Mason is quoting the Guru Puja. Again it's symbolic. Furthermore you were quoting the tradition of masters which is at the beginning after the initial invocation. Those are mostly NOT deities but actual people like Parashara who were gurus who authored sutras.
None of this is any big deal and does NOT constitute a cult. Certainly there were rules in the organization as you would find in any organization including high school service clubs who often have initiation rituals too as well as college clubs. But as I stated nothing was overbearing until we got the self-appointed "TM cops" who many of us blew off anyway. By that time I was moving on. I think many of us enjoyed the camaraderie of folks with the same interests that made up the organization before 1978 when things became more stringent.
I recall when Maharishi visited Seattle in August of 1978. As you may (or may not) know teachers from all over the US came that summer to make Washington the first state of the Age of Enlightenment. That's because Seattle had a very active TM center of really cool not zealous teachers. These teaches were very popular with the public. At a meeting with the teachers at one point Maharishi was taking questions and someone asked about the TM Sidhis in relation to religion and some point he had made in the past about religion. He dismissed what he had said in the past as a "psychological construct." Bingo! I started wondering how much of ANY of this were "psychological constructs."
Hope that helps.On 05/30/2015 11:14 PM, TurquoiseBee [email protected] [FairfieldLife] wrote:
*/Just a reminder for those who have forgotten their TM puja and what it means:/**/ /**/puja to Guru Dev Shankaracharya Swami Brahmananda Saraswati - www.paulmason.info <http://www.paulmason.info/gurudev/TMpuja.htm>/*image <http://www.paulmason.info/gurudev/TMpuja.htm>puja to Guru Dev Shankaracharya Swami Brahmananda S... <http://www.paulmason.info/gurudev/TMpuja.htm> Acharya Vandana Puja - Guru Dev - Shankaracharya Swami Brahmananda Saraswati (painting by M T V Acharya) * recording of Guru Dev reciting 'Guru Pranam', a ver...View on www.paulmason.info <http://www.paulmason.info/gurudev/TMpuja.htm> Preview by Yahoo ------------------------------------------------------------------------*From:* "TurquoiseBee [email protected] [FairfieldLife]" <[email protected]>*To:* "[email protected]" <[email protected]> *Sent:* Sunday, May 31, 2015 7:58 AM*Subject:* Re: [FairfieldLife] A request for the TM teachers reading Fairfield Life*/I usually ignore anything Doug Hamilton posts from his schizophrenic "Buck" personality, but given the topic under discussion lately -- cults -- this post *needs* to be replied to, because in it "Buck" is *demonstrating* the very cult thinking he claims doesn't exist./* */ /**/The point he's trying to make is NOT TRUE. I don't think *anyone* on this forum has ever said that TM is "all-cult" in that *everyone* who practices it is a cultist. In fact, this claim is the *opposite* to what those who have stated or agreed that there are cultic aspects to the TMO *have* said. /**/ /**/The people who have *agreed* that the TMO is to some extent a cult -- in particular me, Mike Dixon, and Michael Jackson -- have all specified very clearly that if a person were to learn the TM technique and then have little or nothing to do with the TM movement then they probably *wouldn't* be a cultist./* */ /**/But could there be someone living in Fairfield, Iowa practicing the TM technique who qualifies for this "out" and has so little contact with the TMO as not to be considered a cultist? I don't think so. *By definition* if you have chosen to live in the middle of Buttfuck Iowa, you were drawn enough to the dogma and the promises of the TMO to do so. And living there for many years, having to put up with the rules and regs that the TMO imposed on its members, you also don't qualify for the "out." If you live in Fairfield and you practice TM, at some point in the past you were a cultist, even though you may have minimal contact with the TMO now. Get real./* */ /**/As for "extremists, given to violence in their battle," that's just "Buck" fantasy. THAT is cult-speak, and furthermore a vision of what is happening on FFL that exists only inside his own head. "Buck" is so much a cultist that he doesn't even know it. Which makes him the most dangerous kind of cultist./*------------------------------------------------------------------------*From:* "[email protected] [FairfieldLife]" <[email protected]>*To:* [email protected] *Sent:* Sunday, May 31, 2015 5:19 AM*Subject:* Re: [FairfieldLife] A request for the TM teachers reading Fairfield Life7Ray, intriguing observation about tunnel vision and some of the TM haters' fundamentalism. Karen Armstrong similarly is writing about a nature of oppression in fundamentalism being Ideologically bound. 'Lot like these 'all-cult' old TM haters hoping to dominate and control what gets said here on FFL about TM and spirituality. “.. An even smaller subset of these fundamentalists can be characterized as extremists, given to violence in their battle”-JaiGuruYou! ---In [email protected], <steve.sundur@...