> --- In [email protected], "jim_flanegin" <jflanegi@> wrote: > > Agreed. Each of the criticisms of Maharishi and each of > the praises of him, or responses to the criticisms should > be judged on their own merits. I agree that Barry looks > pretty one-sided sometimes, as if he has already made up > his mind regarding any responses to a criticism of > Maharishi and what that represents to him.
Jim, this is an *assumption* on your part, and, as it turns out, an *erroneous* assumption. I have NO OPINION on the questions Paul asked, because I don't know the answers. It really doesn't MATTER to me whether Maharishi is a well-meaning but flawed monk or a con man. I don't have any opinion on the subject at all. He's not my teacher; I have nothing invested in him one way or another. But you obviously do. I think that what you're upset about is that Paul is asking the questions that YOU should have asked 'way back when, and never did. These questions should have been asked back in 1959, and by every person who learned TM along the way. But they weren't. Most people just treated everything that Maharishi said as if it were automatically some cosmic truth, and accepted it as Truth. And now, when someone asks the simple questions that they should have asked, and would have asked of anyone who was trying to sell them something other than meditation, they get all upset and try to trash the person who is asking these questions now as if he's some kind of heretic. I think you're angry at YOURSELF for never questioning the stories you bought about Maharishi's background, and the nature of his relationship with Guru Dev, and whether Guru Dev would ever have approved of what Maharishi has done in his name. I don't know the truth of the situation. Neither, as far as I can tell, does Paul. But at least he had the balls to ASK THE QUESTIONS, and you didn't. He had the initiative to TRY TO FIND OUT, and you didn't. You just believed what you were told to believe. I do NOT necessarily agree with the commentary Paul included in his last "question." But it doesn't bother me in the least that he included it. That is his right. What he expressed was his *opinion*, formed after years of doing the legwork that no one else was ever willing to do. It really doesn't matter AT ALL to me what Paul or anyone else says about Maharishi. WHY does it bother you? Do you somehow believe that it is impolite or insulting to ask questions of Maharishi that you'd probably ask of any other salesman trying to sell you something? Would you shirk at asking John Gray about how the 'Ph.D.' suddenly started appearing at the end of his name on his promotional materials? IF you asked, you might learn that the "degree" came from the University of P.O. Box 2000, and that the "course of study" involved in earning that degree consisted of putting a check in the mail. Would asking about *that* be impolite or insulting? If not, why would questioning Maharishi's claim to a degree he seems unable to document be impolite or insulting? Why would asking him whether Guru Dev *really* taught him TM be inappropriate, or asking him ANY other question?
