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Everything You Want to Know About TM: Including How to Do It
Everything You Want to Know About TM: Including How to Do It
Everything You Want to Know About TM: Including How to Do It
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Everything You Want to Know About TM: Including How to Do It

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Wildly popular in the 1970s and '80s, Transcendental Meditation (TM) continues to be one of the most accessible forms of Eastern spiritual practice in the West. But does it live up to its hype? In this objective exploration of TM, consciousness researcher John White looks at what's billed as "a simple, natural, and effortless mental technique, practiced twenty minutes a day" and takes on its critics as well as its cheerleaders.
White explains what its like to take a trip through the "mountains of the mind," the purpose of mantras, whether the Maharishi is enlightened, and what science says about consciousness raising. He also provides a glossary of terms and a "how-to" lesson so readers can try it themselves.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateApr 1, 2004
ISBN9781616406424
Everything You Want to Know About TM: Including How to Do It
Author

John White

John White (1924–2002) was the author of twenty-five books, including Daring to Draw Near, Excellence in Leadership, and The Cost of Commitment. He served as a medical missionary, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Manitoba, and a church planter and leader in the Vineyard Church movement. A much sought-after speaker, he lectured around the world at churches, conferences, and leadership events.

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    Everything You Want to Know About TM - John White

    READINGS

    Chapter 1

    THE TM PHENOMENON

    In 1975 one of those legendary publishing events happened—the kind that every new author dreams about. The book TM*: Discovering Inner Energy and Overcoming Stress was published and rocketed to the top of bestseller lists around the country. Within six months of publication it was holding down the number two spot on The New York Times listing.

    As I watched the action, I was both amazed and delighted. Only a few months earlier I had spoken to Michael Cain, one of the authors of the book and the man who had initiated me into TM (which is a registered trademark) in 1970 while he was teaching at Yale. Michael and I have become good friends over the years. He is a highly intelligent, dedicated, and humble person, and he has been very helpful to me in my work as a writer-editor and consciousness researcher. In 1972, when I was preparing my anthology What Is Meditation?, I asked Michael if he would contribute a chapter on TM. He graciously consented and told me that he was working on a book of his own with co-authors Dr. Harold Bloomfield, then in residence at Yale’s Department of Psychiatry, and Dennis Jaffe, another meditator who was using TM to help rehabilitate drug addicts in a radical therapy project he was conducting in New Haven. (Michael had conceived the book and had then asked Harold and Dennis to join him; however, it was ultimately agreed that Harold would get top billing on the cover since he had an M.D. degree.)

    Michael offered to adapt sections of the book they were writing—the same one that eventually became TM* (at the time they were calling it Creative Intelligence Through Transcendental Meditation, and later it was known as Meditation and Stress for a while)—for my anthology. Dennis Jaffe took on the yeoman’s work of putting the chapter together, and it developed into the section called What Is Transcendental Meditation? in my book. I was extremely pleased with the piece because, like the others, it presented TM from the point of view of those well versed in that particular meditative tradition. You’ll find the piece reprinted as an appendix to this book.

    Michael called from the New York Academy for the Science of Creative Intelligence in Livingston Manor, New York, where he was taking advanced training in TM, about a month before TM* was published. He wanted to know if Î could suggest any people who might be helpful in publicizing the book. I was only too glad to cooperate, and gave him the names and addresses of some of the major book reviewers.

    He described to me some of the publishing woes that had plagued him and his co-authors. The original publisher with whom they had contracted had broken the contract, thinking the book would be a loser. A second publisher, Delacorte, had bought it and had changed the title to TM*, but again delays had set in—the book had been scheduled for press, but the schedule had slipped and slipped again. Then Maharishi Mahesh Yogi —the founder of the TM movement, who had agreed to read and comment on their book—had been late in returning his approval. Discouraging events all, but the book finally made its way through production to finished copies—and a first printing of seventy-five hundred copies. That, Michael said somewhat sadly, was because Delacorte didn’t expect the book to go anywhere. Delà-corte hoped they might sell out that small printing, but there were no plans to go into a second printing.

    When TM * took off in the Los Angeles area, where SIMS—Students’ International Meditation Society, one of the American organizations that carries on the TM movement—has its headquarters, Dennis Jaffe reported by phone that booksellers couldn’t get copies in stock for a while because of Delacorte’s dim view of the future of TM*. As I said, it was a rare publishing event.

    In 1975, the year the TM movement refers to as The Year, of Fulfillment, another book about transcendental meditation captured the number one spot on the paperback best-seller lists. The TM Book, a cartoon-filled collection of short questions and answers and illustrative charts, is about as different in format from the scholarly TM* as you can get. But it, too, zoomed up the bestseller lists. And then another legend was born. Warner Paperback Library bought the rack-size paperback rights to it for $550,000!

