When I started I was a little mixed up. Hormones were raging, doing some drugs, generally confused. TM offered some respite, a little tranquility.
In my case, my participation was also intertwined with a girlfriend. Later it did become something else, a spiritual path, at least for quite a spell, But it did launch me in that direction even if now my focus has changed somewhat. Now my son is going through many of those same issues. In his case, I wish he could find something, but I have to let him sort it out, and offer some guidance when he periodically asks me for some. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <mjackson74@...> wrote : You are right. In the early days of my TM junkie phase, I tried and tried to get my best friend from high school to do TM. He refused over and over. His reason? "Jackson, I don't need it. I'm already happy." He went on to have a career in textile manufacturing and eventually became a purchaser for the Komatsu Corporation. Got married, raised to great kids and is still happy today. I couldn't argue with his reasoning them and I thank God today I was not able to convince him to join the "Marshy sez" cult. -------------------------------------------- On Fri, 4/18/14, TurquoiseBee <turquoiseb@... mailto:turquoiseb@...> wrote: Subject: [FairfieldLife] Why does TM seem to focus on losers? To: "FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com"; <FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com> Date: Friday, April 18, 2014, 8:32 AM One of the things I've noticed over the years is how many long-term TMers say things like, "I'd be dead if it weren't for TM," or "TM saved my life," or "TM cured me of my depression/anxiety/suicidal thoughts/mental illness/whatever." I've always found these claims difficult to relate to, because I didn't have anything to "cure" or "get over" when I first started TM. I had already left drugs behind me, having discovered them back when LSD was still legal and came in a bottle with Sandoz on the label. I did my time with them, enjoyed them *not* because they were an "escape from my problems" but because they enhanced an already-enjoyable life. But then I got tired of them, and even more tired of the scene surrounding them, and left them behind. I'm probably one of the only people here who didn't have to wait 15 days before starting TM. :-) I was also neither depressed nor suicidal. In fact, I was a pretty happy frood, and merely one who was looking for ways to become even happier. And for a time, TM presented what I was looking for, something to enhance a good life and help me to appreciate it even more. But then it became as boring and as stagnant as drugs had been, and with an even more stifling social scene, so I moved on again to other forms of meditation that worked better. But there seem to be any number of long-term TMers who don't look back on their TM experience this way. They seem to focus on what it enabled them to "get over" or "cure" or "get beyond," almost as if (almost) before TM they had been "broken" and TM had "fixed" them. This gets me to thinking about tent revival meetings in the South (which, of course, you can't help but attend a few of if you grow up in the South), in which the most fervent "believers" and most fundamentalist Bible-thumpers were ALL those who formerly were drunks or whores or thieves or something BAD. It's as if they don't feel they can adequately shout "I've been SAVED!" unless they feel they had a lot to be saved FROM. And *this* gets me to thinking about whether Maharishi always pitched TM to losers and people with problems and low self esteem because they become the best disciples. And *disciples* is what he was looking for. Think about it. Does the TMO really spend any energy trying to market TM to "regular people," who have few problems in life and are just looking to enjoy it more? They do not. They focus on People With Problems. Kids doing badly in school. Criminals locked away in prisons. Veterans with PTSD. Can't this be seen as a continuation of a long-standing trend to look for prospective new students among populations who are more likely to be easy to convert into True Believers and thus become disciples? It's just an idea. YMMV.
