Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

Transcendental meditation may boost student grades

Richard Gray, The Telegraph: A form of meditation made popular by John Lennon and his band mates during the “flower power” era has been found to improve students’ grades.

A study of school pupils found that performing two 20-minute sessions of Transcendental Meditation each day improves academic achievement.

The practice involves sitting still with eyes closed while chanting a mantra – also sometimes derided as “oming”.

It became synonymous with hippy culture in the 1960s after The Beatles embraced it following a visit to India where they were taught the technique by the late Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

Now a growing body of…

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‘Vedanta and yoga perfect match for certain American values’

There has always been a pervasive but undocumented feeling that Indian philosophy, as manifest in Vedanta on the intellectual plain and yoga on the physical plain, has very significantly influenced the West in general and America in particular. That feeling now finds a meticulously constructed scholastic endorsement in the form of an important new book.

Author Philip Goldberg’s ‘American Veda – From Emerson to the Beatles to Yoga and Meditation, How Indian Spirituality Changed the West’ (Harmony Books, 398 pages, $26) [available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk] offers a comprehensive account of the inroads made by Indian philosophy since the early 19th century.

‘The combination of Vedanta and Yoga was a perfect match for certain American values: freedom of choice and religion, individuality, scientific rationality, and pragmatism. They appealed especially to well-educated Americans who were discontent with ordinary religion and unsatisfied by secularism, giving them a way to be authentically spiritual without compromising their sense of reason, their consciences or their personal inclinations,’ Goldberg told IANS in an interview.

He said Indian teachers who came to the US were conscious of the openness of American society and they adapted the teachings accordingly.

Explaining the mainstreaming of Indian philosophy in the US, Goldberg said, ‘I think the remarkable growth of the ‘spiritual but not religious’ cohort of Americans would have been unthinkable without access to the practices derived from Hinduism and Buddhism. In addition, the philosophy was presented so rationally that its premises could be regarded as…

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hypotheses, and the practices were so uniform and so widely applicable that they lent themselves to scientific experimentation.’

The book begins with a claim that is deliberately designed to be an attention grabber. ‘In February 1968 the Beatles went to India for an extended stay with their new guru, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. It may have been the most momentous spiritual retreat since Jesus spent those 40 days in the wilderness. The media frenzy over the Fab Four made known to the sleek, sophisticated West that meek, mysterious India had something of value. Our understanding and practice of spirituality would never be the same,’ Goldberg writes.

He points out that translated Hindu texts were very much a part of the libraries of John Adams, the second president of the United States and one of its most respected statesmen and political theorists, and Ralph Waldo Emerson, an eminent poet and essayist who led the transcendentalist movement in the mid-19th century. From there those ideas permeated to author and philosopher Henry David Thoreau and poet Walt Whitman among others.

In recounting Thoreau’s perspective about the Bhagavad Gita, Goldberg refers to a much quoted passage from the book Walden. Thoreau writes, ‘In the morning I bathe my intellect in the stupendous and cosmogonal philosophy of the Bhagavad Gita, since whose composition years of the gods have elapsed, and in comparison with which our modern world and its literature seems puny and trivial.’

The book has two distinct trends in support of the author’s primary contention about how Indian spirituality changed the West. One trend is at the operational level where words such as mantra, guru, karma and pundits have so seamlessly become part of the mainstream lexicon. The other trend is much deeper in terms of internalising the core values of Indian philosophy. Asked if the people in the US are conscious of this, Goldberg said, ‘Some are conscious of it, and therefore grateful to the Indian legacy. Others are not: it’s seeped into the American consciousness in subtle but profound ways.’

Goldberg also talks about the ‘Vedization of America’. On whether it can be attributed to the general secularisation/pluralisation significantly caused by the rise of agnostic information technologies, he said, ‘If you mean, could the trends I describe be attributed to the growth of pluralism and other social forces, independent of the Indian influence, it is very hard to say. Certainly, the combination of factors made for a perfect storm. I tend to think that the experiential practices of meditation and yoga, and the intellectual framework of Vedanta, accelerated, deepened and broadened what might have been an inevitable but amorphous evolution.’

