TRANSCENDENTAL MEDITATION

TRANSCENDENTAL MEDITATION . Beginning as a method discovered by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (b. 1911), Transcendental Meditation (TM) became an international movement in 1958, when it was presented as a scientific response and practical remedy to the various problems of modern life. This thrust was stressed even more when its founder and teachers denied that the movement was a religion, or that it had been founded as such. Instead, they argued that it was an easy technique that could be mastered by anyone. By using this method, a person could overcome ordinary problems such as mental and emotional stress and high blood pressure while obtaining greater relaxation, gaining greater physical energy and mental clarity, and achieving more advanced stages of consciousness. In spite of its many modern benefits, this new method of yoga claimed to be part of an ancient Hindu spiritual lineage.

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who was born Mahesh Prasad Varma on October 18, 1911 in Uttar Kashi, India, traced his spiritual heritage to the great Advaita Vedānta thinker Sankara (c. 788–820), and beyond him to ancient Vedic literature. Maharishi studied for fourteen years with Swami Brahmananda Saraswati (1869–1953) at the Jyotimath, a monastic community located high in the Himalayan mountain range of India, although he was never appointed successor to his own teacher. Before his student apprenticeship, Maharishi earned a college-level degree in physics and mathematics at Allahabad University in India. His educational background partially explains his tendency to wrap his message in scientific jargon and to stress the scientific advantages of his method. The Science of Creative Intelligence (SCI) is, for instance, the official name of his belief system, which is conceived as dynamic due to its ever expanding and increasing nature.

The use of scientific language to convey a religious message accomplishes at least two objectives: (1) it gives the belief system legitimacy, and (2) it forms a cognitive connection to the contemporary Western worldview that is dominated by science. TM operates from the basic presupposition that there is a compatibility between Advaita Vedānta, the Vedas, and Western science. Since 1988 TM has, for instance, worked intensively to demonstrate the parallels between quantum physics and its method.

Mission to the West

Before making his mission to the West, Maharishi began his spiritual mission beyond India in April 1958 with a trip to Rangoon, Burma. He then traveled to Bangkok, Thailand; the island of Penang; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Singapore; Hong Kong; Hawai'i; and finally the U.S. mainland. On a subsequent journey in 1960 to Germany he opened nine yoga centers, and later that year he traveled to the Scandinavian countries, beginning with Norway, before going to Italy, Greece, and Nairobi, Kenya. Later trips were made to South America, which made his movement a truly global enterprise.

Maharishi's introduction of his spiritual discovery to the West was preceded by the efforts of Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) and Yogananda (1893–1952). Vivekananada traveled to America to attend the World Parliament of Religions in 1893 and launched the Vedanta Societies, whereas Yogananda traveled to America to attend the International Congress of Religious Liberals, organized by the Unitarian Church in Boston in 1920, and established the Self-Realization Fellowship with more than 150 centers throughout the world. Following in their footsteps, Maharishi arrived in America in 1959 and lectured on yoga in San Francisco, with additional trips to Los Angeles, New York, London, and Germany. His movement was initially called the Spiritual Regeneration Movement, which later became the name of the adult branch of the movement. The other wing of the movement was named the Students International Meditation Society (SIMS), established in 1964 in Germany. An early emphasis of the movement was its mission to college campuses, which was given a huge impetus in the mid-1960s when the British rock group the Beatles studied with the Maharishi in India. This event generated worldwide publicity for his movement. After his estrangement from the Beatles, the Maharishi initiated, instructed, and toured with the Beach Boys. Maharishi used his celebrity status with icons of popular culture to endear himself with the youth culture. By the 1970s, student centers could be found at over one thousand campuses. By the beginning of the 1980s the movement estimated that 1.5 million people had practiced Transcendental Meditation with a teacher. The college-campus focus of the movement culminated with the establishment of Maharishi International University in Fairfield, Iowa, in 1974 on the campus of the bankrupted Parsons College.

Pushing the margins of science, Maharishi established the Maharishi European Research University in 1975 at two lakeside hotels on Lake Lucerne in Switzerland. The purpose of the university was to research the effects of Transcendental Meditation and to determine the existence of higher states of consciousness. During the following year Maharishi envisioned his own world government with the ancient Indian Vedas as the basis of its constitution. He appointed ministers to various positions with titles like the Development of Consciousness, Prosperity, and Fulfillment and Health and Immortality. During the 1980s Maharishi began a program called TM-Sidhi with the purpose of teaching students to achieve yogic powers, such as the ability to fly or levitate. There was a public demonstration before 120 journalists in Washington, D.C., on July 9, 1986 that did not correspond with the media hype for the event and resulted in media ridicule of the movement. The members of the media were amused at the sham performance of students jumping on mats imitating acts of levitation.

