"It's not a religion," said Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
"Unlike other meditation techniques, it won't make you
withdraw from life. This will only make you more successful.
Just 20 minutes twice a day and, in 5-8 years, you'll be
enlightened."
Maharishi lied. The Beatles, his most famous students, would
eventually call him "Sexy Sadie," lamenting that
"You made a fool of everyone."
But Maharishi, who taught Transcendental Meditation, still
helped millions of people like me. Yesterday, in Holland, he
died.
As a new meditator, I first met the silk-clad guru at a
month-long retreat at Poland Springs, Maine in 1969. I fell
for him. Hard. Even though I later came to view TM as a cult
and quit teaching, here's the truth. Never have I loved anyone
else as much.
Those who promise to deliver God always have a special appeal.
Although I teach aura reading now, back in the day I didn't.
What was an aura? I had no clue. Nonetheless, I was impressed
when a friend told me that she saw auras regularly, but had
never seen one like his: 10 feet all around, pure shimmering
gold, the color of Divine connection.
Falling hard, I went on to become an "initiator"
and, later, a "Governor of the Age of
Enlightenment." I taught new meditators and helped old
ones. Spending some seven hours a day on TM eventually became
my routine, and I moved to DC expressly so I could do the
advanced flying technique with a large group of Sidhas
(meditators who had achieved special spiritual powers).
None of this seemed odd to me at the time. I knew we weren't
mainstream. We were "The Movement" that would bring
peace to the world.
Only later did I learn that all cults consider themselves
"The Movement" that will bring peace to the world.
During those innocent years when I was a true believer,
promoting TM with all my heart, I even did media interviews.
That included a big radio show where stage fright gripped me
mid-sentence. Time froze, along with my open mouth.
I can still remember the horrified interviewer peering in.
Only this wasn't like Lord Krishna's mother who, according to
legend, looked into her son's mouth and saw the universe. This
open mouth of mine represented dead air time, 15 long seconds
of horror before anyone in the studio managed to talk.
PLAYING THE FOOL
All of Maharishi's teachers played the fool, one way or
another. In Springfield, Illinois, after the Fundamentalist
owners of a restaurant found out I was eating there – me, the
dangerous Chairman of the local TM Center – they physically
threw me out.
My chiropractor, also a Fundamentalist, would throw in
religious instruction for free as he crunched my bones. I
still can remember his avid concern. "How do you know
that the Devil isn't tricking you?"
But I didn't feel tricked. I felt bliss.
For 17 years, I taught part-time in New York, Miami, L.A.,
Illinois, going full-time whenever I could manage it. Despite
being the graduate of a rather prestigious university, I was
often poor, like most of my oh-so-professional (and
vegetarian) colleagues. In Miami, at my poorest, I lived on
cornmeal and tomato paste for three weeks. Yet when triumphs
came, they tasted sweeter than the juicy oranges I couldn't
afford to buy.
In Miami, I scored the first program teaching a TM-based
course in a public high school. In Illinois, I may have been
tossed out of that silly restaurant but I succeeded in
starting TM's first federally funded program for a government
agency. Thank you, Illinois EPA!
For a year, in Massachusetts, I wrote the first (and only)
syndicated column in TM history, attempting to be the Dear
Abby of higher states of consciousness.
Every six months, I would return to study with the smiling man
in the white dhoti. He'd been informed of my various
precedents, just as the national office kept careful
statistics of all the new members brought in by me and my
colleagues. In group meetings, I'd ask my guru questions or
read devotional poetry. Outside Maharishi's door, I would wait
for hours at a time, unsuccessfully seeking a personal
audience.
Only once did Maharishi call me by name. "Karen." It
wasn't my name.
MAHARISHI'S LEGACY
TM is still taught, though its popularity peaked in the 70's.
In the TM-based university in Fairfield, Iowa, most of the
"lifers" have long since left. A friend who teaches
seminars told me that she gave a workshop in Fairfield last
year for many of these lifers before they left town. Even
before their guru's death, they finally had the sense to move
on.
"I've never seen more depressed people in my life,"
Donna told me.
And why not? They'd been promised the moon, yet received only
a few dazzling rays of sunshine. Seemingly, they had
squandered years in pursuit of enlightenment, a permanent
state of bliss vividly described by their guru but never
received. Personally, out of hundreds of
"meditators" I've known, only one has achieved that
kind of enlightenment. Alas, it isn't me.
Yet I don't regret a day – or a decade – that I spent doing TM
and teaching for Maharishi. We did help people to open up
spiritually. The basic technique, I believe, is sound. Only
it's so powerful that it's much better to do that technique
once a week for the famous 20 minutes. Anything more will make
most meditators hopelessly spaced out.
Some ex-TM teachers have become teachers on their own: John
Gray, Barbara DeAngelis, Harold Bloomfield, my late friend
Peter McWilliams. Deepak Chopra hasn't done badly. In my
smaller way, I've been part of this strange grouping, teaching
anything but TM – in my case, aura reading, face reading, and
skills for empaths.
We rebel teachers do not speak his name. But Maharishi was no
Voldemort. He was one of the great world gurus who came to
America from the East. Swami Paramahansa Yogananda, founder of
Kriya Yoga, was the first, pure until the end. He's long gone,
as are the more scandal-ridden Swami Satchidananda, founder of
Yogaville, and Yogi Bhajan, the white-turbaned Sikh who taught
Kundalini Yoga and sold breakfast cereal.
So many great teachers, so many millions of followers, so many
flaws – yet the knowledge they gave us was priceless. Now is
no longer the age of gurus. These Maharishis have led us to an
age of self-authority, where each of us finds our own way
spiritually.
And here we can find a parallel to another little thing that
happened the day that Maharishi died. With John McCain's
strong showing on Super Tuesday, did you hear the death knell
for Fundamentalist rule of the Republican party?
For decades, politicians have tried to guru America, as have
our more overt religious leaders. Maybe our country as a whole
has begun to graduate. Leaving a cult like TM – or the more
mainstream cult known as "Fundamentalist
Christianity" – could that be the real start of a life?
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