In the current issue of Tricycle, there is an interview with Shinzen Young in which the interviewer asks about Young's very pluralistic background. It seemed to me that his reply was very significant with respect to the pro/anti polarity in TM:
I think that some people are naturally poly-spiritual and some people are mono-spiritual. Mono-spiritual people develop overt or subtle conflicts if they go with different teachers of approaches, whereas poly-spiritual people get an immediate sense of the complementary. I've always been poly-spiritual. There's never been anything I did with anybody that didn't seem immediately to complement what I had done with everybody else. p 51 >From my own perspective, one of the things that compelled my departure from the mono-TM mindset was Maharishi himself (and, by extension, his increasingly belligerent, materialistic and doctrinaire Organization). I sensed, for many reason, conflicts between what I had learned from other teachers and what he was saying. I had no problem as far as the TM technique was concerned, that fit right in with many other things. But it was Maharishi and the Organization, the "this-only" approach that put me off. I had started TM and become a teacher before he set out on his material conquest. So his "this-only" approach seemed to develop along with his "what can I sell next" objective and this just wouldn't work for me. However, in another sense, I have known many ardent "pure-TM" practitioners who can only function in and according to whatever the present "this-only" is with no sense of conflict with their own past. As long as it's coming from their personal source, their concept of personal-guru, it is OK and anything else whether other than TM or in comparison with TM's past, is decidedly not OK. I think I might, therefore add to Shinzen Young's categories another whether it is a third or a sub-set of the mono, I am not, however, quite sure: TB-spiritual, or maybe PT-spritual (present- tense-spiritual). Obviously, some people need and maybe can only function when there is one absolute set of rules. And, they simply cannot interact with others who recognize a polymorphous dominion of values to select from. I worked, once, with a Born Again Christian lady who was very kind, considerate and so on. Quite innocently one day, I said, "oh, I just got a copy of my astrological chart, would you like to see it?" It was really nicely done and, actually, that was just about it: show-and-tell. To my surprise, she turned away, saying "I avoid the appearance of all evil." Wow But I see this a lot with fundamentalists of all sorts. The TB or PT mindset, whether it cannot consider something outside itself, generally, or whether it cannot consider "dissimilarities" in its own makeup, persists in a kind of self-preservation, a clinging to its Rock of Security and making every effort to abolish anything that messes with this PT-spirituality or fundamentalism. The PT'er is far less reasonable and flexible than the mono-believer or mono-spiritual practitioner. One of Maharishi's pronouncements sticks in mind: anything I haven't taught you isn't worth knowing. Several years later, he began to go commercial and change TM from a spiritual endeavour goal-oriented in and of itself, to a means to acquire his sidhi program. Well, after learning it, I thought his earlier pronouncement had been right on the mark, it wasn't worth knowing. Very slowly, very gradually he tampered with his own `holy' tradition. It was his, of course, and he could `adjust' it as he saw fit in order to justify his own needs, but this sort of behaviour, when it continually locked people into his ever-changing PT mindset was one of the red-flags that didn't diminish the worth of his method of meditation, but was a bit like that hilarious telegram P. G. Wodehouse famously speculated would be such fun to send friends travelling abroad: all has been discovered, flee at once. G ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Get fast access to your favorite Yahoo! Groups. Make Yahoo! your home page http://us.click.yahoo.com/dpRU5A/wUILAA/yQLSAA/JjtolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
