If I were Jerry Jarvis would I want to be grilled by the folks here at FFlife?
Turq thought he should have the right to remain silent, and at first, I knee jerked that that was wrong, and that Jerry should fess up, but what's good for the goose, means I have to take a gander at what I would do if I were to be grilled today by the 2,000 people I convinced to spend money on TM. Would I want to tell them where my psychology is today -- that is, WORSE IN MANY WAYS than when I was when I first started TM? (Don't ask for details.) Do I want to tell them about all the delusions I sold in every TM lecture that were just never going to come true, and I should have known it just from the deviances of personalities I had met in the movement that were put in positions of authority? Do I want anyone standing up in a crowd of my initiates and asking, "What about this five to eight year promise you made me?" Do I want to admit to them that they never got to hear about my ATR credits being "disappeared," or about the Nazi guys who took over Seelisberg, or about Maharishi's money hijinks, and yet there was I lecturing them about TM producing perfect personalities that would make society better one person at a time? Do I want to admit to them that unlike the vast majority of them, that I took a dumbfoundedly long 29 years of meditating before I quit, and that during that time, I was CONSCIOUSLY rationalizing all the FACTS IN MY FACE that the first lecture's promises were almost pure hogwash? Do I want to tell them almost anything about what actually happened to me spiritually, psychologically, physiologically, sociologically, and financially, and how I largely knew that the promises of TM were NOT coming true, and yet I subjected my family to the movement's culture all during that time? Do I want to tell them that some initiators had only a couple of mantras to give out, because they became initiators too young and were only allowed to teach other young people, but later when they got older they were instructed to teach adults using those same two mantras rather than coming back to Maharishi for the "full set?" Answer: of course not. I'm too fucking guilty. And so is Jerry, and so is any teacher of TM. I don't think any TM teacher could have escaped the signs on the wall that the TM technique's efficacy in turning around the lives of even those most sincerely dedicated to TM was about zero. Nay, make that A BIG FUCKING FAT OOZING CAN'T BE MISSED ZERO. Do I have to mention Ed Beckley, Harold Bloomfield, The Kaplans, etc.? They all used TM as dedicatedly as I did, and like me, they are all just egoic wild dogs willing to piss on anything for a buck. Oh, true believers will say, "Edg, you were one of the rare ones. You had such a bad soul when you came to TM, that TM should be congratulated for stopping you from becoming the serial killer you were obviously destined to be." Something like that. To which I reply, "Say that to me in a dark alley with no one around, and I'll give you a two fisted accounting of what TM did about assuaging my anger." I'd love to say, "Jerry Jarvis join us and admit how far from being a panacea TM is. Sweep out the dirt from under the carpet. Set the record straight. Tell us about your spiritual status nowadays." But I'd only say it, if I were exempt from having to do the same thing. Oh, I've said most of it in my confessional posts here, but, no, don't ask me to face the faces I taught mantras to when I knew that their age at the time of initiation was my "deep method" for picking the precise mantra for them. >From a point of view -- one from which I was unwilling to look -- a child could have seen that TM's promise was a ridiculous joke. And it's not like I was slowly allowed to see this and that the leaders of the movement were keeping me in the dark. I knew it from almost the get-go once I got to teacher training and saw what was happening behind the curtains of Oz. And, years later, by the time we were all expected to put up posters of "Become a superman," I had all the evidence needed. What the fuck was I doing in my head to promise liftoff to folks when NO ONE IN MODERN SCIENTIFIC TIMES HAD EVER LEVITATED IN A LABORATORY? And while making such a promise, I was still waiting to see the slightest dent in my own encased soul's obfuscating armor. Jerry, you can keep your mouth shut, and be just like me, a fucking coward. Edg
