrealistic to think that your reporting might tend to be a little skewed or exaggerated?
And one must ask, what the jumping around from teacher has done for you. I mean, many of those "squares" who stayed "on the program", with their one and only teacher, seem to have happy and productive lives. Even for the ones who felt they got "burned", they seem to have processed it and moved forward into something positive. I am thinking particularly of Edg. Perhaps he can correct me if I am wrong. But for someone who has professed to have "zero, nada, naught interest in the man himself", you sure seem to find a way to nibble around the edges! ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <turquoiseb@...> wrote : To provide some counterpoint to the chorus of excuses and cult apologetics spouted lately by people like Jim, Judy, and Lawson, who were *never there* to see how Maharishi "dealt with" those who committed the Cardinal Sin of "seeing other teachers," I'll provide a bit more information. After all, unlike these poseurs, I really *was* there, for many years, and sat in rooms with Maharishi as he lit into *dozens* of people for this supposed "sin." They weren't. They never even met Maharishi, and were never a part of his organization. My considered opinion is that he did this because he was -- in two words -- JEALOUS and INSECURE. He wanted students who had never known any other spiritual teacher than himself. In a sense he was *exactly* like those sad men who want to marry a virgin, so they can (theoretically) forever avoid being compared to another lover, and be found wanting. In the encounters I witnessed, Maharishi reacted to someone "seeing another teacher" exactly the way an insecure husband reacts to his wife getting "caught" checkin' out another handsome man. He was livid. His first reaction was to try to make the person who had committed such a sin APOLOGIZE and grovel in front of him, hopefully in front of as many people as possible, to "make an example of them." If they didn't do that, and saw nothing wrong with their actions, he would *seemingly* graciously tell them to leave, and go with this other teacher. Then, the minute they left the room, he would start bad-mouthing the former student and saying nasty things about them. He'd also tell the people left in the room all about the terrible, horrible karmic things that were going to happen to these sinners for having "fallen" and wandered away from the "highest path." None of this had *anything* to do with any of these people "threatening the organization," or even the other teachers being any kind of "threat." It had to do with Maharishi's Victorian-era ideas of "devotion to the teacher." He wanted them to think of him as if they were *married* to him, and to believe that even *thinking* of "seeing someone else" was equivalent to "cheating on him." In other words, he was Just Another Insecure Guy, wanting to be the One And Only for his students, forever. Once the offending "cheaters" had been sent away, he'd often lie about them mercilessly, telling stories that many of us in the room *knew* not to be true. But everyone would remain silent and not speak up, because *the example had been made*. The one time I saw a couple of people speak up for someone he'd just excommunicated (Walter Bellin), and point out that none of the nasty things Maharishi was saying about him were true, Maharishi reacted by kicking them out, too. To repeat something I said earlier, this behavior is UNUSUAL in spiritual practice. I have *never* encountered another spiritual teacher who did this. With Rama, and with any of the other Tibetan or Japanese teachers I've studied with, students were *encouraged* to visit other teachers, and learn whatever they were teaching. OF COURSE they were encouraged to do this -- why on earth would anyone want to stand in the way of normal, natural curiosity, otherwise known as "the natural tendency of the mind?" But Maharishi not only tried to stand in the way of this natural desire to learn more and expand one's spiritual experience, he PUNISHED people for doing it. These cult apologists trying to make it sound as if he was doing this for pragmatic business reasons WEREN'T THERE. They're just being cult apologists. Those of us who watched him excommunicate dozens of people for the "sin" of simply being curious know better. And so should those who also weren't there, and are lurking on this forum wanting to learn more. Maharishi was UNIQUE in not allowing his students to visit other spiritual teachers. And this uniqueness wasn't a positive thing -- it was a perversion based on his own insecurity, and his need to feel that he was the ONLY teacher in his students' lives. He was a tiny little man with a large, fragile ego, and he did this because that ego was threatened by the idea that his students would be able to compare him to other teachers.
