Common objections and frequently asked questions (FAQ)
• I (or my friend or relative) never had anything but good experiences from TM.
I discuss elsewhere that some people do in fact have only good results from TM.
• If some people do have good results from TM, why are you so completely negative about TM?
Consider a hypothetical new drug therapy. The pharmaceutical company did not reveal to the FDA negative clinical trial results that showed an unacceptably high incidence of serious liver complications at some of the higher dosages. And most people taking the drug don't get any benefit at all. The positive results of the therapy are, however, indeed positive when they occur.
Based on the partial data available, the drug becomes officially certified as an acceptable therapy and it becomes fairly widely prescribed and used, often at the higher dosages. After introduction to the public, however, the drug therapy does in fact continue to have an unacceptably high rate of dangerous liver complication. The pharmaceutical company publicly dismisses reports of such complications, denying that they are a result of the drug therapy, pointing as proof to their "excellent" clinical trial results. They claim that those having negative results must have had some sort of undiagnosed pre-existing condition.
Some patients and some physicians begin to engage in "consumer warning" campaigns. They recommend to the public, and to the medical profession, that the therapy be withdrawn.
Are they being "too negative"?
Mahesh won't tell you about the people who experience a negative impact from TM.
The "benefits" are just not worth the risk of exposing yourself to the TM recruiting mechanism.
• I am a TM teacher (or a satisfied TM practitioner) and this whole web site is a personal attack on my integrity.
My strong sense of my own integrity was perfectly intact when I was a TM practitioner, and also when I was a TM teacher. At most, I now wish that I had told everyone everything up front, rather than "protecting" them from things they "weren't ready for." So I assume that your personal integrity is intact too.
• I have already learned TM and this all sounds pretty scary! Am I in a cult? Should I stop meditating?
If you can legitimately entertain uncertainty like this, and can sincerely ask that question, then you are doing "reality testing." TM-the-cult has failed to recruit you. If you were in the cult then the notion that you might be in a cult would slide right off.
So should you quit? I think that it's fine to continue if:
- It's fine if you enjoy it. If it becomes unpleasant and you start having to tough out the 20 minutes and start having to deal with "unstressing" then ignore what the TM teachers taught you and just quit. All that stuff about "unstressing" meaning that "something good is happening" is complete BS. Don't go to a TM teacher and "have your meditation checked." They'll just try to talk you into continuing even though you're having some psychological and somatic problems caused by the extra time spent every day in a self-induced dissociative state.
- It's fine if you don't find yourself becoming "spacey" outside of meditation. Lingering spaceyness means that you're not coming back all the way out of the TM-induced dissociative state between meditations. You don't want to generate problems for yourself with your ability to deal with reality.
- It's fine if you don't have any further contact whatever with any TM representative. That means no "advanced lectures", no "residence courses", no "having your meditation checked", no reading of TM materials, no viewing of TM videos, no nothing. Just because you didn't succumb during the "3-days checking" it doesn't mean that you are completely invulnerable to TM's method of suppressing reality-testing. If this total avoidance is a problem for you then you're in trouble after all, otherwise what's the attraction?
• I have validated Maharishi's teachings through my own innocent experience, without any exercise of faith. And his teachings have been scientifically validated and are intellectually sound. I am not in a cult!
I accept your sincerity. I was of the same opinion myself once. However, none what you said of itself rules out the possibility that you are in a cult. See "Nobody who is in a cult is in a cult."
• Are you attacking TM because you have some sort of agenda against Eastern religion?
No, I do not object to the fact that TM is a religion that is very loosely derived from Hinduism.
I do, however, object to the fact that TM waits to unveil its religious agenda until the audience is in a post trance, and possibly highly suggestible, state. Even then, only part of the TM spiritual agenda is unveiled. The unveiling of the rest will wait until you are in an even more suggestible states from more meditation and/or "rounding".
• You claim not to have an agenda against Eastern religion, yet you use the term 'dissociation' -- this is a term used by Western psychology to provide a secular explanation for what are really "higher states of consciousness."
I am agnostic, now, about whether "higher states of consciousness" exist. However, I personally question whether "dissociation", which can be produced by everything from watching TV to day-dreaming, is the goal of Eastern spirituality. Dissociation is very easily produced, as Mahesh has demonstrated.
• Are you attacking TM because you have some sort of secular or "skeptical" agenda against spirituality in general?
• What is your agenda then?
My agenda is pretty simple. I want to inform people that contact with TM is dangerous. It's dangerous because you, or someone you care about, might be one of the many people who suspends reality testing in trance.
• What is wrong with you? Why drives you to do such a horrible thing as to betray your oath as a TM teacher, to betray the Holy Tradition, and to attack TM?
Yes, I really do hear accusations of this sort.
I did sign an oath as a TM teacher that included this:
"It is my fortune, Guru Dev [Mahesh's deceased master], that I have been accepted to serve the Holy Tradition and spread the Light of God to all those who need it. It is my joy to undertake the responsibility of representing the Holy Tradition in all its purity as it has been given to me by Maharishi and I promise on your altar, Guru Dev, that with all my heart and mind I will always work within the framework of the Organisations founded by Maharishi. And to you, Maharishi, I promise that as a Meditation Guide I will be faithful in all ways to the trust that you have placed in me."
Pretty heavy, yes? To a TMer I've done a truly horrible and ghastly thing. I might even be a rakshasha.
• Why don't you just get over your anger and resentment, drop this whole vendetta, and get on with your life?
I'm not at all angry at Mahesh. Truthfully.
I think that Mahesh was an incredibly
brilliant and talented sociopath. This means that
he was devoid of the facility that we call "conscience." He was
acting completely within the limits of and in accordance with
his nature. One might as well be angry at a hurricane.
