Summer 2015

Good day, hallo,

Introductory Essay

I've got to know how the state of Germany has dealt with the "transcendental Meditation" of that Mr. Mahesh Prassad Varma alias Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. (Admitted, this essay covers only that teaching from between spring 1971 to spring 1976. Yet, according to Mr. Mahesh's much later Internet-Video-Press-Conferences that part of his teaching hasn't or at least shouldn't have changed in its principles at all. He just had tried - maybe without success or in wrong manner - to improve the explanations about the consistency with tradional teachings and it's not in contradiction to them later on).

As a matter of fact, I had still been of minor age - I've got initiated against the intention of mine and also against the will of my parents by one of his TM-teachers; in addition, that TM-teacher violated Mr. Maheshs's order not to initiate youngsters without written permission of the parents or those in charge of their education. This being the fact, I have tried to stay objective on the one hand and kept distance to Mr. Mahesh on the other hand. From this persepective and with this background, I've looked at TM and that teaching rather closely and objectively and cannot but say that TM isn't that bad at all. Maybe individual aspects play a role und in the life of others it might cause problems; yet from the point of view of objectivity, one would have gather items of information about such - maybe existing - cases first. Then one would have to do a neutral, objective analysis about the why and afterwards one that might result in statistics that might yield propabilities for such results of adding TM to one's day-to-day life. Yet, one would have to sort out all such cases that are the result of TM-teachers who didn't stick to the given lines about teaching TM properly.

If Mr. Mahesh taught that TM is to be added to day-to-day life and that he wouldn't teach a monk's way of life, then it cannot be a proper way of teaching, if TM-Center-leaders will inspire pupils, students etc to work for the TM-movement and to tolerate that their activities for studying their choosen subject or their school suffer due to working for the TM-movement. That's obvious.

The "Puja" is done to the great masters: Narayana (there once existed a human being, named "Rishi Narayana", too), Padmabhavam (the first Rinpoche had that or a very similar name, too), Rishi Vasishta, the great ascetic, and father of Shakti, Parashar the son of Shakti, Vyasa the great philosopher and poet as well as Yogi, who was the son of Parashar; Shukadeva, (Vyasa's son; often mentioned in the Shrimad Bhagvatam), Gaudapada (who has left behind "Gaudapada Karika"), Yogi Govinda whose teachings got explained in short by means of the Bhaja Govindam written by his disciple Shankara; Shankara who has left behind lots of scriptures including his famous commentaries and several Stotras, including the Dakshinamoorty, and finally, Shankara's disciples: Sureshwaracharya, who has also left behind lots of commentaries (Manasallosa for instance; many of his sort of books are availaible in English language), Totakacharya, from whom the Totakashtkam is well-known and which gets presented by verily a lot of vocalists. The other main disciples of Shankara are Padmapada, who has also left behind a book and who also became Shankaracharya , Last but not least, there's Hastamalaka, who also became Shankaracharya; about him there exists the "Hastamalakam" which is said to have been composed by Shankara. Interestingly, quite a lot of these, at least from Vasishta to Shukadeva, are linked together by direct family ties.
If one looks into the tantric tradition (Ajit Mookerjee, "Die Welt des Tantra in Bild und Deutung", Gondrom Verlag GmbH, Februar 1992, ISBN-10: 3811207024, ISBN-13: 978-3811207028; this book might exist in English language, too) one sees that there's a clear distinction between worshipping one's God, singing in praise of some Yogi and expressing one's honour for that great tradition including Rishi Vasishta, Badarayana, Shankara, etc.

Yet, the German government since Dr. Kohl and continued by Dr. Merkel have come out to declare that "this TM-Puja to Vasishta, Vyasa, Shankara, etc would be "worshipping foreign gods". Furthermore, they've declared that the TM-mantras were "names of Gods/Godesses" which isn't true either. At any time, TM practioneers had the possibility and fredom to look into Sanskrit dictionaries; it's simple due to that practical Sanskrit-English dictionary which has been done by Arthur Macdonnell and is availaible online, these days. There are also available that dictionary of Monier Williams and others. Lists of TM-Mantras, published by persons like Pfarrer Haak (ev.-luth. Church/Germany) or to be found on the Internet might be used before one learns TM. If one finds words like "ing", "inga", "im", "ima", "â-ing" then the meanings can easily be found to bei "Ing = something like 'Moving in a rather unskilled manner'", "inga = moveable", "im" is just an explentive and thus a word without a meaning. "â" means something like 'towards oneself' and in Sanskrit grammars like that of Arthur Macdonell one can find that "â" can be added to a verb as beeing the case in "â-ing" and then it changes the meaning of that verb a little bit and then "â-ing" will mean something like "moving to oneself or moving to one's Self, go for the state of Samadhi (= Turiya; see Gaudapada's Karika for instance) for a while". This last Sanskrit word expresses nothing else but what's Trancendental Meditation. As a text written with a certain colour become invisible if one uses a paper of that same colour, the 'TM-Mantra' has no meaning during the meditation because it's meaning isn't different from the meditation's process. Only the sound-aspect of some Sanskrit-word is used. Some others of such so-called TM-mantras (for instance according to Pfarrer Friedhelm Haak) will be more difficult to be found and understood like that (others are composed by somtehing like "kiri" and "ing", "hiri" and "ing" or something like may-be "shi" (= śi) and an "am" or such ; but the principle can easily be understood. Certainly it requires some effort to look about all that into Sanskrit-grammars; the grammar of the one author might not be that suitable for oneself as the grammar of another author; sometimes grammars written in other languages are more suitable to oneself. (For such a purpose it'll enough to use the Online versions:

An overview called "Cologne Digital Sanskrit Dictionaires" by the university of Köln/Germnay can be found at: https://www.sanskrit-lexicon.uni-koeln.de.

Williams, Monier, Sanskrit-English Dictionary: Ethymologically and philologically arranged with special reference to Greek, Latin, Gothic, German, Anglo-Saxon, and other cognate Indo European Languages by Monier Williams, 1872, Online lesbar via Bay. Staatsbibliothek.

Monier Williams, "A Sanskrit-English Dictionary, ethymologically and philologically arranged with special reference to Greek, Latin, Gothic, German, Anglosaxon and other cognate indo-european languages by Monier Williams, M.A., Boden Professor of Sanskrit in the University of Oxford, Oxford, at the Claredon Press, 1872

Macdonnell, Arthur A. M.A., Ph.D Corpi’s Christ College (Deputy) Professor of Sanskrit in the University of Oxford, "Sanskrit English Dictionary - Being a practical Handbook Transliteration, Accentuation and ethymological Analysis throughout", London, Longmans, Green, and co, And New York: 15 East 16th street, 1893

Macdonell, Arthur Anthony, "A Vedic Grammar for students", Arthur Anthony Macdonell, G. Chadlington Road, Oxford, March 30 1916; Reprint: Molital Banarsidas Publishers Private Limited, ISBN 81-208-1053-2; Reprint 1995, 2000, 2004, 2010; First Indian Edition: 1993.

Macdonell, Arthur A., "A Sanskrit Grammar for Students", Molital Banarsidas Publishers Private Limited, ISBN 81-208-0505-4, Third Edition: Oxford 1927, Indian Edition: Delhi 1974, Reprint: Dehli 1979,1985,1988,1993,1995,1997, Printed in India.

Macdonell, Arthur Anthony , "A practical Sanskrit Dictionary with transliteration, accentuation and etymological analysis throughout", Oxford : University Press, 1924 ).

In result, there never has been neither a need nor a basis for quarrelling about TM-mantras and for spreading rumour like "these are the names of some Hindu Gods or Godesses".

 

Summarizing, inspite of the reality about those mantras that can objectively and rather easily be found by means of Sanskrit dictioniaries and Sanskrit Grammars which have been existing since before the birth of Mr. Mahesh , most Courts in Germany have declared that the or a "hinduistic background" would be denied by the TM-teaching.

What was has been first: The hen or the egg? Similarily, what has been first "the Yoga" or "the Hinduism"?

 

Historically seen, I didn't start with Sanskrit-dictionaries etc either. Once, I've taken those lists of so-called "TM-Mantras" which got spread by some suborganization of the Lutheran church since about 1975 ("Zauberformel TM", Scholl, Mildenberger) and started to search for them:

I went to a great bookshop in Munich, Hugendubel, and turned the pages of all the books about Yoga, etc which had been available there. Different from today, a lot of books from many different authors had been available in the bookshelves from 1971 until 1976.

Yet, in the books about Yoga, I couldn't find any of the so-called "TM-Mantras" .

Ok, I even read the biographies (Gandhi, Aurobindo, etc) including those about Ramkrishna and at the end of one such book, where it has been narrated that towards the end of his life that Ramakrishna had started on tantric experiments (in fact, fumbling about the breasts of one of his female disciples with his feet) and in that context I found one of those "TM-Mantras". That was the first matching I had been able to achieve.

Fine, I looked into the Tantric literature (even though reluctantly and nauseated) and in a book of Ajit Mookerjee I could find several of those "TM-Mantras". Mr. Mookerjee has described some tantric initiation ceremony in his book. Right in the context of that initiation ceremony - which is verily different from an initiation into TM - guite a lot of the TM-Mantras are mentioned. Furthermore a small fraction of the TM-Puja (which seems to be identical or rather identical with the so-called "Guru-Puja") is contained. As a matter of fact, that part of the "Guru-Puja" is dedicated to Shakti as the Guru whereas in case of the "TM-Puja" the dedication is to "just an enlightend, verily proper Guru" (something like: "tambulam samarpayami shri gurucharan kamalebyo nama". In case of the "tantric cermeomy" - page 211-, the selected Guru is Shakti and the dedication to Shakti is done by: "Aim, sam sarvatmakam tambulam sasáktika-sri gurave samarapayami namah")

Given, I went to that famous, huge library "Bayerische Staatsbibliothek" (similar are only those in London and New York; by international law, any book with an ISBN-Number has to be sent there for free) and searched for further books of Ajit Mookerjee.

Now, in his book "Tantra Asana", I could find part of a classical, ancient text which mentions one of the last TM-Mantras which I hadn't been able to find in the (Tantric) Literature until then. To my joy, the classical text had been mentioned by its name "Saraswatistotra". I dind't understand that Sanskrit word at all. What's a "stotra"? I didn't know those days.

Given, I started to search for Saraswatistotra and there's a translation of it into English, done by Sir John Woodroffe (alias Sir Avalon) about a hundred years before Mr. Mahesh had started to teach TM.
(See https://www.sacred-texts.com/tantra/htg/htg14.htm) .

Now, what did I find? It says there:

"HRĪM, HRĪM is Thy most pleasing bīja";

furthermore it says:

"AIM, AIM is Thy favourite mantra".

It does not (!) say: It's the mantra by which to be worshipped you appreciate most. It says that she meditates with that mantra on her own.

In addition, it's obvious that she (Goddess Saraswati) does neither pray to herself nor does she worship herself.

Later in the text, it says:

"Greatly art Thou pleased with the recitation of the mantra HRĪM. "

Obviously, there's a significant difference between meditation and recitation.

In fact, "TM" is meditation, it's not "recitation" and that's why TM isn't worshipping gods.

On the other hand, the "Hare Krishna" want and do worship God Krishna and they practice that sort of recitation which is called "chanting".

It's highly interesting that the Saraswatistotra uses very abstract terms in the context of meditation:

"Thou who art both form and formlessness,
Who art the wealth of the lotus face of the lotus-born,
Embodiment of all guṇas, yet devoid of attributes,
Changeless, and neither gross nor subtle. "

On the other hand, the terms are very personal in the context of recitation:

"Thy crown is white as snow.
Thy hands play with the vīnā.
O Mother! Mother! salutation to Thee.
Burn, burn my sloth and grant me great intelligence.
Thou art Knowledge itself.
The Vedānta ever sings of Thee."

In result, that "TM" isn't worshipping God, Gods, Goddesses,
at all. It deals with "infinity", that which is beyond form and name.
Thus, it seems to be a practice of Laya-yoga, according to "Hall of all religions" (done in India with the sole intention to avoid further world wars after 1918, according to that book; it can be read online at archive.org/USA

(Regarding "Infinity" see:
a) Chandogya-Upanishad: Narada, who had studied everything that had been available for being studied. Yet, he couldn't find that inner restfulness, that inner peace. He started to search for a proper, good Guru who had been living the yogic virtues and who had been free from lying, betraying, etc.
b) In Germany, there's that famous tragedy "Faust" written by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. That abstract figure "Faust" had studied all that had been available as the subjects of for studying: law, theology, science, philosophy,... Similar to Narada he came to the conclusion that he hadn't been able to gain "inner peace". Yet, completely different from the wise Narada, Faust made a contract with the evil, committed murder, brought suffering to others. In Faust II, Goethe has tried to explain that even such a man can get out of his troubles by doing work as good as possible for that human being Faust and finally by the grace of God. Unfortunately, Goethe mentioned a certain violation of nature as one means of doing something good. There's a clear difference between the approach of Narada and Dr. Faust and there's a difference between that Upanishad's Guru on the one hand and Mr. Johann Wolfang von Goethe on the other hand.
c) Narada went a good direct path to the ultimate Truth and there's the conviction that such a direct path exists and that it's possible to be gone. Goethe thought about the danger of being "ignorant", of not having found one's inner peace, of not having gained enlightenment. The path which he offers is somewhat unclear because it includes violation of nature, destroying marshes. No human being can destroy a marsh out of mere chance; it's not possible without bad intentions, without bad efforts, etc.
d) By the way, Infinity can bring along some impossibilities: On the set of all subsets of the 3-dimensional Euclidian Space, one cannot - this has been proven by mathematicians - define a "probality": Thus one can say:
"Probability" is foreign to that infinity.)

As already pointed out, the Guru-Puja isn't a ceremony of worshipping Gods . It's a ceremony in honour and praise of those great Gurus. Most of those Gurus have left behind famous literature and thus it can be studied. Quite a lot of that literature has been translated into German language starting with Dr. Franz Lorinser (Bhagavad Gita) in the 1860th and then extended in many respects by Professor Dr. Paul Deussen (Vedanta including the commentary of Shankara, 60 Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita, and so on), Dr. Richard Garbe (Bhagavad Gita, and works on "Samkya"), Dr. Franz Hartmann and others..
Furthermore, There have been all the translations into the English language as done by Sir John Woodroffe and, let's not forget, English is, besides the French Language, one of the two "official languages" in the European Community.

Fortunately there's a small part of someting very similiar to the TM-Puja in that book of Mokerjee (as I mentined already):

"Aim, sam sarvatmakam tambulam sasáktika-sri gurave samarapayami namah"

In the TM-Puja one can here something like

"tambulam samarpayami shri gurucharan kamale bhyo nama"

Now there seems really to be a quarrel amídst the TM-movement these days.

According to Sanskrit dictionaries there exists a word like "Nāma" (to be spoken like 'naama'; sometimes written as "nâma") and a word "nâmaḥ", which is spoken as "namaha". Actually, that "nâmaḥ" means something like "bow down" and in that sense might be part of a religious something.

Yet that other word "nāma" is a explentive, a word without a meaning (can be found in Shankara's commentary to the 3rd verse of the Isha-Upanishad, too; Prof Hiriyanna uses in his translation the word "explentive"; S. Sitrama Shastri uses something like "meaningless".)

 

If one says like "tambulam samarpayami shri gurucharan kamale bhyo namaha" then that sentence will have two verbs in it: First, something like to offer something to someone, to put something down infront of someone as a waiter or roomboy does if he brings a coffee or cup of tea. Second, to bow down for expressing devotedness or some such thing.

In result, that sentence will remain a sentence, if one leaves the one verb and understands or assumes a  "nāma" and not a "nâmaḥ" at all.

Ok, when I have learnt on TTC (Playa La Antilla/Spain, march to may 1973) once, I've definitely learnt no "namaha".

How sang Mr. Mahesh?

One can listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfYxlmWiFFk

 

How do those strange "kings"of the TM movement sing?

Oh, they sing differently:

"Maharishi Mahesh Yogi performs Puja Just before his death";
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YNQNx0l9TQ

What are their strange plans foreign to the original TM-teaching?

Some sort of a neutral person sings what?

Song: "Holy Tradition" by Rick Stanley from Guru Purnima 08; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lck24O9YFPs
Mr. Stanely sings only apart of that pooja; yet
at the end one can hear one "nama"; or is it a "namaha"?
Ok, I can hear no "nama ha".

 He sings somthing like "namaa"

In result that TM-Puja as at least taught on TCC at Playa La Antilla/Spain, march to may 1973 and as I used to hear it before in TM-centers, had no "namaha".

That TM-Puja expressed someting like what a waiter or room-boy does. Some fruits, some water, some candele and other such things for day-to-day life are put infront of that picture of that teacher Swami Brahmanda Saraswati and it's done as a waiter does it. Obe puts it down and then one wonders "Äh, what do I have to do next?".

Thus "nâma" as an explentive, a word without a meaning, makes sense.

I cannot go into the details of that puja.

Yet it's a practical something:

First the names of great Gurus of that tradition are mentioned and thus one expresses where one can find more precise items if information (the books of Shankara, Vedanta of Vyasa, Gaudapada's Karika, etc) are mentioned. That's like a list of used literature.

Then comes the theme of how the real life of that Swami Brahmananda Saraswati as a teacher had been (everything for day-to-day life was gven to him for free, some sort of ancient aging insurance).

It ends with some description of the integration of that pure consiousness into life.

In may opinion, it can be understood like that and it makes sense to understand it like this. Fruthermore, in this sense it fits to Laya-yoga which neither uses nor is in need of a "picture of God/Gods/Godesses".

 

But what did the German government started to spread since Dr. Kohl had been chancellor? They have spread something like, "it's a highly dangerous sectism", "it's something like betraying by not admitting that TM is worshipping Gods and by denying that the TM-Puja is a ceremony of worshipping Gods", "it makes you sick", and so on.
The highest court of Germany "Bundesverfassungsgericht" has declared that the German Goverment is allowed to spread that Non-Truth, those lies.
Dr. Merkel hasn't stopped that nonsense.

All the worse, "Awakened Kundalini" has been labeled as "mental sickness" and some people have got tortured by means pf psychiatry to stop Kundalini from improving the eyes, thinking, knowledge, consciousness, etc.

It's a fact that in some cases the practice of TM has resulted in awakening Kundalini. Mr. Mahesh asked those some hundred TM-initiators at Hotel Prätschli in Arosa/Switzerland round about summer 1974 about "Kundalini experience".(One lady asked Mr.Mahesh about her Kundalini-experiences.) In reply, Mr. Mahesh asked the audience: "Who has Kundalini experience". Now, the spies (In fact, at least some physicians serve the German state as spies, too) of Germany had the chance to get to know that and it resulted in having becoming a victim of torture by German psychiatry for at least one of those TM-teachers.(In fact, they tried to make the eyes bad again: The eyes had improved from at least as "sick" as -8.0 to "only as bad as" "-5.5" within about 4 years in result of TM, vegetarianism, more thinking and less reading and it had at least been - or may be accomplished - accompanied by awakened Kundalini. They even have spread lies - regarding facts that might have been verified by simple policemen without any problem - against that TM-teacher; they have practised character-assassination. Suddenly someone had been said to have taken part in "TM-courses" until 1979 even though the last such course had been in 1976. They stated that he had left his friendgirl right away after he had been taught TM in 1971. The fact is that the relationship had lasted and improved until 1973/1974. Only, that girlfriend had decided to leave Germany and to go to UK to gain an additional professional qualification by improving in the English language and by passing some certificate later-on. (In fact, she succeeded.) Furthermore, there had been attacks against her letterbox just at the time when TM has been added to the life of those two youngsters. That letterbox got opend compulsarily by unknown people 3 times within half a year in 1971. You see, that pyhsician - who became psychiatrist not earlier than 4 years later - invented the facts to fit to his false, ridiculous, stupid and fanatic theories. Yet, some judges co-operated with that fanatic and somewhat sick physician. In addition, nor other judge in charge of that case, nor a public prosecutor have been ready to stop those evil-doers of the state of Germany by first looking into the statetd facts. Admitted, they couldn't check those stated facts just because they haven't that written so-called "expertise" and apparently never had got it. Imagine, the judges didn't have - as a written document - the story which that pyhsician had spread as "experise" among the physicians only. Those judges turned out to have stupidly relied on an ignorant physician (who hadn't been ad medical specialist) and on unknown informants who - in fact - didn't tell them the truth. They didn't understand beacuse they didn't want to understand. If they had acted according to the standard rules of law i.e."no written expertise by an medical specialist" has to have in consequence "no approval of the accusation", the whole future of that man would have been verily different i.e. decisive better. In conclusion, that physician and those judges and the whole stately system of law of Germany (involved in that case) has failed out of fanatism, haughtiness, ignorance and unwillingness to do their jobs properly.

