Following up on the term and concept of "relative utility," isn't the *lack* of it exactly what's wrong with the TM movement?
When people started practicing TM (at least most of the people here), everything they were told about it was in terms of relative utility. It could help *you* relax. It could improve *your* "creative intelligence" and help you to get better grades, etc. The siddhis were supposed to enable *you* to fly, and realize *your* enlightenment more quickly. Only trouble was, after a couple of years of people practicing the siddhis, no one was flying, and no one was enlightened. Spending several hours a day butt-bouncing just wasn't paying off in terms of utility for the people practicing it. So MMY shifted his marketing strategy and tried to convince people that they weren't doing it for themselves at all, they were doing it for the world. If you can't sell it using the promise of personal benefit because it doesn't appear, start to promise some kind of altruistic, non-personal benefit. Instead of "Do this and you'll see the benefits in your own life," he started promising "Do this and you will see benefits in the world at large." The implication, of course, is that these "worldly" benefits will help you in the long run. It's sort of Maharishi's version of the "trickle down" theory. :-) Problem was that none of these promised benefits showed up for the world, either. So at this point, who is going to be willing to spend several hours a day practicing a technique that doesn't pay off for them personally as was originally promised, and doesn't pay off for the world at large, as was subsequently promised? The TMO has lost its "utility credibility." I know that Buck would like to believe that if the Rajas just opened the dome doors to everyone, regardless of race, creed, color, or the heinous sin of "seeing another teacher," that the TMO could "make the numbers" it keeps insisting that it's gotta make for the ME to really work. I'm not convinced that is true. As Sal and others have pointed out, I don't think very many would take advantage of "Dome passes for everyone." Over the last few years, as a result of the shunning, they've seen *exactly* how little they need the TMO, or need to be part of the "TMO social scene" or the "dome social scene." They've had a chance to see what the payoff or utility of being a regular dome-goer really *was*, by having it removed from their lives. I doubt very many found it a big loss. That's one of the things that I think is at the bottom of the study I started this thread with. In the countries studied, a great number of people made a scientific experiment. They said, "What will happen to me and to my life if I stop going to church?" Not only did nothing bad happen to them, but many of them now have more time and money to do things they'd rather be doing. Instead of Bad Things happening to them, as had been pre- dicted by the churches, only good seemed to come from their experiment. Same with going to the domes. "What will happen to me if I stop going to the domes?" Nothing bad happened. People suddenly had several more hours in which to enjoy life, and more money to use when enjoying it. No boils or sores or plagues of locusts, no bolts of lightning striking them down, nada. In fact, many no-longer-dome-goers probably feel that no longer going is one of the best decisions they've ever made. Relative utility. You can't ask people to continue practicing (and paying for) something that doesn't pay off for them in terms of utility in their own lives. Promise what you will, sooner or later most people you promise it to will use the relative utility scale, "run the numbers," and abandon the practices that don't pay off as promised. I, for one, think that this is natural and the way things should be. Promise anything to the faithful you want, but if you don't deliver, neither be surprised nor offended when the faithful write your asses off.
