Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 04:37, 29 November 2005

Aside from the fact that this article isn't very NPOV, there needs to be something in it that tells what TM is.

I'm also still concerned that, since it reads so much like a promotional brochure, it may be under copyright. Vicki Rosenzweig

When I first looked into it, there were a bunch of TM books out there but none of them explained a damn thing about what to actually do--they were just advertisements that told you to go in to your local temple, which is what made me a bit suspicious. This page already has twice as much information on the subject. Lends a little credence to the idea that it is a cult based on hypnosis--you have to get people physically in there to perform such an act on them. I think this needs a little more information on the con side of things. -- Jkeiser 17:28, Dec 6, 2004 (UTC)

Well, it passed the Google test, but it still needs to be largely rewritten. --Stephen Gilbert

Why is there registered trademark signs? - I haven't seen them any other place in Misplaced Pages! - Since for instance Windows doesn't bear them in articles wouldn't it be fair enough to remove them? - And it still doesn't seem very explanatory, everywhere it just says "research tells...", not referring to any articles or anything. - Would it be okay, if I made a stub on this on top of the old text? - So that we eventually could get rid of this brochure thing? -- Firebirth

This article is a joke. The consensus view of transcendental meditation is that it is simple plain old meditation as practiced by Buddhists and etc., and there is absolutely no basis for anyone claiming that they invented it or spread it other than the Buddha.

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.

And the (TM) on TM is intolerable, it is certainly a phrase in common use.

As a long term practioner of many years meditation experience (TM, sitting, dance, whirling, mantra, chanting, witnessing etc.), and a one-time tutor within the TM movement, I can tell you that the TM technique is not at-all ike a Buddhist (or any other) meditation to experience.

It is indeed much more akin to a 'trance' or hypnotic state characterised by a kind of blanking of experience. It is far from clear that long periods of 'hypnotic trance' are universally beneficial, either physiologically or spiritually, and it appears that a minority of practictioners suffer long term debilitating effects such physical tics, loss of concentration, and emotional volatility. A matter of some embarrasment, not to say shame, to those of us who once promoted it so enthusiastically.

By the way the article is rather coy about the choice of mantras. Although a sworn secret this has been revealed to be simply dependent on the age of the person at the time they were initiated into the technique.

The mantras are all the names of Hindu gods, and the initiation ceremony (puja) is also decidedly Hindu in character. This raises ethical concerns as the TM teachers are required to state that the teaching has no religious content and is quite compatible with the existing faith of the practioner. Thus the apparently hysterical claims of Christian groups that the TM movement was surreptitiously initiating people into Hinduism actually had some merit in fact.

From the article:

"Grounded on statistical data of recovery, the National Health Service of England, allows doctors, if their patients suffer from one of three srecific diseases, to prescribe their patient to learn TM. The health service then pays for it."

Please provide evidence for this.

The EEGs don't make it look like a 'trance'. Are TMers statistically more likely than non-TMers to suffer from tics, etc?

Transcendental Meditation requires no concentration or focus.

Someone wrote that on the Meditation page, but that wasn't true when i learned TM. So i put it here rather than on the page. --JohnAbbe

Removed as non-NPOV:

See the foolishness of all this.If someone does the initiation again after let's say 5 years,at a diffren't TM centre without mentioning the former initiation,he will get another mantra.Now he has 2 mantras.Which one does he use.OH Please!!!.The "Maharishi" only thinks about his wallet. -- Pedant17 00:16, 28 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I have practiced TM since I was 10 (my mom initiated me), and I have no complaints. Allegations that TM is a cult, a trance technique, dangerous do not sit right with me. Sure, my mom has dragged me to a few TM functions over the years because I am her daughter, but I have always been free to choose whether or not to practice the technique. I go to a public university, am studying bioengineering, love Harry Potter, computers, etc. The biggest difference is that I don't get stressed as easily as my peers because of my practice of TM. I am not the victim of any cult; I feel I have a very healthy life.

In response to the mantra issue: a person who was initiated years ago who comes to a teacher again will be asked very clearly if they remember their original mantra. If that is the case, they are given the same priviliges as recent initiates. Their meditation is checked to make sure they are still doing the technique without effort, and there is no additional charge for any of these services. Only if a person cannot remember their original mantra is it necessary to re-initiate them (at the current cost of initiation).

