[FairfieldLife] The good things TM gave us
do.rflx wrote: I look at the quantity of people like myself in that seemingly 'unique' and 'special' time frame who were 'lost' in the darker side of the hippie daze [days], or just plain 'lost' - and because of TM became positive and hopeful for probably the first time in many of their lives. The life-saving transformation that happened to me must also have been evident in hundreds of thousands of others in those days. Bronte writes: You guys make a point that needs to be considered: the fact that TM did save a lot (most?) of us drugged-out hippies from a nose-diving lifestyle. I, too, had that experience. The first time I transcended, the tears rolled down my cheeks for 20 minutes. I had felt so isolated for so many years, believing in nothing beyond the world of the senses. In that 20-minute session, I knew beyond a doubt there was a God. I felt a sense of presence I hadn't known since I was a little girl. All the noise in my mind had turned to stillness. And TM quickly also changed my life, in ways much like other people's stories already told here. So if the TMO, or New Age in general, is -- as has been alleged -- manipulating people into becoming mindless zombies, or nice-guys-turned-possessed (Hitler: a worst-case example) -- how can that possibly be, when TM brought so much good into our lives? I've thought about this a good deal, and I think it is a very important question. What I come up with is this. TM did deliver experience of the stillest states of awareness, that most of us had been too outward-directed ever to have noticed before. It pointed us toward home. That was fantastic. But just as a bad product offer can include a really good freebie giveaway, TM attached a pretty big pricetag to the good that it gave us. That pricetag wasn't noticed until we'd been meditating a long time, until we'd bought the philosophy hook line and sinker. Kind of like those credit card deals that start out with zero interest then slowly build interest until you're amazed to find yourself swimming in debt. The pricetag was, you pay a toll to the gods to ride the road to transcendence. You get to pure consciousness using a toll road highway. At first you're asked for only a tiny toll, no pinch at all. You're informed this is the only way to the ocean -- taking the freeway is far too dangerous. So the aspirant flies down the toll road, thrilled to be using it, paying 35 cents at a tollbooth now and then. But as the years go by, the toll charge rises -- he gets an advanced technique, he starts reading Vedas to the gods every day, listening to chants -- his mantra gets namah added to it. Bowing, bowing down. Delivering soma to the gods. Longer and longer hours are spent meditating, and he's told this is good for him. But his health is getting weaker now, he feels irritability where he used to only feel peace. He has little time for personal pursuits because the movement requires his fulltime service. (I'm not saying everyone who meditates experiences weak health after a while, but a lot of people do.) But the aspirant rarely complains because he's told he's getting so much good from all this. He probably hasn't noticed a lot of progress in a long time. But he believes -- why? Because of those first great initiatory experiences! Back when the toll was 35 cents. Back when he visited his inner Source and came back again, infused with its values, dynamic into activity. But now his energy is going to Indra and Kali, Shiva and Saraswati. Pictures of gods line the walls of his house. An alter is in his bedroom. And because he's not happy, perhaps he starts to visit other gurus, hoping for renewal of those early days of purity and joy. But instead he just accumulates more teachers, who teach the very same things only rearranged a little. They give him a new mantra or a special name. Maybe they give him a hug. He has so much invested already -- all these years of his life! So he hangs on yet stronger, dedicating even more of himself to spiritual advancement. And he is taught to how to handle the frustration, that feeling he used to get that his life was supposed to be more. That is just egoistic desire, he is told. So he surrenders his personal needs. When his mind starts questioning, he also has been taught the solution to that: know that the wise embrace paradox -- nothing is real, no thing is true. Everything but the Absolute is illusion. The aspirant surrenders mind and desire. He offers them on the alter of his meditation, of his devotion. He sings more hymns to the gods. Oh, Mother, relieve me from this suffering. She does. The goddess does. The aspirant feels better after meditation and chanting. His depression miraculously disappears. It comes back, but it goes away when he meditates. He knows the gracious gods are taking his pain away. Relieved of so much of what once made him a person, he feels much less
Re: [FairfieldLife] The good things TM gave us
