Chillin' At Club Meditation

RELIGION IN THE NEWS

A report and comment on religious trends and events being covered by the media.   This week’s item is from The Sunday Times in the United Kingdom.  The locals are already dubbing it, “Club Med” Club Meditation that is, writes Andy Goldberg.  Maharishi Yogi, the diminutive Indian guru who gained fame in the 1960’s for winning the Beatles over to Transcendental Meditation is planning an ambitious new complex on the historic shores of the Sea of Galilee in an unusual attempt to bring peace to the Middle East.  Backed by millionaire Jewish magnates, who have raised $400,000,000, the Ashram or meditational village will be home to seven thousand of the Maharishi’s disciples.  Officially called the Israeli Capitol of One Government for One World, the village of east-facing chalets will be set in 250 acres of spacious landscaped gardens near the point where Jesus is said to have worked miracles 2000 years ago.

Tom:

Dave, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi—this guy has been flimflamming us for years and years, not only with the Beatles but even his presentation of TM in this country, right?

Dave:

Transcendental Meditation is neither transcendental nor is it meditation.  Biblical meditation and meditation as it was understood in the Old Testament or the New Testament is contemplation, thinking deeply about something.  Eastern meditation is the opposite—you tune it out—you reach an alert but blank state of mind, relaxed state of mind.  You are not supposed to think so it really isn’t meditation; it’s the opposite of meditation.  Furthermore, it’s not transcendental because he doesn’t believe in a transcendent God—there is no real transcendent state but what you are doing is looking within yourself so you could call it subscendental meditation.  But it is very closely related to the whole drug culture and, in fact, it was the drug culture that opened our young people up to the cosmic gospel of these gurus.  Of course, the Beatles as you implied, got involved with drugs first and then Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.  Maharishi, by the way, “Ma” means great, “harishi” is the king: great king. “Mahesh” is just his name and “Yogi” he is a yoga.  So, TM, Transcendental Meditation is a form of Yoga.  Maharishi, when he began here in the United States, made no bones about the fact that this was a religious practice.  It is a religion.  It comes from the Hindu Vedas, it’s pure Hinduism.  But when he saw people weren’t interested in religion and furthermore, you couldn’t get religion into the public schools, then he called it the Science of Creative Intelligence.  Let me just read what Bob Kripenski, a former TM instructor said,  “In 1957 Maharishi started an organization called Spiritual Regeneration Movement for religious and educational purposes only.  In 1974 he completely renamed all the corporations under a new set of articles and incorporation deleting everything that said spiritual and religious to legitimize the teachings of Hinduism.”  Now he is calling it by another name.  For example, Maharishi began calling God, “the vacuum state.”  They literally taught the TM-ers, the instructors, that they were the most important people in the world; that they were generating a spiritual food called “soma” for the consumption of the gods and that this is going to transform the world.  But, in fact, it’s a form of yoga and he is putting you into an altered state where these demonic entities can take over.  Now, let me mention another one of the instructors, R. D. Scott was his name.  He tells in his book, Transcendental Misconceptions, how when he first got involved he was given a mantra, he didn’t know that it was a name, which he was told was simply a neutral sound that would help him relax and develop his full potential.  Well, he says, to his surprise some months later, he is reading a book on Hinduism— and he got led into Hinduism ultimately—reading a book on Hinduism and there he finds his individually chosen, secret mantra just for him—so Maharishi had said.  In fact, it was the name of a Hindu god; “I-ing” was the name of his particular one.  Well, he goes back to Maharishi and he says, “I thought this was purely scientific and had nothing to do with religion and I find that my mantra is the name of a Hindu god.”  Maharishi says, well, sorry we don’t have time to talk about it—there are a lot of people waiting to see me, we will discuss it later, which they never did.  The next time he appears before Maharishi he is given a name to put in front of his mantra, “S-r-i” which means almost beautiful.  Then, the third time he appears before Maharishi, because he is moving up the ranks as an instructor, he is given a word to put at the end of his mantra, “nama”.  That appears sixteen times in an initiation ceremony initiating you into Transitional Meditation; it means, “I bow down to you.”  So now, his mantra is Sri Iing Nama.  “I-ing, you great god, I am bowing down to you.”  And he is told that this is scientific and hasn’t anything to do with religion.  In fact, he is calling upon I-ing, this demonic entity to possess him.  So, as you said, Maharishi has been deceiving the world.  He is a deceiver and he knows what he is doing but unfortunately, a lot of people are embracing this.

Tom:

Now, for those of us who—you know— have a heart for Israel in the East, this is a shocker, even more than that.  I mean, here’s the pretense that they are there.  This is going to be their attempt to bring peace to the Middle East through meditation.  It’s like the bumper sticker: “Visualize World Peace.”  They are going to put this—

Dave:

The Dalai Lama has his own technique.  He teaches Tantric Tibetan Yoga.  He teaches you all that we are all gods and we can create peace and he got the Nobel Peace Prize, that sort of thing.

Tom:

And for some of you out there thinking, well, this is the Maharishi and it’s the Middle East and it’s no problem.  Well, you just have to go to Fairfield, Iowa, to the MaharishiInternationalUniversity and check it out there.

Dave: 

They have practically taken over that town.