Wow.
If that's not the most disturbing, droolingly rabid TM True Believer
post I've ever read, I don't know what is.
Are you really that naive? Haven't you read any of the research on
ACTUAL deep meditation?
Doesn't the Catholic church have deprogrammers like we saw in The
Exorcist or The Rite?
Sheesh Robin, I didn't think there were any TB's left like this!
Actually I remember YOU sending in MUM students to the dome to
practice a different technique - so you have to have some
understanding as to what that would do - although the rationale then
was that they were invoking some demonic egregore, which you felt you
could disrupt and confront.
The ice cream of TM melted years ago. It's not our fault you never
were able to wash your hands.
On Dec 14, 2011, at 2:08 PM, maskedzebra wrote:
Darling Obbajeeba,
I can't get rid of the hate in my heart, so please bear with me
while I attack you without cause.
Did you watch Ellen Degeneres open that David Lynch Foundation
event? And did you read Bob Price's wife's post attempting to
persuade Emily to start Transcendental Meditation? And do you
recall when TM for you was the best thing going—before the 1980's,
that is? (By the way, I am going to assume you are an initiator; if
you are not then some of my comments here are not, for you,
completely on the mark.)
No one could see anything about Ellen Degeneres (or for that matter
in Martin Scorsese's comments) or in 'Mrs. Price's' commentary
which would imply any kind of influence over their own
individualism and originality. TM is the most subtle and
efficacious technique there is to produce a blissful experience,
and the most subtle kind of changes—almost immediately—in one's
personal life. If you listen to Ellen read what Mrs. Price says in
her post, you realize that TM, mechanically and efficaciously
considered, beats any other spiritual technique in existence—I
would even say (from an Eastern point of view) ever. The fact that
in doing TM one does not change anything about oneself in terms of
one's own values, beliefs, or life style—and Ellen when she
extolled the benefits of TM was as convincing and persuasive as
anyone could be—likewise when 'Mrs Price' wrote her letter to Emily—
is something without precedent. There is no 'technique' that I know
of which is not wedded to some belief system in the very practising
of that technique. Not so TM.
Transcendental Meditation, therefore, in my opinion, obbajeeba, is
sui generis, intrinsically unique, like nothing else. Doing TM does
not resemble doing anything else. There is—this is my argument
based upon empirical evidence—absolutely no cross-pollination with
any other technique or forms of meditation. In fact, I contend that
whatever alternative spiritual tradition a former TMer turns to—
especially a former initiator—he or she will approach, and even
practise—and evaluate—that new technique *entirely in terms of
their pervious experience of Transcendental Meditation*. TM is not
just different, obbajeeba; it is distinct and separate from
everything else spiritually in existence.
This is why Rick Archer always comes off—to me at least—as so much
more conversant with the religious forms of experience, with
spiritual reality, with how to understand states of consciousness
than any of his guests (except for the TM ones: like Phil Goldberg
and Dana Sawyer). Despite turning from TM and Maharishi, his
nervous system has been schooled in the TM-Maharishi-Guru Dev
universe, and this shows through at every level of himself. Even as
he now professes to have a more authentic religious experience
through his relationship with Mata Amritanandamayi (Amma: the
Hugging Saint) than he did with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
Every one of us keen initiators, throughout the early and mid
seventies, would have been nonplussed by any TM teacher trying to
make the argument you make here. It wouldn't make sense to us. We
did not just abide by what Maharishi had told us about guarding
"the purity of The Teaching"; we felt it in our very soul. It was
so manifestly clear to us that TM was something absolutely special,
and could never be compared to anything that had been offered in
our lifetime [our present one :-)] We acted on behalf of this
notion of "No Saints" scrupulously, but not, as I say, out of
deference to Maharishi; we could intuitively, deeply, feel the
necessity of this. After all, what Master had produced the
experience that "Mother is at Home"? What Master could allow us to
confirm for ourselves that we were getting "The Support of Nature"?
What other Master could deliver on his promise that once we became
initiators, we could give to some other human being, a perfect
stranger, this ultimate transcendent experience? The Checking Notes
themselves—the Checking Procedure as memorized and applied—are more
dazzlingly and perfectly efficient than anything in existence. And
there is no Master in our lifetime who systematically made teachers
of this wisdom such that we could actually have the experience of
tuning into the Holy Tradition, to having the experiences that
previously were reserved for Hindus who sought silence in some
Himalayan cave.
Lookee here, obbajeeba: TM, Maharishi, becoming a TM Teacher—all
the advanced techniques that followed (including of course the Two
Week Extension and the Sidhis)—entailed participating in a certain
metaphysical context within creation. And there is nothing nor ever
will be anything just like TM and just like Maharishi (seen through
our golden glasses as devout initiators).
It is a very simple thing: the very moment Bevan relents on this
policy, the floodgates will open and TM will dilute in its potency,
and there will be a mystical mixture of substances which are not
made to unite. If Bevan lifts the No Saints ruling, thus going
directly against his Master's wishes, he will pollute everything,
and TM will quite swiftly lose whatever status and efficacy it has
presently—and the whole project of Maharishi will not just
flounder; it will alter its nature, and it will attenuate into
something almost unrecognizable to what it has always been. No,
Bevan is being true to Maharishi, to Guru Dev, and to the actual
mechanical nature of TM to stick to his absolute fiat.
Now I would never think about doing TM again—and I have a pretty
cynical view of who Maharishi Mahesh Yogi is seen sub specie
aeternitatis. But were I still practicing and teaching TM—and
remained as Bevan is, devoted utterly to Maharishi—I would offer to
debate this issue with anyone—even in a public forum. Because it
happens to be, if you accept what TM actually is [and watch Ellen
Degeneres and Martin Scorsese and read 'Mrs Price's' letter to
Emily], like nothing else. And either is any other Saint or Master
of our time like Maharishi. With all his faults and failings and
worse, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, at his peak, was like no one who has
ever been since Christ. No one on this forum who was at the zenith
of their enthusiasm for TM and devotion to Maharishi would even be
capable of questioning this judgment.
The problem comes in when one looks at the long-term effects of TM,
and the actions of Maharishi in private. Well, then, the argument
could be made: why not subject TM to the eclecticism of the New Age
smorgasbord and let it fend for itself? This would be fatal. Maybe
it is coming, but the first person of final authority who bends
this rule brings on the deluge. And the final ignominious fate of
TM and Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
No, obbejeeba; it's either TM or bust. Bevan is acting —and Feste37
intuits this—in accordance with what he believes and knows to be
the very desire of Guru Dev himself.
There will be plenty of arguments flying back against what I have
said here; but no one will seriously believe that he or she can
change Bevan's mind about this. Because if they could, it would
mean that even Bevan has abandoned his own beloved Master—and this
would throw the whole Movement, Purusha, Mother Divine, into
permanent confusion.
I reject TM and Maharishi absolutely. But at the same time, if I am
to believe in my experiences under TM and Maharishi—including my
enlightenment—then I must firmly come out totally on the side of
Bevan. All objections to this No Saint policy are destined to be
futile. Maharishi, in his own way, created something miraculous—at
the level of *experience* anyway. And his possession of integrity—
in some basic sense: even Judith Bourque gave him absolute credit
here—was undeniable. As I knew only too well by being in his
physical presence.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream. The emperor was
Maharishi; the ice-cream was, and is, TM.
Robin