Bronte Baxter wrote: snip What I come up with is this. TM did deliver experience of the stillest states of awareness, that most of us had been too outward-directed ever to have noticed before. It pointed us toward home. That was fantastic. But just as a bad product offer can include a really good freebie giveaway, TM attached a pretty big pricetag to the good that it gave us. That pricetag wasn't noticed until we'd been meditating a long time, until we'd bought the philosophy hook line and sinker. Kind of like those credit card deals that start out with zero interest then slowly build interest until you're amazed to find yourself swimming in debt. The pricetag was, you pay a toll to the gods to ride the road to transcendence. You get to pure consciousness using a toll road highway. At first you're asked for only a tiny toll, no pinch at all. You're informed this is the only way to the ocean -- taking the freeway is far too dangerous. So the aspirant flies down the toll road, thrilled to be using it, paying 35 cents at a tollbooth now and then. But as the years go by, the toll charge rises -- he gets an advanced technique, he starts reading Vedas to the gods every day, listening to chants -- his mantra gets namah added to it. Bowing, bowing down. Delivering soma to the gods. Actually the advanced techniques are more like the traditional mantras without omkara. But most TM'ers including teachers never step out enough to learn mantra shastra to know that and MMY never taught mantra shastra which is the science of mantras. Using bij aksharas as a meditation mantra is very controversial among Indian sages and without om even more controversial. big snip TM gave us something. But that was the thing that was always free to us anyway, had we only known where to look. It's something that still waits for us, never demanding we pay a toll. It's there for the experiencing, without gods or mantras, bajans or ego-suicide. It's just what we Are, and it just Is. A few years back I was initiated into a tantric tradition by a Indian tantric who resides locally. This tradition which is village tantra is not over scholasticized like we find in the TM movement. It had to be kept simple because village people often don't have the education to delve into things academically. But it is a very powerful tradition and Indians will tell you the most powerful tantrics are the ones who reside in the villages probably because their energies are not drained by the stress of the city. Which also means that in its simplicity it is more apropos for our modern western lifestyle. Having a personal guru (who also treats me as his buddy) is a lot different from having a remote out of touch pop guru. There is of course plenty of time to ask questions including very deep ones that even if you got to ask MMY he would have blown off. He also does not rule over my life but instead it is here are some techniques to practice and when and how to practice them. We've had much discourse on mantra shastra too. It is actually very simple as is shaktipat which we use in teaching. And there is no cult. In fact I have met only a few of his other initiates. There are no group meetings as it is one-on-one instruction. What I've learned is meditation is good even if it just calms someone down for a couple of periods a day. It is amazing if it opens your eyes to reality. The Kali tradition which is dangerous unless under the instruction of a guru peels away illusion like the layers of an onion. Every week there is a new aha! experience. And my guru teaches that kind of experience is unending. BTW, before I learned TM I had tried some of Ramana Maharishi's techniques (and even before that when I first tried meditation I had kundalini rise). I learned TM because I intuitively felt that mantra meditation would deepen what I had already learned through self-inquiry. And it did and in fact they played off one another. Gods, BTW, are just personifications of the subtle fields that sages experienced in meditation. They were personified so that the ordinary person could conceptualize them.
Re: [FairfieldLife] The good things TM gave us
snip Actually the advanced techniques are more like the traditional mantras without omkara. But most TM'ers including teachers never step out enough to learn mantra shastra to know that and MMY never taught mantra shastra which is the science of mantras. Using bij aksharas as a meditation mantra is very controversial among Indian sages and without om even more controversial. Bronte: Could you expand on that? This is a new area to me. What are bij aksharas and why are they controversial? What are the two sides of the argument? Bhairitu [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Bronte Baxter wrote: snip What I come up with is this. TM did deliver experience of the stillest states of awareness, that most of us had been too outward-directed ever to have noticed before. It pointed us toward home. That was fantastic. But just as a bad product offer can include a really good freebie giveaway, TM attached a pretty big pricetag to the good that it gave us. That pricetag wasn't noticed until we'd been meditating a long time, until we'd bought the philosophy hook line and sinker. Kind of like those credit card deals that start out with zero interest then slowly build interest until you're amazed to find yourself swimming in debt. The pricetag was, you pay a toll to the gods to ride the road to transcendence. You get to pure consciousness using a toll road highway. At first you're asked for only a tiny toll, no pinch at all. You're informed this is the only way to the ocean -- taking the freeway is far too dangerous. So the aspirant flies down the toll road, thrilled to be using it, paying 35 cents at a tollbooth now and then. But as the years go by, the toll charge rises -- he gets an advanced technique, he starts reading Vedas to the gods every day, listening to chants -- his mantra gets namah added to it. Bowing, bowing down. Delivering soma to the