Talk:Transcendental Meditation/Archive 1

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This archive page covers approximately the Pre Feb 2005.

Post replies to the main talk page, copying or summarizing the section you are replying to if necessary.

Please add new archivals to Talk:Transcendental_meditation/Archive02. (See Wikipedia:How to archive a talk page.) Thank you. Sethie 01:11, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Misc Discussion

Aside from the fact that this article isn't very NPOV, there needs to be something in it that tells what TM is.

I'm also still concerned that, since it reads so much like a promotional brochure, it may be under copyright. Vicki Rosenzweig

When I first looked into it, there were a bunch of TM books out there but none of them explained a damn thing about what to actually do--they were just advertisements that told you to go in to your local temple, which is what made me a bit suspicious. This page already has twice as much information on the subject. Lends a little credence to the idea that it is a cult based on hypnosis--you have to get people physically in there to perform such an act on them. I think this needs a little more information on the con side of things. -- Jkeiser 17:28, Dec 6, 2004 (UTC)

Well, it passed the Google test, but it still needs to be largely rewritten. --Stephen Gilbert

Why is there registered trademark signs? - I haven't seen them any other place in Wikipedia! - Since for instance Windows doesn't bear them in articles wouldn't it be fair enough to remove them? - And it still doesn't seem very explanatory, everywhere it just says "research tells...", not referring to any articles or anything. - Would it be okay, if I made a stub on this on top of the old text? - So that we eventually could get rid of this brochure thing? -- Firebirth

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This article is a joke. The consensus view of transcendental meditation is that it is simple plain old meditation as practiced by Buddhists and etc., and there is absolutely no basis for anyone claiming that they invented it or spread it other than the Buddha.

The modern interpretations of its significance are mostly in its health claims, e.g. reduced blood pressure, better concentration, etc., in which it can be seen by its supporters to be simply the most effective form of waking relaxation.

And the (TM) on TM is intolerable, it is certainly a phrase in common use.

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As a long term practioner of many years meditation experience (TM, sitting, dance, whirling, mantra, chanting, witnessing etc.), and a one-time tutor within the TM movement, I can tell you that the TM technique is not at-all ike a Buddhist (or any other) meditation to experience.

It is indeed much more akin to a 'trance' or hypnotic state characterised by a kind of blanking of experience. It is far from clear that long periods of 'hypnotic trance' are universally beneficial, either physiologically or spiritually, and it appears that a minority of practictioners suffer long term debilitating effects such physical tics, loss of concentration, and emotional volatility. A matter of some embarrasment, not to say shame, to those of us who once promoted it so enthusiastically.

By the way the article is rather coy about the choice of mantras. Although a sworn secret this has been revealed to be simply dependent on the age of the person at the time they were initiated into the technique.

The mantras are all the names of Hindu gods, and the initiation ceremony (puja) is also decidedly Hindu in character. This raises ethical concerns as the TM teachers are required to state that the teaching has no religious content and is quite compatible with the existing faith of the practioner. Thus the apparently hysterical claims of Christian groups that the TM movement was surreptitiously initiating people into Hinduism actually had some merit in fact.

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From the article:

"Grounded on statistical data of recovery, the National Health Service of England, allows doctors, if their patients suffer from one of three srecific diseases, to prescribe their patient to learn TM. The health service then pays for it."

Please provide evidence for this.

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The EEGs don't make it look like a 'trance'. Are TMers statistically more likely than non-TMers to suffer from tics, etc?

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Transcendental Meditation requires no concentration or focus.

Someone wrote that on the Meditation page, but that wasn't true when i learned TM. So i put it here rather than on the page. --JohnAbbe

Removed as non-NPOV:

See the foolishness of all this.If someone does the initiation again after let's say 5 years,at a diffren't TM centre without mentioning the former initiation,he will get another mantra.Now he has 2 mantras.Which one does he use.OH Please!!!.The "Maharishi" only thinks about his wallet. -- Pedant17 00:16, 28 Dec 2003 (UTC)

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I have practiced TM since I was 10 (my mom initiated me), and I have no complaints. Allegations that TM is a cult, a trance technique, dangerous do not sit right with me. Sure, my mom has dragged me to a few TM functions over the years because I am her daughter, but I have always been free to choose whether or not to practice the technique. I go to a public university, am studying bioengineering, love Harry Potter, computers, etc. The biggest difference is that I don't get stressed as easily as my peers because of my practice of TM. I am not the victim of any cult; I feel I have a very healthy life.

