In almost all Indian traditions unless you have earned and been given a
title you cannot claim it. "Swami" is conferred title and given by a
guru to a disciple upon achieving some level of expertise. Maharishi
was never conferred such a title by SBS or he would have used it. It
also limits what he could do as a meditation teacher. If he broke away
from that protocol he would have been trashed by many other leaders of
Indian paths. He was trashed enough for the self proclaimed "Maharishi"
title which I'm not sure is ever conferred anyway.
On 04/24/2015 09:09 AM, dhamiltony...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] wrote:
MJ, in watching I feel this is an interesting point about ethical
conduct you are making about these guys or that narrower group of
people in the movement community. Maharishi often withheld himself
out of lineage of the guru tradition in a separation by a means of
a stop with his deferring to Brahmananda Saraswati and that line
through vedic masters going back through Shankara and beyond to
rishis before. Maharishi was really consistent with this, for
whatever reasons around culpability.
As Maharishi came to the West it used to be that Maharishi was
quick to deflect people trying to 'pedestal' him, where he'd be
walking through an airport and meditators meeting him would try to
go to their knees before him, he would curtly nip that. At a point
on a course I was on with Maharishi, the tru-believer types of the
faith-based side of the movement conspired to have the whole group
sing a puja in a way that it was done 'to' Maharishi as he arrived
for a meeting. Oh was he annoyed with that positioning, with a
look like the children had done something really wrong. The TM
puja as we were taught it by M is an alignment straight to
Shankara through Brahmananda Saraswati. Maharishi is not in the
puja. Well, Maharishi left the course and did not return for that
nuttiness. He had come to that meeting to deliver a discourse on
Patanjali, which he did give for the camera. It was a fabulous
lecture elucidating on the Yoga Sutras. But he left after the
lecture. The tru-believers were warned ahead of that as they
planned the choreography of the group singing the Puja to M, but
did it anyway. It really bombed, going over like the proverbial
lead-balloon.
But Maharishi and the secular TM movement he created out in the
world do have their own leg on flow charts of the Vedic tradition
and Western spirituality as transcendentalism in counter-point to
materialism and formalism. Though now, at this point the
tru-believers have painted Maharishi in to the bottom of the holy
tradition picture on stage. Eventually they might proly have
themselves painted in to the picture as apostles. That is ego and
you proly won't be able to stop them particularly. On the
flowcharts of history the TM movement is proly not going to go
entirely away anytime soon or go to ashes. The technique is way
too good in ways in itself and may well outlive the organization
probably regardless of the ethics of the people involved. Time
will give the perspective. I do feel you raise a good point though
and it will be interesting to see who will be able to some day
speak calmly to it from within the movement with perspective.
JaiGuruYou
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <mjackson74@...> wrote :
I guess it all depends how you want to look at it. Certainly if
thoughts and emotions have any sort of energy, particularly those
thoughts and feelings that recur and those that alter our behavior
then it sure looks like a hook or some such.
It has taken me a long time to get free of it all, even years after I
thought I put it all behind me. Marshy sure was a con artist and so
are his TM Movement leaders, really all the TB'ers are who are in the
Movement. I mean all of the Bob Schneider, Bob Roth, Hagelin,
Orme-Johnson, all of them. Some like Big Bopper Bevan and that
damnable Neil Patterson seem more egregious in their behavior but they
all perpetuate the fraud.
It will be a grand day when the Movement is reduced to ashes at least
here in the US.
