--- In [email protected], "jim_flanegin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Steve, odd that the current course is quite successful, > with the underwriting of the course, the arrival of the > pundits, the experiences reported, and yet you see it > in an entirely negative light...What does that say about > your spiritual practice? Not much, in my book.
Vaj sees things his way, you see things your way, that's all. Me, I see the "underwriting" as a nostalgic attempt by a few wealthy long-term members of the TM movement to allow Maharishi to die with his illusions that he still *has* a movement intact. I think it's nice that the tiny handful of people who still care enough to bounce on their butts together get to do so; if that has any effect whatsoever on the world I think that's nice, too. But I think it takes some pretty rose-colored glasses to view the history of this particular course as a "success." It's the *illusion* of a success, salvaged by outsourcing the buttbouncing to India and funded by a few individuals who care as much about preserving the illusion that the TMO still *is* a "movement" as much as Maharishi does. In many ways, that's noble. I think it's sweet that a tiny handful of people still believe in the ME and believe in Maharishi and are willing to put their money where their beliefs are. But don't ask me to call the papier mache illusion created by that handful and their money a "success." For me, a "success" would be if Maharishi put out a "call to action" to his many students over the years and those students did what was asked of them. Do the math -- let's say that the TMO has (conservatively) taught 1,200,000 people to meditate over the years. But only 1200 or so people -- at the *peak* of the pre-pundit "numbers" -- answered the call and bothered to show up for this course. If you can't do the math, that's -- synchronistically -- one-tenth of one percent. First the TMO asked its "movement" to come, then they begged the "movement" to come, then they dropped the price and begged again, and finally they resorted to threats and started making noises about the horrible things that would happen to the world if they *didn't* come. Nobody else came. So they outsourced the effort, and tried to *hire* people from within the "movement" to buttbounce together. And they didn't even do *that* with their *own* money; one of the faithful had to step in and offer to do it for them. Then when *that* wasn't working either they took his money and spent it to "staff up" the course with paid labor from India. Some "movement." Jim, I've been watching the short history of this course fairly closely, and I don't think I've mistated the sequence of events above. What does it say about *your* spiritual practice that you see that history as a "success?" One tenth of one percent, Jim. It cuts both ways. For the record, I think it's *sad* that the TMO destroyed itself. I think it could have been a real force on this planet if it had stuck to what it was good at -- teaching people a simple, easily-learned technique of meditation, and otherwise staying the fuck out of their lives. But they didn't. They chose to self-destruct instead. And now they choose to pretend that they didn't self-destruct, by hiring people from another country to come to American and stand in for the members of the "movement" who stopped being part of it long ago. A "movement" only "moves" when it has members *to* move. If you've systematically driven them all away for decades and *then* ask them to move and they don't, I think that the sane thing to do would be to step back and rethink all that you've done to *destroy* your own movement. The TMO, obviously, doesn't think that way; they'd rather hire kids from India so that they can pretend they still have one. 'Nuff said.
