On May 13, 2008, at 8:28 AM, TurquoiseB wrote:
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "John" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Curtis,
MMY said in the past that once you've been initiated into
the tradition, the effects of of the mantra stays with you
ad infinitum. If your meditation practice is interrupted
in this lifetime, you will probably pick it up again in
the next one.
I have to reply to this, because it's advertising
copy, and I don't think John knows that it's ad
copy. It's a point of view that is being *sold*
to reinforce the dogma that one should never
"switch paths," and that instead one should stick
with TM until the bitter end.
Yes, but if I claim I am a reincarnated TMer, will I have to pay the
course fee all over again? Hell, by the time I reincarnate, TM will
probably be 20 thousand bucks.
You sit to meditate, and your TM mantra pops into
your mind, seemingly of its own volition. What is
going on there? Is it something mystical, some
"link" to a spiritual tradition that was forged
when you were "initiated" into that tradition?
I think it's habit, pure and simple.
Well yeah but also it may be a habit now engrained in your brain from
some neuroplastic changes.
With TM, you
get used to sitting down, closing your eyes, and
thinking the mantra. You have been told that to
really benefit from meditation, you *have* to do
this twice a day, without fail.
So when you sit down and have the thought, "Hey
I could meditate now," what pops into your mind?
Duh. The thing you have *trained* yourself into
popping into your mind whenever you think of medi-
tating. Repetition is the mother of retention,
Pavlov's dog, and all that.
In my case, I can honestly say that my TM mantra
has not "popped into my mind" in well over three
decades. When I think of meditating, I don't even
necessarily think of having to sit to do it. And
if I *do* sit and close my eyes, it is not a given
that *any* mantra will "pop into my mind." If one
does, it is more likely to be from one of the tech-
niques I learned after leaving TM, and I may go
with it. If none pops up, I may be more likely to
practice a more non-dualistic form of meditation,
with no mantra or yantra or other object of per-
ception to "steer with," just letting go.
I honestly believe that mantras have *no* magical
powers, as Maharishi was trying to portray them as
having. I honestly believe that "initiation" has no
meaningful effect on the imparting of or the effect-
iveness of the mantras. And I don't even believe
that a mantra is necessary in order to meditate
and transcend, or even that you need to sit to
meditate.
You know it's interesting, I know a number of people who've taught
meditation and by their own admission they were pulling no mojo: no
initiation rituals, no visualization involving the student, no
shaktipat or anything like that, just basic meditation instruction--
but nonetheless their students would experience surges of energy,
lights and various other phenomenon when they meditated with their
teacher. One commented that it was more about the beliefs the
students had acquired or heard about meditation and some sort of
placebo or expectation effect rather than some sort of magical
happening.
