--- In [email protected], "John Davis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Hi, > > I'm new to this list, so I hope the following post is appropriate. It is > also somewhat lengthy, for which I apologise - conciseness was never my > strong point. But I am in search of a spot of advice, and wondered if anyone > here could help... > > I learned TM about nine months or so (I know, a newbie!). It appealed to me > since whislt I consider myself in a sense spiritual, I am not religious, and > TM seemed to offer a non-faith based approach to meditation. And it has not > been entirely without benefit. But since then I have suffered increasingly > from insomnia. Not to a dreadful degree, but I'm lucky if I get three hours > sleep a night. Growing unhappy with my instructor's standard 'part of the > process' response, I took a look online and found this wasn't entirely > uncommon, and nor was it necessarily temporary. But, in addition, I also > came upon the translations of the mantras. And here lies my real problem. > > I am not overly bothered by the deception involved when I was told, on > learning, that they are without meaning, since, for me at least, they were. > But not any more. Now it seems to me that any universal truth has, by > definition, to transcend cultures, or it is not universal. The laws of > gravity, for example, might have been discovered in the west, but gravity > works everywhere at all times no matter what it is called or how it is > defined (well, a few claims to the contrary aside!). The processes of > nature, the existence of the bundle of emotions and feelings we define as > love, the existence of bad television shows...the list goes on, in all > disciplines of life. And if meditation has value, then similarly, the same > should be the case, must be the case. > > So. There seem to me to be two possibilities. One, that the actual mantra > used is irrrelvant, meaningless. Just a word to return to during meditation > as a way of letting go of thought. But if this is so, why the insistence, in > TM and indeed other traditions, on the use of particular mantras? Or two, > that the mantra used is important, and does have meaning. >>
"Meaning" is what people give to anything they like. Do you really think there is a big blue guy floating around in the clouds with a trident skewered with human souls, and a chowawa at his feet? And that he is at war with an incandescent red Harpi with who rides a white leapord and carries babies skulls in her hands??? If this is what you believe then good luck wit' that. But if this is so, > then the technique is not universal but rooted in a particular culture. > Moreover, when meditating I am in effect praying to a god not of my culture, > and of whom I have no knowledge, which leaves me deeply uncomfortable.>> Why are you afraid of Gods? You are human for chrise sakes ! Grow-up man. OffWorld
