On 01/12/2013 01:30 PM, turquoiseb wrote: > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Michael Jackson wrote: >> After much thought, I think I would still recommend >> something other than TM for PTSD relief. > As would I, having done a bit of research on PTSD > in the past year. The condition or syndrome known > as post-traumatic stress disorder revolves around > an inability to get over experiences and impressions > from the past, and live in the present, as if these > impressions were no longer a ruling factor. > > Nothing I have seen in my over-46-year-experience > with TM suggests to me that it enables people to do > this. To the contrary, I find that most long-term > TMers are more locked into and ruled by impressions > from the past than normal, everyday, non-meditators. > > Recent research has shown that there is a one-to-one > link between people displaying neurotic behavior and > their risk of developing PTSD. Neurotic behavior is > defined as "a type of personality behavior in which > people experience high degrees of anxiety in response > to everyday events, and thus tend to overreact to > those ordinary events." That seems to me to be almost > a definition of the long-term cultic TMer, at least > in my experience. How is *cultivating* this behavioral > pattern supposed to help those already victimized > by it? > > I personally suspect that PTSD can be best treated > by something that enables its sufferers to be as present > in each present moment as possible, with as few "trigger > points" reminding them of the past as possible. If TM > worked as it was described in its marketing brochures, > it would help to do this. But all one has to do to tell > whether the marketing brochures were telling the truth > or not is to watch what long-term TMers tend to *focus* > on. Is it the present, or the past? I rest my case.
We all get "impressions" from stressful situations. War and battle is particularly stressful. Back in the 1950s people called it "shell shock" and I had teachers with it. In yoga (i.e. TM) we call these "samskaras." They need to be burned out or unstressed. They shouldn't remain in the system or only as at a distant memory. Meditation should be good at doing this and it wouldn't be limited just to TM, of course. TM has no exclusivity over dissolving stress. The best way to deal with this would be to meditate as soon as possible after the stressful event. "Neurotic behavior" is recognized in ayurveda as vata so some treatments for that imbalance may be useful.
