Even someone like me with genuine, diagnosed-by-a-doctor OCD, can transcend just fine. Obsessing about TM is Just Another Obsession and doesn't interfere with the practice any more than any other obsession -it's all just thinking, afterall, and if you can obsess, er, think, you can meditate.
L ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <sharelong60@...> wrote : thanks, Lawson, for all your great info about the TM research, etc. I agree with your ideas about obsession and worry. I also think it's a funny but wonderful paradox that as more transcendence is established in awareness, one thinks about all this so called spiritual stuff way less! Unless to do so is fun. As it is in the Funny Farm Lounge (-: On Monday, May 12, 2014 2:54 AM, "LEnglish5@... [FairfieldLife]" <FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com> wrote: Transcendence happens when you stop worryinjg about it, period. Atheists and agnostics who don't worry about spiritual things in general, may well be more likely to transcend than believers who DO worry about spiritual things. It is possible that some atheist is obsessing about things which could be detrimental to practice, but that's an issue with obsession in general regardless about WHAT one obsesses about. L ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <jr_esq@...> wrote : Lawson, I find your comments to be generally similar to what I'm trying to say. My comments are in red letters below: ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <LEnglish5@...> wrote : You're assuming that transcending means "letting go of" a specific kind of thought, rather than thoughts i general. Transcending refers to "letting go" of any thoughts. But ultimately the thought of God's existence, for atheists, non-theists and agnostics, will come into mind while in meditation or outside of meditation. If they cannot transcend the thought that "there is no God", then they cannot let go of their individual self to merge with the cosmic Self. Thoughts are transcended during TM not because we "hold onto specific thoughts" during TM, but because we have been taught that it isn't necessary to attempt to control the mind during TM practice so we stop trying to control what happens next. Correct. I agree with this. Given the correct circumstances, aka "starting TM," the mind will automatically start to settle down. I agree. That is all "transcending" means. Now, it is possible that the nervous system will settle down to the point where there are abrupt and obvious changes in breathing and heart rate and alpha-1 EEG coherence which researchers believe are due to an abrupt change in activity in certain parts of the thalamus, but that has nothing to do with belief, but only with specific conditions in the thalamus triggered, at times, by TM-practice. I agree. I've made a longer comment to Xeno about the difference between the individual self and the cosmic or universal Self. I saw your comments to that reply. I'll address those comments next. And the thalamus doesn't "think" or have beliefs, according to any theory I have heard. It is an important "data switching center" and helps regulate states of consciousness, breathing, etc., but doesn't do much data-processing in any way that would be related to belief. Belief and not-belief are influences on TM only so much as they interfere with allowing the practice to go on its own. I agree. But the individual self, sooner or later, should merge with the cosmic Self. When this is done, then cosmic consciousness can be attained. According to the TM practice, this could happen automatically. But it appears to me that the atheists, who are TMers, are consciously resisting this natural process to progress. So, it may take them longer to attain cosmic consciousness, or maybe they don't really care to achieve this state of consciousness. Far more detrimental to TM is the internet habit of seeking out the online version of the Teacher Training notes available online and mentally correlating that with what you are taught, as you are taught. This likely sets up extraneous connections in parts of the brain that wouldn't exist in people who learned TM without having first read the TT notes, and likely disrupts the activity that "effortlessly thinking the mantra" brings to bear in a localized way simply because there's so little prior intellectual connections established to bring more distant centers of the brain into play when meditation activity happens. I never stated anything related to Teacher Training notes. So, I can't address this point. "Innocence of practice" may well have a genuine physical significance. On the other hand, one could also argue that obsessively worrying about when one will encounter "God" during TM is far more detrimental to the practice of TM than not worrying about "God" in the first place. I agree. I would say that a non-believer, all other things being equal, is more likely to transcend than a Believer. It all depends on the individual's personality and physiology. But, in the final analysis, the individual self would have to be transcended to merge with the cosmic Self. If the atheist, who is a meditator, consciously resists this natural process by thoughts and actions, then he or she cannot cannot attain cosmic consciosness IMO. L ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <jr_esq@...> wrote : Lawson, What is wrong with the statement that I made? Please, explain. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <LEnglish5@...> wrote : I think you're in the wrong meditation discussion forum or that you need to go get checked. L ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <jr_esq@...> wrote : Why? Because they can't let go of the idea that God doesn't exist. What do you think?
