--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "authfriend" <authfriend@...> wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Michael Jackson <mjackson74@> wrote: > > > > Okay, not superior but better - he absolutely said many times > > that TM was the best meditation to do. > > For householders, that is. > > > I wish some other TM teachers here would weigh in on this > > and explain to me how the instructions which are not much > > different than other meditations makes it better than any > > other. > > I'm not a TM teacher (I did take checker training but > never got around to being certified), but I think I > have a pretty good handle on what it is about the > instructions that makes such a difference. > > I'm going to reproduce (slightly edited) a post I made > back in 2007: > > ----- > The instructions for TM are designed to anticipate > every possible way the meditator could introduce > effort and head it off right from the start. > > TM teachers sometimes use the example of "Sit easily" > at the beginning of checking. The difference between > "Sit easily" and "Relax" is subtle but crucial. What > does "Sit easily" mean? It's nondirective. You can't > *try* to sit easily. But it's very likely the phrase > will lead you to relax spontaneously. > > The whole rest of personal instruction and checking > is like that, extraordinarily carefully phrased to > lead the student not to exert any effort. > > The instruction is oxymoronic, in a sense. No other > instruction we get in life tells us how to do > something nonintentionally. Another example the > teachers use is that if somebody tried to give > you instructions on how to go to sleep (other than > "Get in bed, turn out the light, close the eyes, > and lie still"), they wouldn't work, because going > to sleep by definition involves *not-doing*. > > Even the instruction "Don't exert any effort" is > too directive--it gets you all involved in watching > yourself to see if you're exerting effort and then > trying to stop it, making you exert effort to stop > exerting effort. > > So it's phrased differently in TM instruction. > > And of course the follow-up tries to catch any > instances in which the student hasn't quite > gotten it yet, with the same very careful > phrasing. > > (Obviously the whole business is based on the > premise that the most effective way to transcend > is not to exert any effort, a point some disagree > with.) > > Conceptually, the recognition that transcending > should be effortless isn't unique to MMY by any > means. But show me *any* set of instructions for > meditation that is supposed to be effortless, and > I'll show you where it actually either introduces > effort or fails to head it off at the pass. > > What Maharishi did, IMHO, was to think deeply > about the nature of intention, of mental effort, > and how easy it was for instruction to lead the > student to exert effort--and then to figure out > how to *get around* that tendency, how to lead > the student to *fall into* correct meditation > rather than telling them how to "do" it. > ----- > > Corrections, amplifications, etc., from TM teachers > are welcome. >
Perfect! And one has to remember that some of the effortless forms of meditation now available are knock-offs of TM (Chopra's for example, and another one called Effortless Meditation), and like most knock-offs, likely to be not as good as the original. Another thing to remember, I think, is that MMY first introduced this technique to the West in the late 1950s and early 1960s. There was nothing else like it available at the time. Since then the principle of effortlessness in meditation has passed into the New Age mind-set, so some offerings do indeed echo that principle, but it was MMY who first brought it to people's attention, 50 years ago. It's part of his legacy.