Part one: Mr. Mahesh and his relationship to Swami Brahmananda Saraswati

About his early days in the USA that book of Mrs. Olson "a hermit in the house" is there to be read.

Mr. Mahesh Yogi had stayed in her house for a few months and she has reported about those days.

She reports that he used to say after his lectures "everyone is invited to come for initiation"; yet later he had gone - at least twice - to her husband and had said to him that he shouldn't allow this or that person to come; it gives some insight into his manners during those days and his way of promising.

"Everyone" didn't mean "everyone"; maybe he didn't know how to handle the English language in a (more) reliable manner. Admitted, because of all those false friends, those more than 10 cases of time, about twice as many words as in the German language, to mention a few, the English language isn't simple at all.

Let's first have a look at Mr. Mahesh's own story about why and how he had come to Swami Brahmananda Saraswati:

Mr. Mahesh had narrated as follows ( I re-narrate it according to his story; not literally but out of memory; that story was presented to me at TM-Teacher-training course at Playa La Antilla/Spain, March to early May 1973 and in the context of several advanced TM-teacher training courses (Seelisberg, Brunnen, Weggis, Arosa which lay in Switzerland and Bad Kissingen, near Freyung, Bad Zwischenahn which are situated in Germany) - by means of tape/video and I remember it very well):

>>I had been fond of visiting saints. Someday a friend of mine told me about Swami Brahmananda Saraswati. I went there and arrived at night; it was all dark. I felt someone sitting there but I couldn't see anything at all. Suddenly the light of some car - at quite a distance was passing by - and that made it possible for me to see his face for a short moment. At that moment I knew that I had found the right one.

I asked him whether I may become his pupil.

He replied: "What have you been doing?"

I answered that I have been studying physics.

He answered: "Better first finish your study; then you may come"

I asked him: "Where will I find you?"

He answered: "You'll find me somewhere here around"

I went back, was working to finish my study and I was so excited that I had some troubles with finishing my study.<<

This story has been re-narrated by Paul Mason, too. (That I found today, on the 15'th September 2019):

>> Apparently Mahesh first met the guru in the city of Jabalpur in central India (this being Mahesh's hometown where it is said he worked sometime as a clerk at the Gun Carriage Factory). He recalls:-

'I was fond of visiting saints, and when I heard there was a saint - this was in some Summer vacation - "Some saint has come but it's very difficult to approach him and he is far away," and all that, all that. Then I made more enquiries; "Where is he? And what?", then I found one can only see him about midnight or something, because no one is allowed to go there, and you have to go in all darkness without making noise and all kinds of things. I met some friends here and there and just we went there and, on a small house somewhere far into the, in the forest somewhere. There was a terrace, small terrace, and there, it was all dark, absolutely dark. About ten or eleven we arrived there. I and someone or two more.

And there was a brahmachari on the ground floor. He said, "How you are here?" and "Who told you?" and, "You are not expected to come!"

And said, "So maybe we forgot our way and we are here then, darshan coming;. And tell us about the saint, and we want to hear.." I said.

And he said, "Don't talk, don't talk, just sit quietly." And he disappeared and he went up and after about half an hour he came back. He said, "Follow me very quietly." I said, "Alright, alright." We quietly went up, there was nothing to see, it's all dark and somehow we felt someone was sitting on a sort of chair or something, reclining, comfortable. We sat down quietly, we found two or three other men were also sitting. No one was talking, whispering, it was all dark, everything. It so happened, about maybe fifteen, twenty minutes passed and it happened that far distance a car was coming and it showed the light on the terrace, and that was the first sight of Guru Dev. Just on the flash of the car, maybe a mile away from the car, but it just turned, it just turned for a moment and I was.. it was just enough to have a glimpse of him. And then I thought, "Yes, it seems the time has come." That one glimpse of a flashy light and that was enough to take decisions.

Then I came, and I came, and I came, and I said, "Could I not be at your service?"

He said, "What you are doing?"

"Studying."

"Oh better finish your studies."

"And then, where will you be?"

"Oh you will find me somewhere."' <<

(To quote properly, Paul Mason's homepage offers a video showing Mr. Swami Brahmananda Saraswati as the Shankaracharya of Jothir Math. See „Guru Dev Shankaracharya Brahmananda Saraswati, Jai Guru Deva“, Lucknow, April 1952, North India.)

As a part of that video, there is a commentary done by Mr. Mahesh at the beginning of that video and Mr. Mahesh calls Him in this context the „Head of Hindu religion“ and later (about minute 3 of that video document) he „narrates“ how he had found to Him. Mr. Mahesh has said in that context that he had seen Him in the context of a procession and at that moment he would have known that He would be the right guru for him: „In one of the processions I happened to see Him and when I first saw Him I said now 'fine this is it'; that was the flash to me.“

In fact, Mr. Mahesh sometimes has told a story and on other occasions, he has told a rather different one.

Maybe, he felt that the first story would sound rather „unscientific“ - ..causing to be regarded, more or less, as a „hippie-like" freak of esoterism.. - and that it mightn't be appropriate to narrate the one or the other story to a general audience.

Anyway, in physics, there's that law of optical refraction. In fact, this law can be derived in a more or less "strategical" manner: Physics says, the speed of light is smaller in the air than in water. (By the way, in a diamond the speed of light is reduced to almost a half of the speed of light in the vacuum, says physics). Now, the light goes for a path so that it shall reach the goal quickest. If one calculates that path one will derive exactly the path according to the law of optical refraction. Looking to the rest of this text, Mr. Mahesh should have studied physics a little bit more thoroughly. "Strategical thinking", "decision-making theories" cannot be foreign to physicists. Foolhardiness is no good guide for gaining enlightenment, for the search of Truth, for gaining knowledge. (By the way, if physics had taken care of that, physicists would never have published the "laws" by which atomic bomb, atomic waste etc have resulted from, etc.)

I' m now going to draw my lines of reasoning from the „official“ story that got presented to me and about 1000 other course-particpants in the context of the TM-teacher training course at Playa La Antilla from march 1973 to may 1973. That TTC-course had been composed and conducted by a specialist in the field of education from the United Kingdom, Max Flissure.

Let's get on to some conclusions.

Swami Brahmananda Saraswati had given to Mr. Mahesh a sort of verbal contract.
Swami Brahmananda Saraswati hadn't been the Shankaracharya of the North those days, yet.
As a result, that has been a verbal agreement between the recluse (or maybe chief of the Swami Krishnanand Trust) Swami Brahmanda Saraswati and Mr. Mahesh Prasad and it hadn't been any contract between some Shankaracharya and Mr. Mahesh at all. Swami Brahmanda Saraswati fulfilled his promise when Mr. Mahesh had finished his study and had come to him.
In consequence, this special situation regarding that verbal agreement had been such that he probably fulfilled his given promise apart from his task as the Shankaracharya. Why shouldn't he have been able to fulfill it like that?

Let's assume that someone teaches maths to someone on a private basis. Later he/she might have become an ordinary professor of some university; may-be he/she and the university allow his/her former private pupils to listen to his/her lectures at the university as guests. But his/her guests - who might help that professor by cleaning the blackboard, typewriting his/her lecture notes, looking for literature, etc - will not get a degree; they will have learned it for themselves but neither for the sake of getting a degree nor for making a profession out of it.
It's at least similar to that situation of buying a CD of the Beatles for a private purpose and the fact that that won't be a license to use it in public. Moreover, one just won't have got a license for using it in one's restaurant to please one's guests.

Likewise, the relationship between Mr. Mahesh Prasad and Swami Brahmananda Saraswati isn't a matter of the Shankaracharya tradition at all. This can be concluded from Mr. Mahesh's narrations.
It might have been a matter of the Swami Krishnanand Trust, the chief of which Swami Brahmananda Saraswati had - maybe - been those days when Mr. Mahesh had asked him first roundabout 1938. But even that can't be derived from Mr. Mahesh Prasad's report.

As a 2nd point, there is Mr. Mahesh's own story about how the TM-movement had started. That story shows that some elderly Sadhu had sent him to Rahmeshwaram and thus that had been independent of the Shankaracharya-tradition, too.

In case that the elderly Sadhu would have been some guru of the Swami Krishnanand Trust that might have to do something with the Swami Krishnanand Trust.

If that elderly sadhu had been a pupil of Shankaracharya Swami Brahmanda Saraswati and he had additionally been initiated into sannyasin by Shankaracharya Swami Brahmanda Saraswati, it might have been an action done by the Shankaracharya Tradition. Mr. Mahesh hadn't said anything that would have supported any of these two possibilities.

Indeed, because Mr. Mahesh hadn't followed that single simple instruction "Take it to be Maya once you are beyond Haridwar" it hadn't rather been anything but a personal, private affair of Mr. Mahesh.

Because Mr. Mahesh had tried to establish TM-centres all over the world including all over India, all the four Shankaracharyas - no matter who has been in charge of that job at that time - had been invited to comment on Mr. Mahesh's activities and his teachings - including used mantras, Guru-Puja, effects (..including side-effects..) in the lives of the TM-practitioners - .

Given, Shankaracharya Swaroopananda of Dwaraka - irrespective of the court's decision of those who had claimed him to be the Shankaracharya of the North, too - has a certain authority to talk about TM and to evaluate Mr. Mahesh's teachings.
Shankaracharya Swaroopananda by now fulfills his job as the Shankaracharya of Dwakara undoubted for tens of years; he has a lot of experience. He had also been a disciple of Swami Bramananda Saraswati and knows Mr. Mahesh from those days.
Because of these facts, an interview about TM has done with him gives important information. And it was He who has answered some questions as part of that public movie "David wants to fly". (See more at the end)
Shankaracharya Swaroopananda agrees that Mr. Mahesh had been working as a private secretary of Shankaracharya Swami Brahmanda Saraswati for many years, Furthermore, he doesn't say that Mr. Mahesh had been replaced by someone else because of some inability or unreliability to do that job well enough. Consequently, he doesn't doubt Mr. Mahesh's quality as a disciple who he had been those days. Despite this, Shankaracharya Swaroopananda has criticized Mr. Mahesh's selection of mantras and other aspects of his teachings.
Those who know Mr. Mahesh's teachings in more detail and maybe had even taken time to attend a TM teacher training course to get themselves informed directly and maybe even had attended some advanced teacher training courses have the advantage to comment on certain special points in a more direct and detailed manner and they are more independent of rumor about Mr. Mahesh and his teachings. Additionally, they don't have the problem of knowing certain details only by having been told by others.

It might be good to go for a more comprehensive view of the relationship between the TM-movement and the Shankaracharya Tradition regarding whether there is any at all:

If one looks to the "Department of Cultural Studies of East- and South- Asia", university Würzburg/Germany (-> Internet) then one can find that even 3 persons are said to claim or to be claimed to be the Shankaracharya of the North at present.

I addition, the same fact is mentioned at "indology.info/papers/sundaresan/shank-jyot" (-> internet).

They say among other things:

>>Swarupananda Saraswati's Dwaraka title is undisputed, and he is routinely described in press reports as the Sankaracharya of Dwaraka. However, it should be noted that while his status as the head of two principal mathes is somewhat unusual, and also confusing for the lay public, it had not been insisted that he relinquish his position at Jyotirmath, before taking charge at Dwaraka. Swarupananda had attended the 1979 meeting of the Sankaracharya's at Sringeri, in his capacity as the Sankaracharya of Jyotirmath. He also attended the funeral ceremonies of Swami Abhinava Vidya Tirtha at Sringeri in 1989. In June 1993, a joint statement was issued by the Sankaracharyas, in connection with the Babri Masjid demolition, which Swarupananda Saraswati signed twice, in his dual capacity as the head of both Dwaraka and Jyotirmath. And as Jayendra Saraswati of the Kanchi matha has also signed the 1993 statement, I assume that he too accepts Swarupananda at both Dwaraka and Jyotirmath.<<

On the other hand, there is the last will of Swami Brahmananda Saraswati (for instance -> Paul Mason):

>>Extract from ‘Shri Shankaracharya Upadesha’

pages 20-23 of the newsletter of Shankaracharya of Jyotishpeeth

Published 20th July 1953<<

(Including such items of information, the books of Paul Mason are available and a comprehensive source. It's neither up to me to quote such items of information, nor makes it sense because his books have been written in English language anyway.)

In fact, even the courts in India had to deal with the question who is the Shankaracharya of the North these and by bow they have decided finally. (Please see for that and in addition https://indiankanoon.org/doc/68096713/ 

and regarding the final decision of the Supreme Court of Allhabad:  https://indiankanoon.org/doc/37475462/
and in addition.)

So it's not up to me to decide about that anyway nor had it been up to Mr. Mahesh Prasad to do so.

There has been a sort of organization that invited Swami Brahmanda Saraswati to become the Shankaracharya of the North. That organization had decided to take back the responsibility to find the proper person for the post as Shankaracharya of the North after Shankaracharya Shantanand - who had been the first choice of Shankaracharya Swami Brahmanda Saraswati - had stepped back. Swami Shantanand Saraswati had been the Shankaracharya of the North from 1953 to 1980. (See Wikipedia, etc). Maybe, he just stepped back because he had fulfilled his task for about 25 years.

Maybe they had as their line of reason something like this:

Actually, I don't know their reason why they didn't stick to the last will of Shankaracharya Swami Brahmanda Saraswati (see http://www.paulmason.info/gurudev/TheLastInstruction.html). Maybe, those 4 names had been left behind by Swami Brahmanda Saraswati in case the first three wouldn't want to accept that task. Paul Mason reports about these aspect in his book  Dandi Swami Narayananand Saraswati .

It's obvious that not anyone who is offered the post as the Shankaracharya accepts it. Consequently, Swami Brahmanda Saraswati might have decided only about his direct follower as the Shankaracharya of the North and not for 4 followers one after the other.

Anyway, that organization who had decided for Swami Brahmanda Saraswati to become the Shankaracharya of the North finally had decided for Swaroopananda as the above text, from "indology.info/papers/sundaresan/shank-jyot"(See http://indology.info/papers/sundaresan/shank-jyot-ascii/), explains in great detail (that text had been recommended by means of a commentary in the context of a report of some Indian newspaper).

Actually, the final decision of the Supreme Court of Allhabad decided that Swami Vasudevand Saraswati never had been the proper Shankarachary of Jothir Math (after Swami Devananda Saraswati). Yet, the same Court didn't decide either that Swami Swaroopananda had ever been the true Shankarachraya of Jothir Math. 

These are just a matter of fact and not my affairs.

Of course, Swami Brahmananda might have taken all that into account and he had done that list of 4 persons because he had supposed that may-be the one or the other might not stay as the Shankaracharya until his own death.

I really don't want to interfere in that.

It got an affair of Indian court and they will find some solution to that problem someday.

Of course, that last will of Swami Brahmanada Saraswati will be an interesting source for further items. it can be found in some books of Paul Mason.

"sivamayam" (? Internet) state in their biography about Swami Brahmananda Saraswati that he had found his master Swami Krishnanda those days at Uttar Kashi (..maybe that is why Mr. Mahesh Prasad had gone to Uttar Kashi after the death/mahasamadhi of the Shankaracharya Swami Brahmananda Saraswati..)

Now, what tells all that? The question "who is the Shankaracharya of the North" is an inner Indian problem.

Indian courts have been dealing with that question.

It is said that Swami Brahmanda Saraswati had been killed by poison. It is said that Swami Shantanand hadn't yet been trained fully enough for the "job" as Shankaracharya.

Mr. Mahesh had served Swami Brahmananda Saraswati as the Shankacharaya's private secretary for quite a lot of years.

One can only assume that he hadn't done that job that bad.

Further items of information will be found in the books of Paul Mason ("Roots of TM" and his Biography about Mr. Mahesh, etc.)

I wonder why Mr. Mahesh hadn't decided to serve Swami Shantanand Saraswati as a Shankaracharya's secretary as well? Hadn't Swami Brahmananda Saraswati taught him, how to do it?

On the one hand, they said that Swami Shantanand wouldn't or might not yet be "fit" enough. If it had been like that, he would have been in urgent need of a well trained and experienced secretary all the more. Why didn't Mr. Mahesh say: "I have now learned to do the job as a secretary; I now have two professions: B.A. (some say or write that he had even acquired an M.A.) in physics and well-trained secretary to serve a Shankaracharya.

What to do? They are in urgent need of me....?

Mr. Mahesh's decision to have left the seat of the Shankarcharya shows also that Mr. Mahesh had lived there as a result of that verbal agreement with Swami Brahmananda Saraswati and not because of the „Shankaracharya tradition“. Thus the TM-movement can - from that point of view, too - be taken to be independent of the Shankaracharya tradition.

 

Part two: Mr. Mahesh after the Mahasamadhi/death of Swami Brahmanda Saraswati

Why did Mr. Mahesh go to South-India?

Regarding Mr. Mahesh`s activities of teaching one really should know his story about how it came along that he has started to teach even he never had wanted to do that. Mr. Mahesh has reported it as follows:

When he had stayed at Uttar Kashi (after the death of “Guru Dev”), he found an elderly sadhu with whom he “felt well”. They used to sit together practicing their meditation some times. Some day Mr. Mahesh faced a problem with his “staying in samadhi”:

A thought kept on coming into his mind: “Rameshwaram”. It didn`t come all the time but repeatedly; just that thought “Rameshwaram” (a famous Shiva temple in South India). After a while, he asked that elderly sadhu about that “phenomenon”. The elderly sadhu looked at him in a manner like “Oh, it seems that you aren’t yet a real yogi”.

Then the elderly sadhu said: “Go there and come back to get rid of that thought. But, don`t forget that it’s ok down to Haridwar; beyond Haridwar, it’s the world of MAYA”.

(..To be objective, I mention here that at the homepage of – I suppose - Paul Mason I once happened to see a postcard that had been handwritten by Mr. Mahesh. Using that postcard he had given an ok to a wealthy woman to accompany her to South India; and that postcard dates exactly at that time at which - according to his other story - he had got that advice from that elderly sadhu.  ...)

Maybe both stories don't contradict and Mr. Mahesh just had combined both aspects: His problem with that thought and the wish or desire of that wealthy woman.

Maybe too, he hadn't spoken comprehensively truthful to that elderly sadhu and in reality, he wanted advice whether it would be ok to accompany that wealthy woman. Maybe that had been the thought in his mind and not merely „Rameshwaram“. Maybe that woman had just wanted to go to Rameshwaram out of good reasons for pilgrimage and she hadn't wanted to do it without a proper guide because he had once read the Yogavasishta and about the possible dangerous effects that had happened to prince Rama those days. Maybe she had thought Mr. Mahesh to be a reliable guide, maybe she had erred in that appreciation.

He went to South India. There are many possibilities and let's take Mr. Mahesh's "official" story because it's the right decision from the assumption of innocence.

Mr. Mahesh had been the private secretary of the Shankaracharya Swami Brahmanda Saraswati for quite some years and even in that documentary movie "David wants to fly" the present Shankaracharya of Dwakara Swami Swaroopananda has confirmed that Mr. Mahesh had been that private secretary and that he had been in that job until the death of Swami Brahmananda Saraswati. Mr. Mahesh can't have done that job that bad; he can't have been a completely wicked man; he can't have been completely unreliable and a man who had been lying out of habit.)

Mr. Mahesh followed that advise and finally arrived at Rameshwaram. There he went for meditations into the temple for some weeks or even months. After that time, he felt “Now it’s alright, it’s gone” and he started his way back to the valley of the Ganges.

Mr. Mahesh couldn't return in spite of the advice of that elderly sadhu:

Somewhere near Madras, he was approached by a man who had been running a bookshop. That man asked Mr. Mahesh:

“Do you talk?”

Mr. Mahesh replied or maybe just expressed:

“What you call talking, yes, what you call lecturing, no”.

Mr. Mahesh has been quite sure that he had expressed 1) that he hasn’t done a vouch of silence and 2) that he didn't want to give lectures at all and 3) that he didn't want to teach at all.

Yet that man came back and said to Mr .Mahesh that he had announced lectures for him and that he would need the headline for his lecture.

Mr. Mahesh was surprised, “took it to be the will of God”, gave that man the requested themes and asked him for a copy so that he would know about what he would have to lecture about.

Mr. Mahesh has said in the context of his TM teacher training courses that the lecture had been very successful and one such lecture after the other had got organized. Mr. Mahesh Prassad added that just like that the whole “movement” would have come about.

 

By now, this story can be listened to on the internet by means of YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOtPHXmGUEY, "Maharishi speaks on Guru Dev and the history of the movement 4.9.1972"; this Link was ok: 12th of May, 2024, especially starting with Minute 18:00.

To that story about that elderly Sadhu one can listen starting with about Minute 20:30

The story about that thought "Rhameshwaram" is to be found round about Minute 25.25.

The decision  to go to Rhameshwaram can be heard starting from Minute 26:30

The story about his time at Rhameshwaram startes about Minute 30:30.

