Transcendental meditation
Since 1959 Maharishi Mahesh Yogi started teaching the transcendental meditation technique, often referred to as simply TM, to people all over the world. Over four million people have learned the technique and the organization has centers and facilities all around the world.
The Maharishi continues to act as the global coordinator of the teaching of TM, and the founder of the transcendental meditation movement. The Maharishi resides in Vlodrop (mun. Roerdalen), Netherlands.
The TM technique has been consistently marketed as being a simple, natural, effortless and easily learned mental technique practiced 15-20 minutes, twice daily while sitting comfortably in a chair.
In essence, the technique comprises the silent mental repetition of a simple sound known as a mantra, allowing the repetition to become quieter and quieter during the course of the meditation. Practioners are encouraged to keep the mantra private and never to repeat it aloud, since its purpose is for moving inwards into the refined levels of the mind. TM differs from most other forms of meditation in its goal of transcending the mantra (in fact, transcending all thought) to reach the state of self-awareness (samadhi).
Electroencelograph, or EEG, analysis indicates that during TM, a fourth state of consciousness is reached. This state, known as restful alertness, is distinct from waking, dreaming, or sleeping. It has never been produced by any other method.
The TM organisation has attempted to keep the precise method for choosing a mantra a secret, but ex-TM teachers have stated that it is a chosen simply based on the age of person at the time they are initiated.
According to the TM organisation the mantras are meaningless sounds chosen to have a soothing effect upon the nervous system. Examining the full list of mantras issued by sources disassociated from the TM movement over the years shows that they are all names of Hindu gods. This is likely to be a matter of concern to anyone who is already a commited practioner in another religion. However, the TM organization maintains that it is not a religion and is compatable with all faiths.
In its initial stages Maharashi emphasised the religious aspects of the technique and operated under the auspices of an organisation named the Spiritual Regeneration Movement. But the requirements of the West made him adopt a more secular approach in the 1970s, renaming the movement and emphasising relaxation, relief from stress, and improved personal effectiveness as TM's primary benefits.
The movement referenced many medical and sociological studies to strengthen the scientific objectivity of their claims, although the independence and methodological fitness of these have been subsequently criticised. More recent research also documents harmful effects in a minority of long-term practitioners including troubling physical tics, emotional volatility and inability to concentrate.
In the late 1970s the claims for the TM technique and associated advanced 'Siddhi Techniques' became more radical and increasingly targeted at existing adherents. Propounded benefits include a measurable decreased crime rate in cities with 1% of the population practicing TM, or the square root of that number practicing the TM-Sidhis program (the Maharishi Effect), and extraordinary effects including levitation.
According to the proponents of TM, TM is helpful in attaining higher consciousness, which is common to every human being, and interacts with our daily choices. They also assume that in daily lives, humans of flesh and blood are not as close to this higher consciousness as one could be. The basic idea of TM is then to get closer to this consciousness. Since the higher consciousness is good, people being nearer this higher consciousness will easier understand, intuitively, what good means and will thus more likely be good. This leans on a belief that it is desirable to act good, and undesirable to act bad, in line with arguments proposed by Plato's Socrates in Menon and The Republic.
Critics of TM state that transcendental meditation simple plain old meditation as practiced by in many religions, and there is absolutely no basis for anyone claiming that they invented it or spread it. It is also considered a cult by many cult researches, according to them one of the largest in the present day.
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.
An organization called ex-TM is for people who have been practising transcendental meditation. The general agenda of the organization is to denounce transcental meditation as a dangerous cult. The organization also describes the effects of TM as hypnotic.
The Natural Law political parties were started on Maharishi's decree that there should be parties around the world running for government, in order to inflict the natural law, which is defined by the global consciousness, described above.
| Table of contents |
|
2 Raam currency 3 External Links |
In 2002 the Maharishi Global Financing
Research Foundation, as Treasury of the
"Global Country of World Peace", has issued the Raam NL in
The Netherlands. It is a "currency", worth 10 euro, as an inspirational example for other countries to use the Raam in the financing of
poverty removal and peace-creating projects by
the Foundation.
There is also a US version worth 10 US dollars.Celebrities known to have practiced TM
Raam currency