On whether he apprehends any organized backlash or pushback against Indian philosophy, he said ‘Not a big one, but some of it is inevitable. There has always been a backlash from both mainstream religion – conservative Christians in particular – and the anti-religious left. Vivekananda faced up to it in 1893, and all the important gurus were confronted by it. Right now, there’s an anti-yoga campaign by some Christian preachers. I’d be very pleased if my book becomes a lightning rod for such a controversy. Bring ’em on!’

On a movement in support of a ‘Christian yoga’ that may be gaining some ground Goldberg said, ‘That’s a more complicated issue than is often realised. The question, ‘Is yoga a form of Hinduism’ depends entirely on how one defines both yoga and Hinduism. That there are people teaching Christian Yoga and Jewish Yoga strikes me as a backhanded compliment to one of the great glories of the Vedic tradition: its universality and adaptability. That having been said, the idea that yoga is ‘a Hindu tool,’ i.e., a form of stealth conversion, strikes me as a projection by Christians of their own messianic drive to convert the ‘heathen’. That conversion is not in the Hindu repertoire – and that the gurus and swamis and yoga masters are content to have their students become better Christians – is hard for many to comprehend.’

(Mayank Chhaya is a US-based writer and commentator. He can be contacted at m@mayankchhaya.net)

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Flying yogis and flying millions

Acolyte David Lynch isn’t happy with this exposé of Transcendental Meditation

He was the original guru pop star. Made famous by the Beatles in the 1960s, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi was the godfather of the Transcendental Meditation movement, known as TM. He inspired such acolytes as author Deepak Chopra and filmmaker David Lynch, and remained TM’s figurehead until his death in 2008 at the age of 94. The Maharishi was once dubbed “the giggling guru.” But now it appears he may have been giggling all the way to the bank. David Wants to Fly (Facebook Page), a new documentary shown last week at Toronto’s Hot Docs festival, offers compelling evidence that the Maharishi’s empire of enlightenment is more devoted to shaking down its followers and amassing wealth than transcending the material world.

The “David” of David Wants to Fly refers to the film’s director, a cheeky 32-year-old German named David Sieveking, and to the dubious feat of “yogic flying” or levitation. It could also refer to David Lynch, who has emerged as TM’s most prominent spokesman and is the prime target of Sieveking’s obsessive investigation. Sieveking embarked on his documentary as an avid Lynch fan dying to meet the genius behind Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks. But by the time he’d completed his film, five years later, it had turned into an exposé. Sieveking told Maclean’s that Lynch threatened to sue him and tried to block the film’s Berlin premiere. No wonder. It depicts TM as a secretive hierarchy with overtones of Scientology, and portrays Lynch as its Tom Cruise.

Sieveking, who makes himself a character in the documentary—a neurotic man on a mission—is like a cross between a young Werner Herzog and a skinny Michael Moore. He first travels to America to interview Lynch as a star-struck fan, then becomes an eager student of TM. As his odyssey takes him from Manhattan to the headwaters of the Ganges, he never loses faith in the power of meditation, but he becomes deeply skeptical about TM’s well-heeled leadership.

He learns that its “rajas” pay $1 million for their exalted rank. At a groundbreaking ceremony for a TM university in Switzerland, we see Lynch introduce Raja Emanuel, TM’s “King of Germany,” who wears a gold crown and offers a provocative pledge: “I’m a good German who wants to make Germany invincible.” Jeers erupt from the crowd and a voice yells, “That’s what Adolf Hitler wanted!” Emanuel replies: “Unfortunately, he couldn’t do it. He didn’t have the right technique.” Trying to quell the catcalls, Lynch leaps to the raja’s defence, and hails him as “a great human being.”

Sieveking interviews several TM defectors, including Colorado publisher Earl Kaplan, who donated over US$150 million toward the construction of a vast meditation centre in India, where 24-7 shifts of 10,000 yogic flyers would create world peace. Visiting the project site, Sieveking finds an abandoned, half-built ghost town. And he shows footage of “yogic flying,” which looks more like cross-legged yogic hopping. We also meet the Maharishi’s former personal assistant, who says, “He’d use people and discard them when they ran out of money.” And although the guru preached celibacy, the ex-aide says one of his jobs was to bring women to the Maharishi’s room for sex. Another ex-disciple, Judith Bourque, reminisces about her torrid love affair with the Maharishi, which ended when he found another young woman.

