TM-Free Blog - Latest Comments

Re: TM-Free Blog: Here we go again

mkamel26 — Sun, 06 May 2012 02:08:46 -0000

It's been proven scientifically that plants grow better when exposed to classical music, rather than hard rock. I don't know if singing to them will help. I guess it depends on what kind a voice you have. I think plants and animals can sense how you feel about them; that's why some people are said to have a 'green thumb'.

Re: TM-Free Blog: Here we go again

Sudarsha — Fri, 04 May 2012 13:33:08 -0000

Would I be terribly out of line if I said that it appears that Mahesh was right: if you dip the cloth into the yellow dye and then fade it in the sun, repeating this process many times, the colour becomes permanent.

Tom Ball would appear, judging by his many articles, to now be completely colour fast in adherence to Maheshism. Personally, endeavouring to be free of "colour", of golden glasses, of any sort of obscuration that would prevent seeing things just as they are (which I think you achieve in your "rebuttal"), is the better way.

Re: TM-Free Blog: Here we go again

MikeDoughney — Fri, 04 May 2012 03:24:00 -0000

Here's my followup response to Tom Ball from the same thread.

No myths. Here's what TM leaders say and do.

It's always amusing to watch TM proponents like Tom here try to objection-handle, and misattribute factual statements about TM and the organization selling it, made by critics, as some kind of made-up, "extreme views" or unfounded opinions. Let's quote directly from TM movement material.

On the role of science-based medicine and medical doctors in TM, here's Kingsley Brooks, one of the movement's crown-wearing "rajas" and onetime chairman of TM's Natural Law Party: "We are not going to take help from medical Drs. as medical professionals give poison. So don't engage any medical Drs. for anything - absolutely whatever it is - even if they are in our Movement family... Hold onto the fact that we are the supreme authorities on health - we know how to create perfect health - we are challenging all governments in world."

I suppose Drs. Norm and Oz haven't gotten the memo, or they don't mind being used by megalomaniacs who fundamentally distrust and despise them.

For even more fun, let's visit the website of the "Global Country of World Peace," the parent organization that teaches TM. Here's a great line: "In the field of Agriculture, the Global Country of World Peace offers Maharishi Vedic Organic Agriculture ... which utilizes the Vedic sounds—the sounds of Natural Law—to awaken the inner intelligence of the plants, so that their growth and health-giving, nourishing properties are maximized to uplift the consciousness and improve the health of all who eat them."

That means that they sing to plants. Last I checked, nobody's proven that plants have any intelligence, and the idea that singing to plants makes them feel better was one of those crazy flaky things dating from the 70's. Kind of like TM itself.

As for the all-male hierarchy that is TM's global "country," Tom's protestations that women have high leadership roles in the TM organization itself are not supported by the available documentation. Anyone can go visit the Wikipedia entry on the "Global Country" and note that the list of global administrators is exclusively male, and that's sourced to a 34 page newsletter listing all the names. Only one woman is mentioned anywhere in that listing.

I haven't even gotten around to mentioning "Maharishi Vedic Astrology," which offers consultation with a real live astrologer for ten dollars a minute.Yeah, the doctors and scientists should be lining up around the block to get on board with THAT. Again, it's not my opinion, it's out there in public on numerous TM movement controlled websites. It's what they sell once they're done selling you on 2x20 meditation.

All this stuff is, of course, not going to be anything that Tom will be linking to by his faux "skeptic" site or any of the others for that matter. But they are the core of the movement's doctrine, and it's what they sell to people who find that TM doesn't quite offer everything they were led to expect from it. TM is just the first taste of a very long and complicated system, and they're even trying to make it free. Funny about that.

Re: TM-Free Blog: Here we go again

mkamel26 — Tue, 01 May 2012 20:09:16 -0000

Mike,
Even though I feel that on balance TM has helped me, I largely agree with your article. There's no question that many of the proponents of TM have bent the truth, and that many of the 'scientific' studies meant to support the valuee of TM were either deliberately biased or based on very little evidence. I'm not a scientist, but I like to read about science, particularly physics, and on the quantum level things go on that make absolutely no sense on the level of day-to-day reality, such as being in two places at the same time, and knowing what was going to happen before it happens. Every 100 years or so, everything we know about science gets thrown out and replaced by a new paradigm, and it could happen again.

Re: TM-Free Blog: Here we go again

Sudarsha — Tue, 01 May 2012 13:24:51 -0000

"an authoritarian, faith-based, sexist, and basically anti-scientific, irrational organization"

This is probably one of the most exacting descriptions of exactly what Mahesh made of TM. Thank you for this, Mike.

