Re: [FairfieldLife] Kundalini experiences in 18-th & 19-th century Christianity

['My Enlightenment Delusion' myenlightenmentdelus...@gmail.com [FairfieldLife]]

That link to Christian experiences in the 18th and 19th century reminded me of 
laughing that occurred during my SCI course. Here is an excerpt from my book 
about laughing:
Every day we had large group meetings in a gymnasium. All 200 of us would 
sit on bleachers while we watched a SCI videotape lecture of Maharishi on 
several TV monitors that were placed in front of the bleachers. 

A large group meditation was often held in the gymnasium while we sat on 
the bleachers. Having meditated for over a year, I was familiar with sneezes 
and other mild distractions which sometime occur in group meditations. However, 
I was completely surprised by laughter in our large group meditations. 

During one group meditation, someone laughed out loud briefly which caused 
someone else to come forth with a soft laugh snort. This caused a handful of 
people to giggle briefly. This was experienced as a short distraction in 
meditation, but soon in the newly quieted gymnasium, we were able to start 
another dive in meditation. 

However, in a little while the quiet charm of our meditations was 
interrupted again when someone let out a little peep of a laugh because they 
couldn’t hold it in. This started group laughter in a couple isolated spots 
around the gym, which then quickly spread everywhere! A few howls, shrieks, and 
snorts increased the comedy significantly. A couple people had loud guffaws, 
and then we were all laughing so hard that our bellies hurt, and I thought I 
was dying! 

The raucous laughter continued for several minutes before quelling down, 
but then it would restart all over again even when someone just let out a 
little sigh. During this group meditation, there was no way to meditate. 

Following this group meditation which had the uncontrollable laughing 
spells, TM teachers gave instructions to not encourage laughter in subsequent 
group meditations. Laughter did happen again in other group meditations, but it 
was short-lived and we didn’t hurt our guts in uncontrollable hilarity. The 
small admonishments given by the TM teachers had quelled the laughter 
distraction. 

I count this experience of hysterical group laughter as one of my most 
remarkable experiences in the TM movement.

*1973*: Though I did not understand what could cause hysterical group 
laughter, I felt it had something to do with a positive benefit from TM and 
rounding.

*2017*: The hysterical laughter in that group meditation superseded other 
laughing experiences in my life. People say that laughter is catchy. Comedians 
also are aware that some audiences are more receptive to humor. Since all of us 
were ungrounded due to rounding, our normal sensibilities were slightly askew. 

  In addition, I believe that group meditations create a 
radiance effect in the room in which some kind of influence comes off each 
meditator and affects others in the room. Unlike the TM organization that 
thinks an entire community or nation could be affected by large meditating 
groups, I think the radiance effect is small and that the radiance effect is 
not always a good thing for people who are already ungrounded. 

The following link to my blog offers my opinion on kriyas and movements in 
meditation:  
https://myenlightenmentdelusion.com/2017/04/06/kriyas-hypnic-jerks-and-tics 

Matt Landing

From: yifux...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] 
Sent: Wednesday, September 13, 2017 7:03 PM
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
Subject: [FairfieldLife] Kundalini experiences in 18-th & 19-th century 
Christianity


Examples of John Wesley, Quakers and Shakers, Baptists, and Charles Finney in 
1821; provide a curious experiential convergence to various Kundalini 
manifestations of followers of Swami Muktananda. Such manifestations include 
falling to the floor, laughing and crying, involuntary body movements, some 
resembling animals.




http://www.evanwiggs.com/revival/history/riss6.html




SHALOM

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Maharishi Jyotish Council's Tips for Eclipse

['My Enlightenment Delusion' myenlightenmentdelus...@gmail.com [FairfieldLife]]

JP Sears has a humorous video entitled “The Solar Eclipse – Ultra Spiritual 
Life episode 70” at  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWOykD3FXKw . It is 4 min 
31 seconds.

