Anartaxius, this is an erudite, well reasoned piece of writing. I would add
that most of the folks I have known who continue TM and who as you said wind up
not feeling good for a number of reasons all have a pie in the sky attitude
that ONE DAY TM will save them, ONE DAY they will be healthy, happy,
enlightened and in bliss all the time, they will get support of nature for
their least little desire and all will be well.
Their daily experience is totally different, and should tell them that
something ain't right, but they always operate on the overriding belief that
since Marshy was a saint, all he said is true thus the problem cannot lie with
TM or the never never land of its purported result (enlightenment) - the fault
has to lie with the practitioner themselves. Their problems are their own
stresses, their own bad karma – never mind that TM is supposed to erase all
that, they keep plowing ahead and keep believing.
Everyone believes in something – and there are folks I have known who have done
TM for decades and led fairly happy lives, pretty healthy, decent income etc.
that they attribute to TM. Good enough. But for the rest who in my experience
constitute the vast majority, no matter how crappy their lives get, they
continue to BELIEVE in the almighty myth of marshy's sainthood and the
infallible effects of TM.
I certainly agree with your assessment that linking TM to pseudo-science is a
disservice to TM, its practitioners and science itself. It makes the Movement
look like a joke, which is why most people ignore the blandishments of David
Lynch and his celebrity shills to take up the holy banner of TM to save the
world.
What men like John Hagelin who is one of the biggest jokes the Movement has
created for his constant trumpeting of the Marshy Effect doesn't realize is
that the old man had skills, talent, charisma and energy and he chose to use it
to con people out of their money. The world saving effect of TMSP, the Marshy
Effect was part of the con and that's all there is to it.
--------------------------------------------
On Wed, 10/16/13, anartax...@yahoo.com <anartax...@yahoo.com> wrote:
I think you may be missing something Buck. I am meditating in
my fifth decade. Even after adjusting for inflation by
current U.S. Government measures, the price I paid for TM
was less than US$500 in current value. To continue with
meditation, you have to have some kind of deep desire beyond
simply thinking that some mental technique is going to solve
all your problems, because it does not work out that
way.
Something
has to motivate beyond feeling better because some
situations may arise where you simply do not feel well at
all, and one can go through periods where it really does not
seem to be doing anything at all. When somebody is taught a
technique I would say there is a 10 to 20 percent chance
they will continue. This happened in my family, and in the
family of friends, and in the few research papers that
mentioned such data. It is not that people are slackers. For
one thing our culture does not support meditation that well
in spite of its being more in common awareness than
previously.
Another
factor is the illusions the mind has. It affects groups and
groups that teach meditation inevitably become weird in some
way, particularly if religiosity is a part of the philosophy
of the group. TM has always tried to hide its religiosity,
but it oozes through the cracks so much you can almost drown
in it. People have very strong religious delusions and when
faced with a religiosity that is contrary to what they are
emotionally programmed with, they may quit just for that
reason alone.
Basically
you have to be kind of crazy to continue with meditation,
there has to be something that pushes you forward, something
you sense behind the bizarre character of the whatever
system of 'enlightenment' you have fallen into that
seems somehow 'true'. It is not something that can
be quantified. There is a curiosity that one needs about
this, not an entrenched belief that one is on a royal path
to a nirvana. No belief can stand in the face of this
curiosity if one is to 'succeed'; all beliefs will
eventually be blown away. As Maharishi said, words of
ignorance to remove ignorance. All the verbal knowledge in
the movement are words of ignorance.
Rightly
applied they may work
for you up to a point, but at some point they have to go,
and it is up to the individual how they handle or fail to
handle the transition. Most of the people that want to help
you along on the path are going to help you fail because
they failed to make that transition. I believe M said at
least CC was possible for everyone with TM, but CC is not
enlightenment. That means a lot of people are going to fail,
and they will not help you along your way; they will become
an active force against your progress unless you know how to
brush them aside and stay on purpose. You are one of those
sorts that needs to be brushed aside. Maybe in years to come
that will not longer be true, but right now you are an
anachronism.
People
may stop short of 'enlightenment', short of
awakening simply because it seems progress is no longer
happening - they may be right on the cusp. As one Zen master
said, you may not be aware of your own enlightenment. You
may not sense how close you are because everything seems
flat, or simply have become so saturated with the spiritual
environment you can't stand it anymore and need a hiatus
for a while so what has occurred can sink in and gestate for
a while before you can again move on.
Remember
Buck, the Meissner effect is electromagnetic; it is just a
verbal analogy that ties it with the supposed Maharishi
Effect, the latter which has no scientific standing outside
of the TM movement's proclamations. Pushing
pseudoscience as fact does no service to meditation except
in the minds of idiots and the uniformed. It is not the
money that keeps people meditating. For the wealthy $1500 is
pocket change, and they can discard meditation as easily as
a pair of shoes that do not fit. The movement has an elitist
mentality, and if it cannot appeal to the masses as it did
in the 1960s and 1970s, it will simply become
yesterday's news, and some other system will for a time,
perhaps, find itself in the spotlight.