It is an interesting thing to compare with today's APOD (1 May 2012, http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/arch... ).

Real science can never have enough data.

Maheshism has never had much of any data, subsisting on charismatic speculation and magical thinking.

Re: TM-Free Blog: Guest Post: "An Alumni's Response to Oprah's Visit to Maharishi School"

Sudarsha — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 13:32:45 -0000

A very interesting perspective, Rumpel.

But MUM is a fundamentalist organization dyed in the absolute colour of Mahesh worship. That was the whole point in Mahesh's imagery of TM (transcending) being like dipping a cloth in dye and then fading it in the sun. One day, there would be no more fading.

One day, you'd be stuck!

And, indeed, that seems to be the case, especially when an actual academic and scientist like Hagelin becomes a mouthpiece for the babble of Mahesh worship.

TM has become the quasi-religion of worshiping the personality of Mahesh and the ideology generated by the worship of the personality of Mahesh. It really isn't about TM 2x20 anymore.

Mahesh was a very accomplished con artist. The other names you mention, The Buddha, J. Krishnamurti, Alan Watts, ... Eckhart Tolle, were not con artists, but individuals who saw their own experiences clearly and tried to help others to do the same.

Mahesh, however, talked about seeing the world through golden glasses, which, obviously, is not seeing the world clearly, but distorted in accordance with his own way of conning others into worshiping him!

We owe a lot to the Beatles. Fantastic music, of course, and in some cases allowing us access to TM. But, today, separating the idea of T (transcending) from the drawback, M (Mahesh), never gets off the ground. One enters the religion of Mahesh worship through the expensive door of learning "a simple, natural method" and, indeed, that's where one is enticed into the religion of Mahesh worship, it's where it all begins. - Even in Oprah's TV-lite infomercial for the TMO, it is obvious that her transformative process of getting involved with Uncle Remus' tar baby (Maheshism and the religion of personality worship) has begun.

The TV sci-fi series Stargate SG-1 used in its final episodes the idea of the Ori, a powerful race of humans who get their power from forcing others to worship them! It kinda makes'y wonder just what the programme's writers were trying to tell us, eh?

Re: TM-Free Blog: Guest Post: "An Alumni's Response to Oprah's Visit to Maharishi School"

Rumpelstilskin74 — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 01:34:50 -0000

A very thorough summary of the reality of the Mum experience is written by Sudarsha. It expresses the limits of what it can be and what it can't be. It is a technique that might bring moments of relaxation and quiet the teeming mind during the stressful day but a TM'r has the exact practical day as everyone else leaving aside a temporary ability to quiet the mind and drop the duality of the world. The biggest problem I have is that it is the message that is important and not the messenger, The Buddha, J. Krishnamurti, Alan Watts, and in modern times, Eckhart Tolle have delivered the same message in more modern formats but to speak of these other teachers on campus, even though their message is virtually identical with a few different words to express the same concept is met with horror on the campus and students are told they have beautiful thoughts but no one there (MUM) understands them. This is a falsehood. The teachers do understand that the Maharishi is only one great teacher in a long lineage. He might never have been heard of if it weren't for the Beatles.
Yes, we can learn that we can only say what we and existence are not and never what they are. We abide eternally in the mystery of existence. Things rise into Being and all being temporal, fall out of being from human lives to mountain ranges and to stars and galaxies. All is temporal except the silent witness (whatever it is) that has no qualities but has a consciousness outside of time and space and is not ego consciousness.
I put radical TM'rs in the same place I put, Baptist, Catholics, Muslims, etc. who believe that the fundamental teachings are literal rather than symbolical or pointers to the Absolute Reality that cannot be conceptualized or articulated about as it has no qualities.
Tmr's cannot truly levitate or bring peace to the world by mass meditating just as Christians don't really go to heaven or hell or don't get things done by praying. If it gives comfort or solace to the fundamentalist then I have no quarrel with their consolations and explanations of existence. It is only natural to ask why we exist but it is an existential question and existential questions have no answers. I find it very easy to live in a world where there are questions that will never be answered by philosophy, religion, science, or anything else. It is wonderful just to live and die in the Mystery and experience both the joy and beauty and pain and suffering as the reward and price for existence. If the world is to become more peaceful, it happens one person at a time through individual insight.
I think MUM should emphasize the Academic and Scholastic components over and above providing a spiritual component that I have no quarrel with but the tail should not be wagging the dog. daily meditations in the Dome are fine as are the other spiritual exercises but students should be prepared to meet the every day world when they graduate and have academic training to go into needed employment areas.

