THE DIRTY TRUTH ABOUT MAHARISHI
TM HIDES THE TRUTH ABOUT HIGHER CONSCIOUSNESS
Spirituality and Higher Consciousness
Spirituality and higher consciousness were Maharishi's main messages until he realized he could make more money selling health than spirituality to Westerners. (38) When he introduced TM in the United States, his entire focus was higher consciousness or enlightenment. In India, the formula was TM 10 minutes twice a day for 3 to 5 years. In the United States, it was 20 minutes twice a day for 5 to 7 years. After instruction, TM promotes weekend, week-long, and month-long courses that feature more frequent meditations for more extended periods, along with exposure to Maharishi's take on Hinduism. For those wanting a "deeper" experience, there are the TM Sidhis program and even a five-month teacher training program that currently costs $19,000.
TM CREATED FAKE PHOTOS OF PEOPLE LEVITATING
The TM Sidhi Program and Other Enlightenment Accelerants: Maharishi sold the TM-Sidhi program as a superhighway to enlightenment. My course consisted of learning and repeating nineteen English words or short phrases that were referred to as sutras. This was followed by 10-15 minutes of reading Hindu scriptures, followed by a ten-minute rest. In addition to higher consciousness, a Sidha would develop superpowers, including the ability to levitate, become invisible, and have the strength of an elephant. He also promised omniscience and eternal life. In the late 1970s, TM held press conferences and distributed photographs purporting to show people levitating. The photos were fakes. Now, after four decades, not one person has ever demonstrated levitation, renamed yogic flying (or any of the other superpowers Maharishi promised).(39) TM still sells the Sidhi/yogic flying course. (40)
TM WANT YOUR BUSINESS BUYING THEIR PRODUCTS
Medicinals, Herbs, Astrology, Prayers, etc.: When the Sidhis didn't work, Maharishi pushed Ayurveda medicinal and herbal products, gemstones, Hindu prayer services known as yagyas that cost thousands of dollars, Hindu astrology, and a Hindu version of Feng Shui known as Sthapatya Veda. Each is a profit center with its own website; none are linked to TM.org. After 50 years and reportedly millions of people learning TM, not one person has been demonstrated to have reached enlightenment. However, the enlightenment accelerators, along with TM's myriad businesses and real estate holdings, made Maharishi a multi-billionaire.
This is not a psychiatric unit. It is a group of TM meditators preparing for ‘yogic flying’, a delusional activity which involves leaping about on mattresses whilst believing they are learning to levitate. But you would be easily forgiven for thinking it looks like a group of delusional psychiatric patients.
TM’S BIGGEST DONORS ARE PROMISED THEY RULE THE EARTH
Rajas: TM.org does not mention the Rajas, the highest-level administrators in Maharishi's fantasy world, a.k.a. The Global Country of World Peace. Rajas are wealthy older men who've attended a three-week "enlightenment course" at a cost one million dollars. They wear long white robes, necklaces with gold medallions, and little gold crowns. (41)
Maharishi referred to his Rajas as the representatives of Divine Intelligence, the shining stars who played a parental role for their people, setting all life in the evolutionary direction. Not only would Raja's rule "Heaven on Earth," they were the "practical channel of the Cosmic Government on Earth . . . the administrators of Heaven on Earth." (42)
THE RELAXATION RESPONSE IS SUPERIOR TO TM AS A TREATMENT FOR PTSD
Fortunately, there is an alternative to TM. The relaxation response developed almost 50 years ago by Harvard University research physician Herbert Benson, is superior to TM as a possible treatment option for PTSD. Easily learned, the relaxation response is nonreligious and costs a fraction of TM instruction. Individuals can learn it for free from Dr. Benson, who explains the technique on YouTube.
In 1971, Dr. Herbert Benson, along with Robert Wallace and Archie Wilson, documented a set of unique physiological changes that TM produced in experienced meditators. Various measurements demonstrated that during meditation, study subjects (experienced TMers) were resting more deeply than if in a deep sleep while remaining mentally alert. Benson described these physiological parameters as a "wakeful hypometabolic state." (43)
Benson, a pioneer in the field of mind-body medicine, immediately recognized the potential health benefits of the deep rest one could experience during TM. He hypothesized that the state was not specific to TM and studied different cultures and religions. He found that almost all of them had a tradition or practice that produced a state of relaxation.
A few years later, Benson developed a simple technique that produced an identical physiological profile to TM, which he named the Relaxation Response. Benson's technique had added benefits: One could learn it for free, and it was void of religious undertones. Unlike TM, which has many secretive elements, all aspects of Benson's technique are open to scientific investigation.
First, Benson demonstrated that the relaxation response could be elicited predictably and that its results were measurable and reproducible. He then began testing the relaxation response in the healing process of medical conditions caused or complicated by stress. Researchers at Harvard University, Massachusetts General Hospital, and other esteemed institutions have studied the relaxation response. Well over a hundred scientific papers on the relaxation response have been published in medical journals. (44)
TM has never agreed to a head-to-head study comparing its results to the relaxation response, yet it has maligned and misrepresented the relaxation response for over 40 years. The organization has denied that the physiological markers are the same.
The relaxation response so concerned the TM organization that someone associated with TM created a phony website which, to this day, appears near the top of a Google search for the relaxation response: http://www.relaxationresponse.org/steps. The site pretends to belong to Dr. Benson and includes fake research purportedly demonstrating TM's superiority over the relaxation response. In an email to Aryeh Siegel, Dr. Benson's associates confirmed their repeated requests that the website is taken down were ignored.
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Aryeh Siegel, MSSA, MPH, taught TM and Directed of TM’s Institute for Social Rehabilitation for five years in the mid-1970s. He did TM four hours a day for ten years and stopped in 1981. Having moved on with his life, Aryeh forgot about TM. Then, four years ago, he noticed several A-list celebrities promoting the benefits of TM. His curiosity aroused, he took a fresh look at TM and the TM organization and first learned about the David Lynch Foundation. He felt compelled to investigate what he knew to be exaggerated claims about TM's benefits. The information he uncovered—abysmal scientific research, public court rulings, published news reports, first-hand accounts, and other public and private information—prompted Aryeh to write the book Transcendental Deception: Behind the TM curtain-bogus science, hidden agendas, and David Lynch’s campaign to push a million public school kids into Transcendental Meditation while falsely claiming it is not a religion, published in 2018. Discover more at www.tmdeception.com
NOTES
[38] Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Science of Being and Art of Living: Transcendental Meditation (New York, NY: Plume; 2001).
[39] “The TM and TM-Sidhi Techniques,” Meditation Information Network; accessed September 27, 2017, at http://minet.org/mantras.html
[40] See http://www.yogicflying.org/how-to-learn.html
[41] As depicted in the David Sieveking documentary (David Wants to Fly, 2010; Berlin: Neue Visionen) The documentary depicts the rajas in costume and one raja confirms on-screen the million-dollar cost of raja training. The documentary may be streamed at www.tmdeception.com
[42] Governor Recertification Course: Overview of Policies & Procedures, Wikileaks. See https://file.wikileaks.org/file/tm-governor-course-2005.pdf
[43] Wallace, Robert K. & Benson, Herbert & Wilson, Archie. (1971) A wakeful hypometabolic physiologic state [PDF file]. Retrieved from https://www.physiology.org/doi/abs/10.1152/ajplegacy.1971.221.3.795
[44] Benson-Henry Institute “Published Research” Retrieved from https://www.bensonhenryinstitute.org/ research-published-research/
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