--- In [email protected], gerbal88 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> --- In [email protected], Vaj <vajranatha@> wrote:
> >
> > 
> > On Jun 29, 2006, at 9:37 PM, Rick Archer wrote:
> > 
> > > on 6/29/06 8:19 PM, off_world_beings at 
[EMAIL PROTECTED]  
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > >> You got nothing. You are just looking for attention, but will 
> find
> > >> something to make up that is totally unsubstantiated and
> > >> uncorroborated by the majority of the people who were there.
> > >>
> > > That's true, because the majority who were there weren't in 
the  
> > > inner circle. But those in the inner circle soon learned that 
> MMY's  
> > > private and public personae were quite different. This 
discovery  
> > > caused the majority of MMY's personal secretaries to leave the  
> > > movement. __
> > 
> > 
> > Thanks for mentioning this, I think this important point is not  
> > mentioned enough. As word leaked out about his duplicity it 
helped  
> > many make the decision to split. Once you knew the public side 
was  
> > essentially a front, a facade and M. a poseur, you realize it's 
> just  
> > a business. That's one of the reasons many believe the words  
> > attributed to Guru Dev when he said 'go to the mountains to 
> meditate,  
> > you'll never be good at anything other than making money.' (huge  
> > paraphrase).
> > 
> > "Mahesh has been interested in power, in the accumulation of 
> money,  
> > and in women. Why does he live in a big house, own helicopters,  
> > airplanes, etc? Why does he spend most of his time involved in  
> > business planning about making money? It is because he is a  
> > businessman who has the desires that other wealthy businessmen 
> have.  
> > His spiritual front is his scam and the way he gets people to 
give  
> > him their time and money." --Earl Kaplan
> >
> 
> Accurate insight, in my opinion, Vaj. Ture believers will always 
find 
> reason to believe. Like the Jehovah's witnesses, the more you point 
> out the flaws, the stronger they grow. When they come to the door I 
> just tell them I'm a reformed Druid (we're allowed to worship 
> bushes). It's an old M*A*S*H* joke.
> 
> If you read Joyce Collin-Smith's "Call No Man Master" or Paul 
Mason's 
> Mahesh bio, it's perfectly clear that Mahesh is all about getting 
> himself worshiped. 
> 
> I clearly remember the newspaper stories: he declared his mission 
> failure and said he was retiring to the Himilayas. It was AFTER 
this 
> that the Beatles made him famous and he bounced back with a 
vengence. 
> First he created huge numbers of TM teachers (Mallorca, Fiuggi, La 
> Antilla). He coo'd like a dove cooing to another dove from whom it 
> hoped to borrow money (favourite Wodehouse quote) at the peak of 
> rounding: no one can love you like I can, you are going to save the 
> whole world, get the money from an auntie, from your gran ....
> 
> Mahesh could be a real slime ball. And, what did he teach on his 6-
> month courses? Stuff borrowed and re-worked from Yogananda. I did 
all 
> of the Yogananda lessons after TM, out of curiosity more than 
> anything else. There were the A of E techniques and contacts 
provided 
> more information about the 6-month courses. Just more of Yogananda 
> with his lovely spin on it.
> 
> And the 'sidhi' stuff? He had no idea, literally. He sent people to 
> India to find yogis; he got obscure translations, he fiddled and 
> fumed and tinkered ... but what worked best was the cooing, get 'em 
> all spacey and suggest hopping. How simple; he'd always known that 
> people would pay him for what they expected to get in return and 
that 
> he never had any trouble convincing them it was their fault it 
wasn't 
> working. He still bitches about too much negativity, too little 
work 
> being done by others, yadda, yadda.
> 
> The "real" Mahesh is someone completely imaginary for most people. 
> But, yes, there was an inner circle, people who liked what they 
were 
> doing and since he was providing room and board and the company of 
> each other, they didn't particularly object doing it for him. But 
> behind closed doors, the discussion shifted to how completely 
bonkers 
> Mahesh was. Stripped of his public facade, he was a nutter with 
> charm, intelligence, charisma by the sackful. But his ideas and his 
> wast wedic wevelations were total kaka. It was all provided by 
people 
> who not only told him what the Sanskrit said, but what the Sanskrit 
> meant. 
> 
> It was all spindoctoring based on the work of others.
> 
> Do nothing, accomplish everything took on a whole new meaning. YOU 
> bust your balls and I take all the credit.
> 
> Well, that was fun. Nothing new, but fun. Those who see, see. Those 
> who don't see, still see. A finger points at the moon. Some will 
> always and only consider the finger.
> 
> Happy trails. There are better things to do than worry about some 
Jim 
> Jones type dressed in sheets and wearing makeup.
>

Damn, I left out one piece of the puzzle that makes everything post-
Beatles interesting. Pre-Beatles, Mahesh was nothing more than a 
travelling TM teacher with a winning personality. Post, he had a huge 
mission: create adoring fans (Mallorca, Fiuggi, La Antilla) and then 
sell them AofE and 'sidhi'. Once you're on a roll like that, you 
simply cannot fail. Sure, he was broke. He had to do something to 
float his life-style. So, create a buying public to whom you can 
exclusively sell your concoctions. He made $11million the first time 
he did the 'sidhi' thing across the US by conference call. After 
that, people would simply line up to buy whatever was next. 

And in private, no one laughed at the followers more than Mahesh. 
Even at Estes Park he told the story of the First Grader coming home 
to tell mom and dad "this is A and this is B" ... in his eyes, his 
new teachers were being sent forth in pricesly the same state. And 
they were charging money for it and he was getting half. AND these 
people loved him for it. Who said a little knowledge was a dangerous 
thing! Hah! Give people a little knowledge and they'll bust their 
butt for you.

Sure TM feels good. It's a technique of escapism into a 
depersonalized, detached and easily manipulated state of suspended 
judgement. Rounding simply upps it to a mechanism for implanting 
whatever ideas the "leader" feels are in his best interests. 

Joe Kellett has nicely explained this, much more clearly and 
accurately than I am able to at his well-thought out web site: 
Falling Down the TM Rabbit Hole http://www.suggestibility.org/

So many people were so overwhelmed by the honour of being in Mahesh's 
presence that there were very, very few of us not rounding, just 
watching. Still, in those days, we still felt TM was worth spreading 
because we really did feel it was good. But no matter how good you 
might feel TM might be (and I no longer subscribe to that notion), it 
was plain as day, behind the public performances, that Mahesh was in 
no way clear about what he wanted to do or how he wanted to do it, 
that was what the punters, the lackeys, the peons were for.

Whether or not Guru Dev approved of Mahesh (keep your friends close 
and your enemies closer?), Mahesh should never have been let out of 
the barn. No amount of fiddled scientific studies can convince a non-
believer that TM has made the world better. Today is simply not 
better than the 70's. 






------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> 
Great things are happening at Yahoo! Groups.  See the new email design.
http://us.click.yahoo.com/TISQkA/hOaOAA/yQLSAA/UlWolB/TM
--------------------------------------------------------------------~-> 

To subscribe, send a message to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

Or go to: 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/
and click 'Join This Group!' 
Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
    [EMAIL PROTECTED]

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
    http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
 



Reply via email to