Hi John!
Knowledge is vast. You can spend your life time learning and still there will
be more unlerarned.
TM has been developped be someone with great knowledge in this field. It is
not very wise to question everything it uses like mantra which is nothing but a
life supporting sound.
Another thing you say is a God of some other culture. This to me a little
narrow minded. Forgive me for using this word. Be phylosophical and think, God
does not belong to any culture or religion. You believe or not it is the
reality and same to all. It has to do with a faith system.
Concerning the insomnia, I will try to send some more articles that will help
you. However, I would like you to respond to my private email [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Regards,
Pratap
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. 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.
There are, of course, non-mantra based meditations. But those that I have
encountered seem based around the breath. And although this would indeed
seem universal, what quiet I do find through TM comes when thought of breath
has fallen away (as a woodwind musician, I am rarely unaware of, if not
actively controlling, my breath).
Hmm. I'm not sure there is a question in the above, so much as a seeking of
thoughts and opinion. Is the mantra used of importance? If so, why? If not,
why?! Do there by any chance exist other non mantra-based, non-religious,
'aimless' meditations? Are my thought processes described above flawed? If
so, why and how?
Anyways, thanks for reading this far, and any advice would be greatfully
received.
John
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