*/Since no one really responded to the issue I brought up in the
post titled "I think former TM teachers fear the C word because
of the D word," I'll try to put it a different way, in hopes that
one of you will be able to explain things to me and to others
reading this forum.
/*
*/
/*
*/See, here's the issue as I see it. Many of you TM teachers (or
former TM teachers) don't seem to like being referred to as
cultists, but you ACTED like cultists for many years, LYING to
literally every person you instructed. In the intro lectures you
gave to these people, you parroted what you had been told to say
if the subject of religion came up -- "TM is NOT a religion."
/*
*/
/*
*/What I'm wondering is HOW you could have said this when before
you instruct someone in TM, you have to perform a puja. You chant
the puja in Sanskrit, but you were clearly instructed on your TM
Teacher Training Course to "hold the English meaning of the words
lively in your mind" as you chanted the Sanskrit words. You were
even *tested* on your ability to do this before you became a
teacher.
/*
*/
/*
*/So here's the thing...here you are in the puja room, chanting
in Sanskrit but with the following English-language meaning
"lively in your mind" the whole time:/*
*To Lord Narayana, to lotus-born Brahma the Creator, to Vasishtha, to
SHAKTI and his son, Parashara, to Vyasa, to Shukadeva, to the great GaudaPada,
to Govinda, ruler among yogis, from him to his disciple, Shri Shankaracharya,
from him to his disciples, Padma Pada and Hastamalaka, to him, Trotakacharya
and Vartika-Kara, to others, to the eternal tradition of our abode of the
wisdom of the Shrutis, Smritis and Purana, to the abode of compassion, to the
personified glory of the Lord, to Shankara, emancipator of the world, I bow
down.
To Shankaracharya, the Emancipator, adored as Krishna and Badarayana, to
the two authors of the commentary on the Brahma Sutras, I bow down To both
expressions of the Divine, in Shankara, I bow down again and again At whose
door the whole galaxy of gods pray for perfection day and night Adorned with
immeasurable glory, preceptor of the whole world, having bowed to Him we gain
complete fulfillment.*
*/So what's up with this?/*
*/
/*
*/I mean, you were chanting words you *clearly knew the meaning
of*, saying that you were *bowing down* to quite a few Hindu
deities, who were either mentioned by name or by their common
nicknames. You had all of this bowing down to Hindu deities
"lively in your mind" every time you instructed someone.
/*
*/
/*
*/And yet the next time you gave a TM intro lecture, you looked
straight into the eyes of the people who asked you "Is TM
religious?" and you told them "No. Absolutely not. No way TM is
religious."
/*
*/
/*
*/Do you see my problem with this?/*
*/
/*
*/You KNEW that you were bowing down to Hindu gods. It was
"lively in your mind" during every puja. And yet in pretty much
*every* intro lecture you ever gave you said that TM was not in
any way religious.
/*
*/
/*
*/Please explain this to me.
/*
*/
/*
*/How can a rational person NOT consider you a cultist for doing
this?/*