Meditative Technique and Message

The meditative technique of Maharishi is grounded in a Neo-Vedānta metaphysical philosophy in which an unchanging reality is opposed to an ever-changing phenomenal world. Maharishi's book Science of Being and Art of Living: Transcendental Meditation (1963) expresses his basic philosophical position. The unchanging reality is equated with Being, which represents a state of pure existence that is omnipresent, unmanifested, and transcendental. Not only is Being beyond time, space, causation, and ever-changing phenomena, it remains unrecognized by human beings because their minds do not realize their essential identity with Being, since minds are captive to the outward-projecting senses. The essential nature of Being is further identified with absolute blissful consciousness, which radiates from Being. Maharishi compares Being to the ocean, upon which there are many waves. These waves are like the field of continually changing phenomena. What is really important for Maharishi is for human beings to realize Being, because without this realization a person's life is without foundation, meaningless, and fruitless. This realization is within the capabilities of everyone by means of TM.

This form of meditation is intimately connected to a person's breath (Prāṇa), which is an expression of Being in the sense that it represents a tendency of the unmanifested to reveal itself. The breath represents the latent power of Being within a person. As the nature of Being, breath plays a role as the motivating force of creation and evolution. The breath can be harnessed and used to help the mind of a person realize Being directly. This is accomplished by Transcendental Meditation, which enables a person to extricate oneself from a state of relative experience, transcend ordinary thinking, and gain the permanent state of Being. This means that a particular mind loses its individuality. It becomes instead a cosmic mind that is omnipresent, pure, and eternal.

Before achieving this cosmic state of mind, the human mind is like a seed that produces a tree. What this analogy attempts to show is the interdependent nature of the mind and karma (action). It is impossible for action to occur without a mind. In turn, it is karma that produces the mind, which in turn creates more karma. This suggests that karma owes its existence to the mind, and in turn creates the mind. By means of karma, the original, pure consciousness of Being is transformed into conscious mind. If karma represents what is temporary and perishable, Being is its exact opposite because it represents eternal unity. Karma creates diversity within the unity of Being.

Within the context of this metaphysical edifice, the technique of Transcendental Meditation involves saturating the mind with Being by harnessing one's breath and making it harmonious with the rhythm of nature and cosmic life. Maharishi emphasizes the naturalness of his technique. Moreover, the technique is a simple, easy, and direct way to development one's mental capabilities and latent potentialities. In contrast to ancient ascetic traditions of India, in TM it is not necessary to renounce the world or withdraw from one's family. That is an ascetic practice which can be performed within the context of the ordinary activities of the world.

Instruction in the technique of meditation stresses that it is an easy and natural process. Students are instructed to devote twenty minutes each day to practice, ideally in the morning and early evening. At the beginning stage, a student does not have to be convinced that the method will work. What is important is the correct practice. If a student performs the technique properly, positive results will follow automatically. The proper technique involves seven steps. The initial step involves attending a introductory lecture that is intended to prepare a person for what is to follow. In the second step, the theory of Transcendental Meditation is presented through a preparatory talk. The third step involves an interview with the teacher, at which time a student is given a sacred mantra (repetitive formula) that is personally fitted to a person, who is not to reveal it to others. By focusing on the mantra, persons are able to concentrate their attention on it. The final steps involve periodic verification and validation of a person's experiences by returning to and checking with a teacher.

Maharishi identifies seven levels of consciousness, with the final one culminating in a state of unity. The fifth state represents a cosmic consciousness that represents an awareness of Being even after the cessation of meditation, whereas the fourth stage stands for the transcendental state, which is a state of pure consciousness described as beyond the previous state of waking, dream, and deep-sleep consciousness. The fifth stage is an expansion of the pure consciousness achieved on the fourth level from an individual to a wider cosmic dimension. The sixth state is called God consciousness. Traditional yogic postures are unnecessary—in TM a person can simply sit upright and comfortably on a chair with eyes closed. The movement tends to stress that anyone can learn this simple, effortless, and easy mental technique.