> wrote : nuances are not your strong suit Michael. but never mind, it works for youa sort of tunnel vision, where all roads must lead to the same conclusion. (-:---In [email protected], <mjackson74@...> wrote : You are as convinced of that blabber as a TM'er is of Marshy's sainthood.The Hindus who slaughter their Muslim neighbors when a perceived insult is given to some Hindu god belies you assertion, as do the vociferous Hindu fundamentalist movement that is gaining strength since Modi took charge.To these and the vast majority of ignorant poor peasants in India, Hinduism IS their religion, something they are willing to kill for. It is only the foreign dilettantes and the educated native Indian intellectuals who view Hinduism as a philosophy.------------------------------------------------------------------------*From:* "Bhairitu noozguru@... [FairfieldLife]" <[email protected]>*To:* [email protected] *Sent:* Saturday, May 30, 2015 12:55 PM*Subject:* Re: [FairfieldLife] A request for the TM teachers reading Fairfield LifeSo far I haven't found a church for existentialism, have you? Much to MJ's chagrin there is no such religion as Hinduism because it is a philosophy called Sanatana Dharma. Now you *can* make a religion out of it but it was labeled a religion by the invading Arabs not the practitioners themselves. Any excuse to cut off heads, I guess.I walked away from TM and TM did not come after me. Cults often do come after you. But I certainly did see cult like behavior but many of us dismissed it. Teachers felt that teaching meditation was a good thing but started really questioning things after the siddhis were introduced. And after the AE courses was when we started seeing the self appointed authoritarians. And at that I witnessed some of those people eventually become disillusioned and walk away too.On 05/30/2015 08:05 AM, Mike Dixon mdixon.6569@... <mailto:mdixon.6569@...> [FairfieldLife] wrote:For a Hindu it would be religious. For non- Hindus( from a Hindu perspective) it would be CULTural. There is no conversion to Hinduism. At best a Hindu would perceive it as *planting the seed*. Now of course when a seed sprouts it doesn't become a full size tree over night. So, there will always be a need for more harijans, and sudras to evolve or work their way up the ladder in Hindu society which could take tens of thousands of life times, a real hell on earth. You really still wanna be a Hindu? Yep, teachers recite what they are told to recite. Do as you are told to do. I agree, the TMO is a cult. And a very vindictive cult. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ *From:* "TurquoiseBee turquoiseb@... <mailto:turquoiseb@...> [FairfieldLife]" <[email protected]> <mailto:[email protected]> *To:* "[email protected]" <mailto:[email protected]> <[email protected]> <mailto:[email protected]> *Sent:* Saturday, May 30, 2015 9:16 AM *Subject:* Re: [FairfieldLife] A request for the TM teachers reading Fairfield Life /*Another fun verse you were all familiar with, first in its Sanskrit transliteration, then in the "revised" translation of what it means provided to teachers these days, and finally translated using official vocabulary sheets provided to teachers trained on earlier courses: */ * * *KARPURA-GAURAM KARUNA-VATARAM SAMSARA-SARAM BHUJAGENDRA HARAM SADA VASANTAM HRIDAYA RAVINDE BHAVAM BHAVANI SAHITAM NAMAMI* ***Currently the TM movement translates it thusly: * *White as camphor, kindness incarnate, the essence of creation garlanded with BRAHMAN, ever dwelling in the lotus of my heart, the creative impulse of cosmic life, to That, in the form of GURU DEV, I bow down.* *But a more accurate translation is: * *White as camphor, the avatar of Karuna, god of Compassion, adorned with the garland of the Serpent King, ever dwelling in the lotus of my heart, to the Lord and Lady, Shiva and Shakti together, to them I bow down.* *This translation is based on the Movement's own vocabulary sheets, supplied to TM teachers in training on TTC. Note that Guru Dev, the Maharishi's teacher, isn't mentioned at all.* */ /* */Same question for the teachers -- you knew all this, and yet you told people that TM wasn't religious. Can you provide an explanation for why you did this other than, "I was in a cult, and so I just did what they told me to do and said what they told me to say"? /* ------------------------------------------------------------------------ *From:* "TurquoiseBee turquoiseb@... <mailto:turquoiseb@...> [FairfieldLife]" <[email protected]> <mailto:[email protected]> *To:* FairfieldLife &! lt;[email protected] <mailto:lt;[email protected]>> *Sent:* Saturday, May 30, 2015 3:45 PM *Subject:* [FairfieldLife] A request for the TM teachers reading Fairfield Life */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 religi! on." /* */ /* */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?/* */ /*