His decision to return can found starting with  about Minute 32:30

"bring the blessing of the Himalayas to the people in this area", becomes the theme starting with about Minute 33.24

"Do you speak", etc can be heard starting with about Minute 34:30

" 'Where you staying?' - "I told him through some signs..." round about 35:30.

"Maharishi speaks on Guru Dev and the history of the movement 4.9.1972",   in Mr. Mahesh's own words

 

Analysis of that situation which caused Mr. Mahesh not to return to the Ganges valley :

Now, what’s interesting in such a situation?

A man doesn’t want to do something and yet another man creates a situation that the first man shall have to do what he doesn’t want to do.

Besides, that man who has got forced to act had expressed just before, right-away from his own clearly – as he has been convinced - that he would neither want to lecture nor would he want to teach.

According to the standards of the western world, a severe, unacceptable violation of freedom has happened there.

How to explain the reasons for that “violation”?

Western standards call for „assumption of innocence“.

How to explain truthfully „the why and how it has come about“ of that problem?

Tourist guide information from Baedeker's India published about 2000:

In the year about 2000, a tourist guide about India got published by Baedeker and I happened to read in that book a story that Duke Ellington has reported in a biography named "Music my mistress":

Duke Ellington had stayed in South India, near Madras in a posh hotel. He went for dinner in his hotel and took his decision according to the menu card he had been given.

He asked the waiter whether that what he had decided for were available.

The waiter shook his head.

Duke Ellington decided for something else and asked: “Is it available?”

The man shook his head once more.

Like that it went on for about 4 days.

When now Duke Ellington said that he would like to have some oceanic food and asked whether it was available the waiter shook his head again.

Duke Ellington then thought: “We are here next to the ocean and they don’t have oceanic food?” and he took up the decision not to accept any longer the shaking of the head as a “no, we don't have”. And it had just worked. (By the way, that story from Mr. Duke Elington I wrote about is to be found at Baedeker,6th edition, 2009, page 157, The headline is “further source of misunderstandings”).

The story shows clearly that there are parts of India where a certain shaking of the head is used to express a “yes”. (Compare to Bulgaria which is a member of the Europeanean Union.)

 

 

Application an piece of information from Baedeker's tourist guide to that situation of Mr. Mahesh:

Now back to Mr. Mahesh. He didn’t like to use the word “no” as one could see when one has been round about him for a while. Instead of saying “no” he used to shake his head. He used to try to avoid to use the word “no”.

(..I once had just went to Weggis/Switzerland where Mr. Mahesh had resided those days. I had a look at what had been going on there; I just observed it for about a fortnight; I didn't join any activities …). Maybe that trying to avoid the word „no“ was in itself a consequence of what had happened in South India those days in the late 50'th of 1900. In that case his „talking - yes, lecturing – no“

would have been still his conviction, his wish, his only free decision in that context of those tens of years of not having been able to avoid that he god involved into the opposite of that what he has wanted, decided for and has expressed repeatedly.

 

A resulting explanation:

Drawing all together, I suppose that poor Mr. Mahesh had said to that librarian “What you call talking, yes; what you call lecturing”; after these words, he shook his head instead of using the word “no”.

(...Maybe one more reason for that might have been that after so many weeks of silent meditation he had been in a habit of avoiding any word which he thought he could avoid. On the other hand, he had already been on his way back and thus moving his body had already become a habit again. May be had beeing practicing Yoga Asanas besides and thus „moving his body“ never had got out of habit. After weeks of taking silence, not talking, meditation a lot one really can get into a habit of avoiding talking. (Once it had become to me even a little bit ´stressful' to think in terms of German words after I had taken part in an "advanced TM teacher training course" which included 6 times of meditating for about 1/2 an hour a day and 7 times of practicing a set of given Asanas, 16 times of practising Pranayama for about 5 Minutes and furthermore, hadn't neither talked a word for 6 weeks nor had I used German language....)

In this context it's very important, that Mr. Mahesh said those days:

" 'Where you staying?' - "I told him through some signs..."

See: "Maharishi speaks on Guru Dev and the history of the movement 4.9.1972",   in Mr. Mahesh's own words, round about 35:30.

Mr. Mahesh himself mentions that he had used signs in the context of the first meeting with that man, who later came to him again and told that some lectures had been organized for him.

Thus it's not very far-fetched at all to assume that some misunderstaning had happend and that's also the conclusion by looking look at it from the point of view of presumption of innocence.

 

 

Cause and effect:

And it seems to me that thus Mr. Mahesh himself had happened to cause - without his intention - that misunderstanding which he thence has taken to be “the will of God”

He has been fully convinced that he had expressed „I don't want to lecture and that means that he won't want to teach, too“.

The owner of that bookshop has been fully convinced that Mr. Mahesh had said:

„I talk and I even give lectures" and he concluded that to give lectures equals that he would like to teach, too.

Who has made the mistake in this case? Who has caused the trouble in this case?

Mr. Mahesh Prasad's incautious way of answering.

 

More thoughts in this respect:

If Mr. Mahesh would have followed the advice of that elderly sadhu, he would have had to take that - real or seemingly - “violation of his expressed will” as something like: “Oh, that must be due to MAYA and not necessarily due to the will of God. Of course, it's better not to take it to be caused by evil-mindedness but at least it would be best first to draw into account that it might be a phenomenon of misunderstanding and thus a phenomenon of illusion, of MAYA”.

Yet, Mr. Mahesh preferred just to take it to be the will of God. Maybe Mr. Mahesh had forgotten that instruction “Don’t forget, beyond Haridwar is the field of MAYA”.

The advice of that elderly sadhu given to Mr. Mahesh for free would have been an astonishing thoughtful, beautiful, secure, good strategy to handle such problems and it would have fit perfectly to the situation in which Mr. Mahesh had got into.

This shows in what sense it’s very true that Mr. Mahesh “made a fool out of all” (including Himself) as that Song of the Beatles "Sexy Sadie" says.

Whenever the workaround lecturing and teaching had got too much for him, he seemingly left it to others with the lame excuse that “I had said that I don’t want to lecture, you want me to teach, it’s your karma, not mine”. To be more precise one would have to say that Mr. Mahesh had been on piteousness.

It might be good to compare to that song in praise of Yogi Govinda available from Swami Brahmanda Saraswati; the refrain is „you fool“: 'Shri Charpata Panjarika Stotram' ('Bhaja Govindam') sung by Guru Dev: the text is available as booklets in English as well as the German language. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbEDqdJSxoo. (The text is available as booklets in English as well as the German language. for instance, Adi Shankaracharya’s Bhaja Govindam (English Edition ...https://www.amazon.de/Adi-Shankaracharyas-Bhaja-Govindam-English-ebook/dp/B008JZQSHM) Adi Shankaracharya’s Bhaja Govindam (English Edition) eBook: Swami Sukhabodhananda. Amazon.de.)

 

Shankara's story about "snake and rope":

There`s also that story of Shankara (see: Crest Jewel of Discrimination, Viveka-Chudamani; see also Gaudapada's sort of comparison in his commentary to Mandukya Upanishad ) that even Mr. Mahesh has narrated sometimes:

Somewhere there was a rope laying around in some forest. A man has come along and hasn't looked at it clearly and then has started to spread the rumor that a dangerous snake was there.

People were forbidden to go there etc and a big upheaval occured. It went on like that amidst fear and “don’t go there!”, etc until someone looked objectively to that “snake” and saw that it only had been a rope.

(...A newspaper once reported that at the USA a young man had been put into psychiatry because he would have talked stupid, mental sick stuff all the time.

Some day a doctor happened to come along who had once learned to speak a little bit of the Chinese language and He understood that man very well. That man never had talked „mental sick stuff“, he had justed talked in his mother tongue,

namely Chinese language; apparently, he hadn't known to speak the English language; Anyway, that man hadn't been mental sick at all.

Sometimes it's just a matter of properly looking at something, someone, etc....)

A teacher of religion (Pater Wisnet) has told to us at ground school ( in the early 1960th) that once he had been at Papa Neuguinea to spread Christianity. He had to cross a river but it was rather difficult to get down to the river because of the steepness of the bank. Thus he had been very happy when he saw something that he looked at as the solid stem of a tree. Yet, when he had put his foot onto it, he noticed that it had been a boa constrictor, a snake with a length of more than 10 meters.

He had taken a snake to be something like a rope.

Thus that problem as such isn't even foreign to christian cvilization at all. The situation had been rather dangerous for Mr. Wisnet of course.

He would have done well thinking in terms of „I'm in the world of MAYA, let me throw a sophisticated glance, first“.

At a TM-center I once got a witness of the following phenomenon:

One young man had been near finishing his studies. Some TM-teachers in his center now talked to each other in the following sense: "Better we choose him to become the center-leader, now; otherwise he might fall off working for the TM-movement after he would have finished his study; finally working for the TM-movement is the most important thing, it’s like having to do the will of God….” .

See that was some such upheaval like

“don’t go there, there’s a dangerous snake” in the context of “snake and rope”.

Such strange, even dangerous and harmful behavior might result in problems for others, too. As a matter of fact that young man never got into the career which he had chosen before he had started TM.

These two examples show that both sides of that teaching of the philosopher Shankara are of practical importance.

In several tourist guides Shankara, born in south India, is talked about in terms of „philosopher of religion“; he isn't talked about in terms of „founder of religion“.

Another example has been the „discovery“ of America by Mr. Columbus: Mr. Columbus thought himself to be in India and thus assumingly had treated the humans there according to his knowledge about how ordinary people from India had been said to behave unless they would be some criminals, etc.

School books in Germany teach that Mr. Eratostenes from ancient Greece calculated the circumference of the earth rather exactly utilizing some shadow and a well at a certain day (he has used certain laws about Angeles at parallel straight lines) some hundred years before the birth of Jesus.

Surprisingly, Columbus had been able to know the speed of his ship and the average speed of his journey rather precisely (..based that rope with nods in it..) by the time he had seen the land of America for the first time. Additionally, he could have known rather exactly the distance between Europe and India using the path across the Arabian countries, etc.

Thus based on that simple information from Eratosthenes he really should have known that he just hadn't been able to have reached India yet.

If he would have known that then maybe he would have behaved properly to those hitherto unknown human beings who he had met there.

By the way, Shankara is said to have come from the South of India; maybe he had been familiar with exactly that problem of shaking and nodding the head and maybe that had caused him to think about it in a comprehensive objective, sort of philosophical manner.

Mr. Mahesh, according to the line of reasoning in my report, had taken a “'yes' which he had happened to express against his intention” as “I had expressed a no”. Consecutively, he couldn't return at all to that sadhu way of Life which he had wanted to continue when he had left the Ganges Valley to get rid of that thought. According to what that elderly sadhu had said to him Mr. Mahesh has tragically and unhappily died in the field of MAYA.

 

Now, what tells all that?

Conclusion of part I:

The question "who is the Shankaracharya of the North" these days is an inner Indian problem.

Indian courts have been dealing with that question.

It's just an Inner-Indian problem.

 

Conclusion of part II:

If Mr. Mahesh had been mixing up "shaking and nodding the head in South India and thus had got into the world" - It would have been a very Inner-Indian problem.

At least it might have been like that and that would be ok in the sense of „assumption of innocence“. That "Assumption of innocence" would have to be applied to God/the Gods and Goddesses", too. That is why it cannot have been well done, to just have taken it to be the will of God/Gods. No God would ever cause some beeing to get drawn into such problems of misunderstanding/illusion etc; that would contradict the very meaning of the word "God"/Gods&Godesses.

Consequently, the objective conclusion is that it would have been appropriate to search for a good strategy to handle the TM-movement and Mr. Mahesh's activities.

Of course, Mr. Mahesh might have decided to talk only what he had once thus heard by (Shankaracharya) Swami Brahmanda Saraswati. Someone might be on a wrong trip and yet he/she/neither female nor male human being might talk „truthful“, „useful“ things; such a sort of strategy might have been adopted.

Also, it might have been due to that „misunderstanding“ and Mr. Mahesh might have never wanted to become anything else but a real good sadhu and a good, reliable seeker of Truth through having had become a disciple of Swami Brahmanda Saraswati; in this case, he might have constantly fought against all those and everything that seemed to be an obstacle on his path. He might not have bothered much whether he harms, others or not or whether he draws others into his mud of illusion or not.

Furthermore, it's somehow a fact that Mr. Mahesh bothered the whole world with his personal, private problems.

Why had he ever been given a passport to leave India? Why should it ever have been ok for an Indian on the sadhu-way of life to leave India for the sake of talking, teaching, etc?

Mr. Mahesh hadn't left India for the sake of asylum.

Mr. Mahesh hadn't left India either based on a free, clear decision for teaching Yoga to the world. That attachment to teaching some sort of Yoga, meditation, Indian philosophy in general and Vedanta especially, hadn't been due a rationally, clearly, scientifically taken decision.

It seems it had been due to Mr. Mahesh having caused that misunderstanding by using body-language instead of words, Mr. Mahesh never had been pursued in India and thus at court it should have been simple enough to come to the conclusion that because he hadn't been pursued in India and he hasn't a legitimate claim for asylum.

Obviously, Mr. Mahesh never had come out of „touristic“ reasons to the world outside India.

Thus it would have been simple to handle Him in a dignified, truthful and yet decisive manner, on the one hand.

On the other hand, it's a matter of fact what has come about, including more or less problems that have obviously been caused by the „TM-movement“, including more or less forced initiations here and there, the these-days problems at Fair Field Iowa with those children from brahmin caste, destroyed careers, etc.

I don't deny the positive effects of TM and the advantages of getting a little bit insight into classical Indian philosophy, teachings like Bhagavad Gita, Shankara's jewel crest of discrimination, Yogavasishta, Swami Brahmanda Saraswati, classical Indian fairy tales, Anuradha Paudwal, and her Shakti-song, Devi-prayer, etc.

Looking at the result, namely the TM-movement, and to the situation that it looks to be the truth that rather view people got into problems because of the TM-movement and quite a lot of people got desirable, good results that were rather well within that sort of predictions that had been given in the introductory lectures it might have been not that difficult to accept the fact of problems in the life of at least some people and to handle those rather few people who have obviously got into problems because of the TM-movement in a dignified manner by means of insurance. That would have required that the TM-organizations would have been such that the TM-teachers either have got insured by the TM-organizations whenever they do/did initiation or it would have been necessary for any single TM-teacher to go for his private insurance and without that he/she would not have been allowed to initiate. (Maybe it can rather well be compared to the license for driving a car. Getting the license is the one thing; driving a car is another thing. For actually driving a car one has to have certain insurance - at least in Germany and the EU.)

But some things can't be said to be ok for sure:

Some initiators violated the principle of not had been allowed to initiate anyone of minor age without written permission of the parents and then the TM-movement and the society have tried to give the debt to that youngster/those youngsters in a very cruel and stupid manner.

Some initiators gave wrong promises.

Some initiators interfered into private affairs of TM-practitioners

Some initiators didn't stick to the routines of teaching.

Some initiators misused the privacy of an initiation room as a basis for certain later sexual incorrectness, etc (...comparable to the well-known problems of the roman catholic church in the past..: It cannot be said to have been ok if a 35 years old TM-teacher had a fourteen-year-old girl as his girlfriend. Having even been her initiator some few years ago, he knew her from there and only from there and thus that hadn't been alright at all! If Mr. Mahesh had been introduced as "His Holiness..." and some lady has reported in the movie "David wants to fly" - by Mr. Sieveking - certain sexual activities regarding Mr. Mahesh and her later on, then that doesn't match to "His Holiness". )

If one looks back to what Swami Brahmanda Saraswati has said to the young Mr. Mahesh when he had asked him to be allowed to become his student one cannot but accept that Swami Brahmananda had said; "Better first finish your study - then you may come".

Thus the appropriate, safe - and much safer - rule would have been: If a pupil or a student wants to help in the TM-center or applies for becoming a TM-teacher decide according to "better first finish your study, then you may come!"

Also, it doesn't make sense nor has it ever been necessary for the growth of the TM-movement that financially not self-sufficient people have worked fulltime for the TM-movement. Thus one never should have allowed those people to work fulltime for the TM-movement. Better a life as good as humans obviously can do (...see above as general overview for instance, that menu-point "Gut-Möglich", which I haven't yet translated into English until August 2019, sorry...) and once you are retired and have a regular income from aging insurance or well earned enough wealth you may come.

Unfortunately, the TM-movement hasn't taken care of it's - seemingly rather few - victims voluntarily. Thus, it seems appropriate that the state authorities create suitable rules to be followed by law.

Furthermore, those problems of submerging would have to be taken care of. One might, for instance, decide that all TM-teachers are only allowed to teach in the nearer surroundings where they live. Even the TM-teacher-training courses might better be given on a regional scale. As long as there are no TM-centers, etc in some regions of the world, it would be best not to be allowed to decide for anything else but for the next TM-center and not for far-off TM-centers, TM-teacher-training courses, etc. Shankara's concept of 4 seats of learning in the 4 corners of India (south, east, west, north) points into that direction anyway.

But all those are questions for specialists of law, organizations, insurances and not for me. Accidentally, I know from some climbing facility of the German Mountain Club - and climbing is a dangerous sort of athletics for sure - that the general problem with those of minor age can be handled in a much better way than it had been the case in the TM-movement. The members of that mountain club, by the way, have special insurance in the case of accidents, etc in the context of their athletic mountain activities. Mr. Gopi Krishna has written a rather shocking book "Kundalini" (in german language for instance published by O.W.Barth.Verlag); of course, his case is very special and whether it ever has been caused by the awakening of Kundalini or by wrong feasting, too much of or wrong asceticism (Buddha has warned, too that too much of asceticism might harm more than it helps), etc in the years before is a completely other question. Anyway, suitable insurance in such a case would be helpful as it has been in the personal life of Mr. Gopi Kirshna and others.

 

 

Part III: Last Will of Swami Brahmananda Saraswati:

One should know one more fact: When Mr. Mahesh has talked about the death of Swami Brahmananda Saraswati, his “Guru Dev”, he used to say, that after a while some little paper with just 3 names on it appeared and it was taken to be his “last will” about who should become the Shankaracharya of the North after his death.

On the Internet, however, one can find an official last will given by Swami Brahmanda Saraswati (For instance, this is mentioned in the context of the final decision of the Supreme Court of Allahabad.) that had been done by the help of a notary and that had been deposited at the notary.

That was not a small paper with just 3 names on it! Mr. Mahesh had been the private secretary of Swami Brahmanda Saraswati over many years (the present Shankaracharya of Dwakara - and one of those who got claimed to be the present Shankaracharya of the North - has approved that as a witness - Swami Swaroopananda Saraswati has taken part in an interview that got part of the movie “David wants to fly”- ).

As the private secretary, I think, Mr. Mahesh should have known very well that an official last will had been done and that it was that document that “was found” after the sudden death of the Jagad Guru of Jothir Math in 1953.

Thus, I’m sorry, it is the truth that Mr. Mahesh didn’t tell the truth always; he had thus tried to make himself “to look greater” and the Shankaracharyas – that had been initiated into sannyasin and who had been selected by Swami Brahmanda Saraswati as those who were able to pass on his teachings in a certain reliable manner – to look like “rather unimportant”.

 

The situation since the stepping back of Shankaracharya Shantanand might have added to his scant regard of what has been going on at Jothir Math after the Mahasamadhi of Swami Brahmanda Saraswati. Mr. Mahesh had never been initiated into sannyasin, he hadn't either decided to serve the Shankaracharya tradition as private secretary of Shankaracharya Shantanand nor to stay at the seat of the Shankaracharya of the North, at Jothir Math. Thus it's not devoid of logic that he just didn't bother about all that. He might have been indifferent towards whether that what has been found after the death of his master was an official last will, a small sheet of paper or whatsoever.

Yet he should have stayed with the mere fact that there has existed an official last will. His attitude in that respect wasn't scientific at all.

 

 

Part IV: The TM-movement attacked by revolutionists?

The facts and Mr. Mahesh's attempts for explanation:

I have happened to listen to a certain video that showed Mr. Mahesh talking about the communistic revolution in Ethiopia that took place right at the end of his teacher training course at Ethiopia in 1974. (…the first TTC-course on “African ground” as he said..) repeatedly.

I heard his "lecture", his spoken opinion about that several times (4-5 times altogether) from about the end of 1974 to spring 1976.

I could listen to it in rather short intervals of time; any 4 1/2 months I have happened to hear that "lecture".

Mr. Mahesh has explained that as a matter of fact, that revolution had taken place shortly after his course had come to an end.

(Mr. Heile Selassi got assassinated as a result of that by the way; more about that can easily be found on the Internet).

Mr. Mahesh had been somehow deeply shocked and – different from other shocks – he somehow couldn’t get rid of it anymore.

There was that feeling that it had to do with his course.

