How many followers did Maharishi have who had an experience similar to Robin's of popping into what seemed to be Unity Consciousness without any warning in the space of a minute or two?
It's one thing not to give personal attention to thousands of grunts slogging along with their sadhana. It's quite another not to give personal attention to the person out of all those grunts who suddenly appeared to have achieved the very pinnacle of what the grunts were working toward. MMY was not a personal guru and said so many times. How could he, with so many followers? At my TTC in Fiuggi, there were over 2,000 teachers. Just getting the mantras of initiation took about 1-1/2 hours of waiting to go through the whole process. A personal guru (like Shri Yukteshwar) gives strict guideline to help form the personality of a student. Self-evaluation is part of that practice. What MMY gave was simple - practice your own culture's ethics and teach TM. He only gave a general outline about yama-niyama once (at Humbolt TTC). He may have taught more elsewhere but he was moving the TM Movement and that was his focus. Robin probably didn't get anything more than anyone else. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <authfriend@...> wrote: If I may comment, presumably the disciple doesn't know any better. How can the disciple demand something he or she doesn't know is necessary? FWIW, I've always thought Maharishi didn't give Robin the help he needed after he'd had this profoundly transformative experience on the mountain. Robin didn't think he needed any guidance, but he would surely have accepted it if Maharishi had offered it. Whether whatever Maharishi could have given him in the way of guidance would have made a difference, I have no idea. But it's almost as if Maharishi wanted to see what he'd do if left to his own devices. He kept close tabs on Robin once he'd gone off to teach on his own in Canada but never interfered, and even told Bevan to leave Robin alone when he came to MIU and started causing trouble, leading Robin to assume he approved of what Robin was doing. I sure could be wrong, but I'm inclined to put some of the blame for what ultimately happened to Robin on Maharishi's hands-off approach. << emptybill, following up on your last sentence below, how is it possible for a teacher to cheat a disciple "out of the self-evaluations necessary for real sadhana." Surely the disciple has some say in the matter. Do you think this is what happened to Robin? >> This is what happens when experience itself becomes the object of sadhana (practice) rather than conformity with Reality. It is the same old theme and “gurus” just fool people when they cheat them out of the self-evaluations necessary for real sadhana.