The cost: I know it is terribly high. Everyone says it's too high. My mom has only initiated a very small handful of people since the prices last went up. The motive behind the price increase is so that they can teach people in developing countries for virtually nothing. The United States is the richest country in the world, so logic follows that its citizens should pay the most for the knowledge.

Since discovering this Misplaced Pages article, I have thought long and hard as to whether TM is a dangerous thing--whether it is a cult--and the conclusion I came to is that it is not. I have listened to my mom pitch TM to potential initiates over the years, and she never put pressure on any of them. She gives them the facts, tells them the benefits of the technique, warns them about the price, and lets them decide. Does this sound dangerous to you? I feel that TM has definitely benefitted me over the years. So far, I have survived college with minimal stress, I am very creative, and I am in a wonderful relationship. I don't know how much of who I am is because of TM because I started at age 10 (I am 19 now), but please don't write off all of TM as a dangerous thing just because society tells you that it is wrong to devote time to non-traditional spiritual practices.

If you have any questions, please email me at kesafloyd@yahoo.com

Alexandra, I think one has to differ between the organisation and the meditation technique. There are some papers that the technique is dangerous to mental health etc., e.g. see (further below 9 papers are presented). I would not overstress these dangers though.

On the other hand the organisation TM is dubious at best. They have published virtually hundreds of papers in order to "proof" that TM is the best possible technique, good for your health etc. They even claim that they can proof the Maharishi-effect - the presented paper has no scientific value at all, see .

In many discussions with members on the German discussion page I got the impression that people that are longer involved in TM (like teachers) are almost unable to criticize the organization or their leaders. Yes, in this sense they are a cult. This of course doesn't mean that everyone who practices TM is a member of the cult.

About the price: I am afraid that you are naive if you think that the extra money is for the poor people in the developing countries. At you can see the building Maharishi has built for himself. I am sure though that they have some good argument, why they need it :-)

To summarize: if the meditation technique is helpful for you I am happy about this. On the other hand I highly mistrust the organization TM in particular after discussion with long time members on the German Misplaced Pages.

best regards -- mkrohn 20:35, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I'll concur that TM is not at all like the typical Buddhist meditation techniques. It's an organized attempt to spread Hindu meditation, virtually unchanged, in a mostly secular fashion to the masses. It's got some crazy mystical elements, which have come more to the fore over time, such as the claim that a sufficient amount of TM practice would cause world peace or that very advanced practitioners get supernatural powers, but the practice itself is not particularly tied up in these ideas. The growth of the hokey side in the group, caused by Maharishi's own drift toward this attitude, is one of the things responsible for the many people who've left but continue to practice or even teach. The typical response to the idea that TM causes tics and such is that certain, mostly mentally unstable people respond very poorly to a brain alteration of any kind and the solution to that problem is for teachers to be more willing to be selective with the students they allow. It's often (far from always) unstable, New Agey people that get into TM, so who knows what percentage of people are vulnerable, but it's not insignificant. (I've currently never done TM, incidentally, which probably makes me both unbiased and uninformed)

Marco--in response to your message above, I went looking at some anti-TM websites out there to try to get a more "balanced" perspective. This is what I've found: a lot of them seem extremely biased against any practice that is not part of mainstream American culture. For example, there is one site that talks about how the initiation ceremony involves "bowing to Maharishi's dead teacher." HELLO! It's not worship. No one worships Guru Dev. He was human too, but we do a traditional Indian ceremony to honor the fact that he brought us great knowledge. Yes, I know it's very similar to ones done in Hinduism. TM comes from India. If it came from the US it would undoubtedly have cultural elements derived from Christianity simply because that is the religion that pervades American culture.

I see what you're saying about the building... it is large. There's never been any doubt that Maharishi is a very shrewd businessman. But I didn't mean that money was going to help poor people, ie charity, I meant that the cost of initiation parallels GDP per capita. I looked on the Mexican TM site--it costs 4,500 pesos, or approximately $400 there. This is still a lot of money, but there is a difference. And Mexico is by no means the poorest country in the world.

