The TMO has a sentence that guides all things - "Give us more money, keep your heads down, don't question what we do and keeeeeep them checks coming, and know that something gooood is happening!!!"
________________________________ From: Share Long <sharelon...@yahoo.com> To: "FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com" <FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com> Sent: Monday, April 1, 2013 11:19 AM Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Feedback to the TM Movement Mr. Trowbridge, it's always a pleasure to read such clear and reasonable and impassioned writing. Thank you for posting this here. I am sorry for your experience in 2007 and appreciate how you're attempting to bring good from it. I also LOVE the concept of a sentence or phrase that is used to guide every decision such as was used at Black Mountain Center. Will let my brain percolate on that with reference to contemporary TMO. I tend to think of negativity and or conflict like a cut on the finger. Good to give it as much attention as it needed to set up the conditions needed for healing. Then live life. The attention and healing conditions needed for a paper cut will probably be vastly different than that required for a finger caught in a car door and dangling by a tendon. >From your last 2 paragraphs it sounds like, but I could be making a connection >you do not intend, that the larger issue is such that it could be remedied by >what you call a separation of Church and state. First, I'd be very interested >to hear what you think the larger, hidden issues are. I think you are onto something here and have my own opinions, but welcome hearing ideas enriched as they would be by your unique and qualified perspective. And from at least one poster on FFL, I get the impression that there is a bit of the separation you suggest. At least as far as teaching TM is concerned. I'm not a TM teacher so cannot speak from experience about how this fairly recent set up is working. It sounds like one TMO leader is focused on purity of the teaching and another is focused getting the TM message out. Thanks again and I hope you will continue posting here. All the best, Share ________________________________ From: jwtrowbridge <johnwtrowbri...@yahoo.com> To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Monday, April 1, 2013 7:25 AM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Feedback to the TM Movement I would like to give feedback from the perspective of one who loves TM, but not how the organization is run. I have wanted to do so for many years. I feel I have a unique perspective to do so. I am not angry. I am not dependent on TM other than my wonderful program I practice. I have no ax to grind other than a genuine desire to see the organization succeed. I wish to help this organization from the point of view of one who is a family man, a professional who sees the divinity of my practice, and the missteps of the organization. My TM program is the only time during the day that I know my activity is perfect. It is a perfect program. It is a perfect activity. It is perfect knowledge. I have recently obtained all of the advanced techniques. I have missed maybe five meditations in 40 years only because I enjoy it. There is no other reason. Not for health, not for enlightenment, such is the joy and power of my program. I have just finished 34 years as a public school teacher in North Carolina, and I am still teaching. I have been married 30 years. I have two children. My wife meditates. My two children have been initiated. From the beginning, I have provided support to the TM Movement through the use of my house for lectures, initiations, and whatever I have to offer all these years. I am your biggest fan. I started TM on November 13th, 1971 and got the sidhis in `80 or `81 at MUM. I practiced my program by myself over the decades until 5 years ago, when I went to MUM to fly in the dome for a 7-week visit. I have gone ever 2 years during the summer thereafter. I have never taken one dime of grant money. I mention specific names and impressions in this letter, not to target individuals, but to show relevant examples of what concerns me. I also want to describe what could be done differently, especially if you want to have credibility with Americans. The goal of this organization is not to appeal to a particular leader or person, but to the widest possible audience who will appreciate and practice the TM program in its purity. 2007: This incident exemplifies so many of the elements of what is wrong with how the TM organization is managed. When I came 5 years ago, I was in the dome for the IA course for just a few days when the men's group had to move because workmen were replacing the roof. We moved to a flying hall near the swimming pool. Unfortunately, a mistake had been made in preparing the new hall. The floor and walls had been painted with a toxic, oil-based paint, and the odor was awful, awful. The air in the new hall was extremely noxious. Fans in the eaves of the building were run night and day. Sidhas pleaded with Dr. Doug Birx not to move us into this situation. He said it could not be helped. I spent one day in the new hall experiencing bliss with an underlying headache. I never have headaches. I walked and hitchhiked to Vedic City to do program for most of the week instead of going to this toxic hall. Once I was picked up by a Board of Trustees member. I don't remember his name. In casual conversation, told him I had not come from North Carolina to huff paint fumes. The next