Shortly after I learned medtition the Maharishi way, I felt really glad that now I had an experience which allowed me to relate to all the other branches of Hinduism and other religions that claimed similar experiences. I was not looking for identification with Maharishi or his movement, I was exited that here was a meditation that cut across all the boundaries of religion and belief systems. It afforded me an opportunity to reconnect with a religious group I had been brought up through and I was very pleased about that, I was actually excited at the prospect of revisiting them. I mentioned my feelings to Bevan Morris who was 'checking' my meditation, and it was immediately apparent that relating to other belief systems was not the way I was expected to go. Up until that moment I had looked upon him as quite a saintly guy, that bubble popped there and then when I saw how attached he was to Maharishi getting all the attention. Oh, that was before I discovered the 'movement' was about moving exclusively towards Maharishi's way of thinking, which at that moment was a complete mystery, leading me to wonder just what his thinking was. That was almost forty years ago and I can honestly say I'm glad I learned and practised this meditation, but pissed-off that the movement could not see past it's self-imposed blinkers, a movement that could not see past the adulation of Maharishi or itself. Jai Guru Dev
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB <no_re...@...> wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, ruthsimplicity <no_reply@> wrote: > > > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB <no_reply@> wrote: > > > > > > Recent discussions initiated by Hugo (richardhughes) on > > > this forum about suggestibility and whether reading a > > > description of higher states of consciousness can pre- > > > dispose a person to imagine or, in fact, *experience* > > > these higher states of consciousness has left me think- > > > ing about the placebo effect, suggestibility, and the > > > possibility that one valid way of viewing the enlight- > > > enment process is AS a form of suggestibility or > > > moodmaking. > > > > Let us do some research. Take a group of people, randomly > > assign them to learn TM and the siddhis without any lectures > > or information regarding TM theory (or even that it is TM) > > and the other group getting the traditional program. Work > > out a teacher blinding procedure and some other controls. > > See what experiences happen. > > Hear, hear. > > But it'll never happen, of course. The TMO would > never allow it because it would mess with "the > purity of the teaching," meaning that they reserve > the "right to indoctrinate" before performing any > experiments to verify the experiences they have > told students to expect. > > > Also try with and without rounding. > > And with and without "checking." If it's supposed > to work, allow it to work without constant rein- > forcement and re-indoctrination. > > > It doesn't help to equate suggestibility with weakmindedness. > > I don't think I did in this post. > > > What does that mean anyway? People can be smart, educated, > > creative and very open minded and be suggestible. > > I completely agree. In fact, I would suggest that > the more intelligent people *think* they are, the > more suggestible they probably are. > > > Doctors shouldn't diagnose themselves. Lawyers shouldn't > > represent themselves. You just don't have enough objectivity. > > How objective can we be in analyzing our own subjective > > experiences? > > Especially if we have just spent the equivalent of > the cost of a reliable used car on learning the > technique that is supposed to provide those exper- > iences. Much less if we have invested decades of > our lives and tens of thousands of dollars in it. >