Another reason for the high prices is that Maharishi blames the US for causing a lot of strife in the world with its foreign policy, and frankly I agree with him on that point. The impression I get from rumors filtering down through the TM grapevine is that he's down on the US's potential to help the world reach enlightenment, and therefore is not focusing at all on teaching there.

-Alexandra

separate?; copyright

Hi all, Re. the discussion points here (although they may not be valid anymore) a few thoughts:

• To have a good article with NPOV, a good amount of consensus is necessary. As that is not available here, maybe we could separate it in two sections--one pro, the other con?

That would do away with the current strained style and all those words like "according to", "allegedly", etc. and would simply make the article more pleasant to read. Maybe a moderator could answer this or someone more familiar with Wiki customs and policies.

• Someone was doubting the copyright-free nature of the text. Well, I wrote/rewrote a good part (about half a year ago), without using TM literature, so you can rest assured about that. I'm thinking to add some more, like the difference between generic TM and TM as taught by Maharishi's Movement, but it'll take time. It would be good to have articles on the TM Movement and on transcendental consciousness as well ...
• A propos copyright: I'd like to ask the moderators to remove the external link to the web page with mantras and stuff. Just see this information as being protected by copyright, even though Maharishi doesn't send in lawyers. Would you include a link to a site showing source code belonging to Microsoft?
• One thing I find strange is how people who have never tried TM, think they can write or correct an article describing it. Few people would try such a thing on other topics they are unfamiliar with.
• Someone asked about research references, so I added a little phrase in the text pointing to an external link. Is it OK to do it that way?

Greetings, Ge' (13-4-05)

23-4-5, I decided to remove the external link to the list of mantras etc. Two days later, someone put it back. Just to avoid this situation, I'd prefer if a moderator decide on this. See my above proposal to divide the article in two parts.

Hi Ge, the best to start with is giving precedence, where a link to copyrighted material caused problems. As I wrote in the version history, it is very likely that just giving a link is covered by free speech. Otherwise 90% of all external links would have to be removed because almost any external content is copyrighted. -- mkrohn 20:23, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

P.S. you can sign your message by typing ~~~~

Re the link: I get the point. Although it's a special situation here: the linked site is more or less illegal, because it is publishing not its own copyrighted stuff, but other people's.

Anyway, I guess I'll have to write/rewrite some parts to make it clear why just using the right mantra does not make your meditation TM. The problem is: if I explain the mechanics, people who read it transcend less easily when they learn TM, because their mind is more in the way...

Any thoughts about this 'split-article' idea? Geke 15:29, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Hi Geke, splitting the article into two sections or writing two articles from two viewpoints is not what NPOV in Misplaced Pages is about. If you are looking for an encyclopedia project which takes a different approach, then Wikinfo might be interesting for you. -- mkrohn 00:15, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Some extra stuff added to the site about stress, and research on the Maharishi Effect. As a regular TMer, and living in the UK TM group, I hopethat I have been able to maintain NPOV. With reference to the research quality, surely publication in independent peer reviewed journals gets brownie points?

The following is from: Amrit 20:59, 28 November 2005 (UTC). Inserted because the previous contributer did not sign, which can be done by typing ~~~~.

The most significant problem with illicitly disclosed formula (for mantra or whatsoever), beside the fact it is illegal, is that the disclosed info has very little scientific value. There is no way to be sure that the information is valid because, whether or not the information is correct, the official organization will not comment on it. Moreover, in view of the nature of the source that illicitly disclose these formula, they are likely to be incorrect. In particular, it is not reliable to discuss the meaning of the mantra, which are not officially disclosed, because there is no way to provide reliable references. Much of the debate in the section on controversies turn around the fact that the mantra are not disclosed. There could be a debate about whether or not the TM organization should disclose the mantra, the formula, etc., but not in this article. It is like debating whether or not Microsoft should move to open source. This article is not the place for this kind of debate.