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Charismatic Spiritual

['My Enlightenment Delusion' myenlightenmentdelus...@gmail.com [FairfieldLife]]

Wow! There are so many books! I was unaware of Prophetic Charisma.

I wrote My Enlightenment Delusion from my TM experience and from my conjecture 
without having done much research. Prophetic Charisma by Len Oakes seems to 
agree with what I wrote about “guru maniacs”.

The following quote is from https://www.sunstonemagazine.com/pdf/113-71-73.pdf: 
“To the extent that prophets are mentally ill, Oakes believes narcissism to be 
one cause. Narcissism places the prophet at the center of a world that exists 
for the prophet's pleasure. This unusual, self-focused world promotes insanity 
It also demands a high degree of creativity Hence, Oakes agrees with Lany 
Foster, a Mormon historian, that Joseph Smith suffered from manic depression, 
which contributed to Smith's high degree of creativity.”

>From my book: “I am using the phrase “guru maniac” to describe a person who 
>along with having delusions of grandiosity during a kundalini crisis also 
>happens to have the charisma, the gift of gab, and the ability to carry out a 
>tactical strategy to attract followers. Most guru maniacs have an uncommon 
>intellectual ability which they use to impress potential followers.

The phrase “spiritual maniac” describes a person who is different from a guru 
maniac. A spiritual maniac has delusions of grandiosity related to a kundalini 
crisis, but doesn’t have the necessary traits mentioned above to become a guru. 

A spiritual maniac is more likely to end up in a mental hospital whereas a guru 
maniac can talk themselves out of just about any predicament. 

I did not possess the charisma or eloquence to become a guru maniac, but even I 
flirted with the possibility of becoming a guru when I had my kundalini crisis. 
That is the manic symptom of over-self-confidence.

Since the guru maniac has the lexicon of spiritual literature, he likely sees 
his kundalini crisis as being a legitimate higher state of consciousness. 
Thinking that one is enlightened is grandiose thinking.

A guru maniac has the ability to master the enormous quantity of intellectual 
blather that has accumulated in religions and yogic traditions over centuries. 
Being able to speak about the mishmash of ancient wisdom allows a guru maniac 
to speak with credibility and authority.

Whereas most psychotic maniacs may have friends, family, and medical doctors 
letting the maniac know that they are delusional, guru maniacs probably do not 
have anyone telling them they are delusional. 

Instead the followers of a guru maniac legitimatize the grandiosity that the 
guru maniac sees in himself. And the guru maniac sees his grandiose self-esteem 
validated through his own interpretations of spiritual literature. 

If a guru maniac could see that his thoughts were grandiose delusions, he would 
lose his towering self-worth, but a guru maniac is unlikely to recognize his 
own delusions.

As time passes, guru maniacs adapt physiologically and mentally to their 
kundalini crisis. They are able to have one foot in their grandiose delusion 
and one foot in the world shared with other people. 

Guru maniacs learn to keep some of their delusions to themselves in order to 
keep themselves presentable to followers. Guru maniacs walk the line between 
hiding their innermost thoughts and sharing their grandiose ideas about 
themselves. 

It is easy to understand how guru maniacs enjoy having followers who not only 
adore them, but are also willing to serve them. Having followers must be the 
ultimate pick-me-up. Guru maniacs eat up the attention and the power of having 
followers.

Like celebrities and powerful people, guru maniacs have often abused followers 
related to money, sex, and power. Abuse from guru maniacs is particularly 
maddening because guru maniacs espouse spiritual principles that are supposed 
to aid moral living. 

I propose that after a guru maniac easily receives respect, admiration, and 
service from followers, the guru maniac can lose his moral compass. The guru 
maniac starts to think that he can do anything. 

Are all founders of religions and spiritual movements guru maniacs?

It would seem to have gall to share original ideas on spiritual matters. Almost 
by definition, spiritual matters are beyond perception and comprehension, but 
even so, some people come along to declare things as facts concerning the 
previously unknowable realm.