Re: TM-Free Blog: Child of the Cult - with Transcendental Meditation chapter

nmuster — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 20:53:23 -0000

Sudarsha,
You are so right that our pasts make us what we are and that hearing each other's stories makes us stronger. One reason I had to write my books was to asuage the guilt that I felt for covering up the ISKCON leaders' crimes. It just shows why it is stupid to enable negative people. Some of it sticks to the enabler.

Re: TM-Free Blog: Child of the Cult - with Transcendental Meditation chapter

Sudarsha — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 12:48:08 -0000

I have little training in sociology or psychology, so I wonder if these "issues" ever go away ... or if they should. They have shaped us and, in our coming to grips with them, in one way or another, these "issues" have contributed to who and what we are. We have little difficulty, training or not, recognizing that those who appear to have wretched lives have not come to grips with their lives. Just why it is more difficult to recognize "recovery" is something I do not quite understand. We just assume that people who live good lives, who appear happy or successful have never had difficulty. That inadequate logic need a closer look.

Would we have been better off without our "icky" pasts? I doubt that question can be answered. Surely we would be different, but beyond that, what can we surmise?

BUT, something that we cannot deny: we all have pasts and if we use our pasts as wisely as we are able, as you have done with Child of the Cult, then only good can come of this.

Hopefully our access to vast communication abilities will enable us to be more open to understand our lives, our mutual sorrows, recoveries and joys and, as our new contributor provides us with life-stories, we can bolster our own courage and, as you and our new contributor have done, dare to look at the past we have survived and where we can go from here.

You and Former Future give us all a lot to ponder.

Re: TM-Free Blog: Child of the Cult - with Transcendental Meditation chapter

nmuster — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 01:25:44 -0000

Hi, Sudarsha,
Thank you for your letter and for your kind words about the study. And you are welcome. It is an honor to have a chat with the tmfree community. You said: >>And, of course, ignoring if not outright shunning me when my contribution ceases.That about sums it up and you see this in mainstream culture as well. Lack of love, relationships based on the addictive need to serve the cause. Judgment, deceit, lack of trust . . . . still sorting out my ex-ISKCON issues. Don't mean to go negative on you :-)You said:>>400 e-mails in the past 5 months. That would be impossible, were we writing letters.Yeah, the Internet is making information popular again. Rather than dividing us, I see it weaving webs of love.

Re: TM-Free Blog: In Memory of Beloved "Dan". Be True. Peace. Family Condolences.

Salty Dog — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 00:42:02 -0000

Thank you Gina for your compassionate sharing of a young man's life that ended too soon.

Your writing elucidates just how truly destructive the practice of Maheshism can be to one family. I too can't help but attribute all three deaths (Mom, daughter and "Dan" ) in part to the misguided pursuit of TM enlightenment.

My condolences to the remaining members of Dan's family, and to you, his "Mama Catena."

Re: TM-Free Blog: In Memory of Beloved "Dan". Be True. Peace. Family Condolences.

Sudarsha — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 15:41:16 -0000

I must confess, when I watched Oprah's infomercial on TM, I was gobsmacked, well, a little.

Her effusive babbling about something she has only know about a short while struck me as tantamount to ignorance incarnate. But that's what she does and that's what her followers expect. So just how many flies she shoos into Maheshisms' web is yet another lamentable episode in the saga of rotten education, lack of logical reasoning skills, absence of critical thinking and the Great American tendency to not bother looking before leaping.

I guess Oprah could be nominated for a gold medal in the Lemming's Book of World Records.

How very, very, very sad.

Re: TM-Free Blog: In Memory of Beloved "Dan". Be True. Peace. Family Condolences.

un enlightened — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 23:03:02 -0000

Thank you for sharing Dan's story and some of yours. This is so very important as more children may be brought in to the TM fold through Oprah's recent endorsement.

Re: TM-Free Blog: In Memory of Beloved "Dan". Be True. Peace. Family Condolences.

Sudarsha — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 21:32:12 -0000

Thank you for such a compassionate and loving memorial of “Dan”.
I only knew him through you, Gina. But I think “Dan” would have been very
pleased with this portraiture of someone who, like you, was kind, loving and, I
am so sorry to say, deeply, deeply damaged by the machinations of Maheshism.

I hope “Dan’s” memory will be an inspiration for others, many others, to come
forward and tell their stories. I know, like all of us, in and amongst the very
painful experiences we experienced personally or saw our friends through, there
were some very happy memories as well. Please let’s not let our personal happy
memories stand in the way, however, of our search for liberation from the dark
side that took root in Mahesh’s megalomania.

