Trancendental Meditation

[Pablísimo]

It has been going well, though I think I can always improve. I'm reading a little about trancendental meditation, though I knnow so little about it.

Would others here recommend going to a center that teaches this for self development?

The Transcendental Meditation, or TM technique, is a form of mantra meditation introduced in India in 1955 by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (1917–2008). Taught in a standardized, seven-step course over 4 days by certified teachers for ~$1,500 USD in the United States, it involves the use of a sound or mantra and is practiced for 15–20 minutes twice per day, while sitting comfortably with closed eyes

For that kind of cost (2 to 2 hours 20 minutes... for $1500) I think I would skip it and just keep meditating.

Hi Gemini,

I don't have any direct experience with TM, but I would like to share something that I believe is quite relevant. This is my experience with a group that I believe grew directly out of the TM movement.

8 or so years ago, I got interested in a group called "The Ishayas" founded by a teacher named "MSI". They offered a series of meditation techniques that they called "Ascending". The technique was "secret" and you could not learn it from a book. You had to learn it from a trained Teacher (Ishaya Monk) and you learned it in a weekend class called a "First Sphere" course, for which you had to make a $200 donation. There were advanced courses with more Ascension meditations with ever increasing cost. Teacher training got quite exorbitant. The group had some odd mythology involving a secret order of monks that had protected the techniques since the time of Jesus. Despite that pseudo-Christian past, there was alot of pseudo-Hindu concepts in the mix, notably multiple references to the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. They taught that by using the meditations enough you could achieve enlightenment eventually.

At any rate, after reading some of their books I signed up for one of these classes and attended two days of training hosted at someone's house a few hours drive from where I lived at the time. The meditation technique turned out to be 4 very simple mantras that they called "Ascension Attitudes". Each level had 4 more, but I only officially learned the first level. All you had to do was sit in a comfortable position, close your eyes, and mentally repeat this line:

Praise * for my life.
(Substitute * for the Creator, Jesus, Higher Consciousness, the Universe, whatever you want that is personally meaningful).

...After you say it mentally, you try to let your mind go blank, thinking of nothing else but quietly listening to the mantra echo through your mind. If you find your thoughts have strayed to any other topic, you simply repeat the Attitude again with no judgment.

After you have done this for a while, you move on to the next Mantra:

Thank * for my body-world

Do this for a while and move on to the third:

* loves me.

Finally, you use the "power Attitude" to bring it all together:

Om Compassion

...And that's it! Simple technique, just repeat, let it flow through your mind trying to go blank, and then repeat again. The idea is to experience pure consciousness in the realm of "no thought".

To be perfectly honest, I thought this was a decent meditation technique. By using positive phrases there was nothing for your mind to rebel against (ie you're not saying I have no problems, life is perfect, etc). It is also better than totally meaningless phrases from another language that mean nothing to you. I now prefer to meditate without any mantra inside my head, but at the time it was useful.

However, and I stress that this is ONLY my opinion and perception (check out anything that interests you for yourself), I looked around that weekend and my intuition and logic told me that these guys were a cult. Not a terribly damaging one unless you became a teacher, but a cult nonetheless. I decided to break my association with them after that weekend. I was grateful for the meditation technique and found it useful but felt continuing to study with them would drain me of money and begin to brainwash me and so I moved on to other things.

Well, I got curious about all this about a week later and did some internet research. There were people on various forums saying that the Ishayas had ruined their lives and others that just thought it was a mild fraud. I found copies of all the Attitudes and descriptions of the methods Teachers are indoctrinated, "brainwashed", and divorced from their families and material possessions. All opinions, of course, but some quite strong.

It turns out that MSI was actually a Transcendental Meditation ™ teacher for many years before "founding" the Ishayas! He had written some spiritual sci-fi novels that didn't do very well and he later took those novels, expanded upon them to create a mythology and adapted TM techniques for his own use and started this movement.

That led me to research TM and I found that TM was basically the same thing except:

A) They charge much more money for the beginning techniques
B) They do not have a mythology
C) They use meaningless word mantras derived from Sanskrit instead of short English phrases
D) TM suggests practicing the technique twice a day for 20 minutes instead of "as much possible".

They claim that only these special words will work and not just any words

Other than that, everything seemed about the same to me from what I could find by researching the issue. My ultimate conclusion was that a TM teacher had just taken the parts he liked, modified them somewhat and started a religion with it.

Here is a (admittedly anti-TM) site that reveals the secret mantras and TM techniques:

http://minet.org/mantras.html

There are some claims out there that advanced TM techniques can bestow godlike powers, as well.

In fairness, here is an interview with the TM founder by Larry King. I watched it and he honestly doesn't seem to radiate evil or anything obviously STS:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0icNZnUxYo0

You can also read tm.org, the official site -- note the multiple references to "You can't learn it in a book".

I sincerely apologize to anyone who may be involved with TM or the Ishayas if I have offended. If what I wrote does not resonate, then please discard it. I am offering only my own opinions on the topic. I am sure that some people have found TM/Ascension very useful and helpful and were glad to pay the $1500/$200 cost and I don't mean to denigrate them in any way whatsoever.

Gemini, I suggest you thoroughly research TM before you invest that much money in learning their techniques. There are many positive things written about TM on the internet as well as many negative, and I think it would be helpful to sift through a variety of opinions on the topic.

One last item bears mentioning. In my own path, I have always been very skeptical of anyone charging money for spiritual information. It has always seemed to me that truly spiritual people wish to freely share what they have, not sell it for material gain. In fairness, there are expenses even for spiritual groups and the bills must be paid, but nevertheless my heart of hearts tells me spirituality should be inherently free.

One of the things that helped me get over my aversion to channeled material and more fully accept the Law of One was that L/L Research gives away free PDF versions of all of the Ra material. I have purchased a dozen books from L/L and am happy to support them, but I doubt I would have done so were the Ra books not free.

Again, this is only an observation from my own walk and I would not discourage you from exploring TM if it calls to you. As I said, the Ishayas provided me something of value even though I did not fully embrace their path. Explore anything and everything that calls to your heart, but please do so with discernment.

love to all