Mr. Mahesh tried to explain what had taken place and he suddenly stopped to even try to talk in those scientific terms that he had been trying to maintain throughout so many years.

Mr. Mahesh said that as a result of so many people practicing TM – at such a rather small spot – quite a lot of ‘sattva’ might have been produced. When the course had ended that production of sattva would have come to a sudden end and as a result of that lack of affluence of sattva such a thing as that revolution might have happened.

(...What had he thus also said? He said that TM would be a very dangerous something if it would be practiced in larger groups more often a day...)

It was obvious that he hasn’t understood what had happened; he has been searching for an explanation to soften down that deep feeling within him that there had been some “link” between his course (...better expression would probably be: between „him“...) and that revolution. Of course, he hadn't wanted to get drawn into things like a communistic revolution. He has used to talk in favor of evolution and has used to reject that principle of communistic revolution. (...I remember quite well an audio-tape that I once heard between 1971 and 1972. Mr. Mahesh had been asked about communism and he stated that he would reject revolution and would be in favor of evolution. Of course, that had just been words.)

Organizational changes as a result:

His explanation about those happenings in Ethiopia never could convince me.

Consequently, Mr. Mahesh passed on all organizational responsibilities to the so-called “board of directors” after that revolution had taken place.

Within about 1 year the “TM-movement” got changed into something that got labeled – for instance – by the German government as well as by German courts as a dangerous sect.

There had been a very strong, dominating influence of the US-TM-organizations; there had been the rumor that “sects” would have advantages in the field of tax and that would be the reason for those strange changes which haven't been supported anymore by some TM-teachers – including me -.

That principle of „locally available centers for teaching“ whose teachings would have had to meet the standards given by Rishi Vasishta, Shakti, Narada, Vyasa, King Janaka, Shukadeva, Gaudapada, Yogi Govinda, Shankara, the great masters of the Vedic knowledge and would have to be in accordance with truthful, basic principles of the so-called „Western Science“ had been something else and got more and more lost since Mr. Mahesh – as a matter of fact - didn't take anymore care himself of the organizational aspects.

Till then there had been that sort of freedom, of tolerance, of lively interest in the field of knowledge and afterward more and more rigid boundaries have become existent; suddenly they started to organize separation on the Basis of Sex: Own courses for the ladies and own courses for the males, etc; they started to interfere into personal fields which never had been their affair.

After all, that looks like a somehow good mark for Mr. Mahesh in spite of all the mistakes that had been done by TM-teachers in contradiction to what they had known to have been the teaching of Mr. Mahesh regarding organizational stuff:

A Student of the economy initiated me into TM in sprint 1971. That student passed his examen successfully about half a year later. He did that personal interview and when he got to my age he said to me: You are of minor age and that's why you have to bring written permission from your parents. He got as an answer by me: For sure, such permission won't be given to me and I don't mind anyway because 1) I only have been forced to try to learn it because of my teacher (of a stately school) of German language and 2) I might come 2 years later equally well. I really mentioned that I had only come because of a lecture at school and I felt happy about the situation that it'll come to a happy end because I just wouldn't get initiated into TM anyway and thus would get a chance to tell at school that I won't be able to answer that question - which I hadn't been able to answer - because I would have required written permission of my parents – and not the misdoings, manipulations and harmful interferences into the rights for education of my parents by that stupid teacher of German language – and that as a matter of fact I just didn't get initiated into TM.

So to make it clear: At school I had to give a lecture in the context of that subject called "German Language". The teacher had allowed us to give proposals for a theme. All my mindful proposals got rejected by that teacher in a very rigid and hurting manner. "The Responsibility of a Scientist using the example chemistry and the problem of the environmental pollution", "Atomic reactors and the scientific facts, their history, problems of social acceptance, military aspects and the problem of getting rid of the atomic, highly radioactive waste", and many more of such suggestions had been offered by me. All that got rigorously rejected. Finally, I went to a public library in search of a literary theme and I had found: Jean-Paul Sartre, "der Ekel" which would have been very suitable because at school I have learned "French" as the second foreign language. Jean-Paul Sartre had been a member of the Résistance under the guidance of general De Gaule and he had fought against the NAZIS. That very strange sort of teacher rejected even that theme in a hurting manner: "Oh, Sartre, Sartre isn't good at all". (Maybe that teacher had got to know Sartre during the second world war when both had been fighting against each other; only that "teacher" would have been fighting on the side of the NAZIS and "Sir" Sartre against the NAZI-Terrorism). Finally, I said": Maybe "The Science of Being and Art of Living, written by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi would be a suitable theme? What do you think about that? ( A friend girl of mine had taken me along to a lecture about TM at the end of the summer vacations. She had wanted to learn TM very urgently. Yet, learning and starting TM had been rejected by me at the end of the lecture. Anyway, from there I had known that book and the undeniable fact that it's possible to give a speech of a length of about 75 minutes on that theme.) That somewhat Anti-teacher rejected Sartre and selected Mr. Mahesh. When I started for the search of literature I got into problems: In not any public library including the famous, huge "Bayerische Staatsbibliothek" (there are only 3 libraries like that in the world: the other two are in London/UK and New York/USA; one copy of any book with an ISBN-number had to be given for free to all these three libraries) could get that book of that Mr.Mahesh. In contradiction and in spite of that commandment given by the allied forces after second world war to the Bavarian Government that they have to offer freedom of means of learning and freedom of means of teaching - at all stately schools with mostly pupils of minor age - for all times to come, I couldn't even buy that book of Mr. Mahesh at the public bookshops in Munich which isn't hasn't been such a small town either. There hadn't been any other choice but to enter a TM-center for trying to buy it there. Ironically, a very experienced TM-teacher who had been working as a customs officer guard (not lowest level, he has been "Zollamtman") told me years later that to sell books at the TM-centers hadn't been ok form the point of view of the law, too. Wou, how much more could a teacher push a pupil outside the field of safety?

Besides, that very unusual and very strange kind of stately teacher had pushed me between the frontlines of the cold-war the week before by making the paying of a visit to East-Berlin an obligatory part of that school excursion to Berlin. Thus he had violated the basic rights of freedom for one afternoon.

Two members of the class violated some law of East Berlin and I got pilled subconscious the day afterward.

That teacher didn't take care of my having been absent all over the night because of some Ko-pills.

My friend girl's letter didn't arrive properly at Berlin during that week and shortly afterward unknown persons have robbed out her letterbox in Munich twice.

So much to my situation and part of my background those days when I have still been of a minor age for about two more years.

 

Now, let's go back to Mr. Mahesh:

In contradiction to what he had just told me to be the organizational rules given by Mr. Mahesh, that rather well educated TM-teacher (student, 1/2 a year before ending his study of the economics successfully) just gave me a date for initiation, forced me thus to ask my parents for that written permission and then - when I had only come to say politely good-bye - he just initiated me without having ever got a written permission from my parents! Later some spread the rumor that I would have falsified the signature of my parents. To say it clear once forever: I never falsified the signature of my parents!

Mr. Mahesh Prasad mustn't be blamed for that and similar mistakes of TM-teachers. That TM-teacher had enough general educatedness. In this special case one can't even say that it would have been Mr. Mahesh's mistake to have accepted Him to become a TM-teacher unless one would say that to train TM-teachers had been a mistake at all).

Assassination of Tatwale Baba:

One more – may be - linked fact in that context is that Tatwale Baba got assassinated at the end of 1974.

Tatwale Baba had lived in a cave near the “ashram” of Mr. Mahesh and (..as I had been told by some TM-teacher already about 1971 who had been deeply shocked when he had heard about the death of Tatwale Baba in 1974 ..) Mr. Mahesh is said to have used to send someone of his helpers to Tatwale Baba to ask him to come down into his ashram from time to time. (...regarding at least some of those early TM teacher training courses that had still been done at Rishikesh...)

Tatwale Baba then talked to those TM-practitioners, answered questions, …

Tatwale Baba had been a sort of friend of Mr. Mahesh.

(See on Internet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JusE_IWSnTk

Paul Mason quoted in one of his former reports on the internet a Swami that it had been Tat Wale Baba who had been asked by Mr. Mahesh about that thought "Rameshwaram" and thus it had been Tat Wale Baba who once had recommended Mr. Mahesh to go there and to come back and not to forget that he would be in the field of Maya outside the valley of the Ganges.)

Thus those two attacks - that had been attacks against Mr. Mahesh in the above sense - happened within a short period:

The assassination of a friend and the revolution in Ethiopia.

He who had assassinated Tat Wale Baba regained his freedom already after about only 1 year of prison, by the way. (see internet report. Whether there has been a real connection between those two affairs or not is another issue. The point is that Mr. Mahesh hasn't known whether there is a connection or not and thus he has been bothered ).

 

 

My explanation and further facts:

When I had heard Mr. Mahesh’s talk twice within only 4 1/2 months and after having heard it 4-5 times altogether I suddenly started to remember those reports of German politicians like Dr h.c. Franz Josef Strauß, documentaries in TV, etc regarding those young supporters of communism – especially – in 1968: “Long way through the stately organizations to convert there functioning eventually”.

I got to the result that another possible explanation – leaving Mr. Mahesh’s explanations as a hypothesis – would have been and would have had to be drawn into consideration out of reasons of objectivity, safety, and truth, namely:

Some such young supporters of communism had failed to infiltrate those stately organizations and they had – maybe – altered their plan to infiltrate international organizations like the TM-movement in the hope to be someday able to manage a turn-over towards communism in India, Nepal, etc.

I remembered the TM-course at Kössen in autumn 1971 which had been attended by Mr. Mahesh (...Bramcharya Satyananda had been present, too...…).

First I've to explain my situation in the context of that TM-movement:

I had been practicing TM since spring 1971; I had still been of minor age until early 1973, I hadn’t got written permission by my parents for learning TM, etc. Of course, I hadn’t falsified such permission! - Some people in the TM movement stated later that I would have falsified. Those are lying! -.

I had not been able to avoid to ask for initiation because my teacher of German language and Geography had violated the law that should guarantee the means of freedom of learning and means of freedom of teaching.

Thus I have had a pupil-like objective approach to that TM-movement and I hadn't started from my own at all.

If that teacher would not have interfered I hadn't asked for initiation before I would have had reached full age; if I ever would have asked for initiation in TM I don't know, because I hadn't taken any decision regarding that...

My presence at Kössen and what I got to know there, too:

(..I had been there without written permission from my parents because no-one from the side of the organizers had asked for that at all. I had had to apply for that course at the German SRM in those days. I didn't know anything about "rounding' and no-one had explained to me how to do it, etc. When I had been checking in I merely got a sheet of paper with the information to do 6 rounds a day and to take part in all the meetings; as one of minor age, I should take a seat in one of those two rows rather in front. I only took part in the days in the middle of those 4 weeks...)

Some people here and there said to me at that course at Kössen/Austria in autumn 1971:

” Oh look that man there, he was/has been one leader of the student’s big demonstrations in 1968.

Look at Him, He was/has been chief-ideologist of SDS – Socialistic German Club of Students -“, etc.

In the context of that course, someone suggested to Mr. Mahesh that someone should take care of the TM movement's relationship with the Soviet Union.

Mr. Mahesh then gave that job to a certain Mr. Peter Hübner. Mr. Mahesh said literally to Him: “Take a Mercedes and go”. (... I remember that very well because it sounded very un-yogic...)

Mr. Mahesh had wanted – until about 1976 – that all over the world there should have been five organizations for spreading TM; he somehow liked that idea: “5 senses,5 organs of action, 5 TM-organizations“.

Yet, P.H. has founded a 6’th organization, his organization, in Germany early in 1972.

That organization had been different. P. H. selected the people who had been his local representatives.

A young Dr. of philosophy had become P. H.’s man in Munich. (See Dr. Hans Vater's own book. It's available in English language, too: "At the Feet of Maharishi: My Time with the Master" September 2020, translated by Anjali Mahaldar.)

That Dr. said to me once (in the context of a weekend-TM-Course at Kössen a few years later): “I have been a convinced communist until I started TM”.

The German expression for “until” is „bis“ and that word has two meanings in the German language:

1. It can just mean „until“ (a preposition of time)

2. It can mean “I was so convinced to even to do such an ugly and useless thing as to learn TM and to disguise myself as a TM-teacher” as well.

How many of those "former" communists had been brought together by Peter Hübner?

All that I remembered when I had listened to that speech of Mr. Mahesh about the Ethiopian communistic revolution in spring 1976.

Aha, maybe they had disguised themselves as TM-teachers to be able to get into other countries and to be able to communicate with each other in a hidden manner for the sake of managing those revolutions.

By the time the Soviet Union had come to its end, communism in Ethiopia came to its end, too.

 

Yuri Bezmenow's report in the US-TV:

Somehow that would fit very well to what Mr. Yuri Bezmenov has been talking about. (I have got that itemn of information from a homepage named „Beatles Bible“; someone added commentary and placed– thanks to him/her/them - that piece of information there. Thank you to those who have made that commentary available, too.)

Yuri Bezmenov, a former member of KGB, has delivered an explanation, too:

Mr. Bezmenow had been KGB-agent and fled to the USA disguised as Hippie in late 1970. There's a video at yo tube with an interview done by Mr. Griffin. Mr. Bezmenov tried to explain to the USA the concept of "deception" which he had been trained for.

(One might look for instance to G.Edward Griffin's Interview with Yuri Bezmenov, https://www.youtube/....; - a translation into the German language I once have found at Dolomiten-Blog), Jun 21, 2009... - This is an interview done by G.Edward Grifin in the early 1980s with Soviet Defector Yuri Bezmenov ...

In some part of that interview, Mr. Bezmenov showed a foto that showed Him together with his boss and Mr. Mahesh. Mr. Bezmenow explained that the KGB had quite a lot of interest in Mr. Mahesh.

Of course, I do not join the idea in Mr. Brezmenow's report that all those who have been practicing TM, Yoga, etc are fools. Freedom can yield unexpected effects. Those attempts to have somehow tried to calculate emotions, etc to turn free human beings to willing followers of the stupid atheistic theories of that cruel Mr. Lenin - who himself gave the commandment to kill the imprisoned last „Zar“ and all of his family, including the small children - and others might very unexpectedly turn out to have caused very different effects. After all, it is the Soviet Union and KGB that ended in the 1980th and not the attempts for a dignified free world.

One has to be very cautious with Juri Bezmenov's report. He has mentioned that by that means of deception any state might be brought into severe problems within about 20 years; then he added that by turning to nationalism and patriotism that process might be overcome within about 30 years. Ín fact, Yuri Bezmenow hadn't very long in that profession as KGB-agent with deception as his Job. What he talked about the methode of deception, was really his own knowledge because he had been trained to do so and he had practised it for some years in India. So there he was in a position to have talked about facts. Yet, what he stated about those "20 years of deception and the consequences from such activities over such a long period of time", he cannot have known from his own experience; it's obvious that he had believed that. Because he knew that only due his "belief", he might have been a victim of deception - as a planful part of the training which he had received  - in this itemn. Thus, those who have believed him might have done a very severe mistake.

The German magazine „Spiegel“ reported in their first edition in January 2000 that Sigmund Freud had attempted to destroy „religious devoutness“ through his psychic methods. Spiegel reported that somehow the opposite had taken place. Sigmund Freud had taught that one could say in general that „religious devoutness“ would be a sort of sickness that he had called „Kollektive Zwangsneurose“.

Sigmund Freud and Karl Marx have one thing in common: The science of statistics and the science of decision-making theory (including game theory, vector optimization, etc) hadn't been properly invented, yet; in fact, it hadn't been available for them. (Mr. Freud had finished already his main theories.)

Sir Isaac Newton had been in a similar situation. But he invented that required „Calculus“ properly by himself.

Sigmund Freud and Karl Marx had expressed their fanciful ideas and the tools to seriously check those „theories“ themselves had neither been available nor had they invented those required mathematical skills properly. Their incapability to have invented those tools properly first do they and their teachings have in common.

My personal decision to leave the TM-movement abruptly because it had been impossible otherwise.

It was in spring 1976 when I decided to leave the TM-movement as harmoniously as possible and as abruptly as necessary.

I didn't talk much about my above insights/supposals.

In the TM-movement there had started that rumor that the CIA had got interested in the TM-movement. Of course, the rumor had been that their results had been very positive and not at all ending up in doubting TM as such, doubting the usefulness of that spreading TM, etc. That was just rumor in favor of the TM-movement.

Being a German I didn't see any necessity to approach CIA from my own.

(After all, the KGB's method had been, to keep distance to those leftists, als Juri Bezmenow has pointed out. In my opinion, if some such leftist succeeded in managing some successfull communistic revolution in some country, then the KGB would have taken over the control to avoid such vast amounts of cruelties as had been commited by Stalin, Mao and others. Thus they would have been doing only some good.)

I thought that such things like the Ethiopian communistic revolution might be something for the CIA (not that cruel and stupid club or maybe sub-club who had been committing torturing, kidnapping, etc later) but for sure not for me.

I sometimes mentioned those facts when talking to German state officials and I was rather astonished that the German state authorities hadn't been very interested in it at all.

My natural person to deal with would have been the ministry of education. Yet they had only been busy to defend that Anti-teacher and they neither didn't want to know facts nor had they been willing to draw logical conclusions. They kept on practicing "not wanting to know on the one hand and not wanting to understand on the other hand". Only with the military secret service, the MAD, I could talk about those themes in a neutral, objective, useful, welcome manner; but that dates to 1984. The result of the conversation with the MAD was that the police authorities didn't bloc anymore completely. But willing to do their job well or even best would have been another thing.You know, it's like someone has committed murder and for the sake of trying to avoid being identified as the assassinator, that person commits further murder. Like that the ministry of education and others preferred to fight against me.

 

If I trace back to how I had got into the TM-movement at all, I won't be able but to state that it has been that teacher of a stately German school who had violated that commandment of the Allied Military Government that had taken care of Germany after world war II and who have done a good job with their basic principles for a proper school system. That teacher had violated the freedom of the means of learning and the means of teaching. Above all, I got to the fact that Yuri Bezmenov had fled to the USA in autumn 1970. That teacher Mr. W. S. had chosen that theme "Science of Being and Art of Living", that TM-theme for my compulsory lecture in the context of the school subject "German language" and that lecture of mine took place on the 10th of March, 1971. Thus the secret services of Germany - who had to cooperate with the USA anyway - had had enough time to stop that teacher's stupidities. Even though Mr. Bezmenov had warned the west in autumn 1970 that German teacher still had been able to force a pupil of minor age into that submerged "TM-world".

 

The untold story of Dr. Deepak Chopra:

By the way: Dr. Deepak Chopra has written an interesting and informing article: >> The Maharishi Years - The Untold Story: Recollections of a Former Disciple (11/17/2011 08:22 am ET).

A short re-narration done by me:

...August 1, 1991 one of his books has been published.

...he took part in a meditation course in Fairfield, Iowa/USA those days.

... Mr. Mahesh had been in India those days and wanted to phone to the cource particpants; yet his phone-call didn't come.

... He felt that he should call his father in regard of Mr. Mahesh's health a few hours later.

... His father told him the medical details (kidney failure and afterwards heart attack and so on); he got to know that some foreigner had brought him some orange juice just before.

... Someone brought Mr. Dr.Deepak Chopra to India in a hurry.

... After he and his father had been able to stabilize the physiology of Mr. Mahesh, Mr. Mahesh was brought to a special hospital (the London Heart Hospital)

... Mr. Mahesh died shortly before they had been able to reach the hospital.

... A cardio assist from the near Hospital and Dr. Chopra succeeded in reviving Mr. Mahesh.

... Inspite all efforts, the doctors declared Mr. Mahesh to be dead after a while of having had tried their best.

... Dr. Chopra asked them to maintain the functioning of all those machines which had been maintaining Mr. Mahesh's bodily functions because he wanted to ask Mr. Mahesh's relatives for their consent to switch them off.

... A few days were passing and all of a sudden Mr. Mahesh recovered; heart-beat, breath and the functioing of the kidneys came back.

... It took some time until he could leave the hospital and a long time together with Dr. chopra afterwards. Altogether the recovering took about 1 whole year.

... Dr Chopra and Mr. Mahesh got to know each other very well. Dr. Chopra realized that Mr. Mahesh had a really good knowledge about Vedanta.

For details please read Dr. Chopra's report which has been available on the internet. Several Webseites offered  a possibility ro read. Dr. Chopras report online; this has been the case 15th of May, 2024  and  serveral years before, too.

 

Conclusions:

Now, there are two explanations for what resulted in that communistic revolution with all it's resulting horror:

i) Mr. Mahesh's rather esoterically sounding explanation

ii) That explanation of mine which has got support by Yuri Bezmenow's remarks on the US-TV.

 

Which advice can be derived from the mathematical decision-making theories?

