--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb <no_reply@...> wrote: > > Today I found myself remembering something Vaj said -- that one of the > reasons mindfulness is making inroads into PC-sensitive environments > such as publicly-funded schools, in which other techniques such as TM > might encounter difficulties, is that mindfulness can be completely > secularized. It can be divorced from its origins in a tradition that can > be seen as religious and presented without any of its original trappings > in Buddhism. You don't even need a Buddhist to teach it; any layman or > teacher or therapist can learn its principles and teach them to others. > It's the spiritual equivalent of open source software. > > In comparison, TM is very much proprietary source software. It cannot > really ever be completely divorced from its origins in Hindu (or, if you > prefer, Vedic) trappings. To teach it, a person has to not only be > specially trained by the organization that holds the copyrights > (literally) to the source code of its tradition, he or she has to > perform rituals that can easily be construed as religious, prior to > imparting mantras that can just as easily be construed as being the > names of gods and goddesses. You can argue that this isn't true all you > want, but I suspect that even the arguers will admit that there is a > strong case to be made for a 1-to-1 link being present between TM and an > established religious tradition. > > That creates problems in some environments. The dedicated people in > those environments -- teachers, therapists, health care professionals > and even law enforcement or prison officials -- are DYING for techniques > that would help the people they're dedicated to helping. But many of > these people are also very Politically Correct savvy, and realize that > if they introduce a technique or set of techniques into their > environment that is PC-controversial, the controversy is pretty much > guaranteed to hit the fan. That's just the nature of the times we live > in. > > All of this thinking about Vaj's mention of this idea of a secularized > spiritual practice got me to thinking up questions, which I pass along > to Vaj or to anyone else here: > > "What would a completely secularized set of meditation and > self-development techniques LOOK LIKE? If you were to design one or > speculate about one, what would it involve and not involve?"
As a friend of mine said to me, some 40 years ago he encountered Werner Erhard (est), whose first words in that self-development seminar were something like 'you are all a bunch of goddamn assholes'. Whoops, the word 'god' was mentioned, and damnation too. Maharishi never was able to completely disassociate the Hindu elements of TM. It could be done, but then no one would own it. > "Which elements from traditional spiritual practices would you preserve, > and which would you not?" The main problem is how do you 'advertise' the practice without the metaphysical claptrap, which is one of the traditional hooks. > "If the meditation practices you suggest use mantras, where would they > come from?" No one has really experimented thoroughly with finding out if mantras really have any special qualities. Dr Herbert Benson, in creating the TM knockoff, the Relaxation Response did do something like this, but how well documented were the results I am ignorant of. There are so many mantras, and the feeling I get is they may be less specific in their effects than claimed by spiritual adherents. From a research perspective, it would be a good guess to start testing mantras comparing shorter ones to longer ones. Some would feel such a process would be unethical, for supposing it is true that some mantras could create disastrous effects in some people, you know, resulting in their jumping off buildings or walking in front of trains, or murdering others. This is a factor that might plague any system. Maharishi's masterpiece, the checking notes, could probably be rewritten, but even then lawsuits might follow. I feel that this piece of work is really the heart of why TM has been successful. But these instructions were created and evolved by Maharishi, we are not certain just how much come from 'tradition'. Early on meditators have told me the wording was quite different and more religiously oriented in the beginning. http://www.relaxationresponse.org/ http://www.relaxationresponse.org/steps/ [at the bottom of this page is a picture of the study he, as second author, did with RK Wallace in 1971] > > "If the meditation practices don't involve mantras, what would they be? > For example, some techniques rely on visualization, either inwardly or > with the eyes open, on certain designs (yantras, mandalas) or > individuals (gods, goddesses, saints). Would you use these same objects > of focus, or others? If others, what would they be?" I think mindfulness meditation would be the best shot at a mantra-less meditation system. Systems that involve eyes open, or visualising result in more mental stimulation. > "How would you make this technique or set of techniques attractive to > people who could benefit from them without relying on the appeal to > 'lineage' or 'tradition?'" > > "Do you feel that such a secularized spiritual practice would be a Good > Thing or a Bad Thing? Would one approach be inherently "better" or "more > effective" and the other...uh..."less?" And if so, WHY?" If a spiritual practice is completely secularised it would neither be good or bad, but the absence of a metaphysical component might be a stumbling block for some. 'BAT or boundary attenuation technology: Your brain is malfuctioning. It is focused on small things, you need to widen its focus using BAT. When you apply BAT to your brain, it will soften and create more neurological flexibility in your grey matter, and in fact create more grey matter and restructure its signal processing capacity so that you will eventually feel completely integrated with your environment and live a life of maximum fulfilment. Free case of Barry's favorite beer if you learn this week.' Effectiveness could only be determined by large scale, well controlled comparitive studies. > I have no easy answers. If you do, fire away. I am interested both as a > "spiritual sociologist" and as a fan of science fiction. Writers in the > SF genre have speculated about secularized spirituality for decades. > Heck, one SF author even went out and created his own version of one, > and has gazillions of followers. But in the process he copped out and > called it a religion. What would you come up with if you were trying to > do the opposite? This probably would depend on how resistant one is to adulation. If you create something that makes people more fulfilled, this problem might develop. Science fiction might be a source of ideas. 2001: A Space Odyssey (the novel) had a Darwinian evolutionary theme. In the Kubrick motion picture, created with Clarke at the same time, and which is very visual, leaving out a lot of the back story and other details, the story has a strong metaphysical feeling to it even though it was not intended to be so. What is the relationship between the individual and the universe at large? It might be difficult to present this without getting gushy and compromising science and objectivity.
