Question
Dear David,
I chanced to see this forum while searching for information on TM. I was introduced into the TM last week. Typical of my nature, i started searching for more information on TM on the net...and Look what i see... 50 percent of the websites are vehemently skeptic of the TM technique, its way of instruction and its founder (late maharishi mahesh yogi).
This has disturbed me a lot. Although, i took this up with my TM instructor (and he did manage to convince me why there is skepticism )...i feel i am still not convinced a 100 percent.
I am sincerely practising the TM technique and i would want to ocntinue it. But this "apparently" negative literature on TM has definitely occupied a small corner in my mind and is refusing to go. Help me...
regards and best wishes
Ramesh
Answer
Ramesh, Thank you for your question.
There is not much scientific basis for the criticisms of Transcendental Meditation on the Web or elsewhere. They stem from the radical change in the policies and goals of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi starting in the late 1970's or early 1980's. Before this time, he focused on advocating for everyone practicing Transcendental Meditation through communication with the public, encouragement for scientific researchers, reasonable pricing, and a general good humor. After this time, he increasingly aimed at providing programs and support for those who were already following him and practicing his programs. In recent years, things got so bad that even modified TM techniques for children, and TM for the elderly, were being priced in the USA at the full adult price of $2,500. Even worse, Maharishi was talking about demolishing all buildings whose front entrances were not exactly facing certain "acceptable" directions, claiming that misfortune and sickness would befall all those who dwell or work in buildings facing "inauspicious" directions. His eccentric esoteric and mystical focus increased, and failed projects based on them proliferated.
No wonder the public was alienated. People in most countries do not respond well to wild and unsubstantiated claims in astrology, building orientation, and especially such high course fees (see http://www.nsrusa.org/faq.php?id=112&exp=1 for further discussion).
Transcendental Meditation, in spite of the recent eccentricities of its founder, has been shown to be beneficial in almost all areas of life, as has NSR Meditation (see http://www.nsrusa.org/research.php) and other transcending techniques.
David Spector
President,
NSR Meditation/USA
