Well, you got into the "game" much earlier than I and stuck with it much
longer than I did. I didn't do TTC until 1975 and taught a few courses
after I returned in 1976 and then about a year later it was announced
that courses should given over to MIU graduates, who being young, lacked
experience in life and were like robots teaching. Local folks didn't
take to that so along with the fee hike, the announcement of TM-Sidhis,
initiations began to drop.
Plus, I was a bit "peripheral" to the local movement and hung out with
people who taught yet had careers. They also liked to check out other
organizations and books and I was well advised to keep such explorations
"secret." Plus before I started TM I had already tried some other
techniques including Advaita ones. I tried TM to see what an "official"
mantra might do. I didn't find out how "unofficial" those mantras were
until I returned from TTC and read up on them in a book on the Vedas,
mentioning they were often practiced by Hindu couples before having sex!
:-D
On 09/13/2014 09:44 AM, Duveyoung wrote:
I guess I do come off as "blaming" more than I should. Cuz, hey,
Willy's right that if I had had any integrity, I would never have
allowed myself to be, what?, abused? by the TMO. But, hey, again, TM
was SUPPOSED TO GIVE ME THAT INTEGRITY!
I was and am still easily interpreted as wacko -- depends on the frame
through which you're looking at my stuff. From some frames, I pass
muster, but others.....yessh.
I never had a good plan for life -- always just running to the next
safe place where I could maybe get my shit together. Always with
exigencies pushing me down the road instead of following my bliss.
Fingers always crossed that the technique would change me before
everyone found out how thick the mask I wore was.
I really was a true believer for a while there, and during that time,
THEN, how the TMO handled me could be described as fraudulent,
abusive, etc. When I put my faith in you -- give you personal power
over me as I did with Maharishi -- the betrayals are all the more
bitter....because, of course, it is so hard to clearly take ownership
of ones part in the debacle.
After 5 - 8 years, all the initiations, ATRs, yeah, from then on, it
was me "holing up" and "hiding out from real life" to a great degree.
By then I'd seen clearly that the assholes of the movement were
merely normal assholes that had come the to movement and had never
been psychologically improved, and never would be improved fast enough
to justify bending a knee to their non-enlightened "intent to do
Maharishi's work."
But by then, I knew myself enough to know I didn't resonate with the
"normal life" offerings extant, and so the years flowed past as I
waited and hoped I'd get the clarity to target something better...or
at least more attainable than enlightenment. Meanwhile the kids were
in a school that I could trust more than a public school, I had a
dozen irons in the fire for making money in FF, and I had a nice
social life and community. There were no other places for
me-in-my-fix to go. Or so I thought....as time passed, karma came and
forced me into various "partial" clarities.
And of course, anyone evolves given decades of life processing, so all
the issues of being in the cult were very transformative as much as
any other kind of life would have been. This wisdom-via-aging is then
very hard to separate from "wisdom gained because of TM." -- and the
TMO of course took credit for the least titch of anyone's
improvements. Grrrrrrrrr.