Founding or changing a religion would take a real gutsy person, or if not a 
gutsy person, a person in the midst of a manic episode with delusions.

A founder of a religion would have to speak with great authority, intensity, 
and persuasiveness in order to get followers, and these happen to be the 
qualities of a guru maniac. When under the influence of mania, a guru maniac 
thinks he can do anything, and with his charisma, he can do amazing things. 

When I hear about either ancient or modern people who have spiritual visions or 
who hear from God, I think they had a grandiose delusion from a kundalini 

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: In Statistical Truth, The Call to Spiritual Order,Rally Now to Meditation!

['My Enlightenment Delusion' myenlightenmentdelus...@gmail.com [FairfieldLife]]

Here’s what I wrote about radiance:
TMers emanate a type of radiance during group meditations. Maharishi and the TM 
movement have had several publicity campaigns extolling possible benefits to 
society from radiance.

There are many instances besides meditation when a kind of energy is 
transferred from person to person. For example, the electricity-like atmosphere 
at concerts, plays, and sporting events is an amazing, worthwhile life 
experience. 

Another possibility of energy transference might occur when seeing someone else 
yawn, or when riding in a car with someone who takes a nap. 

In 1973, I first noticed that meditations seemed deeper when meditating with 
others on my Science of Creative Intelligence course. There is a radiance 
effect coming off a meditator that does affect other meditators in the 
vicinity. I noticed a radiance effect also when learning the TM-Sidhi on 
levitation in that I was more likely to hop when someone close to me was also 
hopping.

During the years that I was ungrounded, I seemed to sense a deeper quality of 
silence when entering the city of Fairfield, Iowa. Although the placebo effect 
could be at play, I think that an ungrounded person is more likely to sense the 
deeper silence in Fairfield than someone who is grounded.

The TM organization came up with what seems to be fanciful mathematics to 
predict the radiance effect of the TM-Sidhis program. They stated that when the 
square root of 1% of a population practices the TM-Sidhis program as a group, 
there will be an immediate reduction of hostility and violence in the 
population. These kinds of unbelievable claims eventually made it easy for me 
to walk away from the TM movement.

I do think there is a super-radiance effect from large groups practicing the TM 
and TM-Sidhi program, but I suspect it has a mixture of healthy and unhealthy 
effects. The unhealthy effect of TM super-radiance is probably greater on 
people who are ungrounded. I suspect that the effect on the population as a 
whole would be negligible, but there might be a means of small benefit through 
hormesis.

More on my musings at https://myenlightenmentdelusion.wordpress.com 



From: Archer Angel archonan...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] 
Sent: Thursday, June 22, 2017 2:59 PM
To: Archer Angel archonan...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] 
Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: In Statistical Truth, The Call to Spiritual 
Order,Rally Now to Meditation!

  

I was wondering just what kind of research might show up under "group effects 
of meditation."


group effects of meditation - Google Scholar


 group effects of meditation - Google Scholar
 
   
 



This search on Google does not search for only results from TM.

Re: [FairfieldLife] The Visit of Baba Muktananda

['My Enlightenment Delusion' myenlightenmentdelus...@gmail.com [FairfieldLife]]

Having seen Maharishi’s reverence to Guru Dev and as a naïve spiritual seeker, 
I assumed all disciples had reverence for their guru. Therefore, I was 
surprised to meet an inner-circle disciple of Muktananda in 1989 who didn’t. It 
was not until January 2017 that I happened to learn of Muktananda’s 
indiscretions and the splintering of his organization and followers. As far as 
I know, his successor’s organization has never acknowledged Muktananda’s darker 
side.