day, thinking the fumes would be better, I went to fly in the newly painted hall. It was better, but still not good. During the 10 a.m. experience time, Dr. Bevan Morris asked Dr. Doug Birx an introductory question, "Is there a problem with the hall?" I assumed that the trustee I had talked to called Dr. Morris. Dr. Birx stated no. Who could question the bliss emanating from this hall? he asked. He added that there were some problems, but they had been worked out. He completely dismissed the issue. Who knows why Dr. Birx moved us into a hall that could have sickened the whole men's flying group, but the result was they were exposed to toxic fumes for a week due to his decision. And when he was questioned about this, he did not admit a mistake had been made and remedy the situation by moving the sidhas to a safe space. Systemic Issues: The TM movement employs managers who are brilliant and well versed in the Vedas or special knowledge. However, this does not make them skilled managers. The problems that allowed this one example to unfold are systemic in the organization. People are good, and when good people make wrong decisions, it is usually due to responding to the stressors and structure of the system that is in place. I blame the systems under which they are managing, and the environment of not recognizing issues that should be addressed when they emerge. This one example reveals a lot about the dynamics of how the organization is managed. This dynamic is repeated a thousand fold up and down the organization, resulting in less than stellar results. No one holds the leadership accountable. And there is no mechanism in place for the rank and file to report problems, concerns, or issues. There is no mechanism for addressing problems. There is no mechanism for reporting how problems are addressed. This is systemic throughout the organization. In any well-run organization, the manager would have stated the obvious: A mistake has been made. Let's go to our rooms for week, and do program there until this hall airs out. This should not have been a big problem. Dr. Birx could have called for help to solve the problem from staff below him, and staff above him. It appears his decision was made in isolation, as are so many others. I can infer also that the Board of Trustees is more of a paper tiger trusting on management to make the right decisions. Dr. Morris trusts Dr. Birx to make the right decision, and neither questions the other. The Nature of Conflict: There is a misunderstanding in the movement about what the nature of conflict is. I have seen this over and over. The Maharishi tape in which he talks about always seeking the positive instead of the negative, in which he describes the saint who was shown the dead cat, and comments on his beautiful teeth, has been greatly misunderstood, and used to the great misfortune of the movement. I have a master's degree in early childhood education with emphasis in guidance, and a bachelor's degree in mental retardation. I hold certifications in teaching students who are learning disabled, mentally handicapped, behaviorally emotionally disabled, as well as curriculum instruction and public school guidance. I am an expert in working with dysfunction, confrontation, and conflict. I deal with conflict all day long, and have for decades. There is a difference between being negative and dealing with conflict. Conflict is just the environment trying to normalize, evolve, grow. Conflicts that exist are a tool, a means of change that enable you to normalize the environment. If conflict is there it is OK. Conflict and confrontation are part of the normalizing process. It is part of life. This point alone could save the movement untold problems, and has lost it untold support. Through its unintended actions, (how it handles conflict) the TM movement has disenfranchised scores of TM teachers who would otherwise have been certified, scores of meditators who would be in the dome, scores of people who would start TM. There are of course many dissatisfied people who when even handled by best practices are still angry. It's just that so many have been mishandled, and feel the organization does not listen, will not change, say they are negative, and have been dealt with in such a fashion that their revenge energy is tapped, causing problems for the organization, and the individual. In an organization with enlightened management, almost all problems are due to poor management or poor systems. They manage from the point of view that if you believe that people are good, then good people want to be competent. They want to do a good job. If you believe that people are bad, then you believe they have to be closely supervised, and forced into doing a good job. The goal of management is to move people to autonomy. If a person is inexperienced, or incompetent you give more directing telling statements with the goal always of moving them to becoming as independent, and autonomous as possible. The successful manager's role would then be that of a cheerleader, one who provides resources, and removes obstacles to allow everyone to achieve his potential. It would enliven the base—win win. This means the organization is managed from bottom to top. The person who has the most information to solve a problem is closest to the problem-- the store clerk, the janitor, the citizen meditator, the TM teacher, the visitor. Enliven the bottom, and they will come out of the woodwork to help you. They possess untold passion, and ideas to help this movement do what management could