We know a little of “Dan’s” story. Perhaps this is the time, this the
opportunity, for us to write up our own memorials. As so often happens, getting
the memories into words and getting those words out, is the key to liberation
from so much that holds us back.

Re: TM-Free Blog: Members breach Yogi trusts with land deal

MikeDoughney — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 17:18:41 -0000

More on this story today in The Pioneer:

Spiritual leader’s followers approach Home Min over asset ‘squandering’

The followers of late spiritual guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi have approached the Home Ministry for a probe into the alleged grabbing of land that belonged to the trust.The properties, spread across the country, are worth thousands of crores.

As for the valuation, 1 thousand crores is 10 billion rupees, which at the current exchange rate is about 200 million US dollars. This would indicate that the estimates from the early 1990's that TM movement related assets were worth billions of dollars may not have been completely off the mark.

The Pioneer is an English language newspaper published in multiple locations in India. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...

Re: TM-Free Blog: Child of the Cult - with Transcendental Meditation chapter

Sudarsha — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 16:58:53 -0000

Hi, Nori - We haven't met, but thank you for your labour of love.

I have only been involved with TM as a cult-religion-controling group. While I learned some valuable lessons, they didn't addict me to TM but helped me see how TM and so many other things in this world exist for the sole purpose of gaining my support, my ability to pay and my ability to proselytize. (And, of course, ignoring if not outright shunning me when my contribution ceases.)

Thank you for your broad spectrum insight into the age-old phenomenon of the thief, thieving. In the end, it's all it amounts to.

Each copy will change minds. Of this I am certain. A friend and I were just discussing (via e-mail) that we have exchanged over 400 e-mails in the past 5 months. That would be impossible, were we writing letters. Similarly, for everyone who has the good fortune to read your book, maybe 400 others will find out about it!

Re: TM-Free Blog: Child of the Cult - with Transcendental Meditation chapter

Nori Muster — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 15:15:31 -0000

Thank you, Gina. I appreciate your review and your participation in the book. It truly was a labor of love. You are right, as publishers predicted, it will not sell a lot of copies. But each copy that sells will change minds.

Re: TM-Free Blog: Guest Post: "An Alumni's Response to Oprah's Visit to Maharishi School"

Sudarsha — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 13:14:22 -0000

Dear Former Future

Thank you for letting us have a peek behind the curtain.

I have never been to Fairfield, but know many people who have gone there to live. You probably know them, too. But I can, in a very small way, relate to some of what you say. I was raised in a parochial school. There are similarities.

Just why or how Oprah either bought into or was seduced into buying into the TMO mind-set remains a mystery to me. Mahesh spoke obsessively about the "mechanics" of TM, of "enlightenment" of basically conquering the world (what else could he have had in mind with his world plan ?). Perhaps she, like so many others, illustrates how easily cults, religions, nationalistic regimes and the politics of getting others to see things in a narrow, delusional or distorted way (for the benefit and existence of the cult, religion, regime or political ideology) is managed.

But you bring up, very subtly, the possibility that the children of cult-life do not always see things with the same acceptance as their parents did.

In the story of the Emperor's New Clothes, it was one of the children who could see what the adults could not, did not. So, just maybe, there is still hope that the delusional nature of cult-religion will not survive.

Thank you again for your courage and insight.

Sudarsha

Re: TM-Free Blog: Child of the Cult - with Transcendental Meditation chapter

Sudarsha — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 17:26:59 -0000

Thanks for posting this, Gina. We need to know that it wasn't just "us" what got caught up in the cult-craze; but we also need to know that no matter what the cult, what the religious delusion, what the mind-game, recovery, reclaiming our own way of life, is possible.

Re: TM-Free Blog: Triumph of the Incurious: Oprah Visits Fairfield's Pandits

Sudarsha — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 12:23:37 -0000

I didn't know that M T Moore dissed TM in public!

It must have been a shocking revelation to many, indeed. I remember someone reading out a letter to Mahesh from an initiator I knew. Said initiator was leaving TM for aura-balancing! There were gasps of disbelief (at least one of them mine); aura-balancing being the demon du jour at that time.

Ramakrishna was one of my favourites in my pre-TM days. But to imagine that "god" would condescend to appear according to our personal preferences is quite hilarious and doesn't exactly say much about "god" - it, however, tells a wonderful story about our arrogance and narcissism. No wonder Mahesh scooped it up like pennies from heaven!