From: dhamiltony...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] 
Sent: Saturday, April 29, 2017 4:52 AM
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
Subject: [FairfieldLife] The Visit of Baba Muktananda


---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :


Someone just sent me this. A background story on this is that I spent the 
summer of ’76 in New Jersey with John Gray, Billy Clayton, and two other guys. 
Maharishi sent us there to “inspire the local teachers” during the NJ court 
case. John and Billy visited Muktananda a lot that summer and invited him to 
visit MMY in Seelisberg. Reportedly, MMY was pissed that they did that on his 
behalf without consulting him, but when Muktananda and his entourage showed up, 
MMY made the best of it. After Muktananda left, MMY met with the folks in 
Seelisberg and reportedly asked them some questions that implied he was 
concerned that their devotion to him might have been swayed by their exposure 
to another saint. I wasn’t there and can’t relate anything more extensive than 
that, although I later saw a videotape of MMY’s meeting with Muktananda.





Subject: Re: NatLaw:Baba Muktananda's talk on Maharishi

For me the nicest part of Muktananda's visit to Maharishi was when Muktananda 
had left and Maharishi turned around to us and said somewhat sheepishly: 'And 
now we go and meditate!' and laughed. With these simple 6 words he put 
everything in perspective.

Jai Guru Dev


- Subject: NatLaw:Baba Muktananda's talk on Maharishi


Here is a more complete version of Baba
Muktananda's talk on Maharishi in Australia in
the late  '70s.

Jai Guru Dev


From: 

Here's a great one I got a few months ago, it's a
real 'pat on the back' for all of us, and an
encouragement to, as Maharishi has often said,
"just  continue."  I never saw Muktananda in person
myself, but he did visit Maharishi in Seelisberg
in the late 70's when the World Government was
headquartered there.  --Larry


-

An Inspiring Visit to Baba Muktananda 

In the late 1970's during Muktananda's visit to Australia, a group of
Governors and Sidhas in Melbourne were requested by Maharishi to go and
pay their respect to Muktananda. Maharishi instructed them to take
flowers and garlands and present these to Muktananda and give him
Maharishi's regards.  It was said that the two Masters came from the
same Tradition, the Shankaracharya Tradition of Jyotir Math.

Muktananda showed them great respect as a group and received the
delegation at a private meeting.

A lady present at this meeting remembers with joy and reverence Baba
Muktananda's beautiful words.

During this private meeting, Muktananda told the TM group, " Maharishi
and I are very different".

He continued, "I am here to offer a small group of people (my devotees)
the path of liberation through devotion (the path of Bhakti).  I come
and give my people darshan (shaktipat), I soak up their stress (karma)
and process that stress (karma) for them." 

Muktananda explained that the illness he suffered 
from during his visit to Melbourne and for which he had to be rushed to
hospital, was due to the stress (karma) he takes on from his devotees.
It was a question about this event which gave birth to the following
discourse: 

"Maharishi is here for the world. You may never see Maharishi yourself,
but what Maharishi has given you is a technique to clean your own self.

My disciples have to be physically with me (in my presence). Maharishi
has given you a technique to cleanse and purify yourselves and it is not
just for yourselves, it is a technique to cleanse the whole world
(collective consciousness). 

Your path (TM and TM Sidhis etc) may be somewhat lonely, because you are
doing the work (evolution) yourselves and you are self sufficient. You
are responsible for your own path whereas my followers come to me and I
do the work for them. 

I am full of admiration for anyone on your path. 

It is a path of great responsibility.  What I am doing is personally
taking care of a small group of people, but what Maharishi is doing is
giving the world a path to move to a new level, a higher level.  I have
full admiration for Maharishi and for each of you. 

Some of you may never see your Master but this does not matter because
he has given you the Supreme Gift, which is self sufficiency.  It takes
strength and determination to pursue this path on a daily basis.  But
you have the path of Self Sufficiency and it saves you and others also.
It affects the whole world." 

Muktananda was 

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: The amazing story of Suzanne Segal

['My Enlightenment Delusion' myenlightenmentdelus...@gmail.com [FairfieldLife]]

@steve.sundur We agree on many points, but not on everything. In the TM 
movement, I learned that we shouldn’t doubt our experiences. In retrospect, I 
think that I and some other TMers who had kundalini-type crises would have 
benefited from doubting our experiences. I think it would have been nice to 
know that over-whelming spiritual experiences may not be what they seem. For 
more on kundalini crises 
https://myenlightenmentdelusion.wordpress.com/kundalini. 
As another TM teacher framed it, “I saw God and all Hell broke loose.” 

