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Bro.
Anil D'Souza OP
The world bade a tearful adieu recently to one of the well
known Gurus of our times Maharishi Mahesh Yogi of
‘Transcendental Meditation’ fame. This movement was one of
the most fascinating religious phenomena of the last few
decades and won a large following especially in the West.
It taught thousands of people the art of meditation and
introduced them to the world of spirituality. However, my
opinion about this phenomenon changed completely when I
read in the book ‘The Man from Krypton’ by J. W. White,
the testimony of a very bright Toronto business man who
was an instructor for the Maharishi’s TM organization.
What struck my mind was how people can be misled and
trapped under the apparently benign garb of
‘spirituality’. This man quit the movement when he was
converted to Christ, realizing that it had brought him
into “slavery to occult satanic forces”. He has since been
telling the story of his meeting with Jesus as Saviour,
whenever he can gain a hearing.Withdrawal symptoms he
claims, as he struggled to leave after seven years of
meditating as much as 16 hours a day, were worse than
those experienced by alcoholics or hard drug addicts. He
asserts that his experience in more than seven years of
meditating have convinced him that the alleged claims of
the TM’ers to supernatural powers “have some reality”. He
says he could read other people’s minds, and even
experience astral or soul travel when he was “high” on TM.
He describes the situation: “You think you are controlling
other, hidden forces in the universe, but frighteningly, I
now believe they are actually controlling you.”
In the West, like many in their
teens and twenties during the late sixties, this man was
on a “spiritual search”. A friend introduced him to TM,
and, in the customary dimly lit room, with the picture of
Guru Dev (“the divine teacher” of the maharishi) on a
table, he knelt to receive his mantra which is a secret
Sanskrit sound which the maharishi teaches his meditators
to repeat softly during twice-daily 20-minute periods of
meditation. TM teachers say that each initiate receives
his or her own unique mantra, but this man saw his
teacher’s list of 16 Hindu words or mantras given out on
the basis of the initiate’s age alone. They are not as the
maharishi insists meaningless sounds, but the names of
ancient Hindu deities or spirits. The maharishi insists
that they be not printed “lest people who don’t know what
they are doing try to experiment with them.” After
initiation, this man took a pilgrimage for a month to a
place called Maine. Here,
in a rented summer resort on the coast together with about
1000 other young people he was taught “rounding.” This
consists of a period of meditation, followed by yoga
exercises and special breathing techniques. This threefold
rite was performed some 10 to 12 times a day. “It produces
a cumulative effect, growing to a peak. At the end you’re
so high you’re bombed out of your mind.”A year later at
his own expense, he spent three months with several
thousand meditators on the island of Majorca where they
were taught “heavy rounding” for periods up to 16 hours a
day. After several weeks of this, the maharishi came and
there were lectures, including instructions on how to
initiate others. This man reckons his mind was “wiped so
clear” by the heavy meditation that the idea of thinking
for himself was “totally out of the question.” He was
given in his list of 16 mantras and signed an
official-looking document of loyalty to the maharishi and
his now dead Indian master, the “divine teacher.”
Since the maharishi insists his
movement is not religious, it is interesting to note the
contents of the oath: “It is my fortune, Guru Dev, that I
have been accepted to serve the Holy Tradition and spread
the light of God to all those who need it. It is my joy to
undertake the responsibility of representing the Holy
Tradition in all its purity as it has been given to me by
Maharishi and I promise on your altar, Guru Dev, that with
my heart and mind I will always work within the framework
of the organization founded by Maharishi. And to you,
Maharishi, I promise that as a meditation guide I will be
faithful in all ways to the trust you have placed in
me.” Looking back this man is still frequently alarmed at
the strange experiences he had. Once, he recalls, “My body
was lying there on the bed. I saw myself wake up, do a
round of meditation and then go out on the balcony before
going back to bed. Somehow I was separated from my mind as
well as my body.” On the other occasions he says he was
aware of shadowy forms and faces around him in the room at
night. “Today I believe these were the spirits of those
masters now dead.” These were not maharishi’s
instructions. In fact, he had told them not to think about
those things and to remain passive, calling it
‘unstressing’ or cleansing of the nervous system.
Looking back on his mental state he says, “My awareness
was keen, but my conscience had been dulled completely.
The overall mindset was passive, unaware of any kind of
evil”. Having initiated some 500 people into TM, our
friend recalls that his real doubts about TM began when he
heard that the maharishi, who once taught his students to
avoid psychis phenomena, had announced a “breakthrough of
consciousness, “in which people would be able to fly,
become invisible. Evidently the maharishi whether by
pre-design or for adaptation, “had changed the direction
180 degrees, because we were told explicitly by him to
leave these things alone”. Noting that the maharishi had
set up a “World Plan” and a “World Government for the age
of Enlightnement,” the former teacher says he is convinced
the Indian Yogi is on the “ultimate power trip,” nothing
less than control over the consciousness of humanity: a
precursor the Antichrist, no doubt. When this man,
realizing the trap, resolved to quit TM, he was subjected
to a prolonged series of scary experiences in which the
forms and spirits of previous encounters “assailed” him.
Friends, this moving testimony calls on us to be careful
and cautious while we seek ways and means to quench our
‘spiritual thirst’. Not everything that we call
‘spiritual’ could be of help to our spirits!
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