On Apr 13, 2007, at 7:26 AM, TurquoiseB wrote:
As someone who used to teach a lot of TM residence courses, this difference was not lost on me. On the TM courses, there were very definite rules about not leaving the grounds, and with good reason. One has to wonder whether the difference was in the form of meditation being practiced, or in the unquestioning acceptance on TM courses that feeling "spaced out" or feeling some kind of "unstressing" was normal.
There is of course the idea and practice of a "boundaried" retreat: part of the practice is to keep in a confined area, for a specific amount of time and that confinement is used to enhance focus and subtlety. But in the case of tm courses, I think the reason is another one: liability and the costs associated with that liability. I believe it was only later they tried to promote and sell the idea of coherence in the TMSP era as enhanced by being in one area, together at the same time.
One wonders if the whole unstressing thing is just a negative institutional egregore, a collective idea that stuck like some sort of unbanishable spirit.
