--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB <no_re...@...> wrote: > > Just to follow up, because this is a fun kind > of "recapitulation" for me, I think that one of > the things you have to remember about my partici- > pation in the TM movement was *when it took place*.
Kinda too bad you felt you had to add this, because it's *much* less convincing than the first installment. > My last TM course (a six-month course in Switzer- > land to learn the Siddhis) was in 1977. Returning > from that course I paid lip service to the TMO > for a little while, but within a couple of years > I was pretty much "outa there." That's not quite what you said awhile back. > So what was that TM movement environment LIKE, > compared to what it is now? > > This was pre-Chopra. There was no Ayur-veda. This > was pre-SV. This was pre-yagyas. This was WAY pre- > Rajas and their silly costumes. This was WAY pre- > pundits. This was WAY pre-McMeditation outlets > in shopping malls. This was WAY pre-Maharishi > Phalluses Of Invincibility. > > This was, in fact, the end of the blissful SIMS > period of the TMO. The language used was still that > SIMS-speak, substituting scientific-sounding words > for the real Hindu words. Lots of talk about the > research, zero talk about gods and goddesses, even > referred to by their euphemisms as "impulses of > creative intelligence." > > The most religious aspects of the TMO *at that time* > were, in my opinion: > > * The puja, of course. The translation of that, and > the fact that EVERY SINGLE TEACHER knew that > translation, cannot be denied. The issue here is why MMY was so insistent on the puja being performed before instruction in TM, even after it became clear that it was a huge stumbling block legally. It's not clear to me that the motivation was a religious one per se. That might be an interesting discussion in and of itself. > * The siddhis, straight out of Patanjali (who was... > Duh...a writer within a religious tradition). You made such a good point in your first post about the distinction between self-development and religion, and how religions started out as self- development but then devolved into dogma. Patanjali's tradition, at least as MMY taught it, seems to be one of the few that escaped that fate. Yoga is still largely about self-development. > * The reading of Rig Veda and the chanting of Sama > Veda after "flying." What is NOT religious about > being forced to sit there and listen to hour after > hour of readings *directly* from the pages of > scripture? "Hour after hour"? When were readings ever *that* long? At least on my TM-Sidhis course, we were told explicitly not to focus on the semantic meanings of the words (this is when the readings were of an English translation) because they weren't important. Nonetheless, we used to giggle at how ridiculous they were, and nobody so much as frowned at us for doing so. Pretty hard to make a religion out of the Ninth and Tenth mandalas anyway. We weren't even following any of the rites they describe. And we never listened to Sama Veda in anything but Sanskrit. > * The growing status of the TMO as a cult. This was > the period in which "Off The Program" first was > making its appearance, and in which TMers were being > denied permission to go to courses because of life- > style choices they had made, such as living with > their girlfriends outside of marriage, or reading > "Off The Program" books. Look at that last one -- if > you are denied the ability to become a TM Teacher > *because you read a book by another teacher*, as > happened with some frequency back then, what is NOT > religious about that? That's an even more conveniently broad definition of "religious" than the one Curtis uses. > * The growing reclusive nature of many TMers. People > were beginning to NOT "meditate and dive into > activity." They were starting, in fact, to *avoid* > activity as much as possible, and find ways to stay > on rounding courses forever, or to stay in Europe > working on staff forever. This was a trend that I saw > as contrary to what TM was "selling itself" as, and > not completely healthy. I still feel that way. Rounding is a whole 'nother thing, first of all. "Meditate and dive into activity" has always been for people who were going about their daily lives with job, family, etc. Second, to suggest that people working on staff were somehow not engaged in activity is pretty ridiculous. When I stayed for some months at the Asbury Park TM facility back in the '90s, the folks on TMO staff there were some of the busiest people I've ever been around. > * Outright persecution of dissent. That was the > biggest "tell" for me that the organization had > "flipped" from the SIMS days and was well on its way > down the slippery slope towards becoming a full-blown > religion. I bailed before it got far enough down that > slope to include yagyas and pundits and people in > Raja costumes *while claiming it was not a religion*. > What inspired me to bail was noticing how people > (both TMers and TM Teachers) were treated who did not > agree with some point of dogma or some "rule" that > had been imposed on them or their lifestyle. To make > a long story short, what happened to them was that > they were EXCOMMUNICATED, sent away, denied access to > the organization completely and anathemitized to the > point that their former friends were afraid to have > anything to do with them. Again, what is NOT a > religion about that? "Excommunicated" is a loaded word here. Its first and most common meaning in my dictionary is "an ecclesiastical censure depriving a person of the rights of church membership." The second meaning applies in this case--- "exclusion from fellowship in a group or community"-- but that isn't what most people think of when the term is used. In the second sense, it happens all the time in groups nobody would think of as anything but purely secular (including in political groups, for example). Sometimes it makes sense, sometimes it doesn't. It can be pretty ugly, and it can certainly be "cultish," but it's by no means the hallmark of a religion. > Just some points, to remind you of what has happened > in the time SINCE those days. If I was seeing signs > of the TMO being a cult and a religion THEN, it just > blows my mind that people looking at what the TMO has > become in the time SINCE then can't see it. > > But the force of the TM Is Not A Religion Religion > is strong. Once you've become a member of that > church, it's very difficult to leave. Or so it > seems... The issue that was being discussed here was never whether the TMO has its religious aspects. It was whether the basic TM course does. That some don't see the basic TM course as religious does not, of course, mean they can't see the TMO as it is today as having a strong religious-type component. So there's no need for you to have your mind blown by the current debate. All you've done is to demolish one of your many straw men (and a pretty sloppily constructed one at that).
