When 85 year olds agree to give TV interviews, they have a right to specify which questions will and will not be asked.
Reporters can ignore this and score points with their viewers, but most reporters respect their interviewee's wishes because word gets around. Obviously, this guy didn't care if word got around. L ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <turquoiseb@...> wrote : From: "TurquoiseBee turquoiseb@... [FairfieldLife]" <FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com> To: "FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com" <FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com> Sent: Wednesday, April 8, 2015 8:20 AM Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: ~~~~~~~~~~ about friendship ~~~~~~~~~~~ Maharishi's giggling was -- as you suggest -- a passive-aggressive way to derail questions he didn't want to deal with and pretend to be unfazed by them. I wish I had a link to that video clip towards the end of his life when some reporter tried to keep asking about the Beatles. At first he tried to "laugh it off" and pull his giggling routine again, but when the reporter wouldn't stop asking about the Beatles Maharishi finally lost it and got angry at him and revealed how much his ego was affronted by someone asking about the Beatles instead of him. Here it is. It's one of the rare interviews in which the TMO "pre-screening" process didn't keep the reporter from actually asking hard questions. The "interview" (Maharishi in another room entirely) starts at about the 40 second mark and continues throughout the clip. Maharishi Exposed https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGc1yTDU8Fs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGc1yTDU8Fs Maharishi Exposed https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGc1yTDU8Fs View on www.youtube.com https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGc1yTDU8Fs Preview by Yahoo You can imagine how much I like this Australian interviewer's 'tude. He's clearly a no-bullshit kinda guy having people pour buckets of bullshit over him and tell him it's Kool-Aid, and he ain't drinkin' the Kool-Aid. He also isn't buying a minute of it. He keeps puncturing the TMO fantasy-balloons and bringing the blissninnies down to earth. One of my favorite moments at about the 3:00 minute mark shows him sitting in a chair forced to watch a bunch of TM butt-bouncers *clearly* using their muscle power to bounce back and forth on a bunch of slabs of foam. Bevan -- the proverbial 900 pound gorilla in the room -- is sitting there next to him with a big "THIS will convince this guy and make him feel the *awe* he should feel towards us" look on his face. Meanwhile, the reporter is sitting there alternating between being bored and amazed that anyone would consider this outrageous display impressive. Afterwards, interviewing one of the bouncing blissninnies, the BN says, "When I do this I feel tremendous bliss...I could do this [hop like this] for hours -- back and forth." The reporter just says, "But why would you?" :-) Jump to about 5:20, when the reporter (via video) speaks the *obvious* to Maharishi, that the Beatles established his reputation to the world. NOT much giggling from the giggling guru. Instead, he starts to grow clearly angry and tries to browbeat the reporter into talking about what he wants instead of these damned Beatles. Jump to the 11:00 mark, in which the reporter asks him more hard questions, and Maharishi reacts very badly indeed, especially in reaction to the question, "Can you fly yourself?" At that point, the cult toadies cut the connection and Sir Bevan the Bloated tries to usher him out of the room using the same uber-gay wave-your-hand gesture he'd use to convince someone to kneel during TM instruction. This is one of the most damning exposes I've ever seen about TM, but my point in reposting it here is to place in into context alongside the recent Scientology documentary. You DON'T see any of the "giggling guru" evasions and distractions here. Maharishi is so used to being surrounded by toadies who accept everything he says as gospel (literally) that he simply *cannot handle* being treated like an ordinary person. From: salyavin808 <no_re...@yahoogroups.com> To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Wednesday, April 8, 2015 7:52 AM Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: ~~~~~~~~~~ about friendship ~~~~~~~~~~~ The only time Marshy made me laugh was in an interview in Israel. A journalist was trying to pick holes in his ideas and used a story that he'd learnt TM himself on recommendation from his mother who was a devotee, but he had abandoned it after a few days and not had the heart to tell her. Whenever he saw her though, she always said "You look so well, I told you TM was good for you". Marshy just laughed and said "There, you see the benefits from doing TM for just a few days?" and wet himself laughing. He was on top form in those days - at least in so far as not letting anyone get one over on him. The overall impression from that interview is that it got grating the longer it went on as it was obvious he wasn't answering the questions seriously and just avoiding them. This is my big complaint about him, it's all very well using every question as an opportunity to give the answer you've already prepared but unless you're already sold on that idea you aren't going to learn anything useful. And the sycophants in that interview were on top form too. Laughing in all the right places and acting smug that they were on the "winning" side. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <turquoiseb@...> wrote : I will answer this one first, since s3ra anticipates the answer. :-) I have encountered a number of spiritual teachers -- some of whom I might actually accuse of being enlightened or as close to it as I've ever seen -- who were really funny. Maharishi would not be one of them. *He* was constantly amused at the things he said, and giggled at them, and many of the people in the audiences giggled along because it was expected of them. But if you go back and actually listen to those talks, he never actually said that much that was actually funny and worth laughing at. It was "self-amusement," not comedy. In contrast, the Fred Lenz-Rama guy (and a few other teachers I've met) was seriously FUNNY. He could put whole audiences on the floor laughing, and I'm not talking audiences of sycophants, but people off the street showing up for an intro lecture. The only person I've ever seen "faster on his feet" mentally was Robin Williams. From: "s3raphita@... [FairfieldLife]" <FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com> To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Wednesday, April 8, 2015 2:28 AM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: ~~~~~~~~~~ about friendship ~~~~~~~~~~~ Re "He [MMY] did have a great sense of humor.": Yes, to be fair to Maharishi, he was dubbed "the giggling guru". Hmmmm. I wonder what Barry will say to that . . . ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <wayback71@...> wrote : An enlightened comedian/teacher. I like it. Laughing all the way there. What fun. And it does remind me of some great moments around MMY - you saw them too. Laugh out loud fun stuff. He did have a great sense of humor. Adyashanti seems pretty careful about the whole guru business. It must be so outrageously tempting to be in those guru positions. In the end, the 2 big essentials are: it helps get students wake up and it does not harm students.
