To the editor:
Erik Gable’s piece on the TM movement and Ammaji (sic) was good but missed a few underlying points. When someone begins TM he is told what its theoretical basis is. One can practice TM quite well without really understanding that basis. However, if one really understands what Maharishi is saying, one is left with just two possibilities. When someone claims total knowledge as Maharishi has, it gives us a great epistemological advantage. How can anyone claim total knowledge unless he either has it or is a fake? Can you think of anything in between? If you consider saints, none of less than the highest knowledge would claim to have it. (That, apparently is the unexamined conclusion about Maharishi of many who claim to respect him.) that leaves non-saints. But any non-saint who claimed to have the highest knowledge would be a fake and evil. Hence, we have two choices. Maharishi is either everything he says he is or he is a fake and evil.
Those who reject Maharishi as fake and evil at least show internal consistency. Those who claim respect for Maharishi but seriously pursue other gurus do not. One cannot respect someone who claims total knowledge unless one believes he has it. Therefore, if one respects Maharishi one must believe everything he says.
Moreover, the very nature of higher knowledge is its superior organizing power. Therefore, it would also follow that no other knowledge system (not to mention a fake system) could improve on the evolutionary practices derived from Maharishi’s knowledge. Of course one should pursue one’s interests, but the pursuit of other gurus or their techniques, when one claims respect for Maharishi, indicates more than just spiritual ambition. It indicates spiritual confusion.
Regarding Maharishi’s movement leadership, he tells us how to improve it. Maharishi’s Absolute Theory of Government states that a leader is an innocent mirror of the group he leads. That means that if the TM movement’s leaders have shortcomings then the meditators whom they lead, as a group, do too. In other words, entreaty is a waste of time until the group consciousness has improved. And group consciousness improves only when the individual, as the component of the group, improves.
The best way to improve the individual, it would also follow if you believed Maharishi, is to own the movement. That is to say, to take charge of the movement. If one believes that Maharishi is who he says he is, then one must believe that this prescription is right and its claimed rewards should be put to the test. A quiet way to do this is Maharishi’s group practice of yogic flying which he describes as the most powerful technique for individual and community evolution.
Of course not everyone, for various reasons, can always participate in group program or even, for that matter, do their program. For some that is because they can’t follow the logic of their own premises.
- Jon Kelly Kirkpatrick, Fairfield
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