[FairfieldLife] The amazing story of Suzanne Segal

['My Enlightenment Delusion' myenlightenmentdelus...@gmail.com [FairfieldLife]]

Suzanne Segal spent much of her adult life trying to figure out if she was 
enlightened or not. 

At one time, Suzanne Segal was a teacher of Transcendental Meditation. My wife 
knew Suzanne when she was a TM teacher and was envious of her charisma and 
competence.

In childhood, Suzanne had moments of psychological detachment and “vastness” 
which would scare her.

Suzanne experienced an emotional trauma on her TM-Sidhis course when she 
received a letter from her fiancé that called off their engagement and informed 
her that he was going to go on the Purusha course. Purusha is the celibate 
monk-like program of the TM organization.

After she learned the TM-Sidhis, she asked Maharishi Mahesh Yogi why when 
transcending she sometimes experienced great fear as if she was going to die. 
Maharishi laughed and told her not to worry and to just let go.

Unhappy with her experiences and with the direction of the TM movement, Suzanne 
soon fled from the TM organization, from TM knowledge, and from the practice of 
TM and the TM-Sidhis.

In 1982 while getting onto a bus in Paris she had a major shift in awareness 
and lost her sense of self. Since she understood the witnessing experience of 
Cosmic Consciousness as described by Maharishi, she sometimes described her 
experience as witnessing. However, at first, she was having a hellish, fearful 
experience so she couldn’t reconcile her experience with Cosmic Consciousness.

At the urging of her brother, Suzanne met with another TM teacher who had 
announced his own enlightenment but was actually having his own mental health 
crisis. The blind leading the blind is an apt statement. The “enlightened” TM 
teacher at first sensed a high state of consciousness in Suzanne and thought he 
could help her. Weeks later their relationship ended when he stated that she 
was evil because she was Jewish.

As time passed, Suzanne was able to function with seeming normalcy although she 
still did not have a sense of self. She completed a Ph.D. in Psychology in 1991 
and continued to research her own condition.

Suzanne consulted with various psychologists and psychiatrists over the years. 
Though she was told by one that she had Depersonalization Disorder, she did not 
think it was a perfect fit because she was able to function normally in 
everyday life despite the loss of her individual self.

She also consulted with Buddhist teachers in California. Buddhism cultivates 
loss of ego, and some Buddhist teachers congratulated her on attaining moksha.

About 1994 Suzanne experienced another shift in consciousness in which there 
was a sense of unity between herself and the world.

In 1995, Suzanne’s story spread. She was reluctant to act as a spiritual 
teacher, but she agreed to meet with friends of her book editor. Within a few 
months of subsequent gatherings, several hundred people were attending meetings 
to hear her story and to ask her questions.

Suzanne’s autobiography, Collision with the Infinite, came out in 1996. She 
began training therapists and continued weekly gatherings for dialogues with 
spiritual enthusiasts.

In late spring 1996, she began having intense experiences of vastness which 
disrupted her life and exhausted her. In fall 1996, Suzanne recovered 
experiences of childhood abuse and was going through counseling treatment.

In early 1997, Suzanne’s mental faculties quickly deteriorated. Doctors 
discovered a malignant brain tumor which they removed. Suzanne refused further 
treatment and died on April 1, 1997 at 42 years old.

Wikipedia has a good summary of Suzanne’s amazing life at 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzanne_Segal. 

The above paragraphs are excerpted from one of my blog posts. To read my 
conclusion on Suzanne’s enlightenment, go to 
https://myenlightenmentdelusion.wordpress.com/2017/04/26/the-amazing-story-of-suzanne-segal.

