--- In [email protected], TurquoiseB <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > --- In [email protected], "sparaig" <sparaig@> wrote: > > --- In [email protected], TurquoiseB <no_reply@> wrote: <snip> > > > True Believers are *created*. They don't just > > > happen. You believe that TM is "the best" because > > > you've been TOLD that so often, for so many years. > > > And sadly, you still don't realize this... > > > > I'm well-aware of teh mechanism. However, being brainwashed > > doesn't preclude being correct... > > IF it were correct, why would it be necessary to > try to convince its practitioners that it was > "the best?" Why would it be necessary to claim > it was, over and over and over and over and over?
I don't think this is an accurate description, but that's another issue. In any case, to the extent I understood that TM was being described as "the best," I took it with a very large saltshaker. It didn't really figure into my thinking until I'd had considerable experience with the practice. But at some point I had an "Aha!"-type realization. *This* (my experience of the technique) is why they say it's "the best" (actually more like "the most efficient technique available for householders"). To use a negative analogy, it's like a teenager being told it's dangerous to drive when drunk. The teenager doesn't pay any attention until one day when he's driving drunk, he narrowly avoids running off the road, and he can very clearly see that being drunk is what put him in danger. Oh, so *that's* why they say it's dangerous to drive drunk! It isn't that he's been brainwashed into thinking it's dangerous, it's that what he's been told has suddenly been validated by his own experience. Of course, the analogy is loaded, in that there's plenty of objective evidence that driving while drunk is dangerous. I'm just trying to describe the recognition mechanism for an individual. > Why would it be necessary to browbeat its prac- > titioners to make them afraid to try any other > technique of meditation or even sit in the same > room with someone practicing another technique > of meditation, so that some comparison might > be made? I never had any sense of *fear* in this regard. Once I'd had my "Aha!" experience, it seemed like merely a practical consideration. If what I'm doing is "the best," why bother with anything else? (Nor, for that matter, did I ever feel "browbeaten" on this point.) What's virtually impossible to explain is why one might conclude on the basis of one's own experience, with no or minimal experience of other techniques, that TM is "the best" to someone who hasn't had the "Aha!" experience. I've used a similar analogy to Jim's of walking vs. crawling: if you know how to ride a bicycle, it really doesn't make sense to try other methods of riding a bicycle, such as propelling it with your feet on the ground, or running alongside it, then leaping on and resting your feet on the pedals while it coasts. It's just self-evident that turning the pedals with your feet is the most effective way to get somewhere on a bicycle; there's simply no need to try other methods. But with TM, this is a *subjective* experience of how the mind works (not of mental content but rather the mechanics of the thinking process), just as it becomes self-evident that turning the pedals makes the wheels turn and propels the bicycle forward--but entirely inside your own head, where you can't demonstrate it to anybody else. > Let's face it, dude...you've been brainwashed. > You've been told to look down on any form of > meditation other than TM, so you do. > > And the amazing thing is, you do all this with- > out *ever* having tried any of these other > techniques yourself, to see if what you were > told is true. You consider giving them a try > to be "off the program" and "dangerous" and > somehow "disrespectful" to Maharishi, right? "Disrespectful to Maharishi"?? I seriously doubt Lawson worries about its being "disrespectful." I certainly don't. Nor would I consider it "dangerous" except insofar as it might inhibit my practice of TM--and again, not because I've been told this, but because my experience of TM makes it self-evident. Just as, if I wanted to get somewhere as soon as possible, I wouldn't fool around with another method of riding a bicycle. > And you think all these ideas are your own. "Ideas" based on personal experience, in my case, at least. > Yeah, right. Funny how Barry's "Trust your own experience" mantra is so easily discarded when it comes to someone's experience of 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/