only dream they could do—reach the widest possible audience who will appreciate and practice the TM program in its purity. This is the goal. This is what the TM organization is about. Transparency in decision making: Good management is transparent. It has nothing to hide. When I managed in a residential facility for the severe and profound developmentally disabled (Black Mountain Center in North Carolina) we had a sentence or phrase with which we could measure every decision. This way any person in the organization, any person, could approach management, and state his problem, and suggest a solution based on our "what we are about" statement. Our phrase was "How does this help active treatment?" Active treatment was what we were about. It could be a goal to improve a client ability to hold a spoon, and increase independent dining, or a goal to reduce a behavior problem, increase mobility by getting out of a wheelchair, and so forth. All decisions were measured by this statement of what we were about. This mobilized the organization, and released immense creativity from all employees. The greatest desire of people in an organization is to have autonomy in their job—to feel needed and heard, to contribute, to make a difference. We saw evidence of this in the improvements made as a result of all players in the group. I have done this. It works. It works, and it is respectful of all people, and defuses, and enlivens, and keeps the organization on the cutting edge moving toward its organizational goals in a natural, life affirming way. It also promotes egalitarianism. We are all equal. We just have different roles. Making decisions based on a shared mission dismantles ego, status, hidden agendas. No one can use resources for selfish purposes or hidden agendas. It can empower the bottom employee, or in the case of the TM movement, the meditators who support the organization's mission through daily practice. These management principals I describe are so like the values of TM, yet they are the antithesis of what the TM movement actually practices. Even from his enlightened position, Maharishi constantly made adjustments and changes to see what would work and what didn't. An additional component to creating a transparent organization is openness in accountability and responsibility. This information is not publicly available on the TM website. Where is the information about who is on the Board of Directors? Where are the minutes from their meetings? Where are the organization's by-laws? Outside of the organization's 990, required under federal law, where are the annual reports that show what the organization has accomplished, performance metrics, details on income and expenditures? How do we know the current model isn't working? Just look at the anemic statistics on dome usage as an indicator. People vote with their feet. To determine why the dome program is foundering, go to the base for the best decision-making. The top of the tree does not speak to the roots. I tell people that the knowledge is the real deal. That they should trust their experiences, trust their program, trust the holy tradition, and if you see something you don't like just turn your head. We all do. That is because there is no system in place to do otherwise. I have meditated for over 40 years based solely on that I enjoy it. Something this powerful will not be stopped. It will get there, but nature demands it must evolve, and grow, and greet this day, this time, this culture, this age. How else do I know the current system isn't working? As I shared meals on the MUM campus, if the organization/management subject was broached, TM teachers and non-teachers alike just shook their heads in resignation. They see what I see, and have done as I have done. I do love you guys. It's just that the current model is not working, despite the fact that there is more talent in the TM movement than I have seen in any organization bar none. I could not shake a tree on the MUM campus without five brilliant TM teachers falling out. Use the talent that has been thrown at you, more plentiful than sand on the beach. Do not just depend on a handful of bright stars. There are many stars wishing to contribute toward your goal. And finally, there is no upward movement in the organization. If you become a TM teacher, the top leadership positions seem to be life appointed. The organization is stagnant, dependent on just a few leaders, though brilliant and talented, who seem to do it all with no structure in the organization to enliven all the myriad multitalented potential of the organization. There are so many examples of poor experiences I have had over the years that give the impression of unprofessionalism from the very trite to the significant. I know I am not the only person who sees these things and knows that below the tip of the iceberg lies a larger problem. These are well known. It is not the intention of my letter to enumerate, but to give but one more voice only to suggest, to prod, to affirm, to encourage you to recognize, and solve them—to grow, to change. For lack of a better expression, I would like to suggest that their needs to be a separation of church and state. The church is the purity of the knowledge, and the state is how TM is administrated, the organization. The organization should consider some of the principles I have suggested. There is nothing wrong with conflict. Conflict is just an opportunity to solve a problem. It is how something maladaptive, and disorganized becomes beautiful. Sincerely, Jai Guru Dev,