Mr. Mahesh concluded that something beautiful has been found and he concluded two things from there: a) How to intensify that effect? As a result, he started his "TM-siddhi-program". b) Mr. Mahesh assembled willing followers to make experiments, for instance in Nigeria. In Nigeria had been a crisis and Mr. Mahesh sent his "group-meditators" including "yogic flyers" there to produce "sattva" for bringing order to Nigeria as his gift.

Now, what might have been the result of such a conclusion, if my "theory" would have been true?

Mr. Mahesh would have served those revolutionists against his intentions. So that would have resulted in the opposite of his plans: An even bigger catastrophe for Mr. Mahesh's emotions and the evaluation of his activities might have been the result. Such a decision ist called "very stupid" by the decision-making theory. Of course, such revolutionists wouldn't be prepared to do revolution in any country even Mr. Mahesh offers them a well-disguised entrance. But if Mr. Mahesh made a routine out of it, that would serve them best. The result of Mr. Mahesh's strategy couldn't be anything else but getting labeled as "very dangerous".

What would have been the result, if Mr. Mahesh had concluded from my theory?

Mr. Mahesh would have tried to avoid such infiltration. He might have made an organizational law that TM-teachers mustn't teach in any other country but the country in which they live. An increase in the international reliability of the TM-movement would have resulted. He could have continued his teachings in a saver manner and a more relaxed atmosphere.

Maybe such a few restrictions for the TM-initiators would have resulted even though they hadn't been necessary at all, namely, in case my theory had been wrong and the connectedness to that revolution would have been something like mere chance.

But in this worst case, severe damage for the TM-movement couldn't have resulted. A loss for millions of people - who might have learned TM and enjoyed its advantages for life - could not have been the result. Starting from my theory, the worst-case will have brought about fewer damages for the TM-movement than the worst-case from Mr. Mahesh's theory. If one had adopted Mr. Mahesh's theory it might have resulted in "helping such revolutionists" and losing international acceptability.

Sorry, Mr. Mahesh has gone the wrong way.
That's all the stranger when one draws into account that there has been that "Maharishi International University" which had already been fully accredited for offering courses to get an M.A. in "social rehabilitation".

 

 

That TM is a fine thing, it works, it's natural, it's enjoyable. (According to Paul Mason, an experienced British journalist, once even Shankaracharya Shantanand Saraswati had come to Rishikesh to give a lecture to the participants of a TM teacher training course. (for detailed information see Wikipedia about Shankarcharya Shantanand). But thus unwise, non-scientific,foolhardy decisions - like those in response to the Ethiopian revolution in 1974 and the publishment of a 1%-effect - of Mr. Mahesh have caused severe damage. In that regard, I cannot understand the inability of that Maharishi International University and their inability to have served Mr. Mahesh in a better manner.

The whole of the Bhagavad Gita is how to deal with gambling and how to avoid the problems which can arise from taking part in gambling.
This shows in addition that is has been very stupid to hamper the progress of my study. Yes, I had been forced to start TM and that has been illegal. Yes, I finished my study of mathematics too late to had been able to help Mr. Mahesh and this shows: To had hampered my duties as a student of mathematics was like committing murder to avoid getting identified as an assassinator of someone else. It has only been stupid and disadvantageous for many.

Furthermore, Mr. Mahesh had once promised that the statements about that transcendental meditation which he has taught were verifiable by the practice of it.

In fact, the statements which he made regarding "production of sattva" or, as he has expressed it later, the 1%-effect, are out of the principles of transcendental meditation itself not verifiable by the practice of transcendental meditation! If one looks at that from the viewpoint of decision-making theories, any acceptable result would have contained not to believe in that 1%-effect, not to do advertising with it, not to make it a part of the TM-teaching. (Effects of such infiltration cannot be proven by blindly giving another chance.)

Fine, sich a 1%-effect might exist; but it's not verifiable by means of TM and thus "it's of no importance for the TM-teaching at all", would have been the proper attitude towards that 1%-effect.

The other consideration has led to the result that one would have had to take care of better organizational rules to avoid infiltration.

Unfortunately, Mr. Mahesh has failed in both respects, he went astray.

One cannot blame Mr. Mahesh for not having learned decision-making theories during his times at the university. He had studied some physics and obviously physics and technology suffer from a severe lack of knowledge about decision-making theories: Atom reactors got produced and supported and they hadn't solved the problem of getting rid of the radioactive waste, afterwards. The same problem in chemistry: Plastics have been produced en masse and they didn't know about all the problems resulting from it. Ozonhole has been created by some chemicals which they had produced. It's the same situation in other fields, too: Trees have been cut and forests have been dissolved and now there's climate change and climate catastrophe. Animals have been hunted and one neither did know nor knows about birth&rebirth and that a Life in harmony would be possible on earth. One doesn't try for life as good as possible because it is said that perfection wouldn't be possible on earth anyway. One cannot kill an elephant by chance, yes; but because one might kill an ant by chance the killing as such is erred to be allowed and in that name and by relying on such mistakes they started on killing elephants, cows, sheep, goats, cats, dogs, lions, tigers, humans, gorillas, chimpanzees, etc. The list of stupidities and foolishness is very long. Such an attitude of not bothering about the consequences of one's actions has been the theme of the Bhagavad Gita. Unfortunately, Mr. Mahesh knew about a good method of meditation but he didn't meet the necessary requirements for the whole.

 

Remarks:

i) communsism:

I don’t say that all communists commit persecution. Communism and Socialism are attempts to deal with certain social problems, It’s a matter of vector optimization because one has to do with two goals at a time. Neither 100% socialism nor 100% individualism has been turned out to had been able to solve certain problems. Some problems are dealt with in a socialistic manner better than through 100% of privatization and vice-versa. It’s a matter of distributing certain tasks.

Calculations by me once delivered as the result: "fifty-fifty is best". I didn't draw into account details but just the fact of "one doesn't know which one is better" and by now, there are those discussions and social experiments going on for more than 100 years. For that, I had used "vector-optimization" because it's a problem similar to the allocation of responsibilities.

 

ii) The problem of infiltration in general:

Furthermore, it has to be mentioned that infiltration is a severe problem which also states, companies have been suffering from. The "Intra-Net" of the "Deutscher Bundestag" - the assembly of the members of the German parliament - became infiltrated by malware, etc in 2018.

The German Chancellor Willy Brandt had suffered infiltration by that spy, named Guillaume. It started in 1957 and didn't stop earlier than in April 1974.
Two experts for sectism of the Roman Catholic and Lutheran church, Dr. Hans Löffelmann, and Friedhelm Haak had created something like a small self-help group for the relatives of people who had got into real or imaginary problems because of some sects, etc in 1970. That organization - in short, "Elterninitiative" - became infiltrated by a physician who kept on trying parents to go for "Deprogramming" and as my mother - who had also gone there - told me, that physician had at least succeeded in some cases. Ironically, an organization of those declared opponents of Mr. Mahesh, Transcendental Meditation had got infiltrated, too. When I told Hans Löffelmann in about 2009 that they had got infiltrated, he first denied it. After I had mentioned just one case, he lost control, got very furious, mentioned the name of that physician, defended some psychologist who is called "expert for sects" these days. Yet, that psychologist was said to have been away in such subgroups, too. Hans explained to me that he and Mr. Haak have been declared opponents of "Deprogramming" and those cases of that "Deprogramming" must have clandestinely happened. Strange enough, Mr. Haak had been the leader of that self-help group for a while.

Astonishingly, even though infiltration would also have been an important theme for them, both never have shown any compassion for Mr. Mahesh.
To my surprise, cardinal Ratzinger, the later Pope Benedict XVI, dismissed Hans Löffelmann. Hans used all means of the law, but couldn't avoid it.
The successor, Hans Liebl, handled his job differently. He kept away from that "Elterninitiative" and when I mentioned to Him Duke Ellington's story form the Baedeker about "yes and no" in respect to those well-known headmovements, he expressed compassion for Mr. Mahesh. He narrated me that once he had been near the Bulgarian border in northern Greece where a certain nodding of the head is an expression for "no". Hans Liebl said to me: "Really, one can get in a state of complete disorder due to that."

To my surprise, the German Government has never changed its harsh condemnation since about 1975. There has come no single help, no explanations designed as to help, no compassion, only condemnation.

Prof. Paul Deussen has finished and published his translation (into the German language) of the Vedanta including Shankara's commentaries in 1887 and the German government from 1960 until today had been caught off completely by the teaching of Mr. Mahesh which has been "Vedanta" according to Dr. Chopra. Dr. Chopra and others have taken efforts to discriminate appropriately. Only certain so-called specialists for sects of the two big Churches and especially the Christian parties of Germany had shown to be incapable of dealing with it in an appropriate, discriminative, and dignified manner.

Part V: Mr Mahesh and his fondness of electronic means of communication

Mr. Mahesh has passed on mantras via earphones and microphones.

Has it been really of such urgent need what Mr. Mahesh Prasad had done through his having had spread TM?

I was very astonished when Mr. Mahesh „made“ TM-teachers through microphones and earphones at Playa La Antilla/Spain in early May 1973. Any teacher is supposed to be able to talk to about 40 pupils (who aren't very silent often; during my 3rd or 4th year of ground school my teacher, Mrs. Hildegard Hartmann, had to teach two complete classes at a time in one classroom for about half a year; that had been about 60 pupils at a time; ok I remember how deeply concentrated she had to perform her work for having had been able to manage it and how honestly pity she felt for not being able to take care of single pupils in need here and there.) In a classroom without microphones, amplifier, etc; The teachers are expected to teach without microphones, amplifiers in a classroom for about 4-5 hours a day. That shows that Mr. Mahesh really should have been able to pass on those „such precious mantras“ in about 2-3 days to those about 1000 course participants (50 silent adults at a time; ½ hour per initiation, 5 hours a day; that results in 500 participants per day and thus 2-3 days should have been enough in favor of a rather comfortable and fitting manner. If Mr. Mahesh had handled only 250 persons (they would have needed enough space to perform puja) a day, Mr. Mahesh would have ended up in about 4-6 days. 1 week should have been enough to do it properly and following what he had been claiming for: „personal instruction“.

That whole situation of having passed on the mantras like that in comparison to his words in his book „Science of Being and Art of Living“ was somehow deeply

disappointing; that lacked dignity and credibility.

Mr. Mahesh has expressed through his action that Mantras might be passed on through earphones, microphones, and amplifiers as well.

One of his special TM-teachers (for advanced techniques), Mrs. Eickhoff once passed on Mantras via earphones and microphones, too.

She sat at a distance of about 5 meters to those whom she initiated; she used to assemble not more than about 5 people around her.

Individually she then passed on the mantras via earphones and microphone and the amplifier had been such that all who sat there had been able to hear the mantras which she had just passed on to someone in the name of "personal instruction". (She had spoken such loud, too).

What a scenario of ridiculousness!

TM-Puja had been taught to those about 1000 course participants at Playa la Antilla, Spain utilizing audio-tape, video-tape, amplifier, earphones. This includes groups of up to more than 100 people who had required translations. For instance, there had been, the German language group with about 100 persons.
All the so called „knowledge“ had been taught by such electronic means.
The course had been designed as far as it concerns the teaching (...I neither blame nor do I criticize him ...) by Mr. Max Flissure (UK).



What are the conclusions?

TM passend on utilizing robots?

i) Why not pass on TM using robots?

ii) A few years later one might have comfortably trained all those initiators at fewer costs via internet-phone from a place in India!
Thus it would have been up to the Shankaracharya Tradition itself to do such a thing in case they ever thought it to be useful.

iii) As a special effect of such a line of thought, one comes to the result that no-one would have had a reason to go into other countries based on some lame excuse like wanting to teach TM there and thus disguising as a TM-teacher for doing revolution would have suffered from an obvious lack of practicality.



A rather few 10 years ahead one might have taught that automatized TM-teaching utilizing robots in a much more reliable, cheaper and - in principle - not worse manner.
(Admitted, the future of all the materials required for robots, electronics and so on is unclear. Of course, it's timeless to pass on knowledge from human to human through personal talking, lecturing, teaching, and maybe utilizing different sorts of books.)

If one passed on mantras through electronics, why shouldn't robots be allowed to do that puja, select the mantra through a properly handled electronically fill-out or using a scanned fill-out using nothing worse than recycled paper? Analogous, TM-checking could be done using voice-recognition, if one went for electronic means for teaching.


No sexual problems like the theme in „Sexy Sadie“, the report of that lady in „David wants to fly“, etc could come about anymore.
No problems with wrongly selected mantras as has been happening in the case of those human initiators. (...One lady became TM-teacher herself about 1975, she came to me afterward and reproachfully she said that her initiator, Dr. of Philosophy, who had been busy in Munich between autumn 1972 and summer 1976 had given her a wrong mantra when he had initiated her a few years before...).
No problems with TM-initiators who have violated - because of their eagerness to initiate, their eagerness for money, etc the principle that "no-one of minor
age must be initiated without written permission of their parents".
(....No problems with youngsters who might have falsified such written permission because the robot would have kept his data very well, either...). Above all a robot itself doesn't "mentally" get influenced by what it does; it remains the same before its "initiating-activity" and afterward; it doesn't involve itself emotionally.....).


And above all that might have been done by a well-trained secretary of the
Shankacharacharya of the North who might have had some training as physisist
(...B.A. etc) some additional training based on that B.A. in electronics and software-engineering, etc. - or that person might have learned those additionally required needs by his own as many other physicists, etc have done throughout the world within a few years... Other people who have been ready to serve a Shankacharya for such a thing might have lived in India, too. India is well-known for its highly skillfully software-engineers.
And it might have been done based on a clear decision by the Shankaracharya of the North or the 4 Shankaracharyas (… or maybe, the chief of the Swami Krishnanda Trust, too...).

Of course, humans might start to memorize all that those robots could do
and they might be able to do it responsibly themselves a few years later. As already mentioned, such learning wouldn't be nonsense because someday robots might exist no longer (for instance if the technical civilization had destroyed itself, certain resources had run out, humans had lost interest in all that polluting, cruel, crude technical stuff...)

i) This altogether shows that the activities of Mr. Mahesh Prassad might haven't
been by true knowledge about mantras, not following true knowledge about „handing down knowledge about proper mediation, etc“.

ii) Another possible conclusion is that Mr. Mahesh had been caught up in something like an excessive desire for action or so.

iii) If Mr. Mahesh's not succeeding on returning properly to North-India was analogous to the experiences of Duke Ellington regarding South-India, Mr. Mahesh would have seen a „no“ in his actual „yes“. He had been thinking that he had said "no" and all that had come out without his doing. Yet, in that case it had been his shaking the head that would have meant a "Yes" according to the geograhical place. He had walked to South-India and it had been He who hadn't prepared his journey well by means as reliable as a well-done tourist guide, etc. As a physicist, he knew well enough how to use literature for the sake of reliability and success.
It had taken Mr. Duke Elington about 4 days to get to the proper conclusion that in certain regions of this world a shaking of the head usually means „yes“.
Mr. Mahesh never got to such insight and never talked about his decision to have taken it as the will of God in the light of „maybe it had been due to a misunderstanding“-.
According to scientific standards that hadn't been a very good work at all.

iv) a) Fine, Mr. Mahesh was satisfied with just spreading TM and to stay within that „book about TM“ which has just 7 chapters (7 states of consciousness) as he called it at Kössen in autumn 1971. As long as he would have done that properly – fine.

iv) b) Whether he has done it properly is no appropriate theme for me, because I got initiated compulsorily – against my expressed will of have wanted to respect my parent's „no“ - and thus in this regard, I have to withdraw myself because of bias.

As a result of that compulsoriness, I've got on a merely intellectual path that has its own laws.
Verification of Mr. Mahesh's teachings would have required proper having got initiated and to safeguard that the predicted compatibility to day-to-day life might have turned out to be a truthful prediction.

By means of such a robotized spreading of that „TM“, probably many more people might have learned to practice such a TM in a benefiting manner by now.
And in case those who had thus started would find themselves ending up in good growth of yogic ideals, no longer wanting to kill, to injure, to hurt, to pollute themselves and the environment, etc and they would know: „I have started that on my own“.
And in case some government would decide that before the robots can start there must be given a hint that such a growth in yogic abilities, yogic virtues might be a result of regular practice of that TM and that it might result in problems with one's family, one's society, jobs, professions, etc (for instance: jobs which are in opposition to a life in accordance with non-violence, not-killing, brahmacharya, etc …). I such a case a robot wouldn't mind and „patiently“ it would first pass on that piece of information and would demand a „yes, ok“ according to that IT- and law-stuff named"Double-Opt" before it would continue and start the initiating process.

Of course, that system using internet-phone and spreading the whole teaching directly form India under the personal guidance of a Shankaracharya as Swami Brahmananda Saraswati had been, should also be a rather reliable, but more simple and much more simple to be realized system of teaching.

( I don't advertise for such a robot-system; i don't think that it would be alright from the point of view of Swami Brahmananda Sarswati. Yet, according to what Mr. Mahesh actually did, that would be not worse but saver and thus better.

It shows, in addition that all the activities of Mr. Mahesh hadn't been necessary; some specialist might have done it in coopertion with some Shankarcharya. Ok, Mr. Mahesh's teaching helped many people already before computers and such robots have become availaible.

It cannot be doubted that Mr. Mahesh's teaching has helped quite a lot of people to get out of their drug problems. Others experienced improvement in health, etc. I don't doubt all that and certainly a few 100 000 humans won't want to miss TM as a natural integral part of their day-to-day life.

 

 

Mr. Mahesh and his concept of 8 steps of Yoga; his opinion about the Patanjali Yoga Sutras:

(Patanjali Yogasutras see for instance: https://www.forgottenbooks.com/en/books/TheYogaSystemofPatanjali_10003053 or https://www.forgottenbooks.com/en/readbook/TheYogaDarsana_10852315#0)

Mr. Mahesh once has talked about Patanjali and those eight steps to yoga. Mr. Mahesh has said that the proper understanding would be that it wouldn't be eight steps to yoga but eight limbs of yoga.

Mr. Mahesh has said that it is like a table with eight legs and if one pulls one leg all the others will come along.

Thus he has said that through daily practicing that momentary samadhi using TM „Ahimsa“, “ Aparigraha“, Bramcharya“, „Yama“.... etc will come consequently along, too.

Yet, that might result in a loss of job if someone had been practicing cutting the trees, killing animals, destroying gardens for the sake of making new constructions, etc.

Thus, such a hint that those growing yogic virtues might cause conflicts in day-to-day life would have been very useful and necessary right from the beginning of the teaching.

Mr. Mahesh hadn't known that when he had started to teach and he hadn't thought about it before he had started to teach.

Mr. Mahesh used to say: „If I hadn't been asked all those questions all that knowledge wouldn't have come". All that knowledge had been coming one-by-one in a rather arbitrary sequence because people had been asking him questions, etc; it's obvious based on his own words that he hadn't that insight about the "8 limbs of Yoga" when he had started to teach.

(See for instance: Mr. Patanjali and his Yogasutras; for instance: www.forgottenbooks.com; The "Yoga-Darśana" - The Sutras of Patañjali With the Bhāsya of Vyāsa, Translated Into English; ISBN 978-0-282-45556-9; ISBN (Cloth) 978-0-331-48441-0 or: "Yoga Sastra" - The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali Examined; With a Notice of Swami Vivekananda's Yoga Philosophy, von John Murdoch Patañjali, ISBN 978-1-332-55797-4, ISBN (Cloth) 978-0-260-52470-6, Sprache English.)

This shows once more that he had been no trained teacher. For being prepared to teach someone would have to know all that in advance and he/she would have to tell the „pupils“ all that honestly before he/she initiates anyone.

For sure, it would have been of practical use if one knows ahead that one starts to go for the growth of yogic virtues such as „non-violence, not-killing, etc“.

Basic knowledge about human life and living as good as possible:

It's obvious that a human being with its 50 to 90 kg of weight on average
and its maximum speed of 9.7 seconds to something like 20 seconds per 100
meters, etc, his average intelligence, memory, and thoughtfulness cannot kill an elephant, cow, rhino, any sheep, goat, lion, tiger, etc by mere chance at all because those animals usually keep enough distance on their own and because they are tall and strong enough. Similar statements hold for fish, shark, whale, etc because they just have a different place where they live.
It holds for birds because they usually live up in the trees and they are very alert and usually fly away in time when a human comes along with its maximum velocity of running in an even non-precautious manner.
Interestingly, it's difficult to catch even a small fly if one wants to bring it out of one's dangerous living room in a loving manner into the world of flowers, plants, etc.
Thus creation itself is such that human beings can live without killing other creatures to a certain very comprehensive and great extent.
Of course one might kill an ant etc by mere chance, that might happen; this world is as it is. But with a little bit of goodwill one can get to know at least some „streets of the ants“ and one might take a larger step across
such a street instead of stepping right into it.
Besides, there are certain very small and very dangerous animals, too (for instance because of poison) and thus the human beings need being cautious anyway.

