Just to follow up, I'll tell a "Rama story," one that was a major influence in me coming to my senses about him, about his students, and about myself. It was during the "anti-cult attack" period, which actually was one, because there were an angry group of parents -- egged on by "deprogrammers" who were trying to get them to pay $50,000 to them to kidnap their sons and daughters -- who actually practiced hard-core blacklisting and smears in the newspapers to try to "bring him down."
In retrospect, some of the things these people said were true, and some were made up. But at the time, being on the receiving end of the blacklisting and other tactics, naturally some students fell into the "You're either with us or against us" mindset, and the Rama guy cultivated that 'tude in his students, just as Maharishi did with his self-importance fantasies about the CIA. So in a fit of Narcissistic Personality Disorder squared, the Rama guy actually agreed to be interviewed by "Hard Copy," the American TV counterpart of the National Enquirer. "Bahd idea," as Ahnold said in "Predator." :-) The interviewer 1) had done his homework, and 2) was in a wheelchair. It was a bloodbath. I remember watching it with a group of Rama students, and what I remember most clearly was their reaction. The interviewer would ask, "Have you ever told students to break with their parents, and have nothing more to do with them if they don't support them studying with you." He looked straight into the camera, and said, "No." The interviewer asked other things, like, "Have you ever referred to yourself as one of the only 12 fully enlightened beings on the planet." Again, the Rama guy looked at the interviewer, and through the lens at millions of people, and said, "Of course not." People in the room just ate this up with a spoon. Most of them had been in rooms when he said these things, or had heard them said to them personally. Many of them had audio tapes in their possession where he had been recorded saying them. I asked some of them about this afterwards, and how they felt about him lying to both the interviewer and to millions of viewers, and the answer I got was (I shit you not), "What does it matter what he says to them. They don't matter. They're not us." Pretty much at that moment I realized that I wasn't one of "us" any more. True Believers can find a way to "write off" ANYTHING that other people would perceive as craziness or lying or absolute megalomania because it's coming from the mouth of someone they have been conditioned to believe, no matter what. I repeat my first "take" on these quotes from Maharishi. Many of them are fuckin' Looney Toons. But to people who have been conditioned to see him as essentially perfect, they're perfect. And there is nothing that anyone can do or say that will convince them that *they're* not the sane ones, and that everyone else is *wrong*. In fact, because their egos get *larger* as a result of criticism, they'll believe even more strongly than they did before. It's just one of those mysteries of being human, I guess. Go figure. Go fuckin' figure. ________________________________ From: TurquoiseBee <turquoi...@yahoo.com> To: "FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com" <FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com> Sent: Monday, April 28, 2014 2:22 PM Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Maharishi interview excerpts One of the most fascinating things I've found about the cult mindset is how they can find a way to turn anything their cult leader says into a positive. You can tell that Dick Mays is actually *proud* of these answers. Try reading through this interview while substituting the name of any famous psychopath or megalomanic for "MAHARISHI" and you've got the same answers. If they'd seen these answers coming from anyone else, they would have been able to see how crazy they are. But because they're coming from him, they'll interpret them as "enlightened wisdom." My favorite is highlighted in red below. ________________________________ From: Dick Mays <dickm...@lisco.com> To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Monday, April 28, 2014 1:48 PM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Maharishi interview excerpts REPORTER: "You're not doing much to disabuse me of the notion that you're just a P.T. Barnum of the psychic set." MAHARISHI: "What does this mean?" REPORTER: "That you're a natural salesman." MAHARISHI: "Very right. I think I have something salable." REPORTER: "What are you selling?" MAHARISHI: "Natural law and the simplest level of consciousness where everything is spontaneously supported by nature. If people buy this product, they're better off." * * * * * * * REPORTER: "Why don't you raise money and distribute it to needy people? Would this not be a more effective way to bring about change?" MAHARISHI: "No, no, it's not the money that can make one happy." REPORTER: "How can Third World people think about their consciousness when they're hungry?" MAHARISHI: "By using that hardware of the cosmic computer, if they use their brain properly -- this is the Technology of the Unified Field -- the infinity of nature will make them capable of not only earning their ordinary bread but very first-class bread." * * * * * * * REPORTER: "What do you think about the arms race and nuclear war?" MAHARISHI: "Arms race will not be the cause of nuclear war. Stress will be the cause of nuclear war. Stress is the greatest enemy of life, and that we can eliminate completely." * * * * * * * REPORTER: "You have written that by meditating, man brings out his own sense of divinity in himself." MAHARISHI: "Right, we can talk divinity." REPORTER: "What about someone like Hitler. If he had meditated?" MAHARISHI: "He would have been more positive." REPORTER: "You really think you can change people's natures by meditating?" MAHARISHI: "The world is already a changed situation. One would not know what would have happened between the power blocs if Transcendental Meditation was not raising the consciousness of the world." * * * * * * * REPORTER: "What do you do for play?" MAHARISHI: "The whole life is play." REPORTER: "What do you do for amusement?" MAHARISHI: "Oh, this is great amusement when I talk about the unified field, laws of nature, when I hear so many people are starting the courses. I am doing two things. One, creating a softness in world consciousness. Second, training leadership." * * * * * * * REPORTER: "Is what you are doing a game?" MAHARISHI: "It's a game." REPORTER: "Do you ever sit back and say, 'I've been playing this game for 25 years. I'm a millionaire. Gee, I'm a good player?'" MAHARISHI: "I don't play in the past. I always play in the present for a good future." * * * * * * * REPORTER: "Do you want to take over the world?" MAHARISHI: "I have taken over already!" REPORTER: "How do you expect people to take you seriously?" MAHARISHI: "I don't because that is damage to my own message. Serious means under stress." REPORTER: "You don't think that you're just pulling off a beautiful job of fooling people?" MAHARISHI: "Those people who don't know better are always fools, but they will become better thinkers, better knowers with this message." REPORTER: "Are you a snake-oil salesman?" MAHARISHI: "What is a snake oil?" REPORTER: "A panacea. Something that will solve all the ills of the world." MAHARISHI: "Then this is it!" * * * * * * * REPORTER: "If we sent in an outside person not connected with you to take pictures [of Yogic Flying]?" MAHARISHI: "No one is not connected with me." REPORTER: "Where did you get your modesty?" MAHARISHI: "It's simplicity." * * * * * * * REPORTER: "Do people create when they're sitting around feeling happiness bubble up? How do you explain geniuses like Dostoevski who lived a miserable life and created very much?" MAHARISHI: "He could have created much more if the environment was less stressed." REPORTER: "But he wrote about stress. He would have had nothing to write about if there hadn't been stress." MAHARISHI: "One could write about a pond, but that doesn't justify the existence of the pond or its utility." * * * * * * * REPORTER: "But you claim credit for meditating suffering away?" MAHARISHI: "Right. Exactly." REPORTER: "Have you no shame?" MAHARISHI: "No shame, no weakness, no failure." End of interview ~Washington Post-- November 1983~ * * * * * * * TM Media Alert (Israel): "Meital Dohan bringing TM to Israeli soldiers" -- ConcertBlogger.com (Posted on TM.org) -- April 10, 2014 http://tmhome.com/experiences/meital-dohan-bringing-tm-to-israeli-soldiers/ Jai Guru Dev
