Well that actually makes sense if one believes in kundalini - so I finally know why they said it, although I am not sure any of the teachers knew that reason other than it was what they were told - having said that I can't imagine the serpent fire not being able to rise properly particularly after reading Gopi Krishna's Living with Kundalini book.
As to his reclining posture I still think based on his appearance/performance in the last videos of him that he was in some state of dementia - having witnessed it in family members, I have to say he had a lot of the earmarks. I was just idly musing about this, but I appreciate you clearing it up. ________________________________ From: turquoiseb <no_re...@yahoogroups.com> To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Wednesday, October 31, 2012 9:57 AM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: TM Rumors --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "mjackson74" <mjackson74@...> wrote: > > As I lay in bed this morning meditating, rather than return > to the mantra, I was thinking of the oft repeated admonition > by MANY TM teachers that one should not meditate while lying > down in bed. None of the teachers ever gave a specific reason > other than "you might fall asleep." The implication was always > that there were some mighty good reasons not to do so, but no > specifics given, except for one initiator who said that you > release so much stress while you sleep that if you meditate > even sitting up in the bed you sleep in, you would re-absorb > the stress. One has to believe that the TM teacher who said this made it up; I certainly never heard anything of the sort from Maharishi. What he did say, back in the early days (1967-8) before he went out of his way to distance himself from any "Indian" or "yogic" language and transliterated TM jargon into "pseudo-scientific-ese" was that if you're lying down "the energy released by meditation can't rise properly." When asked directly whether the "energy" he referred to was "kundalini," he said "Yes." As you point out, any rational reason for this pronouncement was offered in later years; the very fact that it had been suggested by Maharishi or by one of his TM teachers should have been "enough." One wonders, given Maharishi's early pronouncements on the subject, what one is to make of *his* posture during the last years of his life. Several reports by people doing the filming have confirmed that almost all of the videos he made during that period, either for the public or to stay in touch with the Rajas, were made while he was reclining in bed. The cameras were mounted on a platform above his bed, and the pillows and backgrounds were rearranged to give the impression that he was seated, not reclining.