    On the day in September 1975 that I heard about The TM Book being sold to Warner, I received one of the regularly issued newsletters from SIMS telling about the phenomenal growth of TM. The opening paragraphs read:

    Maharishi Mahesh Yogi inaugurated the Transcendental Meditation Movement more than seventeen years ago in Madras, India. The results that were realized by meditators in the Movement’s early days provided a basis from which Maharishi could envision a fulfilled society. In 1958, Maharishi embarked upon the first of many tours with the purpose of making the TM technique available by establishing centers throughout the world. In order to achieve this, Maharishi personally trained several thousand teachers of the TM program.

    By the mid-sixties, interest in the Transcendental Meditation program took firm hold in the student world and chapters of the Students’ International Meditation Society (SIMS) were’ established on most U.S. campuses. Today, more than a decade later, SIMS continues to flourish.

    In March 1970, the first scientific paper that documents the benefits of the TM technique in objective, verifiable terms was published in Science magazine. This scientific data, along with the continuing favorable reports by meditators of improved mental and physical health, stimulated interest in the TM program by people from all segments of society. The early seventies was a time when thousands began the TM program each month, and the conception of a World Plan center for every one million people was fully implemented to make the TM program easily available to everyone throughout the world.

    The year 1975 has witnessed the greatest growth in the history of the Movement. The TM program and the Science of Creative Intelligence (SCI) have captured the attention of the world, and individuals are beginning Transcendental Meditation in unprecedented numbers. This great increase in the number of meditators in the world, with their increasingly profound effect on society, has encouraged Maha-rishi to declare the Dawn of the Age of Enlightenment. With the enthusiasm and assistance of meditators, the Movement will continue its rapid growth.

    The newsletter continued with a few columns specifying just how well the movement was doing in terms of gaining new members. Under the heading Vital Statistics, the following appeared:

    Presently, there are 580,000 meditators in the United States and well over one million meditators in the world. During the first six months of 1975— The Year of Fulfillment—the following numbers of people were personally instructed in the TM techniques in each of the four U. S. regions:

    East Coast—43,532

    Western U.S.—26,040

    Midwest—22,556

    South-Southwest—15,630

    A total of 107,758 people were instructed in the TM technique during the first half of this year.

    The page ended with the traditional TM closing used on literature and letters—Jai Guru Dev, meaning Praise Guru Dev. Guru Dev taught Maharishi both the technique and the philosophy that have resulted in the current phenomenon called transcendental meditation, which has every indication of continuing its remarkable expansion and growth.

    The vast majority of people in western societies are woefully ignorant about consciousness alteration and spiritual growth. (These are the key elements offered by TM, though they are usually packaged in more appealing terms.) It is essential that an attempt be made to peel away some of the layers of mystery surrounding TM and to explain as clearly as possible exactly what TM is, exactly how TM is done, and exactly where TM fits in with the whole realm of consciousness alteration and spiritual growth.

    As I glanced through the SIMS newsletter, I thought of my own part in that phenomenon. If it’s nothing especially significant, at least I’ve had a good look inside TM—a good enough look that I feel qualified to write this book. My purpose, plain and simple, is to offer a perspective from which TM can be evaluated, outside the ideological framework that so far has directed every book about TM and nearly all the other published literature on it.

    Although I don’t consider myself to be an experienced meditator—TM or otherwise—I have been deliberately engaged in the exploration of consciousness for some years. I have also been fortunate enough to associate with many people who are very experienced in meditating. Therefore, I’m taking the position here—perhaps presumptuously, but I hope not immodestly—of being knowledgeable enough that I can look at TM with a professional eye, so to- speak, and offer some useful comments to the oftentimes naïve public who are being exposed to the TM message.

    In this attempt to explore TM and to put it in some perspective, I’ll share with you some of the experiences and insights I’ve gained regarding both TM and other meditative traditions and spiritual pursuits. I’ll raise a note of caution and inject a word of skepticism where the idealism and enthusiasm of the teachers and/or practitioners of transcendental meditation seem to outweigh realistic expectations—but I’ll try to do it fairly, with balance and good will. Throughout the book I’ll try to call a fact a fact, an opinion an opinion, a speculation a speculation, and a rumor a rumor, (These are sometimes confused within the TM movement.) I have also included a brief glossary of terms and some suggested readings in the back for your convenience and further reference.