From the perspective of Maharishi, this yogic technique and Neo-Vedānta metaphysical edifice are not a form of Hinduism. In fact, Transcendental Meditation is not a religion at all. By de-emphasizing its Hindu roots, stressing its nonreligious nature, and focusing on the scientifically demonstrable value of the technique, TM created a successful message that was embraced by many spiritual seekers and a scientifically minded audience. The movement used scientific means to demonstrate how the technique calmed the mind, increased awareness, relaxed the body, and lowered metabolism.

Millennial Expectations

When Maharishi initially arrived in the United States, he stated at a press conference his rationale for coming to America. He confessed that he had learned a secret, swift, deep form of meditation that he was now motivated to share with the world for the spiritual regeneration of its inhabitants. A few years later, he established the Spiritual Regeneration Movement of Great Britain, located in northern London. In 1975 Maharishi announced the Dawn of the Age of Enlightenment. His bold and optimistic pronouncement suggested the commencement of a period during which humans can reach their fullest potential and that will be characterized by boundless happiness, harmony, peace, and personal fulfillment. This new dawn will also represent a period when science will verify and validate the teachings of the Maharishi. Moreover, even those who did not meditate would enjoy the benefits of this new age. The Maharishi took this message on tour to various countries. The impetus for such millennial hope continued in December 1983–January 1984, when he created the Taste of Utopia Assembly, which was staged at Maharishi International University. The purpose of this gathering was to unite Vedic wisdom and the practice of the TM-Sidhi program. Their fusion would usher into existence a utopian age of peace and prosperity. This vision represented a fuller expression of a utopian hope embodied within the movement from its earliest moments.

As Transcendental Meditation grew in the awareness of ordinary citizens, many tended to associate it with New Age religion. During the 1960s and 1970s, people were experimenting with drugs like LSD to induce altered states of consciousness and bliss. Within the context of the drug culture and New Age religion, TM appeared to ordinary people to be offering similar results. Thus, numerous practitioners of various forms of New Age religion and former drug experimenters were attracted to the TM movement because of its apparent kinship with these other forms of spiritual experimentation. Besides such perceived forms of kinship among TM, drug culture, and New Age spirituality, Transcendental Meditation shared with New Age spirituality a holistic view of life. This was a form of thinking and living that attempted to extricate itself from all forms of dualism, such as the dichotomy between body and mind. The Transcendental Meditation movement also intersected with New Age spiritualities with respect to organic and vegetarian dietary practices and alternative forms of medicine. In 1985, for instance, Maharishi launched the World Plan for Perfect Health along with a medical institution, the World Center for Ayurveda, in India.

The Transcendental Meditation movement promised a transformation of both the individual and society by means of an expansion of consciousness to unimagined states. In short, TM aimed to create a perfect society inhabited by perfect individuals. The movement offered a realized eschatology for a transformed mode of living in the present moment that promised a horizon of economic well-being, psychological and somatic healing, peace, and mental comfort.

The Transcendental Meditation movement has attracted disenfranchised, disaffected, and disenchanted seekers looking for spiritual experience, healing, community, a general sense of well-being, and happiness because of the decline of community, the rise of impersonal organizations, alienation, fragmentation of life, secularism, competing multicultural messages, and religious pluralism. With the promise of a perfect society, TM offered a personal and private form of spirituality for many disenchanted seekers.

See Also

Millenarianism; New Age Movement; New Religious Movements; Vedānta; Vivekananda; Yogananda.

Bibliography

Eck, Diana L. A New Religious America: How a "Christian Country" Has Now Become the World's Most Religiously Diverse Nation. New York, 2001. A look at the impact of Eastern religions on America based on research for the Pluralism Project at Harvard University.

Ellwood, Robert S., Jr. Religious and Spiritual Groups in Modern America. Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1973. A useful reference work on new religions and New Age cults that is dated in some places.

Mahesh Yogi, Maharishi. Science of Being and Art of Living: Transcendental Meditation. New York, 1963; reprint, New York, 2001. This book sets forth his basic philosophy, yogic method, and its connection to science.

Mahesh Yogi, Maharishi. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi on the Bhagavad-Gita: A New Translation and Commentary: Chapters 1–6. London, 1967. Maharishi's incomplete commentary on this important text from his own perspective.

Rothstein, Mikael. Belief Transformations: Some Aspects of the Relation between Science and Religion in Transcendental Meditation (TM) and the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON). Aarhus, Denmark, Aarhus University Press, 1996. A comparative study of TM and the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON). The author explores the former movements embrace of the scientific world-view and the latter movements reject of it.

Russell, Peter. The TM Technique. London, 1976. A study of the method and levels of consciousness by a member of the movement who studied with Maharishi.

Carl Olson (2005)