Some Buddhist meditators are clearly serene from their meditation practices. It does seem unfair to the point of appearing dishonest to put down all other forms of meditation. In the ‘80s, after leaving the British TM HQ, being open-minded I also tried chanting for years on the beads (Krsna Consciousness stuff – def OTP) and had to stop TM (sidhi) when I went to live in the temple (these people get up at 4am for 4 hours in the temple before brekkie). But, after attempting ‘life’ without any form of meditation or spiritual practice for a good numbers of years, I found myself in a deep ugly despairing depression, the only thing that brought me out of it was starting TM (sidhi) again after 19 years, and because of this I would never stop it nor wish to change as I get ridiculously happy sometimes – and depression ain’t a place I ever want to visit again. So, I am eternally indebted to M, GD et al for droping this in my pathway regardless of my ‘world view’ being different to theirs. I see some TM teachers got fed up with the Movement’s direction and developed NSR (natural stress relief) and this seems to be effective – nothing but a technique, no philosophy. I love this idea and wish it all the best. I also am grateful that TM will be around due to both the Movement and David Lynch type offshoots (if that’s the right word). It does seem that Truth gets fragmented into lesser incomplete truths in order to provide a need to the needy. When I cooked in the TM movement, nobody was into Vedic astrology, architecture or power weapons. Now I read it’s different. I do not believe in astrology, seems foolish to map out a person’s future when they have freewill – identical twins can have such different lives. I don’t accept that a man can ‘never be right’ if he does not live in Sthapatya Vedic buildings. Too much emphasis is put on the material when it was always about the kingdom of heaven being within – it was always about meditation! However, I cannot knock anyone who leads a wonderful life of peace with all the massages and scents etc. It’s just that this is not the ultimate truth in my opinion for which I have good reasons. And as for what I’ve been reading about people getting freaked out mentally by truly believing in Vedic weapons (i.e. battle of Kurukshetra etc.), I think they have just been fundamentally indoctrinated - they should be more wary of the invisible bogeymen snooping around their sofa. That indoctrination lark sure manages to separate people from the Self...
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <mdixon.6569@...> wrote : M wasn't very fond of any other meditation opther than TM. However, I did hear him say that he liked one Buddhist technique called *walking meditation*. I'm not sure of the technique but it involved the attention shifting from one foot to the next as one walked. He said that it developed witnessing. I'm sure that if he'd tried some other techniques he might have had a bit more respect for what they can achieve. The trouble is that he had something to sell and you don't sell much if you encourage people to look elsewhere at the same time! He was also unfair (or just ignorant) when he spoke about other techniques, doing them down all the time. There are plenty of ways to get there. Or here as the case may be....
