--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: <snip> > Residence courses, for example. Get your friend > to a weekend or week-long residence course, where > he will be told that he cannot leave the facility > during the course or Bad Things might happen to > him, and during which every moment of his life is > carefully planned for him. The discipline of being > subject to being thrown off the course at any > moment for missing a meeting -- in which you are > to sit quietly staring raptly into a TV monitor > while indoctrination tapes are played -- will add > an element of regimentation and by-rote training > to his TM practice. Also, the discussions of these > tapes will add to his understanding of how to > approach the ideas that support the practice -- > you are to listen quietly and appreciatively to > the explanations given to you by Those Who Know > More Than You Do, and never question anything that > is said. The stern looks given to anyone who does > not will reinforce the "proper attitude," and the > regimentation of the course itself, with its care- > fully-calculated atmosphere of fear of being thrown > off the course at any moment for some unidentified > infraction, will cultivate the proper motivation > to continue the TM practice.
FWIW, I attended several dozen weekend and week- long residence courses between the time I learned TM in 1976 and the time I learned the TM-Sidhis in 1985, and probably a half-dozen more World Peace Assemblies (mostly smaller local ones) through the late '80s. I never experienced an "atmosphere of fear of being thrown off the course at any moment" for missing a meeting, much less for "some unidentified infraction." Nor did I ever feel I was to "listen quietly and appreciatively to the explanations given" and "never question anything that is said." To the contrary, questioning was encouraged, and I and other CPs did a lot of it (that is, when we weren't sleeping either in our rooms or in our chairs, which was permitted). Barry says these were the rules that he was given and that he always followed them to the letter. I can't account for why the courses I attended in the Northeast either didn't have the same rules or chose not to follow them. > More seriously, think about what you are saying. > If you feel that the TM practice does not, in itself, > provide enough benefits to the new practitioner that > they will want to continue it on their own *without* > reinforcement of some kind, how good is it? As it happens, that isn't why I took all those courses; I didn't need any "reinforcement." I took the first one out of curiosity and enjoyed it thoroughly, both the tapes and discussions, which I found intellectually stimulating, and the deeper experiences from rounding, as well as the social interaction with other TMers and the excellent meals. So I went on additional courses as often as I could.