On the other hand, humans are intelligent enough to live in such a precautious,
a thoughtful way and yet in a manner without killing and severely injuring that lions, tigers, etc won't happen/be able to kill or injure them at all; that holds in the case of all dangerous – even very small ones – animals, too.

Human beings might practice the natural means of birth control and thus overpopulation can simply be avoided. Of course, that gets decisively supported by the principle of independence (-> statistics) and at least in that sense by the principle of freedom. Consequently, good basic knowledge about statistics and decision-making theories ought to be taught on the one hand and learned on the other hand, too.
Of course, an application of the natural means of birth control can result in 4 or even more children on some - rather few - families and no child in another family; otherwise, it wouldn't be an application of probability theory and one would deny the nature of randomness.
Most important is in this regard that the "law of the large numbers" (of Jakob Bernoulli and other mathematicians) would take care of the country's population as a whole. Maybe in one family no child, in another family 5 children will happen. But, if the people practice the natural means of family planning, no overpopulation in the country as a whole will result because of the law of large numbers.
Even by looking at it from a statistical point of view, overpopulation is no tragically fate but the result of ignorance. If one looks at this problem from the viewpoint of a general sense of responsibility there's no justification for overpopulation either.

This shows that no new land for farming is necessary at all.

If human beings would decide to live from those already existing fields then all primeval forests, trees, bushes, etc could be protected without any exception from now on and forever.


Besides, it's common sophisticated knowledge that human beings can live in a good vegetarian manner, too. Technical literature which I consulted in the library of the city of Munich at the Gasteig, has told me that no special guidance will be needed if one changes to vegetarianism. If one wants to take that further step towards veganism, that'll require special, additional knowledge and good, professional guidance is recommended.


If one makes a hilly field out of of a flat field then the surface would get increased and thus – to a certain extent – one would be able to start to give back land to nature, to the re-growth of primeval forests, etc

Of course, if human beings will live a better way of life it will be advantageous for creation. Humans really should live as good as they could which can't be difficult at all in that obvious very natural manner.
Would humans have any justification for lamenting, If they didn't live up to that level? Will humans have to face suffering, sickness, if they don't live up to that naturally available, good way of life. That truly human habit is available and teachers all over the world can easily be trained to teach it?
It is a deviation from that natural good way of life that requires effort resulting in stress, danger, etc.
See, if one eats a carrot that plant will. try it's best to avoid that. If you eat some green leaves of the carrot plant, that plant won't bother so much about it. This shows, that killing amounts to an undue, unnatural effort. The same holds in the case of animals equally. (...Tigers and lions know that they might hurt themselves very severely if they attack other living creatures. Lions live to about 50% of animals who died naturally. - was on German TV "ZDF", a report in respect of the German World Wide Fund of Nature's 25'th anniversary...... ). If there wouldn't be overpopulation and unnatural life on behalf of the humans, lions could live completely of naturally died animals.
For certain one wouldn't harm the world and thus a creator of that world; one would at least do justice to one's natural ability to live a good way of life.

Ok, I don't reject the growth of yogic virtues at all.

But one should tell the beginners of something like TM ahead that that might (or maybe even has been the planful built-in goal of it anyway) be a result of such a practice of TM, etc. It can only be said that's a good, desirable result.

If someone knows about all this ahead, he/she will think about how he will be able to make his living amidst his society in spite of going for the growth of yogic virtues.
He/she might search for a new job, further qualifying.
Even, a new profession might be necessary if one can predict that one won't have many chances as long as one has no other profession.



That is why I have criticized that Mr. Mahesh hadn't talked about the growth of yogic virtues ahead.


Mr. Mahesh and the beginning and end of the TM-movement:

Let me repeat first:

The TM-movement started in the1950th.
Mr. Mahesh was on the pilgrimage to Rameshwaram in South India. He wanted to get rid of that thought "Rameshwaram" and he wanted to go back to Uttar Kashi in the Valley of the Ganges from where he had come from.
A librarian approached Mr. Mahesh and asked him whether he would talk. Mr. Mahesh answered by a "yes" on the one hand and tried to make it completely sure what he meant with "Talking, yes" on the other hand. Mr. Mahesh tried to add: "What you call lecturing, no".
Strangely, the librarian seemingly violated Mr. Mahesh and just put up some lectures and announced Mr. Mahesh as the speaker.
In response, Mr. Mahesh decided for "I take it to be the will of God/Gods".
One lecture gave rise to another lecture and thus the whole TM-movement came about as time was passing by.

Mr. Mahesh had taught to teach TM employing SRM, SIMS, etc and all the initiators had to sign that they wouldn't initiate on their own.
Yet, suddenly, Mr. Mahesh dissolved SRM, SIMS, etc and the initiators got tried to be forced to sign the „laws“ of a completely new organization.
A few years later he went for a new organization again. (...Such a way of organizing had nothing to do with scientificness like a good university. In the case of a university, one has to do justice to one's subject and one doesn't get bound to the specific university....)

Thus it used to end in „nothingness“.

When Mr. Mahesh once said - utilizing that international press conference (had been weekly on Wednesday round about 5 p.m.) - „I damn the democracy“, etc
then it looks like as if he wanted it to end up in „nothingness“.
And it was Mr. Mahesh who explained in his appendix to his commentary of the Bhagavad Gita (Penguin, paperback, 1969): „MAYA is that which is not“.
In the result of not following the advice of that elderly sadhu, Mr. Mahesh seems not to have handled the theme of Maya best.
It seems as if it has been designed to end in MAYA due to Mr. Mahesh's ignorance about „independence“, „freedom“, the desire for a „free democratic world“, etc.


One thing has to be noted here:
Those secretaries of Mr.Mahesh had the free choice on that Wednesday evening:

Either select that US-journalist's question
„Maharishi, what do you think about democracy“
or my question
„Mr. Mahesh, did you know that shaking the head might have been understood as yes at South India those days? Might it have been that just some misunderstanding had happened when that librarian had put up those lectures? In that case, it wouldn't have been due to the will of God, gods at all but it would have been caused by some not-knowing and thus by something that was/is not“, isn't it?"

His „followers“ preferred to keep on bothering Mr. Mahesh Prasad with all those difficult questions (... Must a sadhu be able to answer questions about democracy, last will, etc in case he/she just lives a real good recluse way of life? Sadhus decided to renounce the world ...).
Mr. Mahesh reacted somewhat furiously and replied: „I damn the democracy“.
Maybe he meant. „I damn your stupid sort of handling freedom; all the time you have been talking about freedom. Yes, I've told to thousands of TM-teachers in the context of the TM-teacher-training courses - and even a little bit shameful for me - what has happened in South India those days and that I've never wanted to teach. Why didn't you
respect it? Why did you keep on organizing as big huge lectures, meetings, etc as to a limit that I would feel obliged to go there on my own to avoid the worst?
Why didn't you think in terms of your „concept of freedom“ in that regard?
Furthermore, some revolutionists have misused my activities and caused the assassination of - among others? - Heili Selassie to whom I had given a flower to show my respect and peaceful intentions.
Did your countries which stand for freedom, defend me against those?
Yet now, you've come here to ask me about my opinion regarding your free countries and your principle of democracy. Did you ever bother about my freedom?
If you respect my free will, my freedom then I'll respect your efforts for a free world.

Why hadn't the response to Mr. Mahesh's answer "I damn the democracy" been:
„Ok, you've repeatedly said that you never wanted to teach. Ok, let's respect that. Ok, adios (...a Dios = to the gods, leave to the Gods, return home for dedicating all your Life to the search of God/Gods...) Mr.Mahesh."
Or, the reaction might have been a little bit more politely and with a little bit of compassion:
"Oh, may we help you to get out of your problems? May we bring you back to the valley of the Ganges, to Uttar Kashi?“

Nothing like that has come: The only things that have come
were „trying to make money out of his activities, his presence here and there“, „trying to make him a star for the sake of making more money“, etc.

Thus in case that had been the first time that Mr. Mahesh had said that nonsense then it has been the mistake of his secretaries like Dr. Haegelin, etc who preferred to keep on bothering Him one more time. Yet, that "one more time" had been one time too much!

It's not my fault: I had informed Mr. Mahesh about that understanding using the raise of a question a few years before his death and I had even offered Him to pay for his travel -expenses back to Uttar Kashi!

There's no doubt about it. Mr. Mahesh had been handled cruelly by Westerners who have been blind of eagerness to gain enlightenment. Many of them had forgotten completely to do justice to the simple, basic principles of freedom and basics of a dignified free democratic world.

 

 

Part VI: This and That, remarks:

Mantras:

50% of the mantras that Mr. Mahesh has used were classical mantras, knowable from the ancient scriptures according to an interview with one Shankaracharya. (I have read that in a "TM-Ex"-publication) The rest of those so-called “mantras” were more or less freely invented by Mr. Mahesh. "Mantra" is a different theme and I'll comment on that later.

Of course one can read something and one can make something useful out of it; yet, unfortunately, sometimes bad things are made out of items of information here and there. Mr. Mahesh’s teaching activities caused both: Positive effects, but more or less harmful effects have resulted here and there, too.

In the book "Zauberformel TM" by Michael Mildenberger and Albrecht Scholl, ISBN 3 7615 0243 5 a list of so-called TM-mantras can be found on page 64 (edition of 1977). On pages 60 and 61 of that edition, the authors mention tantric meditation and it is stated in an emphasized manner that TM (initiation and practice) are different from tantric ceremonies and practice. TM has nothing in common with what is usually understood by the "practice of Tantra" in the western world.

Looking for the answers at the Shankaracharya of the North:

As a conclusion of my report, someone might think that it would be a good idea to go to the Shankaracharya of the North instead of continuing to search for such knowledge in the “TM-movement”. That might sound rather logical. Yet there’s one very severe problem:

In the magazine “Alpinwelt” of the German Mountain Club - for instance - it was to be read that altitude sickness can occur even at a height not higher than 3000 meters.

The seat of teaching where a Shankaracharya of the North is used to stay during summertime is at Badrinath temple and that temple lays at a height of more than 3000 meters.

A similar piece of information is there to be read in the book "Höhentrekking und Höhenbergsteigen" by Klaus Mees, Bruckmann, ISBN 978-3-7654-5493-6. On page 18 it says, that problems might occur beyond 2500 Meters and that from there on acclimatization is required. In this book, they state that beyond 2500m acclimatization is required. Yet, I once suffered from that mountain sickness and it happened in spite of good acclimatization for 1 week at heights beyond 2300 Meters up to 2900 Meters.; the mountain "Grawad" in South Tirol isn't higher but 3200Meters. Thus it cannot be useful to go to Badrinath without thorough preparation and maybe even - as in my case for instance - not at all. During Wintertime it might be rather dangerous to drive to Joshimath; there's the danger of avalanches. Furthermore one would meet slippery roads and one has often steep precipices on both sides of the street; on the one side avalanches of snow and stone must be taken into account and on the other side a not less steep slope downwards together with the fact of a slippery road or even slippery ice.

So one has the choice between winter and summer; in any case, one has to face severe dangers for one's health.

Imagine, somebody takes the airplane to Dheli, then a Taxi to Joshimath and there he changes to the aerial cableway up to Badrinath. Having arrived there some heavy wind starts and the cableway wouldn't be able to bring anyone down anymore. In my case that would have highly probably caused death to me. To do the journey in winter can't be said to be very attractive either; so when to go there?

It's simple to get informed about Uttar Kashi, Joshimath, etc during wintertime. Fotos, small YouTube-Video, reports on trips are simply available on the internet.
Even facilities for skiing are connected to Jothirmath by a cableway. Naturally, it could be expected that environmental disasters, pollution wouldn't have waited for a long time as a result.
On the other hand words against that flooding of the Valley of the Ganges by tourists, the western way of wasting resources, the western way of denying the rights of life of the animals and plants has been calling for resistance. This debate found - understandable by just comparing some texts - expression as follows:
https://zeenews.india.com/news/india/what-caused-kedarnath-floods-shankaracharya-finds-reason-blames-honeymooning-couples-picnic-goers_1875584.html
https://zeenews.india.com/news/uttar-pradesh/natural-disasters-happen-when-head-of-state-deviates-from-righteousness-swaroopanand_1875769.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3K8plDZJQ2o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2y0Qwg81HM
In https://www.sacredyatra.com/kedarnath-flood-2013.html it says: "Cloudburst, landslides and snowfall were some of the natural causes of the 2013 flood. But we cannot always blame the nature. We humans are also responsible for the massive calamity. Our mismanaged tourism, unobstructed construction of hotels, lodges and road, the extensive hydroelectricity dams and mining projects in such eco fragile hilly area were some of the true causes of the flood."

Strangely and hurtfully, a 5km-long cableway goes from Joshimath up to 2500m to skying-facilities.
In a Tantric initiation ceremony which is reported in detail in a book named "die große Welt des Tantra" by Ajit Mookerjee that force within all the species, within all forms, within thirst, hunger, friendship, love, knowledge and so on is mentioned with words of honor, respect, tolerance and taking it seriously. What has been caused by that western way of life including colonialization, the crimes in the context of colonialization? Devastation, spreading of the deserts, climate catastrophe, ozone-hole, extinction of species and so on have been caused and attempts to stop all that nonsense have remained half-hearted.
Vyasa, the author of Vedanta, Mahabharata, Bhagavatam, a commentary to the Yogasuktas of Patanjali has called plants living creatures who have a soul, as Prof. Dr. Deussen has mentioned in one of his books about the Vedanta (Probably it has been mentioned in his translation of Vedanta which he has finished by 1987 and which has been designed to make it unnecessary for students of the philosophy to have to learn Sanskrit before being able to study that philosophy.). As long as one doesn't want to live up to those ideals and practices respect for all that, humans are unwanted persons in all those regions.

Thus, in general it's no good idea at all to go for a trip to Joshimath to meet the Shanakaracharya there for getting a mantra or a few words of advice. It would just be in opposition of what one wants to gain.

Additionally, in the TM-Centers no-one used to talk about altitude sickness and destructions done to the environment, crimes against the plants and animals in the context of all that sort of sick interest of those western dreamers.

Mr. Mahesh has made many people eager for such knowledge, yet he couldn’t even tell them a safe path to fulfill that thirst for such knowledge.

The Beatles' „Sexy Sadie“:

If it had been all due to some misunderstanding in South-India those days then one would see that Mr. Mahesh used to laugh with one eye and at the same time he cried with the other one. The title “Sexy Sadie” of that song of the Beatles thus looks like having hit the situation of Mr. Mahesh rather well (Sadie - from "sad").

On the one side, he had always been very sad about the missed chance for his wanted career as a real good celibate sadhu and on the other side he had that strange sort of "laughing eye", too

In the film “David wants to fly” a lady reports about her sexual experiences with Mr. Mahesh by the way. Thus the Beatles’ hint at even un-celibate sexual activities of Mr. Mahesh (-> the Beatles Bible, Internet) got supported by that witness a few 10 years later. (That sort of documentary had been in the cinemas, too) and from there "sexy" Sadie.

To be fair, it has to be mentioned that I once read in a book on "Trekking" that in the whole of the Valley of the Ganges there is a special law from the state of India in the protection of the Sadhus and thus the sadhu-way-of Life. Mr. Mahesh has been in lack of that shelter for sure.

Mr. Mahesh and his two professions:

Mr. Mahesh Prassad had something like a B.A. (I also have written "M.A.) in physics and due to his time with the Shankaracharya of the North Swami Brahmanda Saraswati he had become an experienced private assistant of a Shankaracharya, too.

Thus Swami Brahmanda Saraswati had improved the social stability of Mr.Mahesh.

Mr. Mahesh could still have worked as something like a teacher of physics and he might have worked as a secretary at a Seat of a Shankaracharya, as well.

When Swami Brahmanda Saraswati had died all of a sudden Swami Shantanand would have been in an urgent need of a well-trained and well-experienced secretary. Thus I wonder why Mr. Mahesh didn't want to apply what he had learned practically during his times as the secretary of the Shankaracharya of the North Swami Brahmanda Saraswati. Why didn't Mr. Mahesh serve Shankaracharya Shantanand as a very experienced and well-trained personal assistant? Instead, Mr. Mahesh did exactly that what he hadn't been trained for at all. That's strange.

Instead of making use of one of his professions he now – it seems like that – tried to go for becoming a „real“ sadhu, he tried for a recluse-way of life.

Yet the later facts of his life show that he didn't succeed in that at all.

As a secretary of Swami Brahmanda Saraswati, he certainly had to do quite a lot of work but he had time to listen to the lectures of the Shankaracharya, etc.

In the context of the TM-movement, he then had much less time for his meditations, etc. He complained once that if those TM-people would keep on bothering him until 4 in the morning they wouldn't have him for very long.

And what he lived had nothing to do with a sadhu-way of life in the sense of what Swami Brahmanda Saraswati had been living according to the narrations of Mr. Mahesh.

Looking at his theoretical attempts, his efforts to bring physics and Indian philosophy together had been rather poor. What nonsense to apply physical laws like „Meisner Effect“ to that 1%effect“-study, etc or to go for Quantum theory which applies "Quantum-Logic" that has 3 possibilities and not just either yes or no. In Quantum Logic one has something like "Yes-no", "No-yes" and "Good Gracious". Furthermore, it's an attempt to apply probability theories and according to the story about Narada in the "Chandogya Upanishad", turning to the infinite is recommended to reach that ultimate knowledge which alone can give satisfaction to the thirst for knowledge. Interestingly, one cannot define any probability in the infinite set of all subsets of the ordinary 3-dimensional euclidian space. (see for instance at Prof. Renyi's Book on probability theory or Heinz Bauer's book on measurement theory.)

That appendix in his commentary to the Bhagavad Gita comprises small chapters about the 6 systems of Indian Philosophy including Vaisheshika. In my opinion, that's rather useful and helpful.

His efforts to organize his TM-activities had been rather strange, too:

First, he wanted SRM. Then he added SIMS, etc (5 organizations), then came something else all of a sudden; in between he created a political party

„natural law party“ and finally he ended up in a sort of strangeness:

It might be similar to that Salvation Army that calls itself an army.

Likewise, that „monarchy“ might understand itself as a Salvation Monarchy.

But that would be the best-case. Mr. Mahesh had founded those 1%-parties

before, he – at least - twice said something like „I damn the democracy“

and in the context of the USA, he said something like „the sooner the free democratic system of the USA is off the better“, etc.

Thus it's very doubtable that they understand themselves as something like Salvation Monarchy. But maybe they can learn and improve.

Furthermore, it reminds me very much of "infiltration". The rich and very-rich have successfully infiltrated and robbed the whole of the TM-movement.

(The same phenomenon is to be found in the USA as such; almost rich or very rich persons became president of the USA. Since when?)

TM and TM-experiences:

If one has learned TM and got to that experience of transcending, momentary samadhi maybe even - fine, one might have experienced it repeatedly or not. Fine, one might have been able to objectively think about it even in terms of the Bernoulli Law of big numbers after a few thousand times of having had practiced it (..thus not necessarily in need of the knowledge about the special fitting statistical distribution..).
If someone has taught TM to 100 persons and 99 persons got successfully to that transcending then one might say something like: "Ok if I do further 100 initiations in that same manner it'll be alright to expect with a probability of 95% that I'll be successful in about 95 cases".
(Regarding "Statistics", look "Ingenieur-Statistik, Prof. Dr. Josef Heinhold, Oldenbourg-Verlag for instance.)

In that sense, TM had been called to be scientific and that had been rather accepted all over the world.

What does that tell, too?
One had been a non-enlightened TM-teacher and let's assume that the teaching had worked well.
Why then should it be necessary to assume or even should it had ever been necessary for anyone to assume that Mr. Mahesh had been or would have had to be enlightened only because he had been able to teach transcending successfully to a certain amount of people?
Hadn't one be able to do so by oneself as a not enlightened TM-teacher as well?

The "transcending" is the one thing; mantras are a different thing anyway. Mr. Mahesh used to say, "mantra" is just like a vehicle; it has some additional advantage but one might transcend via tasting, smelling, etc, too. He once said to TM-teachers at Arosa/Switzerland, Hotel Prätschli, about Autumn 1974 that they are supposed to be the specialists in transcending and that they should be able to transcend via tasting, too. For instance, he then explained in some detail how one might do that. Indeed, that's simple and it works.
Thus all those authors, homepages, books, etc which claim that TM would be nothing but worshipping Indian, Hinduistic gods/God are just wrong and I'm a witness for that.
Often Mr. Mahesh and the TM-movement have been criticized for that "altar" on which Mr. Mahesh had been sitting. I a book from Prof. Paul Deussen "Erinnerungen an Indien" from 1904 Prof Deussen narrates about his journey to India in 1892. His visit lasted for 1/2 a year. On page 30 he describes his visit to a "Saint" on Malabar Hill. He mentions that that "Saint" took a seat on a sofa - as Mr. Mahesh used to do - and his devotees and guests - including Prof. Dr. Deussen and his wife - sat around him on the carpet. (Again, in the TM-movement the guests and devotees of Mr. Mahesh used to sit on chairs on the floor; Mr. Mahesh sat on a Diwan on a small podium. Thus the difference of height between Mr. Mahesh and his guests used to be the same as the difference of height between that Saint from 1892 and Prof. Deussen. Somehow all that had been well enough knowable for the state authorities who first declared it to be scientific, not religious, charitable and dealt with the question whether it's religious or not later.



