On Jan 14, 2007, at 8:10 PM, sparaig wrote:
Er, no. People go for years and decades (or their entire lives)
without transcending, and yet
they show much the same physiological changes in their brain.
Er, yes. Of course you notice the same changes--they're still
cogitating a mantra! But they have failed in their meditation
practice.
They require more skillful means.
It all depends on your definition for what meditation
is. If you define it as encompassing all the stages
of sitting and thinking, leading up to and including
samadhi, then TM is meditation. If you define it as
the periods of samadhi and weight the benefits as
coming primarily from those periods, then some other
techniques may provide a more "skillful means."
Assuming that those techniques bring about "real" samadhi of course...
That is the assumption, yes.
But I also should point out that if TM teaching and checking hadn't
"gone canonical" (i.e "fixed" and deemed "pure"), there are perfectly
good ways to correct all these issues. The Hindu mantrayana is vast
in it's array of techniques and adjuncts. One traditional approach,
purification of the nadi-bioenergetic systems with pranayama, is
being practiced by the newer lineal descendants of Sri Sri Ravi
Shankar. Numerous advanced pranayama techniques, along with
visualizations, were used in elite TM courses but unfortunately never
trickled down to the rank and file. There still exists no way to get
their mantra changed because the underlying science of mantra is in
fact never taught to TM teachers. In fact, the real raison d'etre of
the actual mantras is hidden.