[FairfieldLife] Re: My Enlightenment Delusion - new book

['My Enlightenment Delusion' myenlightenmentdelus...@gmail.com [FairfieldLife]]

@UltraRishi

Thanks for your post. Congratulations on your navigation through kriyas and 
kundalini!



Kriyas are what TM teachers used to call “movements in meditation”. 
Surprisingly, TMers, other Eastern spiritual movements, and even Christian 
Charismatics have kriyas. There is a hilarious YouTube video put to a Jerry Lee 
Lewis tune that shows the gyrations/kriyas of Charismatic Christians. The video 
is entitled “Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On! Holy Roller Style!” and is at 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWVHpm49tOU.  



>From my book describing kriyas during instruction in the TM-Sidhi on 
>levitation: “Some participants had rather violent head movements, the torsos 
>of some shook like dogs throwing off water from a bath, others had their backs 
>locked in an arch, and others had spontaneous vocalizations of screams, barks, 
>and nonsense syllables.”

[FairfieldLife] Re: Gopi Krishna's Kundalini experience

['My Enlightenment Delusion' myenlightenmentdelus...@gmail.com [FairfieldLife]]

I want to start this post by stating that I am not an expert on 
all-things-yoga. And I am pretty thin on info about Gopi Krishna, but I would 
like to use a Gopi quote to illustrate that a kundalini crisis is overwhelming. 
The bold print is my emphasis.

Gopi Krishna wrote this in Kundalini: The Evolutionary Energy in Man: “The 
awakening may be gradual or sudden, varying in intensity and effect according 
to the development, constitution, and temperament of different individuals; but 
in most cases it results in a greater instability of the emotional nature and a 
greater liability to aberrant mental conditions in the subject, mainly owing to 
tainted heredity, faulty modes of conduct, or immoderation in any shape or 
form. Leaving out the extreme cases, which end in madness, this generalization 
applies to all the categories of men in whom Kundalini is congenitally more or 
less active, comprising mystics, mediums, men of genius, and those of an 
exceptionally high intellectual or artistic development only a shade removed 
from genius. In the case of those in whom the awakening occurs all at once as 
the result of Yoga or other spiritual practices, the sudden impact of powerful 
vital currents on the brain and other organs is often attended with grave risk 
and strange mental conditions, varying from moment to moment, exhibiting in the 
beginning the abnormal peculiarities of a medium, mystic, genius, and madman 
all rolled into one.”

A free PDF of Gopi Krishna’s book is at 
http://www.kundaliniawakeningsystems1.com/downloads/kundalini-the-evolutionary-energy-in-man_gopi-krishna_(89pg).pdf
 

What do people expect when they are enlightened? Do you think that gurus say 
that enlightenment is overwhelming or is it just another normal day at the 
office? 

Charlie Lutes said that heaven fell in on him. There are a few TM teachers who 
had some overwhelming times of ecstasy and overwhelming times of “not fun”.

Re: [FairfieldLife] My Enlightenment Delusion - new book

['My Enlightenment Delusion' myenlightenmentdelus...@gmail.com [FairfieldLife]]

To me, a kundalini crisis is an overwhelming mind-body experience caused by 
spiritual practices.

Many spiritual movements speak of the kundalini energy center and its role in 
enlightenment. It is a fairly common conception that a huge burst of energy 
from the kundalini center can create an overwhelming experience akin to mania. 

I don’t think I ever heard Maharishi speak of kundalini, but I had 
conversations with other TM teachers about kundalini over the years. Here is a 
link to a transcript of Maharishi speaking about kundalini in 1968 
http://institutespiritualsciences.org/blog_mmy/mmykundalini.php 

Here is an excerpt from my book:
The most scientific description of kundalini crises that I have found is in the 
1992 book, The Kundalini Experience by Lee Sannella, M.D. Sannella interviewed 
people who had come through kundalini crises. He came up with 4 categories of 
experience: motor, sensory, non-physiological, and interpretive. 