gods. Actually the advanced techniques are more like the traditional mantras without omkara. But most TM'ers including teachers never step out enough to learn mantra shastra to know that and MMY never taught mantra shastra which is the science of mantras. Using bij aksharas as a meditation mantra is very controversial among Indian sages and without om even more controversial. big snip TM gave us something. But that was the thing that was always free to us anyway, had we only known where to look. It's something that still waits for us, never demanding we pay a toll. It's there for the experiencing, without gods or mantras, bajans or ego-suicide. It's just what we Are, and it just Is. A few years back I was initiated into a tantric tradition by a Indian tantric who resides locally. This tradition which is village tantra is not over scholasticized like we find in the TM movement. It had to be kept simple because village people often don't have the education to delve into things academically. But it is a very powerful tradition and Indians will tell you the most powerful tantrics are the ones who reside in the villages probably because their energies are not drained by the stress of the city. Which also means that in its simplicity it is more apropos for our modern western lifestyle. Having a personal guru (who also treats me as his buddy) is a lot different from having a remote out of touch pop guru. There is of course plenty of time to ask questions including very deep ones that even if you got to ask MMY he would have blown off. He also does not rule over my life but instead it is here are some techniques to practice and when and how to practice them. We've had much discourse on mantra shastra too. It is actually very simple as is shaktipat which we use in teaching. And there is no cult. In fact I have met only a few of his other initiates. There are no group meetings as it is one-on-one instruction. What I've learned is meditation is good even if it just calms someone down for a couple of periods a day. It is amazing if it opens your eyes to reality. The Kali tradition which is dangerous unless under the instruction of a guru peels away illusion like the layers of an onion. Every week there is a new aha! experience. And my guru teaches that kind of experience is unending. BTW, before I learned TM I had tried some of Ramana Maharishi's techniques (and even before that when I first tried meditation I had kundalini rise). I learned TM because I intuitively felt that mantra meditation would deepen what I had already learned through self-inquiry. And it did and in fact they played off one another. Gods, BTW, are just personifications of the subtle fields that sages experienced in meditation. They were personified so that the ordinary person could conceptualize them. - Boardwalk for $500? In 2007? Ha! Play Monopoly Here and Now (it's updated for today's economy) at Yahoo! Games.
Re: [FairfieldLife] The good things TM gave us
Bronte Baxter wrote: snip Actually the advanced techniques are more like the traditional mantras without omkara. But most TM'ers including teachers never step out enough to learn mantra shastra to know that and MMY never taught mantra shastra which is the science of mantras. Using bij aksharas as a meditation mantra is very controversial among Indian sages and without om even more controversial. Bronte: Could you expand on that? This is a new area to me. What are bij aksharas and why are they controversial? What are the two sides of the argument? Bij aksharas or bija mantra are seed mantras (bij means seed). They are used to enliven longer mantras. They are seldom used to meditate on by themselves. The TM first techniques are all well known bij aksharas. Using a planetary mantra here is an example: Om ing kling brihaspataye namah. The bij aksharas ing and kling enliven the sanskrit name for Jupiter: Brihasphati. This makes the mantra more powerful than just Om Brihaspataye Namah. Likewise adding the bij mantras brang, bring, brown to a mantra for Rahu makes it more powerful: Om bring brang brown seh rahuve namah. (Rahu is the north lunar node). Though there may be a few Indian sects that use bij mantras by themselves outside of TM I really don't know of any. Most gurus give traditional mantras for yogic meditation which is meditation for the masses. When they initiate someone into their tradition they give the initiate the guru mantra which is a special mantra that has been passed down through the tradition and gains power with each generation. Guru mantras can enliven other mantras. It has been claimed that Maharishi originally gave out the shanti mantra Ram (or Jai Ram) when he started TM. Some think that he switched to the bij mantras to make TM unique as many gurus would have given out that same shanti mantra. I also observe that unlike more traditional mantras that transcend slowly bij mantras tend to dip vertically (just like the bubble diagram) giving quick tastes of the transcendent. Remember that MMY also wanted people to get the advanced techniques as early as a year and a half which are more traditional and keep you in the transcendent longer. Many gurus think that using bij mantras by themselves can cause problems because they are so powerful. Also it is very non-traditional to not use Om (omkara) with the mantra. Which is even a greater controversy since MMY got the idea that it causes poverty but look at all the Indian millionaires who practice traditional mantras with Om in them.
