I agree with just about everything you say here, except that Marshy had no guru competition, there were a bunch of 'em (http://www.pluralism.org/ocg/CDROM_files/hinduism/rush_of_gurus.php)
What they didn't have that Marshy DID have was the tremendous flood of free publicity he received from his association with the Beatles - if not for that, he would have been relegated to the dust bin of wannabe gurujis, competing on an equal level with the likes of Kriyananda and and Muktananda, maybe they could have swapped female followers for a little spicy guru support of each others proclivities. ________________________________ From: seekliberation <seekliberat...@yahoo.com> To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Wednesday, March 6, 2013 8:28 AM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Question for TM Cheerleaders --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb wrote: >More to the point, if TM practitioners committed to >Maharishi's Purusha or Mother Divine programs, and >thus chose to effectively becomes monks or recluses, >were they re-initiated using a more "appropriate" >recluse mantra? I wasn't on full-time Purusha, but I was on Prep Purusha while at MIU, and I know people who were on Purusha. No special Mantras given for either, and I had friends on full time Purusha who were willing to tell me the truth. >I *know* that some people like to imbue both the >mantras themselves and the Woo Woo of "imparting" >them with mystical, magical attributes, and it's >their right to believe this if they want. My personal >experience, and the experience of thousands of others >I've talked to suggest that such beliefs are 1) pure >superstition, and 2) almost always a form of self- >importance -- "My mantra is better than your mantra >because [...fill in the blank here...]." I am no expert, but my opinion is that it's not so much the exact mantras that are as important as the instruction that goes along with TM. I don't mean to place any 'mystical' value to TM, but I do know a lot of people who have tried other meditations. I'm convinced that some are experiencing the same thing and some are not. Moreover, after practicing the TMSP, I started noticing an extremely blissful outburst of energy in my solar plexus area. It's somewhat rare, but it's like an involuntary jolt of energy. I've tried to ask around and find out what's going on, but no answers yet. Bottom line, there's something about TM/TMSP that's very effective for me. However, I don't believe that it's the 'only' thing out there capable of bringing about this experience. But it's all that was available to me for whatever karmic reason. >My point is that a lot of these discussions are, from >my point of view, falling prey to one of the most >chronic TM fallacies. People repeat stuff they were >TOLD -- by the people selling them the technique -- >as if it were not only true, but cosmically true, >Gospel Truth. They consider these things Truth so >strongly that they *assume* them, parrot them along >without even *noticing* the assumption, and then base >other, subsequent statements on them as if the Truth >of the assumptions was a given. An example is the parroting in this >thread of >"the TM mantras are for householders." How do you KNOW >this,those of you who >have been repeating it so mindlessly? >Simple, you "know" it only because it was TOLD to you, >and you've bought what you were TOLD so effectively >that for you it's become a kind of core belief, a >baseline truth than *can*, and in fact *must* be >assumed. But the only real truth in this equation >is that you have no reason to believe this other than >the fact that it was TOLD to you by the person selling >you the technique you learned, and you just bought it >at the time and now keep repeating it as if this >phrase itself were some kind of holy mantra. This almost reminds me of an argument I got into with a devoted TM Governer (which he did not like to hear). I explained how odd it is that we gave so much faith that MMY is 1. Enlightened, 2. A Vedic Scholar (World's Foremost according to Hagelin & Morris), and 3. Seems to be accepted as 'all-knowing' regarding pretty much every subject that ever gets brought up. I'm not saying he's a dunce by any means. But I have serious doubts and many, many reasons to justify an argument that all 3 of those assumptions that many meditators/siddhas/governers have spent decades revolving their lives around are blatantly incorrect. I went on to explain that I could demonstrate and teach people with no martial arts experience whatsoever a few basic choke holds and counter-attacks that are extremely effective. It would give students with no experience the idea that I'm some sort of martial arts master. But the reality is I can't even hold my own against a weak professional fighter, in fact not even an olympic, collegiate, or strong amateur. But because they are so inexperienced, I would look so awesome to them. But the bottom line is, if those people really want to become a great fighter, they should take a few of the moves I know and move on with their training elsewhere. I look at MMY & TM the same way. Just because MMY brought TM here and we experienced it doesn't mean it's better than everything else. Nor does it mean he's the 'only' one capable of bringing it here. Perhaps he just surpassed the apathy that many indians have, or perhaps it was just perfect timing (the 60's really were the PERFECT time for it). But here in America, we didn't really have anything to compare to TM. There was no competition, or at least if there was, it was rather weak. As I grew up and became more of a man in the last 2 decades, I really started to see a lot of childish tendencies and obvious traits of weakness in the behaviour and mannerisms of many long-term meditators/siddhas and especially the higher-ups of the TMO. And although I hate to disrespect MMY because I do feel a lot of gratitude for TM, I really felt he had a serious attitude problem in the later years of his life. I simply can't stand to be in the presence of people who feel they are 'owed' something. And MMY seemed to function with the attitude and expectation that America 'owed' him something for TM. Right or wrong, I've always believed in a quote I read on a bumpersticker once: "Contrary to belief, nobody owes you anything" seekliberation
