--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "feste37" <fest...@...> wrote: > > And yet he [Maharishi] changed so many people's lives > for the better -- indeed, rescued many lives, mine > included. He figured out a way of reaching me, a > confused 17-year-old high school drop out, and giving > me something that permanently turned my life around. > I guess all the more "qualified" yogis were sitting > around in India being very learned and doing whatever > it is that "real" yogis do. Maharishi, on the other > hand, actually decided to make a difference in real > people's lives all across the world. Great seer? You > bet.
Feste, I am going to riff on this in my by-now- traditional Saturday morning cafe rap not to dispute or argue with anything you said, just to riff on an assumption that seems (to me) to underlie it, and present a different "take" on things. The assumption I'm seeing in what you wrote above is in attributing all of these things that happened to turn your life around in what you consider a more positive direction to Maharishi. I think of that as a variant of "Give all credit to the guru." What, after all did Maharishi actually do for you? He taught you a technique of meditation. *You* were the one doing the meditating; *you* were the one who did so regularly enough to work through your youthful angst and decide to pursue a different path in life. In my spiritual travels -- and NOT just in the TMO -- I have noticed a tendency in followers of a spiritual teacher to attribute anything positive that has happened to them since meeting him *to* the teacher. I mean, running the whole gamut of "giving all credit to the guru" from "Oh, I feel so much better after meditating...all credit to Guru X" to "Oh, my boss appreciated my work and gave me a promotion today... all credit to Guru X" to "I was spaced out today and crashed my car but wasn't hurt...all credit to Guru X." I think that this tendency to "give all credit to the guru" was TAUGHT. And by the gurus. Not neces- sarily consciously in all cases...they were just replicating the environments in which they had learned meditation, and how the students in those environments treated the guru and gave all credit to him...but taught nonetheless. I'm not knocking the belief in "give all credit to the guru" per se; I'm just suggesting that a little thought can be productively put into trying to remember where that belief came from. The other thing that struck me about your "TM story" is that I couldn't identify with it. I know that many here will be able to, but I wasn't really a confused, lost, self-destructive teenager when I ran into TM and Maharishi. I was 22, a college senior, and a survivor of the Hippie Daze. I had already been there, done that with drugs, survived, and given them up. I'm probably one of the few people on this forum who didn't have to wait 15 days to be initiated. :-) And I wasn't lost and miserable. I was kinda happy, actually, just interested in finding ways to become more so. I had dabbled in Zen, found it interesting but not quite my thing, and one day heard John Lennon's voice on the radio, followed by a high-pitched giggle. I looked into it and learned TM and gained IMO many benefits from practicing it. I give it (TM) all credit for facilitating many of the good things that happened for me while I was a TMer, and for many good things since. I give none of the credit for those good things to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. He didn't do shit, except to teach me a technique of meditation. I was the one meditating. Weren't his own words something like "You don't have to believe in the meditation to gain benefits; the benefit comes from the meditation?" Well, I'm taking him literally and giving all credit where credit is due -- to the technique of meditation and to myself for practicing it regularly. I don't see that I "owe" any of the credit for perceived benefits from a meditation to the guy who taught me that meditation. To him I "owe" only the word "Thanks." I can say it honestly to Maharishi, for teaching me a technique of meditation that was all I needed in one for many years. But I don't really see that I owe him the credit for all the good things that happened as a result of practicing it. Back when I was teaching meditation, all I hoped for from my students was the occasional "Thanks." That's all I ever got. I kinda doubt that any of them ever gave me the "credit" for any benefits of practicing that meditation. And that's the way I think things should work; credit where credit is due. Who would ever expect more than a simple "Thanks?" But clearly some do, or the prevalence of "give all credit to the guru" would not exist to the extent it does in the spiritual smorgasbord. Go figure.