Changes in the TM-teaching as such:

Mr. Mahesh had been teaching: "We practice TM alone; only couples might practice it together."
And those who attended the course at Kössen/Austria in autumn 1971 can know, as an example, the reported experience of a full-aged TM-practitioner why that's very necessary.
Thus all those big huge mass-TM-sittings of these days cannot be appreciated by me; no-one can expect me to do so.
At Kössen, Mr. Mahesh hadn't replied to that man: "Then you must have made some mistake in your meditation; TM is for transcending, it's for reducing even the mental activities." or some similar sentence. He had answered as a matter of fact "So it's alright"; maybe he didn't want to say anything and thus said something that shouldn't mean anything.
But that reported - very individual - "TM-experience" - what I wouldn't call a result of TM-practice anyway (that man cannot have stuck to the instructions for proper TM-practice and that's obvious) remains as a matter of fact.


They even try for a "super-radiance-effect" these days:
They shouldn't but apply those vibrations onto their own; in other words "apply your vibrator to yourself!"
If one asks God to help someone - Fine it remains the affair between God/Gods and that person on the one side and the affair of God/Gods whether he does/they do it or not. And if someone doesn't approach God/Gods and that person would not want to be helped by God, gods, etc, fine. Such a person wouldn't be bothered religiously or even hunted by some other human in the name of God/gods. For sure always it would remain the affair of God or Gods. Someone might ask God/Gods to help someone else; fine. But that's different from going for producing an effect - which was announced to be like Meisner's effect, something physical - to influence others. The later is like compulsory medical treatment and cannot be accepted at all!
If one sits to produce "thrills", "vibrations", "waves" etc then there won't be God necessarily in between the producer and the influenced ones and that wouldn't be ok at all.
See, one practices TM and, let's assume, experiences deep rest, relaxation, restful alertness, transcending, "the Turiya, as it's called in the Shiva-Suktas", momentary samadhi.
Ok, all that the individual can experience in the context of proper meditation, he/she might experience it repeatedly, regularly - fine. Such statements would thus be verifiable by ordinary humans. That had been that basic teaching until about 1975/1976. (Something like "TM is the practical aspect of the Science of Creative Intelligence; it gives the experience" is said in those SCI-courses (...which aren't perfect but give some information in spite of it..)
Now, one thing has been part of the TM-practice: "The contents of thought - if any come at all - have no importance".
Thus it's impossible to verify a statement like "if 1% of a city population practice TM then the crime rate will go down", etc. Such a statement just cannot be verified by TM-practise and everyone who ever has learned TM knows that very well. Such a statement might be taken care of by professional mathematicians who got experts in the field of statistics. It can't be reasonably dealt with by the vast majority of humans. That is why it had been nonsense to ever had tried to make use of that 1%-study in the context of spreading TM etc.
It would have been better (-> decision making theories) to look at the 1%-study as a sort of "expressed assumption of innocence", "highly academic thoughts of some statistician/~s" or some such thing.
Yet, somehow Mr. Mahesh - or that board of directors? or both? - got crazy and made a sort of "belief" out of it. Thus he suddenly started to violate his statements like "it's all scientific, "anyone can verify it by himself", "one practice it for oneself", "only couples might practice TM together".

Lack of proper quoting:

A severe problem in the context of Mr. Mahesh's teaching/saying activities has been that he didn't quote properly.
That story about "Waking, dreaming, sleeping and there were/is the fourth state of consciousness" can be found in those "Shiva Suktas" (->turiya), written long before Mr. Prassad.)
The "Yoga Vasishta" has been talking about an "absolute consciousness" that's at the beginning and end of this whole world. Thus Mr. Mahesh's theme of "pure consciousness" has a further source there, too.
Very badly done - in that respect - is his "new translation on the Bhagavad Gita" which had been done by taking all available translations and only in case none could please Mr. Mahesh then Mr. Vernon Kaatz made a new translation until Mr. Mahesh had been satisfied. According to Mr. Mahesh's lecture about that, a real new translation of some verses had been done only in a few cases. (...Ok, Mr. Mahesh admitted all that in the context of TM-teacher training course - at least that one I had attended in Playa la Antilla/Spain march to May 1973...)
Why didn't he quote properly? Only the commentary seems to have been done by himself.
As a physicist (B.A., M.A. or diploma doesn’t matter) Mr. Mahesh has known that he has to quote properly.
Ok, maybe one can look at it as a sort of collage; but then all such things aren't contributions to Science but pieces of Art. Maybe, more or less useful pieces got into those collages, maybe certain true and meaningful phrases got into it - may be.
Maybe those meaningful pieces are like maps of a treasure and those who might read those maps might get to that treasure - may be.


(By the way, that story from Mr. Duke Elington I wrote about is to be found at Baedeker,6th edition, 2009, page 157
The headline is “a further source of misunderstandings”).

 

 

 

TM and TM-experiences:

If one has learned TM and got to that experience of transcending, momentary samadhi may be reached - fine, one might have experienced it repeatedly or not. Fine, one might have been able to objectively think about it even in terms of the Bernoulli Law of big numbers after a few thousand times of having had practiced it (..thus not necessarily in need of the knowledge about the special fitting statistical distribution..).

If someone has taught TM to 100 persons and 99 persons got successfully to that transcending then one might say something like: "Ok. if I do further 100 initiations in that same manner it'll be alright to expect with a probability of 95% that I'll be successful in about 95 cases".

(Regarding "Statistics", look for instance to"Ingenieur-Statistik, Prof. Dr. Josef Heinhold, Oldenbourg-Verlag. Of course, there should be reliable English written books about that subject, too. Sorry, I've studies mathematics in Germany.)

In that sense, TM had been called to be scientific and that had been rather accepted all over the world.

What does that tell, too?

One had been a non-enlightened TM-teacher and let's assume that the teaching had worked well.

Why then should it be necessary to assume or even to should have ever had to assume that Mr. Mahesh had been or would have had to be enlightened only because he had been able to teach transcending successfully to a certain amount of people?

Hadn't one be able to do so by oneself as a non-enlightened TM-teacher as well?

The "transcending" is the one thing; mantra has been a different thing anyway. Mr. Mahesh used to say, "mantra" were just like a vehicle; it has some additional advantage but one might transcend via tasting, smelling, etc, too.

Mr. Mahesh once said to about a hunderd TM-teachers from different countries at Arosa/Switzerland, Hotel Prätschli, about 1974 that they were supposed to be the specialists in transcending and that they should be able to transcend via tasting, too - for instance. Then, he explained in some details how one might do that; that's simple.

Thus all those authors, homepages, books, etc which claim that TM would be nothing like worshipping Indian, Hinduistic gods/God are just wrong and I'm a witness for that.

In the Patanjali Yogasuktas, one can find those verses which deal with the different paths (Chapter I, Verses 17 to 29). Admitted, there are those verses (Chapter I, Verses 23 to 29) which explain that by devotion to God/Gods that which prevents getting into the state of samadhi can be removed, too. Thus, such a path based on devotion to God exists and there's no need to deny that. Rather obviously the Hare Krishna try to go that path. Yet, there exist further paths, too and there's equally absolutely no need of denying that. It's all the more disappointing and ununderstandable that the German Government and even the highest court of Germany, that Bundesverfassunsgericht, have denied that.

See, the TM-Mantras can be found in tantric texts and as I'll have to point out, these mantras are not "the names of God". Or would it make much sense to assume that Goddes Saraswati prays to herself whenever she is practicing meditation? I'll elaborate on that in the context of "Saraswatisotra".

The TM-Puja deals with human beings and the German Government and Courts cannot even say truthfully that they have been able to know for sure that by the words "Narayanam" and "Padmasbahavam" those Hinduistic Gods "Narayana" (has been mentioned in some Upanishad) and Brahma are referred to. Why that? There has been a certain Rishi Narayana and there has been a rather famous Guru in the context of Buddhism. Furthermore, Narayana has been used as a prename in India.

If one looks closely into that book of Ajit Mookerjee about Tantra "(Die große Welt des Tantra") and reads that tantric initiation ceremony which is described there then one will see that there's a clear distinction between verses of worshipping to the selected God on the one hand and verses in honor of the selected Guru (...In the case of that tantric initiation-ceremony it has been Shakti, who is mentioned in the TM-Puja, too.). Furthermore, it has been explained why in the TM-movement by that word "Shaktim" one doesn't refer to that Goddess Shakti who is at least sometimes mentioned in the context of Texts contributed to Shiva and who gets worshipped by her devotees as the Goddess of pure femaleness. Those parts of the TM-Puja found in that tantric ceremony are attributed to Shakti whereas in den TM-Puja these refer to Swami Brahmanda Saraswati:

TM-Puja: PUSHPAM SAMARPAYAMI SHRI GURU CHARANA KAMALEBHYO NAMAH (see https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.meditation.transcendental/99--aKGks-E)

Shakti-Puja: Vaṃ vāyavyātmakaṃ dhūpām saśaktika śrī gurave samarpayāmi namaḥ (Mookerjee, "Die große Welt des Tantra", O.W.Barth-Verlag).

Mr. Mahesh used to sit on a podium as is rather common with some discussions along with some audience.

In the context of such discussions, often a banner with the theme can be found across the podium; likewise, Mr. Mahesh used to have that big picture of his teacher Swami Brahmanda Saraswati behind him. The neutral, religion-free aspects of Yogic Meditation as taught by Swami Brahmananda Saraswati to Mr. Mahesh have been the theme.

Remark: I have been correcting the text up to here on the 29 August 2019 using "https://app.grammarly.com" that I had been led on to by the online-dictionary of Langenscheidt, too.

Changes in the TM-teaching as such:

But he had been teaching: "We practice it alone; only couples might practice it together."
And those who had been at the course at Kössen/Austria in autumn 1971 can know one example of a reported experience of a full-aged TM-practitioner why that has been necessary.
Thus all those big huge mass-TM-sittings of these days cannot be appreciated by me; no-one can expect me to take part in that or even to teach that.
At Kössen in autumn1971, Mr. Mahesh hadn't replied to that man: "Then you must have made some mistake in your meditation; TM is for transcending, it's for reducing even the mental activities and not for sexual activities." or some similar sentence. He had answered as a matter of fact "So it's alright"; may be he didn't want to say anything and thus said something that shouldn't mean anything.
But that reported - very individual - "TM-experience" - what I wouldn't call a result of TM-practice anyway (that man just cannot have stuck to the instructions for proper TM-practise and that's obvious) remains as a matter of fact. Consequently, one must practice TM only alone - except in the case of couples. Like that Mr. Mahesh had got to certain rules. Another such rule has been that during rounding courses one doesn't take new decisions. What had happened once? During a rounding course, an elderly lady had said to a rather young male that he would reach enlightenment quicker if he married her. That young, inexperienced male married her right on the spot. After that rounding course, the relatives of that boy were confronted with the situation and went to Mr. Mahesh and complained. Mr. Mahesh has narrated this story and added that a very difficult situation had been created by the nonsense of those two participants. Yet, such a rule puts a very important duty onto those who lead the course: They have do bring all the participants completely down from the "rounding" by the end of the course. Strangely, Mr. Mahesh had turned out to not had been able to act in respect of that duty in the context of the TM-teacher training course at Playa La Antilla/Spain in March 1973 to Mai 1973. He refused to tell those about 1000 participants that now they should stop fully with that "rounding" and should come down form " 2 and 2" (two rounds in the morning and two rounds in the evening), too. According to the slang, a US-participant or maybe Australian participant had gone to the microphone and said: "Mr. Mahesh we are still on two rounds morning and evening, Wouldn't it be time to get down, now? The course is going to end within a few days.". Mr. Mahesh replied: "Those who are still on 2+2 can continue this even at home because you are now acquainted with that. Those who are already down can do 40 minutes of meditation morning and evening. But in any case, do asanas before and afterward.". That hasn't been helpful and that hasn't been an expression of knowledge about responsibility. How to do that at home? That "new" teaching didn't meet the reality of ordinary day-to-day life anymore.

They even try for a "super-radiance-effect" these days:
They should apply those vibrations only onto their own; in other words "apply your vibrator to yourself!"
If one asks God to help someone - Fine it remains the affair of God whether he (or she) does (or they do) it or not and it'll be God's affair (....or gods' affair....) if that person would not want to be helped by God, gods, etc.
If one sits to produce "thrills", "vibrations", "waves" etc then there won't be God necessarily in between the producer and the influenced ones and that wouldn't be ok at all.
See, one practices TM and, let's assume, experiences deep rest, relaxation, restful alertness, transcending, "Turiya", momentary samadhi.
Ok, all that an individual can experience in the context of proper meditation, he/she might experience it repeatedly, regularly - fine. Such statements would thus be verifiable by ordinary humans. That had been that basic teaching until about 1975/1976. (Something like "TM is the practical aspect of the Science of Creative Intelligence; it gives the experience" is said in those SCI-courses (...which aren't perfect but give some information in spite of it..). That "Science of Being" according to that book done by Mr. Mahesh "Science of Being and Art of Living", has stated that teaching, too.

Now, one thing has been part of the TM-practice: "The contents of thought - if any come at all - have no importance".
Thus it is impossible to verify a statement like "if 1% of a city population practice TM then the crime rate will go down", etc. Such a statement just cannot be verified by TM-practise and everyone who ever has learned TM knows that very well. Such a statement might be taken care of by professional mathematicians who got experts in the field of statistics. It can't be dealt with by the vast majority of the people. That is why it had been nonsense to ever had tried to make use of that 1%-study in the context of spreading TM etc.
It would have been better (-> decision-making theories) to look at the 1%-study as a sort of an "expressed assumption of innocence", "highly academic thoughts of some statistician/~s" or some such thing.
Yet somehow Mr. Mahesh - or that board of directors? or both? - got fascinated by that and narrow-minded besides and made a sort of "belief" out of it. Thus he suddenly started to violate his statements like "it's all scientific", "anyone can verify it by himself", "one practices it for oneself", "only couples might practice TM together".



A severe problem in the context of Mr. Mahesh's teaching/saying activities has been that he didn't quote properly.
That story about "waking, dreaming, sleeping and there is a fourth state of consciousness" can be found in those "Shiva Suktas" (-> "turiya"), written long before Mr. Prassad. Even Robert Keith Wallace didn't quote the Shiva-Suktas properly in his Ph.D.-thesis which he called something like "the discovery of the fourth state of consciousness".
The "Yoga Vasishta" has been talking about an "absolute consciousness" that's at the beginning and end of this whole world. Thus Mr. Mahesh's theme of "pure consciousness" has a further source there, too.
Very badly done - in that respect - is his "new translation on the Bhagavad Gita" which had been done by taking all available translations and only in case none could please Mr. Mahesh then Mr. Vernon Kaatz would make a new translation until Mr. Mahesh had been satisfied. Only in a few cases a real new translation of some verse had been done, according to Mr. Mahesh's lecture about that. (...Ok, Mr. Mahesh admitted all that in the context of TM-teacher-training course - at least on that one which I attended in Playa la Antilla/Spain march to May 1973...)
Why didn't he quote properly? Only the commentary seems to have been done by himself.
As a physicist (B.A. or diploma doesn’t matter) Mr. Mahesh should have known that he would have had to quote properly.
Ok, may be one can look at it as a sort of collage; but then all such things aren't contributions to Science but pieces of Art. Ok, more or less useful pieces got into those collages, certain true and meaningful phrases got into it, too.
Maybe those meaningful pieces are like maps of a treasure and those who might read those maps might get to that treasure. Anyway, it's good to keep a map that would lead to a treasure if one someday would be able to read it properly and for sure deciphering, puzzling it out would be worth it.

Some conclusions in between:

In conclusion, one will be on one's own in the context of practicing TM. One has to take it as one's responsibility and one's risk.

TM-teachers usually teach it rather reliable and they teach TM equally well.

It's a little bit as with walking on top of Mount Everest: Beyond about 7000m no helicopter can fly anymore and one will be alone in any case. On the other hand, it's a little bit like dreaming: If someone dreams to get assassinated and cries for the police during one's dreams no real police will come.

TM is for experiencing that state of samadhi, it's for verifying Turiya and it's a natural technique: Thus if one enters into that state of samadhi, if one reaches Turiya, one will experience something natural, some natural part of oneself.

That course consists of 2 lectures first and there's little risk for problems with sexual irregularities from the side of TM-teachers because usually more people attend such lectures. That private interview takes about 5 minutes and so no problems should arise from there, either. Initiation is private and takes about 30 minutes. Usually, there are more initiations to be done one after the other (I once did 20 initiations on one day - that had amounted to work; 10 hours without a break) and TM-teachers want to do their own meditation after the last initiation anyway. Thus there's not much of risk there either. Finally, one meets for 3 more evenings in a group and thus little risk there, too. Afterward, most of those who have learned TM are never seen again by the TM-teachers. Only those who decide for working in the TM-centers get into nearer contact to the TM-teachers and if they are of minor age then that's a risk for sure. Thus it would be helpful for all TM-teachers to make clear decisions about how to behave in the context of the TM-movement and how not. Not to accept any helpers of minor age in the TM-centers would reduce their risks and vice-versa, too.

(By the way, that story from Mr. Duke Elington I wrote about is to be found at Baedeker,6th edition, 2009, page 157
The headline is “further source of misunderstandings”).

Remark: I have been correcting the text up to here on the 2nd September 2019 using "https://app.grammarly.com" that I had been led on to by the online-dictionary of Langenscheidt, too.

 

 

 

Saraswatistotra:

Online Books PageOnline Books ny John Woodroffe" and then move on to: "Woodroffe, John Gorge, Sir, 1865-1936, ed.: Hymns to tghe Goddess (HTML at sacred-texts.com)".

One finds the text per: Saraswatī (Saraswatīstotra) from the Tantrasāra" Hmyns to the Goddess by Jihn Woodroffe (Arthur Avalon) [1913] is an interesting text (especially if one compares the mentioned mantras (for instance to be found in the book "Zauberformel TM" as mentioned earlier) with those that are found on the internet and which are said do to be "TM-mantras" there) and in such texts one finds expressed those general teachings of Mr. Mahesh in short, too.

Sometimes such texts state that the one or the other mantras are used by those gods themselves ("is thy favourite mantra") and thus using them cannot mean necessarily worship any Hindu-God or Hindu Goddess.

That makes it especially interesting. For instance:

>>HRīM, HRīM

3 is Thy most pleasing bīja,

4 O Thou whose moon-like

5 beauty is heightened <<

>>

AIM, AIM

5 is Thy favourite mantra,

Thou who art both form and formlessness,

6 Who art the wealth of the lotus face of the lotus-born,

7 Embodiment of all gunas,

8 yet devoid of attributes,

9 Changeless, and neither gross nor subtle.

10

<<

(Saraswati Stotra translated by Sir Arthur Avalon,

from the TANTRASARA)

Sir Avalon is of importance in this context because he had died before Mr. Mahesh had gone to Swami Brahmanda Saraswati and thus can be taken to be independent of all those disputes about Mr. Mahesh Prasad.

 

 

#############################################

Wikipedia says. >>Sir John George Woodroffe (1865–1936), also known by his pseudonym Arthur Avalon, was a British Orientalist whose work helped to unleash in the West a deep and wide interest in Hindu philosophy and Yogic practices.<<

It says in the text:

"AIM, AIM

5 is Thy favourite mantra"

For sure it doesn't say anything like "I Goddess... prefer most to be worshipped by the mantra AIM" or something like "Those who want to worship me best, are adviced to use the Mantra AIM". "AIM" is her favorite mantra, finished. If this were different, it would be expressed differently.

If someone is creating his "favorite list" either regarding an internet-radio or some Multimedia-Player on his computer, then he is creating the list of the Radio-Stations, pieces of Music, Video, etc which he prefers and for sure the people know very well that their list might differ quite a lot from the lists of someone else.

Of course, someone might use the list of some friends and might be well satisfied with that.

Assumed, Sir John Woodroff would have erred. In fact, on the internet one can find another source: "Tantra Asana" by Ajit Mookerjee,(https://archive.org/details/in.gov.ignca.68893/page/n145) and there on plate 3 (page 3) is to be found:

" Aing, Aing is Thy favourite mantra".

Thus we have the same text as in the translation of Sir John Woodroffe. Only, the mentioned, special "mantra" is different.

