Transcendental Meditation - Biggest rip-off

I attended TM centre to see what it was all about. Having meditated successfully for several years, I'm convinced these people are frauds.

They charge $1500 for you to learn a technique which is backed with pseudoscientific nonsense, apparently relating it to quantum physics. They have shiny booklets filled with celebrities attesting to the magnificence of TM, and videos with M.Ds talking at you and confusing what should be a simple topic. And they tell you it cannot be learned from a book or tape - only by paying the fee and having a personal teacher. When I asked why this was so, and how the first discoverer attained this knowledge, the subject was changed.

How can you attain knowledge from someone else in exchange for money? The earliest Buddhist teachings require you to first see your faults before correcting them. This is just a mundane, watered down attempt to grab money off the rich, stressed out and not very bright 'elite'. If you are truly enlightened you would wish the world to know such a brilliant technique and not engage in what is obviously a scheme for personal profit.

 

This is just another instance of 'packaging of the soul'.
People are very much brainwashed by capitalism - maybe they find it hard to value anything they haven't paid money for, or to accept anything that doesn't come in a neat packet. Seems that way to me anyhow. Hence the proliferation of somewhat silly cults, of which TM is one.

But it's more a derivative of Hinduism then Buddhism.

 

Buddhism does not teach TM.

If one who lables themselves Buddhist practice TM, then that is just the individual practicing TM, and not being taught TM as a requisite / pre-requisite to the practicing of Buddhism.

Buddhism does teach Samatha (samadhi: concentration) meditation and Vipassana (clear insight) meditation, and 38 other dispositionally-related methods of meditation, but has not included Transendental Meditation as one of those methods.

Walsh, Buddhism does not teach one as a requirement to see your "faults", nor correcting them. Rather, to see how you become your own source of stress, and in seeing understanding and realizing this how your actions can also because a causal factor for others source of stress due to a lack of mindfulness. There are no "faults" here outside a lack of mindfulness, which really puts the burden of fault on ones own ignorance ... in the beginning.

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The truth is free

 

I would never go anywhere that I have to pay.

 

If lack of mindfullness is bad, then isn't it still a fault, even if Buddhism doesn't happen to define it as one? What I meant was, you can't be mindful if you do not first see your in-built tendency towards a lack of mindfulness. Well, animals probably can but I don't think we can.

 

Since TM has nothing to do with Buddhism, Ive moved this thread from the Buddhism forum to the Yoga and Meditation forum.

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Didn't you go to university?

 

I meant for meditation etc!

But, no actually I didn't

 

Darrell, I'm not an expert on TM or Buddhism but from what I gathered the two share roughly the same metaphysics with regard to meditation.

 

That being the case, then so would every other form of meditation ... which might even include some form(s) of yoga.

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Well, for starters, the scientific research that has been done on the health benefits of the TM technique is far from "pseudoscience". There are over 350 publications in top peer reviewed medical journals, from research done at many of the most prestigious universities over the last 40 years (including $24 Million in current NIH grants)

http://www.doctorsontm.org/


TM comes from a long line of spiritual teachers going back thousands of years, from ancient India.

Once you are taught TM, even though you learn it easily and completely in just a few days, you have access to a lifetime of free personal meditation "checking" from a qualified teacher in most major cities around the world. The course fee is very modest relative to the benefit you receive, and is in fact quite modest relative to the history of meditation, where many years of devoted service were often required prior to being taught a meditation technique.

But even in modern culture, how much do you pay for a laptop that needs replacing every few years, or for a nice couch that you can only "rest on" at home? Here is a technique that has been shown to give the body a deeper level of rest (as measured by metabolic activity, heart rate, breathe rate, O2 consumption, CO2 production and sympathetic tonus) than found at any point in 8 hours of sleep. And you will enjoy and benefit from it twice a day for the rest of your life, wherever you are!

It is truly one of the most beneficial things you can do for yourself, and would still be a bargain at more than 10x the cost. But even at that, many people currently qualify for partial or full financial scholarships.

Definitely worth attending a free introductory lecture - in the US, check here for a location near you:

http://www.tm.org/contact-us

 

Oh come on. It's a moneymaking venture, nothing more. It's also a cult. They told me to not tell anyone once I had learned how to do it like some secret pact. It has the fake glossy sheen of Scientology. I have no doubt that it works but that's no surprise since meditation works.

This looks awfully like pseudoscience to me:


I love how they put at the top of 'physics' all the government positions and manage to relate all that to meditation.

 

I thought you said pay- I did go to university just didn't have to pay.

 

Is it part of the Krishna Consciousness movement or the New Age movement?

 

Commerce and spirituality has gone together for quite a time.

I'm wondering if you asked where the money is going when it comes to TM? I personally don't know and I'm too tired at the moment to look it up.

I look at it this way. When I went to church I gave tithe which was 10% of my income. Over the course of a year I was giving about $1000 to the church. That was used in many different ways, used to help with daily church financial things, paying employee salary, etc. I didn't have to give but I was getting something from going.

