BEACON LIGHT OF THE HIMALAYAS: WHAT TM DOESN'T WANT YOU TO KNOW ABOUT THEIR MANTRAS
THE HIDDEN TRUTH BEHIND TRANSCENDENTAL MEDITATION MANTRAS
Beacon Light of the Himalayas is a booklet described as a “souvenir” of a meeting that took place in Kerala, India, in 1955. The book presents a straightforward transcription of talks given by Maharishi and others over several days to an Indian audience. In Maharishi’s words, the Hindu religious assembly was primarily organized to pay homage to Maharishi’s teacher, Guru Dev, or Divine Teacher. The event took place two years before Maharishi first traveled to the West, before he realized he would have to recalibrate his message to sell TM to a Western audience.
Maharishi spoke in English. No one, therefore, can claim that the intended meaning of his words was misinterpreted. The manuscript exposes several inconvenient truths about Maharishi and TM.
THE SECRET MEANING OF MANTRAS
Most people are familiar with the word “mantra.” Today, the term commonly refers to a popular word or slogan (e.g., “don’t worry, be happy”). The original Hindu-Buddhist meaning mainly describes a word or sound that helps quiet the mind. Along those lines, the fundamental process of meditating uses one of the senses to focus on something, such as a sound, one’s breath, or a candle flame that allows the mind to experience whatever that element is in ever more refined or subtle stages.
TM markets its mantras as particular sounds or vibrations stemming from a long tradition of knowledge that, according to Maharishi, are known to have life-supporting effects. TM teachers tell students that the mantras do not have any meaning and they are uniquely chosen for each student. But this is not the case.
THE THREE MANTRA SECRETS OF TM
SECRET #1 (MAHARISHI ADMITTED HE LIED)
First, the mantras TM sells to people are not necessary to meditate. As documented in Beacon Light of the Himalayas, Maharishi holding a microphone said that one could even use the word “mike” as a mantra. A meditator did not require one of his unique mantras to quiet the mind. Maharishi, by his own words, admitted that they were unnecessary:
By reducing the sound of the word ‘mike’ to its subtler and still subtler stages and allowing the mind to go on experiencing all the stages one by one the mind can be trained to be so sharp as to enter into the subtlest stage of the sound mike, transcending which it will automatically get into the realm of Sat-Chidanandam [pure consciousness] and experience it. Thus, we find that any sound can serve our purpose of training the mind to become sharp. (1 )
SECRET #2 TM MANTRAS INVOKE HINDU GODS
While even a word like ‘mike’ would work, Maharishi proposed that repetition of his mantras offered something unique: they produced special vibrations. Hindu audiences learned that these vibrations attracted the “grace” of a personal Hindu god, “to make us happier in every walk of life.” As Beacon Light of the Himalayas documents, again in Maharishi’s own words:
But we do not select the sound at random. We do not select any sound like ‘mike’, flower, table, pen, wail, etc., because such ordinary sounds can do nothing more than merely sharpening the mind; whereas there are some special sounds which have the additional efficacy of producing vibrations whose effects are found to be congenial to our way of life. This is the scientific reason why we do not select any word at random. For our practice, we select only the suitable mantras of personal gods. Such mantras fetch to us the grace of personal gods and makes us happier in every walk of life. (Bold added.) (2)
So according to Maharishi, TM mantras are meant to create vibrations that arouse and attract those entities to the meditator. For some, this is not an issue, as they might not believe it or simply don’t care. Sound vibrations and their effects on consciousness are not unique to TM; they are referenced in many Hindu meditation practices. However, such concepts don’t fit neatly within the framework of Western teachings or philosophies, perhaps similar to the meridians in Chinese medicine. Some people, therefore, may dismiss them as nonsense or irrelevant, while others must confront the unpleasant possibility that silent repetition of whatever- it-is may have effects that are not anticipated, understood, or desired.
Consider the following posted anonymously by a TM teacher in the 1990s: (Substitute Hindu deities for “impulses of creative intelligence).
As TM teachers, we were officially told repeatedly ‘the mantras had no meaning for the meditators.’
Like a lot of the language in the TM movement, this was fairly weasel-like. You’ll notice that the statement doesn’t read, ‘the mantras have no meaning.’ Most of us as insiders understood this to mean that they had no meaning for the meditators because we didn’t tell them the meaning.
We saw tapes of Maharishi where he repeatedly explained that the sounds of the mantras, especially as one approaches transcendence, had the effect of summoning very refined ‘impulses of creative intelligence.’ In other tapes, he explained that the ‘impulses of creative intelligence’ or ‘laws of nature’ were devas such as Indra, Agni, and so forth. He also explicitly said that in the proper state of consciousness, that repeating the name of ‘impulses of creative intelligence’ in Sanskrit had the effect of creating or summoning the ‘form.’
SECRET #3 HOW ARE MANTRAS SELECTED
The third secret is that a TM student’s “personally-selected” mantra is not all that personal. Mantras are assigned by age (or age and sex, depending on the teacher training course attended). So, if you happen to have a teacher who was trained in 1975, that teacher would have sixteen mantras to choose from. If, instead, your teacher was trained in 1970, chances are you would receive a different mantra, because they would only have eight to choose from (four for men and four for women).
According to early teachers, in 1961, there was only one mantra for everyone. In 1969, Maharishi added eight mantras: four for men and four for women. In 1972, mantras, no longer divided by sex, numbered nine. When I became a teacher in 1975, I received sixteen mantras to assign based on age alone.
TALE OF TWO MEDITATIONS: EAST IS EAST & WEST IS WEST
Maharishi described meditation and the mantra differently when first presenting to an Eastern (Hindu Indian) audience versus a Western (predominately Judeo-Christian) audience. Eastern meditators learn from the start that the mantra is the vehicle to embark on a spiritual journey, which, in Hindu philosophy, is a path to “eternal life—a life of eternal bliss and absolute consciousness.” However, when Maharishi came West, Westerners weren’t interested in his spiritual message. They wanted relief from stress and Maharishi was more than willing to sell it to them. As recorded in Beacon Light, Maharishi spoke openly to his Hindu audience about the spiritual nature of TM. He began his speech on the second day of the gathering by relating that the purpose of chanting mantras and performing other Hindu rituals was to invite the Vedic (Hindu) gods to the conference.3
CONVENIENT SHORTCUT TO HIGHER CONSCIOUSNESS
Maharishi told those gathered that they only needed to practice TM twice daily for about fifteen to twenty minutes for three to five years, and the result would be higher consciousness and eternal life. Hindus have always understood that gaining higher consciousness is an arduous path and that few ever achieve it. Maharishi’s promise was preposterous, especially given that his own teacher reportedly spent forty years immersed in the most rigorous of acetic practices from the age of nine attempting to achieve it. Maharishi also promised an end to personal suffering, plus the bonus of wealth, within a short time of starting TM. A true guru who followed traditional Hindu practices would never promise material riches, as they are considered a hindrance to spiritual pursuits.
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NOTES
“Beacon Light of the Himalayas, 3 of 4: Theory of Spiritual Development,” TranceNet, last modified March 28, 1997; hereafter cited as “Beacon Light Theory.” http://minet.org/www. trancenet.net/secrets/beacon/beacon2.shtml
“Beacon Light Theory.”
“Beacon Light of the Himalayas, 2 of 4: Maharishi’s Discourse,”
TranceNet, last modified March 28, 1997. http://minet.org/
www.trancenet.net/secrets/beacon/beacon1.shtml
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Blog 21