Amrit 20:59, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Amrit- "The most significant problem with illicitly disclosed formula (for mantra or whatsoever), beside the fact it is illegal,"

The mantras that TM uses are a part of Hinduism. You can find them all over the internet. http://www.rudraksha-ratna.com/bija_mantra.php http://www.livelongto100years.com/mantras.html http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/gthursby/tantra/mantra.htm

>There is no way to be sure that the information is valid because, whether or not the information is correct, the official organization will not comment on it.

It is true that the organization PROBABLY won't comment on it.

What we can know for sure is that an organization of ex-TM'ers and ex-TM teachers SAYS _____

> Moreover, in view of the nature of the source that illicitly disclose these formula, they are likely to be incorrect.

Well, I found my mantra on their charts! :)

>In particular, it is not reliable to discuss the meaning of the mantra, which are not officially disclosed, because there is no way to provide reliable references.

Actually Hinduism is ripe with literature that describe the meaning of the TM mantras.

>Much of the debate in the section on controversies turn around the fact that the mantra are not disclosed. There could be a debate about whether or not the TM organization should disclose the mantra, the formula, etc., but not in this article.

Thank you for your intepretation of that section.

My interpretation of the section was, before someone took it out was: TM says that mantras have no meaning, and they do. TM says the mantras are specifically chosen for each person, and this organization says they are not.

peace, Seth

Seth, Thanks for your reply. I understand what you say. You were told that the mantra is a meaningless sound and then found out later that it has a meaning in some language. If it happens that your mantra had a meaning in any language, it is a blessing that you did not know that meaning because it may just interfer with the practice. If your mantra has a meaning in any language, don't mind it. You'll never need that meaning in relation with TM. It is misleading information and even damaging to suggest that an eventual meaning of the mantra in some language is important in TM. With regard to the choice of the mantra, of course, there must be a finite number of possible mantras, not one new mantra for each new person. So a formula is needed. An ex-TM'er might critic what he claims is the formula, which maybe the correct or the incorrect formula. He might say it is too simple or something else. Someone might be puzzle by these inquiries or critics. Another might be confused because the formula does not match his own mantra (it is my case -- and I regret to even have looked at it). My point is that this kind of inquiries could have been valid, if the information that is disclosed was not best kept private. It just cannot be a subject of discussion in any article in Misplaced Pages or any other respectable public media.

Amrit 04:37, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

proponents neutral phrase

In the statement "Proponents have claimed it to be a simple, natural, easy-to-learn mental technique...", it would be better to replace "Proponents have claimed it to be" by a more informative phrase. My point is that, of course, we know that only proponents will make such a claim. This lack of information about whatever supports the claim is not neutral. The statement must be objective, but it should contain as much verifiable and uselful information as possible. I would propose to replace it by the two following sentences: "It is advertised as a simple, natural, easy-to-learn mental technique. Published studies suggest that regular practice leads to significant, cumulative benefits on all levels of life, including mind, body, behavior and environment." Of course, these are two positive statements about TM, but they are nevertheless objective and factual. We cannot reject them just on the ground that they are positive statements about TM. These studies do exist, and they are published in prestigious journals. These journals and the peer review system have not been bought, corrupted or whatsoever by the TM organization. Certainly, there is no evidence to support such a claim. To the contrary, there are evidences that the reviewers and the editors have been even more alert because of the important nature of the claims. The publication of these studies is a significant and meaningful reality. Amrit 08:32, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Sounds good to me, other then the word "advertised," and add in a footnote leading to the studies.

Maybe, "The TM organization claims that practice of TM leads to.... and studies seem to confirm this or something like that

Sethie 08:55, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

You are right about "advertised". The goal of this discussion should be to obtain a consensus on sentences that are as meaningful as possible, as we expect in an encyclopedia. The "advertised" was there to easily buy the agreement of eventual opponents, but the statement becomes less meaningful, perhaps not acceptable in an encyclopedia. It should be easy for every one to accept that it is simple, effortless and easy-to-learn. Maybe, the first sentence should simply be "It is a simple, effortless and easy-to-learn mental technique." I replaced "natural" with "effortless" because it is essentially what we mean by "natural" in TM: we let the nature of the mind proceeds by itself without making any effort, an easy fact to verify simply by asking any practitionner.

Amrit 17:43, 27 November 2005 (UTC)