For some reason this exchange with matrixmonitor popped into my mind again this morning, so I feel like rapping on the same subject a little further:
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "matrixmonitor" > <matrixmonitor@> wrote: > > > > The people it (TM - or any other meditation technique) works > > for are IMO those with some meditation experience in previous > > lives. > > While I don't disagree with you at all (in fact, I > think it's very true), that's a tough sell to those > who don't believe in past lives. > > > This may include a strong background as a Buddhist, Hindu, or > > Monk in the Christian Tradition. Or, perhaps a Kaballist. > > Or just someone who had experienced meditation and > transcendence before, and thus found it easier to > access and appreciate when they found a new "route" > to it. I found the same thing when teaching other > forms of meditation -- some folks "eased into it" > and didn't experience much, and others experienced > full-blown samadhi in their first session. What can > really explain that except familiarity with meditation > in the past? The spiritual teacher I worked with the longest in this life had a very different approach to teaching than Maharishi did, one that accepted his students' past-life experience as a given, and utilized it in the teaching process. He merely assumed that most of the people who were attracted enough to him to become his students in this life had been students of his in previous lives, sometimes in many of those lives. Those he didn't believe this about he assumed had "paid their dues" with *thousands* of past lives spent in the pursuit of enlight- enment, and thus could "build upon" and "draw upon" that past-life experience in this one. With this in mind, he taught a wide range of spiritual methodologies and techniques. Over the years we must have learned a hundred *different* techniques of meditation. Some were with eyes closed; some with them open; still others to be performed in activity. Some used a mantra or yantra or other object of focus, some did not and were based on the idea of "unfocusing" as much as possible. Some were effort-based and suggested that we should try to stop our thought, others were as effortless as the TM technique. There was a similar parade of dogmas and doc- trines. We studied Buddhism, Taoism, Zen, Hinduism, Occultism, Native American Shamanism, and many others. One night we'd be talking Zen and he'd be the Zen Master, and the next we'd be talking about sex and relationships and how they related to spiritual progress and he'd be the supposedly- enlightened Dr. Kinsey, and the next night we'd be talking about success in the world of business and how that related to enlightenment and he'd be Dale Carnegie. It was a zoo. :-) My point in bringing it up is that there was a sort of method in his madness. Namely (IMO) that one "method" wasn't enough. He often said that he served up this smorgasbord of teachings and techniques because although we had all paid our dues, we had all paid *different* dues. We may have all spent a lot of time in monas- teries and ashrams, but they weren't the *same* monasteries and ashrams, and they might not even have been from the same spiritual tradition. Therefore we had all developed different predi- lections, spiritually. He presented lots of differ- ent paths and options to us because he didn't think that there was such a thing as "One size fits all." Instead he seemed to figure that if he threw out enough breadcrumbs, sooner or later each of us would find the breadcrumbs that tasted best *to us*, and would follow them down the path that was best *for us*. I think he was onto something. How this relates to what we were discussing before is that TM and its effortless might have appealed to those who had "paid their dues" doing similar sadhana in past lives. If they were "used to" tech- niques of effortlessness, then the student felt a resonance with that style of meditation, and "followed it" into very deep meditations. At the same time, perhaps there were a lot of people who also had "paid their dues" meditating in past lives but had developed a predilection for techniques that involved more effort and intent and will. For them, TM didn't "resonate" quite as much, so over time they gravitated to other more effort-based techniques and traditions. This is all just speculation on my part; it's not as if I know anything for sure. But it's what I wound up thinking about this morning, so I thought I'd pass it along. I basically agree *strongly* with your idea that TM or *any* meditation technique will "work better" for those who have had experience meditating in the past. Predilection is important. Although it may seem to be a non-sequitur, I relate this idea of past-life predilection to my first acid trip. I was totally "unprepared" for it, having read no books about how it was supposed to be any kind of spiritual experience. I didn't know from Leary and Alpert's "The Psychedelic Experience" or any of that stuff. I was just curious, and popped the pill. What followed was six hours of, as far as I can tell, Unity Consciousness. Try as I might, I cannot see anything about the experience *except* it being precipitated by taking a pill that isn't word for word in alignment with Maharishi's descriptions of UC. And the friends I dropped the acid with? One of them freaked out and spent the entire night running half-naked through the orange groves screaming. Two others went to a dance and partied all night. One other person had a pleasant experience, but nothing that he ever termed spiritual. In fact, *none* of the other people I dropped the same Sandoz acid with *ever* spoke of it having a spiritual quality. Go figure. I relate it to what I've been rapping about above -- past-life experience and predilection. I think I had a natural spiritual experience because I was used to having them from previous incarnations. The pill was merely a "door opening" and me seeing through it to territory that was familiar and intriguing, so I went through that doorway. The others saw different doorways. Similarly, I think that a lot of the subjective exper- ience of whether TM "works" may be a result of the long-term past-life predilections of the individual seekers. For some TM provided a doorway that "resonated" with them and they walked through it and had wonderful experiences. And they continue to today. For others such as myself, that particular doorway just didn't appeal to us long-term, and others did, so we walked through them instead. Anyway, it's just a rap. It's not as if I know anything. The same teacher I talked about above used to say that "Writers write because they're trying to figure things out." That's all this is...just another attempt to figure things out, *knowing* that I never will.
