from The Riverfront Times
http://tinyurl.com/ejsah
Peace and Punishment
St. Louis judges turn to Transcendental Meditation to rehab convicted felons
By Kristen Hinman
Published Mar 8, 2006
Keith Mason used to begin every day with a dime bag of marijuana. Nowadays, the
north
St. Louis man rises early and meditates upon the shaggy brown carpet at the
foot of his
bed.
It takes me through the whole day, exults the 43-year-old father of six.
Everyone looks
at me now and they see a glowing man.
Mason peddled marijuana in his Fairground Park neighborhood from the time he
was
thirteen years old. He didn't become a full-time pusher until he turned 30,
around the
time he got caught in gang crossfire and lost his lower left leg. Still Mason
kept at it.
Selling drugs was more lucrative, and less painful, he explains, than a
nine-to-five job.
I could stand out there for only three hours and make five hundred dollars.
In March 2002, Mason was arrested for possession of more than 35 grams of a
controlled
substance. He pleaded guilty in St. Louis Circuit Court and was placed on
probation for
two years.
And like a knucklehead, I went right back up there a month later and got
caught again,
he laments. I went to prison for a whole year.
Upon his release in 2004, Mason set about satisfying the probation requirements
from his
first offense. Along with a twelve-step drug program and GED classes, St. Louis
Circuit
Court Judge Philip Heagney ordered Mason to the enigmatic-sounding Enlightened
Sentencing Project to learn Transcendental Meditation.
I'm a dude that's stubborn, bullheaded, and when I went to that first meeting,
I wanted
nothing to do with it, Mason admits. But meditation saved my life, man. I
swear to you.
Transcendental Meditation, or TM, is a stress-reduction technique developed 50
years ago
by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, an Indian spiritual leader. Popularized by the
Beatles in the
1960s, the teachings of the Maharishi are now followed by more than six million
practitioners worldwide.
Twice a day, they sit with their eyes closed and repeat a silent mantra for
twenty minutes,
entering a state where the mind is alert, while the body reaches a relaxing
realm deeper
than sleep. The practice has been medically proven to enhance mental health,
and reduce
hypertension and blood pressure.
TM has gained traction in the past ten years, with several U.S. schools
reporting that
students are less violent and more focused after meditating. Last year, the
movie and
television director David Lynch founded the Hollywood-based David Lynch
Foundation for
Consciousness-based Education and World Peace, with plans to underwrite
university
classes in TM and provide startup funds to elementary schools looking to
establish
programs.
Using TM to rehabilitate convicted felons has proved a much harder sell.
Bombay-born
Farrokh Anklesaria, a British-trained barrister, took up the crusade in 1980
and, in April
1996 began teaching the program in St. Louis the only city in the nation
offering this kind
of treatment for convicted felons.
The technique is not religious, but I do have a missionary zeal about it,
says Anklesaria.
I don't care whether a guy is a murderer, a wifebeater, whatever. I teach him
the method.
Ultimately, you have a man whose physiology is incapable of crime.
Anklesaria, who learned TM from the Maharishi, established programs in prisons
in Sri
Lanka, India and Senegal, at the guru's behest. In the early 1990s he began
lobbying U.S.
corrections officials.
TM wasn't completely unknown stateside. In fact, 150 inmates at California's
Folsom State
Prison meditated in the late 1970s. Researchers at the Fairfield, Iowa-based
Maharishi
University of Management later tracked the parolees and found that their risk
of
reoffending was reduced by 44 percent.
Still Anklesaria failed to sway state prison directors in six different states.
When I pointed
out to the California wardens that for every dollar invested in this program
they would
save twelve dollars, their answer was, 'Where do I get the one dollar now?'
Anklesaria's fate changed when he introduced St. Louis Circuit Court Judge
David Mason
(no relation to Keith Mason) to TM at a 1995 conference in St. Louis.
When I became a judge there was one thing that weighed heavily on my mind,
recalls
Judge Mason. How is it that I grew up in the same severe impoverished circles
that some
people coming in front of me grew up under, but I was able to deal with them,
get through
school, and to where I am? I didn't have any extras. I didn't even have a
father. I had a
mother with an alcoholism problem. What was the difference?
Anklesaria teaches TM to felons whose offenses include drug possession,
assault, child
abuse and armed robbery. The two-hour classes, which begin with ten minutes of
yoga,
are held on Tuesday and Thursday evenings at the Centenary United Methodist