As motor phenomena, Sannella listed kriyas and unusual breathing patterns. 
Under sensory phenomena, he listed tickling sensations, heat and cold 
sensations, inner light, inner sounds, and pain in the eyes, head, spine, or 
elsewhere. Under non-physiological phenomena, Sannella listed out-of-body 
experiences and psychic perceptions.

As interpretive phenomena, Sannella listed both positive and negative feelings 
that could be experienced with much greater intensity than usual such as 
ecstasy, love, cosmic harmony, fear and confusion. He stated that the thinking 
process could be speeded up or inhibited. The mental experience could be 
detachment, hysteria, a state akin to schizophrenia, or the delusion of having 
been divinely chosen.

Here are my symptoms which match Sannella’s descriptions: 

●  When my kundalini crisis began, I had tingling all over my body. It felt 
like a continuous, small electric shock sensation which was pleasant and 
exciting. 

●  I had extreme feelings of joy and thankfulness that seemed to be related to 
my thoughts that I was enlightened. When I had delusions about achieving even 
higher states of consciousness, I would subsequently be so ecstatic and so 
thankful that I would start to cry. 

●  All of my feelings were experienced with greater intensity than usual. When 
I spoke, I spoke like a fire-brand preacher. My voice almost became raspy as if 
I had been yelling at a sporting event. 

●  I thought I had earned a special relationship with God and nature. 

From: Archer Angel archonan...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] 
Sent: Thursday, March 23, 2017 2:36 PM
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] My Enlightenment Delusion - new book

  

I am rather curious about this. What is a kundalini crisis? 


Some people do have trouble with TM's effects, everyone has a different nervous 
system, and some have problems, and the movement does not always handle these 
things well. 

Unlike some systems TM does not have any real qualifications for starting. 

For example to study Vedanta you might be required at the outset to have:

  a.. an open mind

  b.. a reasonable mind

  c.. a discriminating mind

  d.. a dispassionate mind

  e.. a disciplined, observant mind

  f.. a sense of self duty

  g.. forbearance, motivation, and devotion to the goal

  h.. a certain level of critical thinking but not overly critical

  i.. a temperament for overcoming obstacles

  j.. a proper teacher and good fortune to have and find these

TM lets in all kinds of people with few restraints, but as a result a lot of 
crazies get by who are not prepared for what can happen. The path to 
enlightenment is not all bliss. It can get very very gritty.

I think a lot of people get in who have a lot of strange beliefs and 
propensities that then go off the rails when they start having unusual 
experiences, or begin to experience heavy unstressing.

TM, while it talks of unstressing, it does not really prepare people for how 
intense it can be, and you need to have mental tools to handle what comes up.

I do not think most people really realize how screwed up they are before they 
start to meditate, especially if they get it in their bonnet that they are now 
on the fast track to enlightenment, they then presume too much about their 
progress.

A lot of meditators are still just close to being qualified by the criteria 
above after meditating for half a century.

That TM is easy to practice is deceptive in the sense that it alone cannot 
prepare one for some very strange experiences. That ease of practice does allow 
a lot of people to be taught, but a lot of concerns that can come up get swept 
under the rug, and TM teachers are not trained to deal with this. TM as a whole 
package is not customized enough to do this.

If you are fortunate you get through relatively unscathed, but if not I guess 
they end up like you!


From: "'My Enlightenment Del

[FairfieldLife] My Enlightenment Delusion - new book

['My Enlightenment Delusion' myenlightenmentdelus...@gmail.com [FairfieldLife]]

I just finished writing a book entitled, My Enlightenment Delusion: experiences 
and musings of a former Transcendental Meditation teacher. It is available at 
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XS55JKC/ for $2.99. The first 3 chapters can be 
viewed on Amazon by clicking on “Look inside”.  A large part of the book is 
about my kundalini crisis and also contains my conjecture about kundalini 
crises. I recount some humorous ups and downs in my life as a TM teacher. I 
explain why the similarities between grandiose delusions, psychotic mania, and 
kundalini crises are more than a coincidence.  --Matt Landing