Comment below: **
--- In [email protected], Sal Sunshine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On Apr 17, 2007, at 10:54 AM, curtisdeltablues wrote: > > > Parents who are > > depressed are also emotionally and physically unavailable. > > That's what a lot of these experiences seem to me to be-- undiagnosed > low-grade depression that people are simply unwilling to face up to, so > they try to convince themselves of their specialness in order to make > some sense of it all. > > > So perhaps this is the inevitable result of a community that is > > practicing mind altering techniques for years, > > Much of the focus of the TMO over the years I was involved (and I have > no reason to think it's changed, in fact it might even be more so now) > seems to be to put as much in between people and their children as they > can, or even between married couples: accepting one person to a course > but not the other, insisting people come to the Domes during the best > part of the day for parents and kids to be together, and on and on. > Basically forcing them to choose. > **snip to end** Sal, your last paragraph is an expression, I think, of the fact that Maharishi never really understood or intrinsically valued the householder life, despite the fact that his self-perceived mission was to bring the practice of meditation to those of us "in the world". Although the basic 2x/day meditation is valuable in the context of everyday life, most or all of his advanced programs reflect a default position that places primary emphasis on the individual's sadhana, distinct from, and in conflict with, the duties and demands of family and the larger community. It really can make it difficult. A lot of us, in our late teens and early 20s, essentially followed the traditional eastern pattern of living a monk's/nun's life for a brief period (TTC, sidhi and other long rounding courses) before entering the world as productive and (to one degree or another) spiritually grounded adults. But many of us lingered, and obviously some still do, on the margins of two lifestyles in which we weren't/they aren't really living one or the other; and, consequently, garnering little fruit from either. (Limbo lower now.)
