Excellent, thank you - I agree with everything you have said, although I still have some reservations about the practice itself after having talked with Mark Landau and due to all the old stories I have heard about suicides, major unstressing, and having seen people become emotionally disconnected and unable to function well in society - I have seen the latter myself, so I agree that TM can be ok for some, but it isn't without it's downside.
And thanks for posting a cogent and well reasoned essay. ________________________________ From: Xenophaneros Anartaxius <anartax...@yahoo.com> To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Thursday, March 21, 2013 3:12 PM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: TM and its Rock Stars --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Michael Jackson <mjackson74@...> wrote: > > Every exchange like this just reinforces my belief that long term TM makes > ones brain turn into mush and removes the ability to think clearly. A belief is a thought that the world is a certain way. It would seem the term 'knowledge' might refer to an experience or thought that correlates with the way the world really is. In practice though knowledge based on thought is hypothetical, that is, we cannot know a thought represents reality without a test of some kind. And if a thought refers to things we cannot test, then knowledge is impossible. I personally do not think TM turns the brain into mush. But one has to look at the environment in which it is used. Beginning meditators usually, if their experience is good, are enthusiastic, and one can excuse them for that. But if they get more involved, they find themselves enmeshed in an organisation that does not really allow creative independent thinking - everything in that environment tends toward doing what 'Maharishi expected people to do', which means that your thinking has to be along the lines of that rut. The TMO does not sanction independent thinking unless it brings in more cash (like Lynch for example) I was just looking at documents on the Zen-trained Adyashanti's web site. This is the complete summary of his teaching in his own words: Be still. Question every thought. Contemplate the source of Reality. That second line is interesting, since it seems to me to be fundamental to getting oneself out of the rut of mere belief. Spiritual engagement is such a peculiar thing to get involved in. It takes all sorts of bizarre forms. You need independent thinking to wade through the morass of conflicting and unbelievable beliefs one encounters in every kind of spiritual movement. You need to be curious. You really have to wonder how you have gotten yourself in such a situation, and how to get out of it what you came into it for. If you came into it to feel good, probably you will fail. If you came into it to become part of a community, probably you will fail in that greater task that is called enlightenment. The environment of the TMO and its suburbs I feel is not conducive to enlightenment unless a person is very focused on being enlightened; it will rot your brain; not the TM, that is a tool that can be used wisely or not, but constantly having to conform to a particular mindset will erode purpose. My experience was I began to forget my purpose. When I left, that purpose began to re-emerge. It was a subtle kind of suppression. I do not mind being around dedicated TMO-ites now, because I have my purpose and my life; they cannot infiltrate, and strangely TM had a big part to play in this, but it took a long time to unfold, not because any particular kind of meditation is inefficient, but because for most, including me, it just takes a long time to break through one's delusions. If you are aligned with a movement that fosters delusions, you are sunk.
