[Buddha-l] FW: Maharishi Mahesh Yogi dies

[S.A. Feite]

On Feb 8, 2008, at 3:15 PM, Erik Hoogcarspel wrote:

> Sorry Steve,
>
> I just don't buy that shakti-shit, it's just to much myth.

It would be the type of thing you'd have to experience to believe.

> I witnessed two typical cases of TM going sour. One was when I was  
> in a TM-retreat. A guy developed agression and mental imbalance  
> after a few good meditations. The staff didn't want to help him.  
> With two other guys we calmed him down and talked him into just  
> taking it easy in his room for a day and leaving.
> I was trained to be a helper and heared it was quite normal that  
> people became so sensitive for meditation that even sitting stil  
> with their eyes closed was to much. Later I met a girl who told me  
> she experienced a wonderfull meditation during a weekend retreat,  
> only to fall into a deep depression next day with periods of  
> restlesness and paranoia. The staff locked her into a room on the  
> second floor and she jumped out of the window, breaking her ankle.  
> The worst was however she needed psychiatric care for more then a  
> year. Nothing about an itching back.

Such kundalini experiences are very rare. What a horrible experience.

> My own experience is that TM does bring you down in rather deep  
> samadhi rather quickly and shortly, because the bhija suppresses  
> thoughts. Most people however have to many thoughts and nothing  
> happens. If samadhi does happen a bad trip can occur, because  
> there's no mindfulness, so no control by the meditator.

Unfortunately the TM style of meditation has not been shown to produce  
"classical" samadhi, but really just a light trance and brief thought- 
free states, sometimes accompanied by apnea. The EEG of longterm TMers  
does not show anything outside normal wake-sleep cycles other than a  
few theta-bursts.

> Everything that happens catches you by surprise. I had my bhija  
> extended for a small fee in order to slow down the proces. I  
> meditated quite a lot, but I guess I was lucky. The bhijas are the  
> common ones from tantric hinduism, like aim, hrim, klim, etc. The  
> initiation doesn't have much effect in my experience and is very  
> short, it is just a prayer of gratitude to the parampara, the lineage.
> The other day I saw some TM-people being interviewed and they still  
> bragged about the Maharishi effect, if more then 10% of the  
> population is doing TM, the crimerate should go down. At the time I  
> knew a student in criminology and there was a village in Holland  
> where 14% of all people were meditating that way. So he carried out  
> an investigation into the effects. It appeared that since the  
> critical threshold had been reached, crime had gone up a few  
> percent. Of course his inquiry was not accepted by the TM movement,  
> but it was enough for him to get graduated.

I'd love to see that research. Was it published?

It seems the ME is predicated on this alleged coherence they are  
supposed to produce. But the _Cambridge Handbook of Consciousness_,  
the most recent textbook which includes the 'state of the art' on  
meditation research, claims that the coherence they are touting is a  
great exaggeration and really statistically insignificant.

So therefore, if there is no individual "coherence", there cannot be  
any "group coherence". It would be wonderful if it was true, but alas  
it appears to be just another marketing ploy to sell more product.

-Steve