I no longer follow that spiritual path but am on a Buddhist path. Same thing as my ol' christian days except it is called "dana". I still give. It is the least I can do to support those who are providing me with spiritual teaching/growth.

I do admit that I believe some people out there are trying to cash in on spirituality. For a couple of examples you could look here and here. I think these are good examples.

Just a final thought before heading out to bed. I personally believe that whenever someone purchases a book, or video, or some other small thing that helps them with their spiritual growth it is the same as shelling out $1000+ for a seminar or retreat. It is just a larger scale.

If you are worried about not being able to pay for teaching it has been suggested here many times to search the internet. Free spiritual teachings are everywhere BUT you might have to sift through some crap before finding gold.

I promise this is it. Just be careful of attempting any spiritual practice on your own. You should have someone with experience mentoring you. I have someone I work with via email once a week and if you put in some work you can find someone to. If you try it on your own it could lead to suffering you weren't expecting. Trust me, spiritual psychosis is not a fun thing.

Good Night!

 

I have practiced TM on and off for 25 years. When I learned it at 14 I was so frustrated. I went to the Self Realization Fellowship on Sunset Blvd, and sat next to a Krishna statue and said to myself, "I am not moving from this spot until I meet my guru." So you see how fucked up I was. In about two hours I was starving and so I walked towards the Burger King at PCH. Between the SRF and BK was a TM center and lo! They were giving free intro lectures on Weds, as they used to always do, then unbeknownst to me. So I went in and I was the only person there.

I wasn't impressed by the knowledge but by the seeping silence and feeling of some stresses melting that I got just from the enviroment.

Now anyone who has been into TM for as long as I remembers that that was a very active center and the originators of the TM Movement (The Verrils) lived there. They had residence courses every weekend. The energy had built up and it was a great place to do group meditation.

I payed $160.00 and they told me I had to have been off any recreational drug for two full weeks before instruction.

I learned from a really spiritual teacher in the TM Movement who I have never heard from again after the first year that I practiced. At his house, and back then the teachers had potluck dinners and free advanced lectures and meditation 'checking.' The $160.00 bucks was seriously worth it to me.

Now, at $2,000.00 I really would have to have a major visionary revelation to part with such mo0ney, and even then I probably couldn't come up with it. So today I would be shit out of luck.

But after I learned TM I had visions of kundalini (not daydreams) and some claraudience (which I am glad went away) - those are just the flashy things.

TM is a valid meditation. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi went a bit mad near the end, and his movement (and many insiders (previous teachers) will even agree) also became something not of what we had known. It is like a bird suddenly becoming a lumbering elephant.

So do I recommend it? I recommend the TM technique itself and that's the only thing in the TM movement that I do recommend (although the rasayanas are good, though again, expensive, just taking pure amalaki tablets and a shalajit and tumeric every once in a while is just as fine if you continue for a long time, and there's probably no way you would take Maharishi rasayanas for long unless you're rich).

There is a group of TM teachers who have broken with the rest of the TM movement and who teach TM still in its original packaging. Of course you cannot attend any official gathering.

Yes there's a lot of bullshit attached to the TM Movement. I am glad I learned before all that. I mean some of the stupidity and cultishness is truely mind boggling. I wouldn't have gone to Maharishi International University for four years if the students had been fanatics and gullible.

But otherwise it was the most intense and great four spiritual years of my life.

Since then I have become Buddhist and I have my own favorite Dzogchen lama (RIP). And the knowledge in Dzogchen is really proudly wonderful.

However I always fall back on my TM technique because I can settle down in a mere minute.

Can you learn TM off of Trancenet, or from a CD or other non-personal means? No. There is a puja involved and a transmission of shakti. Though they (the TM org) doesn't acknowledge that it still is true.

TM mantras also are not necessarily bija mantras. They follow a slight variation which PR Sarkar described as rhythmic in his one page discussion of his way of choosing mantras. PR Sarkar is not in any way associated with TM, but I like his page.

TM is not a good cult. I wouldn't get caught up in it. Even well known personages like Doug Henning gave their lives to maharishi, and left the rest of the world behind. I mean I loved Doug Henning, but he told Maharishi that perform9ing led him to drug use and Maharishi told him to quit performing (RIP Doug).

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You need to keep your wits in today's meditation market. TM is a good technique - maybe the best manasjapa technique available. However you might try an Ammachi technique. Or you might enjoy sounding pout loud your mantra in which case I am suggesting a 'perfection' mantra such as the Shodasi or Mahashodasi.

I no longer am on the TM program except for doing it a few times a week. I also do many Buddhist sadhanas. and it took me a few years to integrate everything.

I agree, TM is expensive, but a rip off? Not if you have the money. Do I condone the TM Movement for its whackiness? No, I do not. I graduated from the TM University in Fairfield, and I am now quite mad that I cannot go back and find the same atmosphere. I was part of the largest class ever there and also part of the heyday of the TM org.

Sadly, all things do change.

Seek not perfection from any human. It doesn't exist. I could tell you stories of spiritual teachers falling to very low examples of behaviour, and I mean first hand. But being such a witness is no different from watching a friend do the same misdeeds and so there's the trust to not squeal there.