"TM is the ice-cream." Beautifully expressed, Robin. Thank you.
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, maskedzebra <no_reply@...> 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 goingbefore 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 changesalmost immediatelyin 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 existenceI 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 styleand Ellen
> when she extolled the benefits of TM was as convincing and persuasive as
> anyone could belikewise when 'Mrs Price' wrote her letter to Emilyis
> 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 isthis is my argument based upon empirical
> evidenceabsolutely no cross-pollination with any other technique or forms of
> meditation. In fact, I contend that whatever alternative spiritual tradition
> a former TMer turns toespecially a former initiatorhe or she will approach,
> and even practiseand evaluatethat 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 offto me at leastas 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
> themselvesthe Checking Procedure as memorized and appliedare 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 Teacherall 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 presentlyand 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 againand I have a pretty cynical view
> of who Maharishi Mahesh Yogi is seen sub specie aeternitatis. But were I
> still practicing and teaching TMand remained as Bevan is, devoted utterly to
> MaharishiI would offer to debate this issue with anyoneeven 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
> thisin 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 Masterand 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 Maharishiincluding my
> enlightenmentthen 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 miraculousat the level of *experience*
> anyway. And his possession of integrityin some basic sense: even Judith
> Bourque gave him absolute credit herewas 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
>