Increasingly, the antics of "religion" give me pause to consider that Mao might just have been right when he said to HH the Dalai Lama religion is poison.

Many thanks, David, for your insightful and penetrating look at how TM poisoned us.

Re: TM-Free Blog: Triumph of the Incurious: Oprah Visits Fairfield's Pandits

David Ansell — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 22:59:12 -0000

Remember back in the day when Mary Tyler Moore publicly disavowed her involvement in TM on (I think) the Merv Griffin show? She had been initiated and the expectation was that she was going to hop on the bandwagon and endorse it. I was still thick in the fog and felt somewhat chagrined. I think that put the brakes on for a lot of people. It would be very cool if one of the current celebs woke up and backed off publicly.

My impression of Oprah's version of spirituality was she gravitated towards an inclusive interpretation of things. Somewhat akin to the liberal Hindu/yogic idea that any experience of ultimate divinity is an, albeit subjective and illusory representation, a valid way that the individual mind "colors the colorless" in order to make the experience possible. I remember MMY saying that god appears in the manner that the practitioner prefers, an idea he plagiarized from the teachings of Ramakrishna, no doubt.

I liked this idea, back when I was a believer, and the spirit of it was one of the reasons that I rebelled against the paranoia and hypocrisy and left the TMO for something better. It took 30 more years before I realized the downside of believing in things without good reason or evidence, or even realized that that was what I had been doing.

As far as the lesser of 2 evils though, I would rather see people believe that, if there is a transcendent being or reality beyond the reach of the rational mind, no one path or religion is any more valid than any other. That idea alone helped me out of TM, although not out of delusional thinking.

Here is a quote from Sam Harris.

"Religion raises the stakes of human conflict much higher than tribalism, racism or politics ever can. As it is the only form of in group - out group thinking that casts the differences between people in terms of eternal rewards and punishments."

Re: TM-Free Blog: Triumph of the Incurious: Oprah Visits Fairfield's Pandits

Sudarsha — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 14:24:34 -0000

Celebrity carries the TM day. We need to look back to Beacon Light of the Himalayas; it's full of "important" people saying Mahesh is good, do as he says [which is my paraphrase].

Like Scientology and other religions, the proliferation is slow; BUT when celebrity is involved, then the coffers fill much more readily. Imagine Christianity without Constantine, for example!

We don't know what was edited out or what Oprah didn't get to include (that maybe she wanted to). It is always difficult to tell what kind of leash the TMO keeps its performing celebrities attached to - or how it manages to accomplish that.

Obviously they didn't accomplish that with David Sieveking, thank goodness!

We hope the Settles and Oprah aren't supporting nut jobs other than the TMO. Perhaps this is one of those situations where I might actually be in favour of the TMO carrying the day, at least as far as totally ripping off Oprah and the Settles; but that also makes me just as uncomfortable.

Re: TM-Free Blog: Triumph of the Incurious: Oprah Visits Fairfield's Pandits

Sudarsha — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 14:14:06 -0000

It amazes me, still, after 30 years away from anything TMish (other than on-line ranting and raving) how easily I fall back into TM-speak and then shudder.

However, I think our current reactions are important and should be honoured! if we didn't cringe, if we didn't shudder, well, that just wouldn't be good at all, would it!

8-)

What? Well, we weren't very aware of our silliness and pretentiousness back in the day. We were so serious in our juvenile notions of saving the world! Now, we have actual evidence, albeit subjective and circumstantial, that we have grown, despite what may have been. I am more inclined to cringe and shudder when thinking of those trapped in the narrow-mindedness and other limitations of Mahesh's entrapment.

Re: TM-Free Blog: Triumph of the Incurious: Oprah Visits Fairfield's Pandits

Deborah1900 — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 03:58:20 -0000

>>There is something so silly and pretentious about TM-speak that makes me cringe with embarrassment that I ever endorsed it to anyone or was involved with this organization, never mind considering their philosophy as a remedy for the problems of humanity.

Amen.

Re: TM-Free Blog: Triumph of the Incurious: Oprah Visits Fairfield's Pandits

morris — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 19:27:13 -0000

I have not seen the documentary, but obviously Oprah was only allowed to see the 'sunny' side of TM, just as Tom Cruise has probably never seen the seamy side of Scientology. But Oprah really isn't an investigative journalist; she's a celebrity, so expecting her to conduct an in-depth study of the TMO is probably a little unrealistic.
As for her spending her money to try to promote TM, well it is her money to spend as she wishes.I guess we should be grateful that she and that Settle couple in Texas aren't spending their money to promote Newt Gingrich for president.