Rumours of the guru’s sybaritic lifestyle have been rampant ever since the Beatles heard that he had hit on Mia Farrow in the late ’60s. His behaviour provoked John Lennon to write a derisive song called Maharishi, which George Harrison persuaded him to retitle Sexy Sadie (“What have you done? You made a fool of everyone”). The film shows Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr rallying to support TM at Lynch’s star-studded 2009 TM benefit. “John Lennon,” says Sieveking, “would be rolling in his grave.”

As for the analogy between TM and Scientology, the director acknowledges certain parallels, but considers TM less rigid—“you can’t be a moderate Scientologist.” Sieveking says he became paranoid after the German raja threatened to destroy his film career. Yet Lynch “is still a guru for me as a filmmaker,” he maintains, just not as a spiritual figure. “I wanted to be his friend. It’s tough for me, because now he sees me as an enemy.” But Sieveking may have found a new guru. Apparently Michael Moore, that documentary raja, is anxious to see his film.

[via MacLeans.ca]
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Meditation pilot for city school

BBC: Cardiff schools could introduce a pilot Transcendental Meditation (TM) programme to relieve stress on pupils.

One unnamed secondary school is to give it a trial on a voluntary basis.

It followers say TM is a means of clearing and resting the mind through a series of chants and relaxation exercises which anyone can learn.

Freda Salway, Cardiff council’s executive member for education, said anything to lessen the load was a welcome addition to the curriculum.

TM hit the headlines in 1967 in Wales, when the Beatles met the movement’s founder Maharishi Mahesh Yogi on a retreat in Bangor.

According to south Wales instructor Helen Evans, however, the 60s left a legacy of mixed blessings, with TM becoming more widely known and associated with the era of psychedelia and the Woodstock generation.

“Sgt Pepper and the like probably put back serious scientific research into the benefits of TM by about 10 or 20 years,” said Ms Evans.

“But experiments in US schools have found that it can have a dramatic effect on reducing violence and bullying in the classroom, as well as improving concentration and self-esteem.”

Ms Evans said: “Most meditation systems will tell you to blank your thoughts out, but I don’t think that’s realistic. As soon as someone tells you to think of nothing, then something will pop into your mind.

“The thing that’s different about TM is that it teaches you to cope with the feelings that you do have rather than trying to get rid of them.

“It’s about relaxing, giving your mind the space to rest and allowing your subconscious to come to terms with problems without the clutter that’s normally there.”

She said modern life could be “highly stressful because there’s so much about our lives which we can’t control ourselves”. She added: “If you can find a way, not of changing your emotions, but of coping with them and accepting them for what they are, then you can be a much more relaxed and contented person with better self-esteem”.

Ms Salway said: “It’s not going to work for everyone, but it’s certainly not going to do any harm.

“Like anything, you can’t ram it down people’s throats – it’s entirely up to students and their parents to decide if it’s something they’d like to try.

“But today’s children face more stress than any generation before them with exams and peer-pressure and problems in the home.

“So if TM can provide an outlet for even a small percentage of them, then it’s something worth offering.”

Multi-cultural areas

Several schools in England are already in the process of introducing TM to staff and pupils, with funding from a foundation set up by cult film director David Lynch.

A common objection from parents, especially in highly multi-cultural areas, has apparently been a perception that TM is closely associated with Buddhism and Hinduism, and is therefore incompatible with other faiths.

But north Wales instructor David Hughes said TM had a strictly non-denominational approach.

“Yes, TM has its roots in India, and there are some overlapping features with Buddhism and Hinduism, but fundamentally it’s a technique, not a belief system,” he said.

“It’s practiced by millions of Muslims, especially in the Middle East, and it’s no more true to say that TM is Buddhist than it is to say that singing is Christian.”

“It’s something which comes naturally to some people – elite athletes like Usain Bolt seem to slip into the zone without ever having been taught.

“But most people need a little bit of help to harness the mental powers we all have inside.”

If the pilot study is a success, it could be offered to students throughout Cardiff.

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