--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "John M. Knapp, LMSW" <jmknap...@...> wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "authfriend" <jstein@> wrote: > > > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "John M. Knapp, LMSW" <jmknapp53@> > > wrote: > > <snip> > > > On the other hand, I know of a court in New Jersey > > > that ruled TM was religious and had no place in > > > public schools. > > > > As you know, it was TM *plus SCI* that was ruled a > > religious teaching under the definition used to > > protect the First Amendment (i.e., the government > > was not allowed to fund it, even by making school > > facilities available for it). > > This is accurate, Judy. But I'm not sure that it > substantially changes my point. The judge went on > at great length about both the puja and SCI separately > as being religious in nature.
What you go on to quote was from the ruling at the district court level. To understand the entire case it's necessary to read the appeals court's ruling and Judge Adams's concurring opinion. (See the end of this post for links to the ruling and opinion.) The constitutional reasoning is quite complex and subtle. To reduce it to a flat "ruled that TM was religious" is disingenuous in this context, in which SCI does not appear to be involved. > It would be my guess that, if someone were to > challenge DLF's program in court, that the puja alone > would be sufficient to keep TM out of the schools. Maybe. But in his concurring opinion in the appeals court ruling, Judge Adams wrote: "It is not meant to suggest that the Puja has no relationship to the ultimate issue of this case. In my view, however, the chant is only one factor to be considered in determining whether SCI/TM itself is a religion. The Puja, because of its ceremonial aspects, may be supportive of the answer supplied to that question, but *it does not answer it by itself*. Moreover, *even if the Puja alone were found to be religious*, the proper remedy might well be to enjoin that particular ceremony only, and not to interdict the entire SCI/TM course." (emphases added) In other words, Judge Adams thinks the puja *might* be found to be religious but doesn't assert that it is. In the rest of his opinion, he argues that SCI *is* religious in nature, so he does not need to address the question of whether TM with puja but without SCI would be constitutionally permissible. In discussing the various precedents for the ruling, he does not find any of them that are close enough to the way the puja was performed (off school grounds, on Sundays, etc.) or the nature of the puja itself (in Sanskrit, which the student is assumed not to understand, etc.) to be adequate. It isn't clear how the puja will be handled in connection with Lynch's program. It would make sense for it to be done as it was in New Jersey. > A couple of quotes from the Malnak vs. Yogi judgment > (archived at http://trancenet.net/law/nj1.html): Dead link, John. As noted, what you quote is the district court's decision, not the appeals court ruling, which said little about the puja. Judge Adams, as I read his opinion, calls in question the district court's justification for holding that the puja per se met the standards set by precedent for a religious activity, as I suggested above, leaving that issue open. Here's what the appeals court ruling said about the puja: "To acquire his mantra, a meditator must attend a ceremony called a 'puja.' Every student who participated in the SCI/TM course was required to attend a puja as part of the course. A puja was performed by the teacher for each student individually; it was conducted off school premises on a Sunday; and the student was required to bring some fruit, flowers and a white handkerchief. During the puja the student stood or sat in front of a table while the teacher sang a chant and made offerings to a deified 'Guru Dev.' Each puja lasted between one and two hours." (It's not clear what the error about the length of the puja was based on; most likely the instruction, the first meditation, and the immediate follow-up after the meditation were mistakenly included in the purported length of the ceremony itself.) <snip> (This is from the district court's ruling:) > "Defendants seek to characterize the puja as "a > ceremony of gratitude," and apparently so represent it > to the New Jersey high school students. It is difficult > to understand why defendants label the puja "a ceremony > of gratitude" because the English translation of the > chant fails to reveal one word of gratefulness or > thanksgiving. Rather, the puja takes the form of a > double invocation of Guru Dev. Putting this difficulty > aside for the moment, the question arises as to whom > this gratitude is being expressed. Defendants have > answered this question by stating that the gratitude is > given "to the tradition of teachers who have preserved > this teaching," Jarvis Affidavit P. 11, "to the knowledge" > named in the chant is said to have possessed, Jarvis > Deposition at 1006, and to the prior "teachers" > themselves. Aaron Deposition at 582. The problem with all > of defendants' descriptions of the receiver of the > gratitude is that none of the described recipients is > capable of receiving it. When one performs a ceremony of > gratitude or "thanksgiving," Aaron Deposition at 582, > one must have a recipient of that gratitude in mind or > the ceremony would be meaningless. In common English > usage, ceremonies of gratitude or thanksgiving are > performed to divine beings (God, Providence, etc.), > animate and sensate beings, and possibly institutions > run by human beings. While one may be grateful for a > body of knowledge or for a tradition, that gratitude > extends to the purveyors or creators of that knowledge > or to the preservers of the tradition. One would no more > perform a ceremony of gratitude to a tradition or to a > body of knowledge than one would perform a ceremony of > gratitude to a chair or to a useful contrivance or to a > machine or to any other inanimate object which would be > entirely incapable of perceiving human communication." This strikes me as tortured reasoning. It's all very well to cite "common English usage," but the puja has an entirely different cultural provenance. > "The puja chant is an invocation of a deified human > being who has been dead for almost a quarter of a > century. An icon of this deified human being rests on > the back of a table on which is placed a tray and > offerings. During the singing of the chant, which > identifies the items on the table and in the room as > offerings to this deity, some of these offerings are > lifted from the table by the chanter and placed onto > the tray. It cannot be doubted that the invocation of > a deity or divine being is a prayer. Engel v. Vitale, > supra, at 424. The religious nature of prayer has been > recognized by many courts, e.g., Engel v. Vitale, > supra;22 DeSpain v. Dekalb County Community School > District, supra, and the proposition needs no further > demonstration here." As noted, Judge Adams appears to disgree with the adequacy of these precedents. Plus which, the district court's objection seems to be that the puja is a feature of a religion based on worship of Guru Dev as its god, which is simply ignorant. As I've said any number of times, I *agree* with the court ruling in the New Jersey case, specifically because the New Jersey course included SCI. I personally don't consider SCI a religious teaching, but it's close enough to create the kind of ambiguity that might be used as precedent to argue, for example, for the teaching of "Intelligent Design" in the science curriculum, which is unacceptable as far as I'm concerned. Depending on the precise nature of what the students in Lynch's program are taught, I might or might not be entirely comfortable with it on First Amendment grounds. But an objection based *solely* on the puja, and/or the mantras as purported "names of Hindu gods," I find ridiculous. Here are links to a five-part post I made to alt.m.t in 1996 containing the text of the appeals court decision and Judge Adams's concurrence; 1 of 5 http://groups.google.com/group/alt.meditation.transcendental/msg/a175a1217c214306 http://tinyurl.com/dcudhy 2 of 5 http://groups.google.com/group/alt.meditation.transcendental/msg/f8dd186604b5feb5 http://tinyurl.com/d3c8lt 3 of 5 http://groups.google.com/group/alt.meditation.transcendental/msg/9e0cc2271692d7a8 http://tinyurl.com/dnhtbp 4 of 5 http://groups.google.com/group/alt.meditation.transcendental/msg/f5b05e15a264beb9 http://tinyurl.com/5vapbt 5 of 5 http://groups.google.com/group/alt.meditation.transcendental/msg/a2721a415e324740 http://tinyurl.com/covb7y