    When I’ve finished, I trust it will be clear that, although I have some serious criticisms to report, this book is not an attack on TM, not a denouncement of Maharishi, not a TM exposé. Some people have called the TM movement a scandalous ripoff bilking the public, and we’ll look more closely at the spectrum of criticism surrounding TM later on. We’ll also look beyond the TM mystique at the sometimes unbounded claims made by enthusiastic meditators who are themselves just barely in spiritual kindergarten. And after we’ve examined the evidence and the hearsay, pro and con, I sincerely hope that the uninitiated will be a little better informed and a little better able to decide whether or not TM is for them. I hope, too, that those within the TM movement will have their practice strengthened by new knowledge and a broadened perspective.

    Maharishi has written, One word from a man reveals his inner quality…. The extent of a man’s evolution can be judged by a single word uttered by him. I’m uttering a lot more than a single word here. But if I were to utter a single word, it would be love. Honesty is based upon love of truth. Helpfulness is based upon love of people. My wish here is to be honest and helpful. If this book helps some, wonderful! if it disillusions others, so be it. And if it angers still others, I can only say, I may disagree, but I don’t mean to be disagreeable. What follows is offered in the spirit of love.

    Let’s begin.

    Chapter 2

    THE TM TMP

    Transcendental meditation is defined by SIMS as a simple, natural, and effortless mental technique, practiced twenty minutes twice a day. During meditation, the individual experiences progressively quieter levels of thought until he transcends thought and experiences its source—the field of pure creative intelligence, that silent, unbounded state of awareness that gives rise to all impulses of thought, feeling, and action.

    Maharishi says in his book The Science of Being and the Art of Living (published in paperback as Transcendental Mediation) that TM brings the attention to the level of transcendental Being, It is a system, he says, of turning the attention toward the subtle levels of thought until the mind transcends the experience of the subtlest state of thought at the source of thought. This process Df refining the nervous system and expanding consciousness involves selecting a suitable thought—-called a mantra—and then experiencing it in its initial stages Df development. Thus the conscious mind can arrive systematically at the source of thought, the field of Being from which all of creation springs.

    In the course of a meditator’s progress toward the;ource of thought, according to Maharishi, he passes hrough different levels or states of consciousness. There ire seven states of consciousness in Maharishi’s map of reality, and only when you get to the seventh can you know reality fully. We all experience the first three— sleeping, dreaming, and normal waking. But when we begin the practice of TM, Maharishi says, we begin to transcend these three states. Transcend means to go beyond. Therefore, he calls the fourth state—which is experienced immediately in TM—transcendental consciousness. Beyond it are still greater states of awareness —cosmic consciousness; god consciousness; and the highest condition that the human mind and nervous system can reach, unity. (Anthony Campbell, an English medical doctor and a teacher of TM, has written an excellent book, Seven States of Consciousness, that provides a detailed description of each of these states.)

    TM, or a technique similar to it, Maharishi insists, was the means that led to the insights on which all the great religions of the past were founded. In the course of time, however, this knowledge was lost and religion degenerated into form without content. Maharishi’s work, which he first named a spiritual regeneration movement, is to revive this lost knowledge, although he maintains that TM is not a religion.

    My interest in TM began in about 1967, when I was doing graduate work at Yale. TM had made inroads there and was becoming an established part of the scene among both students and faculty, although on a very modest scale. I noticed posters about the movement here and there; I heard talk about it now and then. Its heavy claims were being registered in my data bank as something to consider as I proceeded in my self-study program of consciousness research.

    By 1970 the reports reaching me were of sufficient strength to make me activate the data bank and see how it computed. It computed favorably, so I decided to take the TM course. Unlike most people who get into TM, however, I wasn’t searching for myself or for happiness and inner peace. I had already received those gifts in abundant measure, thanks to a delivery some years earlier from the Cosmic Blessings Service. My experience with TM began as a deliberate exploration rather than as the sometimes desperate search that attracts many people to TM.

    By starting with no expectations, just a desire to see what TM was all about, I had nothing to lose or gain. I feel I was able to check it out with less bias (which was, if anything, favorable) and a more comprehensive view than those who have a psychological investment in it.

    Michael Cain initiated me on a beautiful autumn afternoon while his wife Charlotte and another initiator supervised several others who were also beginning the TM trip. I had brought the items required for the initiation ceremony—a clean handkerchief, some sweet fruit, and some flowers. Michael performed the ritual, sang the Sanskrit song in praise of Guru Dev and earlier teachers, and then passed my mantra to me. That’s the term that’s used —passing the mantra. Michael did it by speaking the mantra aloud to me while gesturing with his hand for me to come here or follow him. I got the idea and spoke my mantra aloud: "Sham?³ I guess that’s how you’d spell it in English—the a has the sound of ah and the word rhymes with mom. (Don’t try to use this mantra yourself later on when I give you instructions for meditating, because it’s mine—bought and paid for!)

    Michael listened to my pronunciation, correcting me by saying it over and over and having me

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