---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <mjackson74@...> wrote :
A visitor to Fairfield, Iowa, the nearby Maharishi Vedic City, or
other TM communities will see that, in practice, Maharishi’s teachings
can, and do, provide a totalistic, highly prescriptive, all-consuming
lifestyle for thousands of devoted followers of the Movement.
For these practitioners of TM, meditation, the sidhis, and the wide
range of related practices and services constitute a complete
spiritual path, an “ultimate concern,” whether you call it a religion
or not.
In its dealings with meditators fully committed to TM, the Movement
can be highly controlling and intolerant of deviations, encouraging
orthodox thinking and enforcing orthopraxy. By most standards, TM
looks and behaves like a new religious movement, at least for its most
devout followers.
>
On 8/23/2014 10:16 AM, awoelfleba...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] wrote:
>
Here is what I observe from old acquaintances that I see all the time
on FB (you can learn a lot by looking at pics, seeing what they post,
what their interests are, what their philosophy is) and who live in
FF. They are my age or older and have a long history with TM and some
are former students of MIU. These are people that either never left FF
for three or four decades or who went out in the world and moved back.
My sense is that they desire community. They like the small town feel,
the fact that you can stroll the entire downtown in about 20 minutes
at most and that they know/recognize virtually everyone, at least from
their familiar faces. Lots of these people enjoy the comraderie of
their peers who have, at one time or another, been interested in
spiritual things. Some are artists, some are business people some are
simply raising or have raised a family. This is not some closed up
commune surrounded by barbed wire inhabited by gun-toting crazies
convinced the world is going to end or that they have to divorce
themselves from the rest of humanity. Many of those living in FF are
mature, grown up people in their 50's and 60's who have pretty much
seen all the paroxysms the Movement has gone through over the years
and has taken what is useful and has moved on from the rest. Granted,
I am speaking not from having been there recently but by my
interactions with at least 5-6 people online who are there as well as
having attended a huge MIU reunion of the class of 1979-1980 in Santa
Barbara about 5 years ago (160-200 people were there for 2-3 days of
eating, drinking and reminiscing). Most of those attending were people
currently living in California and many were involved in some aspect
of the movie industry (aren't they all) but many were still meditating
and thought fondly of their time at MIU. These were not devout
followers of some pseudo religion just as most of the old friends
living in FF that I have recently interacted with are not fanatical.
They're just doing what they want to do in a place where old friends
have ended up due to all the reasons I stated above. I think it would
be a really worthwhile expedition for you to go back to FF for a week
on a fact-finding tour. Hang out, go to events, see if you can get on
campus. Do whatever you can to get a real feel for the joint. It could
be a hoot. I'd love to hear your stories. In fact, I should go back
sometime too, but not in the dead of winter. I had enough of those
when I lived there.
>
Even if he could afford the bus fare to go back to Fairfield, I'm not
sure he would be allowed on campus after the defamation he posted to FFL
about Morris and Hegelin. He doesn't seem to want to talk about why he
was kicked out and banned from the campus in the first place. I guess he
could disguise himself to look like "Michael Jackson" and maybe nobody
would recognize him, but he would probably have to wear a wig, shades
and a glove. Go figure.
>
