I was thinking this morning of the reaction of the folks at MIU when marshy first introduced ayurveda. At MIU anyway, it was a pretty big deal, with a lot of build up from the Big Bopper about how marshy was "cognizing" the lost aspects of ayurveda and how this branch of vedic knowledge was going to transform human life and accelerate all TM'ers evolution towards enlightenment.
At the time, it was the first thing since the introduction of TMSP and group flying. A lot of people were pretty surprised that there was something new being offered since we had always been told all we needed was TM and of course the greater blessing of TMSP which was 10,000 times more powerful than TM alone. But it only took a day or two before the lemmings were lining up to plunge over the ayurvedic cliff. People crowded around the big tubs of hot milk and ghee that was offered every morning, people were agog over the idea that we should not take cold foods and especially no cold beverages. The cooks and bakers were informed that one should only stir food in a clockwise direction (I forget why, but if one became bored all one had to do was stir in a counter clockwise direction in the presence of a True Marshy Ayurveda believer to see them jump around, waving their arms and gasping as though the stirrer was creating cosmic havoc that might lead to instant annihilation of everyone present.) The most interesting thing was to see the reaction of people to some of the more ridiculous crap that was presented as truth such as the ayurvedic injunction of a man not looking at or touching his wife for the first half of the day on the first day of her menstrual cycle. This applied only to married couples of course - marshy ayurveda didn't believe anyone could violate the laws of nature to the extent of having sex outside marriage. This particular piece of information was not intended to be common knowledge at first. The Movement had brought over some guys from India, supposed experts in ayurveda, who were giving lectures, most of which were for all faculty, staff and students. But there was one that was announced to be only for married couples. This lecture aroused a great deal of curiosity in the unmarried friends of the married couples, who of course gave the juicy details of the lecture to their friends practically as soon as it was over. I never heard the rational behind the injunction but it sounded as if ayurveda thought a woman's energy was compromised when she has her period and much more importantly, the idea was that HER energy would somehow denigrate the MAN'S energy so he should not look at or touch her to save himself from some bad vibes. A lot of people were a little ticked off over the idea, mostly women were ticked off. The men folk however, governors especially, felt somehow vindicated.