In response to the mantra issue: a person who was initiated years ago who comes to a teacher again will be asked very clearly if they remember their original mantra. If that is the case, they are given the same priviliges as recent initiates. Their meditation is checked to make sure they are still doing the technique without effort, and there is no additional charge for any of these services. Only if a person cannot remember their original mantra is it necessary to re-initiate them (at the current cost of initiation).

The cost: I know it is terribly high. Everyone says it's too high. My mom has only initiated a very small handful of people since the prices last went up. The motive behind the price increase is so that they can teach people in developing countries for virtually nothing. The United States is the richest country in the world, so logic follows that its citizens should pay the most for the knowledge.

Since discovering this Wikipedia article, I have thought long and hard as to whether TM is a dangerous thing--whether it is a cult--and the conclusion I came to is that it is not. I have listened to my mom pitch TM to potential initiates over the years, and she never put pressure on any of them. She gives them the facts, tells them the benefits of the technique, warns them about the price, and lets them decide. Does this sound dangerous to you? I feel that TM has definitely benefitted me over the years. So far, I have survived college with minimal stress, I am very creative, and I am in a wonderful relationship. I don't know how much of who I am is because of TM because I started at age 10 (I am 19 now), but please don't write off all of TM as a dangerous thing just because society tells you that it is wrong to devote time to non-traditional spiritual practices.

If you have any questions, please email me at kesafloyd@yahoo.com

Alexandra, I think one has to differ between the organisation and the meditation technique. There are some papers that the technique is dangerous to mental health etc., e.g. see [1] (further below 9 papers are presented). I would not overstress these dangers though.

On the other hand the organisation TM is dubious at best. They have published virtually hundreds of papers in order to "proof" that TM is the best possible technique, good for your health etc. They even claim that they can proof the Maharishi-effect - the presented paper has no scientific value at all, see [2].

In many discussions with members on the German discussion page I got the impression that people that are longer involved in TM (like teachers) are almost unable to criticize the organization or their leaders. Yes, in this sense they are a cult. This of course doesn't mean that everyone who practices TM is a member of the cult.

About the price: I am afraid that you are naive if you think that the extra money is for the poor people in the developing countries. At [3] you can see the building Maharishi has built for himself. I am sure though that they have some good argument, why they need it :-)

To summarize: if the meditation technique is helpful for you I am happy about this. On the other hand I highly mistrust the organization TM in particular after discussion with long time members on the German Wikipedia.

best regards -- mkrohn 20:35, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

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I'll concur that TM is not at all like the typical Buddhist meditation techniques. It's an organized attempt to spread Hindu meditation, virtually unchanged, in a mostly secular fashion to the masses. It's got some crazy mystical elements, which have come more to the fore over time, such as the claim that a sufficient amount of TM practice would cause world peace or that very advanced practitioners get supernatural powers, but the practice itself is not particularly tied up in these ideas. The growth of the hokey side in the group, caused by Maharishi's own drift toward this attitude, is one of the things responsible for the many people who've left but continue to practice or even teach. The typical response to the idea that TM causes tics and such is that certain, mostly mentally unstable people respond very poorly to a brain alteration of any kind and the solution to that problem is for teachers to be more willing to be selective with the students they allow. It's often (far from always) unstable, New Agey people that get into TM, so who knows what percentage of people are vulnerable, but it's not insignificant. (I've currently never done TM, incidentally, which probably makes me both unbiased and uninformed)

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Marco--in response to your message above, I went looking at some anti-TM websites out there to try to get a more "balanced" perspective. This is what I've found: a lot of them seem extremely biased against any practice that is not part of mainstream American culture. For example, there is one site that talks about how the initiation ceremony involves "bowing to Maharishi's dead teacher." HELLO! It's not worship. No one worships Guru Dev. He was human too, but we do a traditional Indian ceremony to honor the fact that he brought us great knowledge. Yes, I know it's very similar to ones done in Hinduism. TM comes from India. If it came from the US it would undoubtedly have cultural elements derived from Christianity simply because that is the religion that pervades American culture.

I see what you're saying about the building... it is large. There's never been any doubt that Maharishi is a very shrewd businessman. But I didn't mean that money was going to help poor people, ie charity, I meant that the cost of initiation parallels GDP per capita. I looked on the Mexican TM site--it costs 4,500 pesos, or approximately $400 there. This is still a lot of money, but there is a difference. And Mexico is by no means the poorest country in the world.

Another reason for the high prices is that Maharishi blames the US for causing a lot of strife in the world with its foreign policy, and frankly I agree with him on that point. The impression I get from rumors filtering down through the TM grapevine is that he's down on the US's potential to help the world reach enlightenment, and therefore is not focusing at all on teaching there.

-Alexandra