Actually, Michael, his name is Doug not David. Just to help everyone keep
track, etc.
--------------------------------------------
On Thu, 4/3/14, Michael Jackson <mjackso...@yahoo.com> wrote:
Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Soma and the Gods
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com
Date: Thursday, April 3, 2014, 9:05 AM
and God almighty David if you can read the
transcript of the tape and believe he was talking science,
then you have been breathing in too much GMO crop dust.
--------------------------------------------
On Thu, 4/3/14, dhamiltony...@yahoo.com
<dhamiltony...@yahoo.com> wrote:
Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Soma and the Gods
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com
Date: Thursday, April 3, 2014, 1:46 PM
What
a bunch of manipulative honking you haters are doing
against
TM here.
You are cherry-picking some 'god' comments and
making your own
assumptions just to make an argument. Reading the
transcript, he's
talking and using allegory to lay out an inquiry to make a
scientific
design. Taking observations, seeing some postulates and
getting at a
hypothesis to test. You are such emotional anti-science
ignoram-i it is no wonder you make these assumptions you
do
and you are gone so
bad with your hate around TM and Maharishi. You are going
really
irrational on us. That transcript clearly shows Maharishi
as
scientist and rishi together propelling science and
spirituality
together in to the future. You are trying your best to
take
it out
of context. He was an amazing proponent of science and
spirituality
that way through his whole career. This lecture is a
great
example
of that and his brilliance at fusing the ancient with
modern.
Stepping back and seeing that I admire again his
consistency
that way.
-Buck
authfriend writes:
BTW,
here's the transcript of the tape:
http://minet.org/www.trancenet.net/secrets/soma/soma2.shtml
Answering my own
question below: It's definitely the Trancenet
writer's image, not Maharishi's, as you'll see
if you read the transcript.
"The
unforgettable image of ravening Gods jostling each other
to
feed at the stomachs of TMers around the world to get
their
share of the mythical Soma"--is this Maharishi's
image, or the image of the guy who wrote this essay,
Michael? (I've read the transcript of this tape, by
the
way, so don't misinterpret my
question.)
mjackson74 writes:
Somehow
in my looking at TM, I have always missed this - any of
you
guys ever see this tape? If so what did you think of
it?
"Soma and the Gods"
On the next Web page begins the transcription of
"Soma
and the Gods" taken from testimony in the Kropinski
trial. This videotape is one of a handful that have become
infamous in the TM movement because of their secrecy: It
is
only shown to TM teachers on the heavily regimented
Teacher
Training Course (TTC). For many years copies of this tape
were not even allowed to enter the continental US.
For good reason! Much like the Church of Scientology's
OT materials, "Soma and the Gods" lays out the
Maharishi's freakish theology in a way that the public
is not deemed "ready" for by the Maharishi and
the
movement.
According to participants in the Kropinski trial, this
tape
-- along with the entire TTC catalog -- appeared
mysteriously on someone's doorstep one day. Since then
the tape has been used by plaintiffs in court cases to
prove
that the TM movement had a religious, specifically Hindu,
agenda -- largely because it's one of the few times
the
Maharishi was captured on tape talking about worshipping
the
Vedic Gods. (Of course today, the TM movement sells Hindu
sacrifices, yagyas or yajnas, to Ganesh, Lakshmi, and
other
Gods for thousands of dollars without batting an eye!)
But the true significance of "Soma and the Gods"
is much larger. And the theology that the Maharishi
espouses
is not Hinduism. It is much more idiosyncratic -- and
frankly bizarre.
In a nutshell, the Maharishi describes a sort of parasitic
relationship between TMers and the Vedic Gods. TMers
produce
the magical chemical Soma in their gut -- but it isn't
something they can use directly. The Vedic Gods,
principally
Indra, descend from Heaven and feed on the Soma in the
TMers' belly. In return for this primitive
relationship,
the Gods grant all manner of boons. TMers become
successful,
happy, prosperous, and develop supernormal abilities.
Unbeknownst to non-TM teachers, the entire TM program can
be
understood through this simple model.
We practice yogic asanas and pranayama to clear the
channels
through which Soma will flow. We repeat the name of our
own
personal "Ishta" (God) to summon Him or Her.
Advanced TMers practice the sidhis to "stir" the
Soma and further clear channels. We read verses from the
Ninth Mandala that literally invite the Gods by name to
feast on the Soma in our belly: "Flow, Soma, in a
most
sweet and exhilirating stream, effused for Indra to
drink.... Be the lavish giver of wealth, most bounteous,
the
destroyer of enemies, bestow on us the riches of the
affluent." And we take Ayurvedic potions and pills
believing we will produce "extra" or "more
refined" soma.
An anecdote from a former Maharishi International
University
(MIU/MUM) professor:
When I was on MIU faculty, there was a special videotape
that only faculty were privy to. It was the Ninth Mandala,
chanted in the original Sanskrit. Sitting with eyes
closed,
listening to it was considered a great privilege and was
highly secret.
On my Governor Training Course, after we had rounded and
rounded and rounded for three months, MMY [the Maharishi]
finally called to answer our questions. I asked what we
should expect from endlessly reading the Ninth Mandala of
the Rig Veda and I never forgot his reply: "It will
become a living reality."
To my knowledge, this fairly frightening vision is the
Maharishi's alone.
The Rig and Sama Vedas themselves describe the process of
making a beverage, soma, by grinding and brewing a certain
medicinal plant -- or alternatively by feeding a plant to
a
cow and then imbibing either its milk or urine. James
Allegro speculated some years back that soma was actually
the hallucinogenic mushroom amanita muscara, a prevalent
inebriator among all Aryan cultures. Perhaps. But even in
modern day India, there are hotris who perform the Soma
sacrifice using the humble soma plant, and imbibing the
juice.
Nowhere in all of Vedic literature have we found a single
reference to soma as a substance produced in the human
stomach and fed upon by Gods. Except this product of the
Maharishi's imagination.
Many sources from the inner circles of the TM movement
have
already reported on the Maharishi's preoccupation with
the influence of other people's thoughts (stress),
purity of food (genetic engineering), and apparent
preoccupation with "enemies" (re: the CIA and
AMA). The unforgettable image of ravening Gods jostling
each
other to feed at the stomachs of TMers around the world to
get their share of the mythical Soma seems a conclusive
indication that TM theology may simply be the by-product
delusion of the Maharishi's seriously distrubed
mind.