Thus - as I already mentioned earlier - TM doesn't use those mantras in a religious sense, It holds that it's no religious practice. If someone makes some religious practice out of it, too - maybe by doing a vouch to some God/gods to practise TM morning and evening , twice a day as having been taught - then that never has been anything else but an individual's decision and I never came along a situation in which some TM-teacher would have tried to give me such an advice during my time in the TM-movement. I also have mentioned that advanced TM-teacher training course during which Mr. Mahesh expected from experience TM-teachers to be able to transcend through the sense of tasting, in the same natural, effortless, problem-free manner as they had been taught when they had once got initiated.

According to Wikipedia Mr. Mahesh was born on the 12th of January 1918 and he died on the 5th of February 2008. Sir Avalon - Sir John George Woodroffe - died in 1936. That Saraswatisotra had been published in 1913 and Mr. Mahesh hadn't yet been alife. For sure, Sir John Woodroffe didn't translate this text as he did for the sake of pleasing or serving Mr. Mahesh. Furthermore, Mr. Mahesh had been of about 18 years at the time of the death of Sir John Woodroffe. Mr. Mahesh had highly probably not yet started to study physics and hadn't been with Swami Brahmanda Saraswati at all.

Consequently, the translations done by Sir John Woodroffe cannot be taken as anything else but independent of Mr. Mahesh Prasad Varma. He neither did it in favor of Mr. Mahesh nor to criticize his teachings.

(...See for instance: The Online Books Page, Online Books by John Geroge Woodroffe (Woodroffe. John Geroge, Sir, 1865-1936): -> "Hymns to the Goddess", ->" Sarasvati (Sarasvatistotra) from the Tantrasara...

or - maybe; I still have to check it -:

Hymns to the goddess

Von:transl. from the Sanskrit by Arthur ... Avalon

Verf./Bet.Person: Woodroffe, John George

Ort: London

Verlag: Luzac

Erscheinungsjahr:1913 Umfang: XII, 179 S.

for instance available at Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, München)

The "Shiva Suktas" deal with the theme "mantra", too. The Shiva Suktas (I've read an Internet-"Distribution" of them) explain the existence of the fourth state of consciousness (besides waking, dreaming and sleeping ) which has been named "Turiya" there. It seems that quite a lot of that basic logic got into the introductory lecture about "TM".

Searching for the source of the TM-mantras:

Any TM-meditator can easily look up what he can find about his private mantra using the internet these days.

He/she might use the internet in that manner that his/her identity remains hidden.

On the internet, one can find different lists of TM-mantras as well as in some book and interestingly finds quite a lot of „saying the same“.

There is a biography about Ramkrishna that says that Ramakrishna has done tantric experiments at the end of his life. It's interesting that in the books about yoga it has been impossible for me to find any of those TM-mantras according to those lists of the internet. But in that context of his tantric experiments, Ramkrishna was fumbling about with the breast of one of his female pupils. He was using his feet for that sort if strange tantric endeavors. Anyway, I could find one of those so-called „TM-mantras“ in that biography and just in that context.

Based on that piece of information, I once continued my search in tantric literature and in that book of Mookerjee „the great world of Tantra“ (...retranslated from the German Translation by O.W. Barth Verlag „Die große Welt des Tantra“...) I found a tantric ceremony.

That ceremony contains about 1/3 of the so-called „guru puja“ but instead of it being dedicated to/ associated with Swami Brahmanda Saraswati as it is in case of that „TM-puja“ in that tantric ceremony it is dedicated to Shakti, the daughter of Rishi Vasishta who has been regarded to be a great fully realized yogi similar to her father.

In the text of that ceremony, one can easily find about 50% of those words that are said to be „TM-mantras“ according to those lists of TM-mantras that are available on the internet.

I extended my search to further books of Mookerjee using that famous

library in Munich (it's one of those famous three stately libraries, the others are in New York and London; any book with an ISBN-number that has been published is available in those libraries according to an international contract) and I have found among others a book named „Tantra Asanas“. There I have found the link to a classic tantric text ( it has already been mentioned a few lines ahead. So, for an English version see for instance: "Tantra Asana" by Ajit Mookerjee,(https://archive.org/details/in.gov.ignca.68893/page/n145) and there on plate 3 (page 3) is to be found:) that started like

>>AING, AING

my dearest mantra

thou art form and formless<<

….

(After all exactly that text I quoted from Sir Avalon above already; only the Mantra, in this case, is "AING" and not "AIM".)

Thus I have concluded that TM is a „tantric meditation“ practice

and that explains rather well why Mr. Mahesh Prassad Varma had made that rule:

„Those of minor age mustn't be initiated without written permission of their parents at all!“, „Only couples may practice TM together“ (this has another explanation, too, as mentioned earlier), „practice it at home in your private room“, etc.

Of course, even Shri Aurobindo once said that „tantra“ would be a great and important thing but that it was very badly misunderstood.

As knowable from the practice of TM, TM hasn't anything in common with those „sex-practices“ as they are known from those who „teach tantra“ here and there these days.

It's interesting in this respect that one can find - as mentioned in detail already - a translation of that text „Sarasvatistotra“ done by „Sir Avalon“ on the internet.

Sir Avalon had been dead many years before Mr. Mahesh had started to teach as mentioned already.

Sir Avalon thus can't have written his translation either in favor of Mr. Mahesh nor against Mr. Mahesh.

That translation shows that at least some of the classical Indian mantras are not talked about as „prayer to some God or Goddess“ but as mantras which are used by Gods or Goddesses themselves and which are highly appreciated by the Gods/Goddesses and maybe God, too.

Thus one can see clearly, that „TM-approach“ as a „scientific something“ including statements like „TM is a natural, scientifically approvable technique for gaining deep rest,....“ really is thus maintained in classical Indian texts.

"By the recitation of the Mantra Hrim, Goddess Saraswati is highly pleased" shows that it doesn't just depend on the mantra whether it's either worshipping Goddess Saraswati or neutral, "scientific" meditation. It depends on the technique of using a mantra, too.

In that context of "Aing, Aing is Thy favourite mantra" the text is full of highly abstract statements about Saraswati: "Thou who art both form and formless", "Embodiment of all gunas, yet devoid of attributes", "Changeless", "neither gross nor subtle" "None know Thy nature, Nor Thy inner reality", and so on. These terms sound rather like the "Science of Being", like "pure consciousness", "unboundedness", "infinity"," beyond thinking", beyond some memories, beyond some memorized laws, facts here and there. One practices TM and during meditation, one transcends wanting, desiring, thinking, analyzing. It's not a religious thing. That field of pure consciousness cannot be known by thinking about it, by going from one thought to another.

In the context of recitation of mantra, the text is highly different and no longer in abstract, scientific- and mathematical-sounding terms:

"Thy crown is white as snow", "Thy hands play with the vine.","O Mother ! Mother ! salutation to Thee.","Burn, burn my sloth and grant me great intelligence. "Thou art Knowledge itself", "The Vedanta ever sings of Thee.","Sruti speaks of Thee", "O giver of liberation! O way to liberation!", "Whose power is beyond all understanding.", "O giver of happiness, adorned with a white necklace", "Grant to me Thy favours."

These are religiously sounding expressions. (see: http://www.indiadivine.org/audarya/shakti-sadhana/93127-goddess-week-saraswati-sarasvatistotra.html)

Once I have looked up for those mantras mentioned in that text, named "Saraswatistotra"

Regarding the above-quoted syllable "AING" I found - at YouTube - a man chanting that as a mantra. Mrs. Deva Premal, Mohani Heitel, Uma Mohan, Anuradha Paudwal and many others also offer recitations of mantras. Sometimes even "TM-mantras" get presented in a chanted version. It's enjoyable to hear it, it's maybe a functional path, but it's not the "TM-meditation technique". Everyone who has learned TM knows that the TM-technique of using the mantra is very different from reciting, chanting, etc.

Thus, a mantra isn't necessary for "transcending" anyway as explained because one can transcend through the sense of tasting, seeing, etc equally well - as explained already -. Even if one finds such a so-called TM-mantra and looks into the Internet what one can find about it, then the result mustn't be TM-practise at all, because it might have been presented in form of recitation.

The TM-technique is a thing of its own, it can be applied to some classical mantras and in that case, the mantras add some additional value according to what Mr. Mahesh has said repeatedly. But it just can't make sense to make a big fuzz about them.

The transcendental meditation technique might come from Swami Brahmanda Saraswati who got it - may be - from his Master Swami Krishnanand. Anyway, it's something special and those attempts to make something like that by themselves - as seemingly tried by some psychologists, etc - is rather unscientific. Swami Brahmanda Saraswati never initiated Mr. Mahesh into sannyasin and thus hasn't chosen him for teaching. That might explain why some of the TM-Mantras as stated by different authors are genuine, classical Vedic mantras; others cannot be found in the classical scriptures or at least cannot be found easily. One TM-teacher, who had died already, Max Aigner, once has told me - he had talked about that theme from his own surprisingly - that he had got just two mantras by Mr. Mahesh in the context of the initiation to be a TM-initiator: One for girls/ladies and one for boys/males. Thus the mantras - for sure - cannot be em

phasized too much in the context of an evaluation of TM.

 

 

 

The Bhavani-Ashtakam and TM

(See for instance: https://www.shankaracharya.org/bhavani_ashtakam.php)

It tells all that which somebody didn't know and cannot do.
Unable to pray, meditate, worship God/gods.
Unable to rely on friends, relatives, and so on.
Unable to know and do the right things.
Yet he calls to a - thus also unknown - Bhavani for help.
He wants to take refuge in her.

This is the situation of more or fewer people of today, too.
Yet, one thing one can do: Mathematics has been teaching decision-making theory; economics does it, too.
In case of the existence of truly friendly, knowledgable, reachable God, gods who are ready to help, one doesn't want to be a fool, for sure.
In the case of the non-existence of such God, gods one doesn't want to be a fool either.
Decision-making theory tells how to handle such situations in an at least not completely stupid manner.
That's that "scientific" taking refuge in Bhavani, that sort of cry for Bhavani.

That's how one can understand why that "Transcendental Meditation Technique" is not a religious something. Religions state first that some God or gods exist. St. Augustinus, for instance, has tried to prove the existence of God by logic and words. René Descartes tried for it similarily as well. In the context of Shankara's Bhavani Ashtakam, I got to the conclusion that it's good enough to show that one cannot prove the non-existence of God, gods by logic, words, etc and consequently, it's given to go for a good strategy in the context of God, gods. Thus the result will be scientific as the mathematical decision-making theories are. One uses a mantra - without bothering about meaning at all - from a classical source, one goes for a natural, effortless method do avoid hurting oneself by it. Deep rest, relaxation, moments of restful alertness during one's meditation - all that's verifiable and one doesn't believe in what one cannot or couldn't yet verify.

One acts like following René Descartes's knowledge about the non-reliability of the senses and his thirst for going beyond doubts without betraying oneself, etc because one goes beyond the senses and doesn't have presumptions about what pure consciousness, samadhi will be like and because one is just objective, neutral.

Remark: I have been correcting the text up to here on the 2nd September 2019 using "https://app.grammarly.com" that I had been led on to by the online-dictionary of Langenscheidt, too.

Kundalini and TM:


Mr. Mahesh once has been asked by a young lady, a TM-teacher from the USA (according to her slang) about Kundalini; she reported to have some Kundalini-experiences.
Mr. Mahesh asked the audience (about 1973 to 1974, Arosa, Switzerland) „who else has that experience“ and quite a lot have raised their hands. Finally, Mr. Mahesh asked: „who has that experience of Kundalini flowing all through up to the top of the head?“. A few have raised their hands still; he then shouted rather angrily: „Raise your hands!“ A few more have raised their hands; it was about 20 persons.
Interesting in that context is that in Germany psychiatrists have called
„Kundalini-Experience“ mental sickness and they have done that even in the context of compulsory medical treatment ( At least in that case it hadn't been anything else but torture, persecution, etc).
Thus all those people from India who take into account to go to Germany for work should be well informed:
If they practice Yoga for a better life as did, for instance, Gopi Krishna
(→ his book „Kundalini“, German translation published by O.W. Barth Verlag) and if they happen to awaken Kundalini then they might be thrown into psychiatry compulsorily and they might be persecuted because of that. Even if Kundalini doesn't prevent them from doing a good enough job well enough, even if Kundalini and their way of life together with - for instance - „TM“ had improved their „eyes“ ( -5,5 instead of at least -8.0 within not more than 4 years, etc!) they might be prevented from further employment in their profession (...according to their high educatedness, professionality, qualification...) for the rest of their lives; at least one such case has happened in Germany!
Now the question is how could the state authorities have got to know about who has Kundalini experience and who not?

They might have had their spies in such meetings in which Mr. Mahesh had been asking such questions and in which Mr. Mahesh had – uncautiously – re-asked and even re-asked in that „rather shouting manner“ as he had done those days in Switzerland.
See, in Munich once I had happened to see a sort of a political demonstration in the "pedestrian zone". About 20 people had been standing together and had been discussing some points; it was round about 1987. Suddenly I saw 2 persons coming from the direction of a nearby Sex-Shop. I knew them well from the TM-movement which I had left in 1976. I was rather surprised that those two had known each other at all. The one had entered the TM-movement when the other had left it.
The one had sat beside one another in the airplane that had taken me from Munich to London for a SCSI-Course in 1972. I asked him whether he would happen to know the station for getting out to reach the Youth hostel best. He said that he knows it very well because he would leave the airplane bus there, too. Yet, he would go to something like Youth hostel which would be situated nearer. He invited me to join him to that place. At least three times he mentioned that he had booked a 1-person-room there. I had still been of minor age and didn't appreciate his silent invitations- done by the repeating of his single room - to visit him in his room at all. When we had been in that "Youth hostel"-similar something he didn't allow me to talk to the people but managed everything on his own. Finally, they declared me that there was 1 bed free and it was the last one. I had been shown that obviously freshly done bed. No one else had been in that room for about 40 persons.
Astonishingly enough, when I woke up in the morning only girls had been laying in the beds around me during that summer day's night.
Consequently, quickly the payments for that night had been done and I left for a real Youth hostel.
Now, the other of those two from the demonstration named "nur Schafe lassen sich zählen", I had got to know when I had become a TM-teacher in 1973. He had come for initiation. He told me something like that he had been a co-worker of Pfarrer Friedhelm Haak (Priest Haak answered my inquiry in about him in about 1990: "That man never was a co-worker of mine"). On the other hand, I didn't have any problems with him. He behaved well, had been rather strangely interested in the social aspects of the TM-movement. Another TM-teacher had told me afterward that he had been in her lectures twice before it had been given to me to give the TM-initiations course of that weekend in 1973. That man came for the initiation, immediately as if he had already waited for that.
So far so the facts, now those two came together walking in that strange manner of equal step, cadence. Aha, they had been working for some secret service of the German state. To my full surprise among those about - by now - 22 persons I saw one more person whom I knew from the TM-center. He always had been well dressed, behaving in a distant yet polite manner. He declared himself to be one of those who would work for that population census. When I had seen those two coming in the equal step I remembered all the cruelties which had hit me and I decided not to stay until there would have had arrived because I had been in that mood of criticizing them sharply, risking to disguise them. So quickly I said to that 3'rd man "I wish you all good for your work" because I had him in no bad memory at all and I wouldn't have appreciated it if he would have got attacked out of fury or something.
Even more surprisingly, a lady furiously addressed me and maintained that I would have said that in a very bad ironically manner. I hadnÄt meant it ironically at all and I replied to her: "Lady, I know that man from a common club, namely the TM-center, and I wished him all good, what's the matter?".
Noticing her mistake, he quickly drew back and retook her place in the back rows of that small group.
Of course, I had got to know that lady in the TM-movement shortly before the terror against me had started, too.

Altogether I had seen among those about 20 persons those 4 persons which all had behaved in a certain stylish manner in the TM-movement.

Ok, the TM-movement had been observed by that secret service!

(...Secret service as such isn't bad at all. Someone walking behind someone and picking up some money in case of a loss on behalf of the "surveyed" person for the sake of giving the money back, isn't bad as such, isn't it?
But as an example, a secret service person who goes for insight into the behavior of some lady and thus gets information about how to do rape and afterward telling that it has been someone else and thus will be in a position of doing all that with little risk for becoming punished isn't but a criminal...)

But that man from the airplane to London who had, obviously, been responsible for those of minor age those days had made a very severe mistake. During those about 70 minutes on the airplane, I told him why and how I had got into the TM-movement and that it hadn't been due to my will at all but nothing but the consequences of evildoings of that teacher at that stately school. By his pedophile-sounding words in that airplane and airport bus of London, he had made it impossible for him to do his job. Furthermore, he had a strangely high interest in TM as shown by his visiting a 4-week-long lasting TM-course. So, it looks as if hadn't an interest in getting the TM-movement criticized because of having had initiated me without written permission of my parents and furthermore against my very clearly expressed intentions of not wanting to learn TM at least not at that time.

So I'm quite sure that certain secret service people of Germany had taken part in TM courses abroad, too.

In conclusion, Mr. Mahesh had been very badly advised whenever he had asked his audience for talking about Kundalini and so on.
In the eyes of Mr. Mahesh awakened Kundalini was a very good, highly desirable something.

Yet, in the stupid, ignorant opinion of the German psychiatrists, it's nothing but a sickness of the nervous system which leads to certain experiences and perceptions which the call and treat as "mental sickness". In fact and unfortunately, the psychiatry is believed in by the state authorities and those simple persons who make the laws by means of "majority" in the democratic countries had given to those idiots the power to torture those who have Kundalini experience!

Germany denies enlightenment, refined perception, spiritual experiences, and spiritual development. They want to keep the power in their hands, they want to be the one who has to be accepted as the only specialists for the whole field of perception, experience, consciousness, etc. Their ignorance and haughtiness are so immense, that they cannot accept something like TM. Noone shall be allowed to teach meditation but them and they always want to make money. Noone shall be allowed to know more about consciousness than they. Those are very dangerous, health-jeopardizing, persecution practicing fools. They are members of the modern trial of inquisition. They declare that someone's way of thinking, some beliefs, etc here and there weren't alright, some also ignorant, non-enlightened judge believes in them blindly and out of fear and the process of torture in the name of health, future, mental stuff starts.

Unfortunately and in fact, that has happened in Germany!

So, Mr. Mahesh's questioning had been foolish, too.

Final part: about such a sort of teaching:

Let's assume some professor of, let's say, mathematics has decided to write a book about some subject of mathematics.

His long year secretary has offered him to do the typewriting.

That long year secretary might have been someone who had studied a few years of mathematics even but maybe he/she hasn't been able to finish that study.

Wouldn't it be very strange if that secretary started to give lectures based on that book?

Wouldn't it be rather strange if some student of that subject didn't go to the professor in charge of that seat of learning at that present time but went to that man who had been the secretary of that professor who had once written that book?

Now, of course, it might be that such a former secretary serves as a private tutor (the german word would be „Nachhilfelehrer“).

Fine, that might very well be and it might be for good if done seriously. Of course, even professors at the university happen to make mistakes here and there sometimes and even in books of mathematics, one can find sometimes some mistakes in the context of proof, example, etc.

Thus one mustn't judge about mistakes done by such a private tutor in a stricter manner.

As long as a private tutor has a suiting competence such „sort of teaching acitivities shouldn't be a real problem (...especially in the case that that student goes to a real professor, too and doesn't just go to his private tutor.....)

If a student uses good literature from different qualified specialists besides, little mistakes here and there shall be managed successfully by such a student.

Accepted, a good competent private tutor might be a good help.

In that sense, something like those teaching activities of Mr. Mahesh Prassad might be understood adequately.

Just as there are organizations that organize private tutors there might be an organization that handles those „TM-teachers“. Why not?

I don't want to judge about that teaching about transcending, the used mantras, etc.

But just as such a student with a private tutor usually handles that situation I think that it's very necessary and one's good right to make use of one's freedom and to inform oneself about the original professor, the author of that assumed „book“ and – above all - to listen to the lectures of the true orderly professors and the one who is holding that seat of teaching at the present.

A „private tutor“ is a supplementary someone and neither less nor more. After all, it's up to the single individuals to decide to go for a private tutor or not.

If a private tutor has proper insurance in case of severe mistakes in the context of his teaching activities the risk might be little.

If the private tutor hasn't any insurance and no insurance company has agreed to ensure that private tutor then the risk will certainly be higher or even rather high. As long as the teacher accepts the literature which has been recomended by the official professors, there won't be problems either. It will remain the duty of the student to look up the books and the tutor's task will only be to help the student to understand the given books. Fine, if he fails too often, he will lose that student; that'll be the only "risk". As a private tutor one really shouldn't take more risk than that. A problem might be in the field of athletics in case one served as a co-trainer and the student would be hurted because of wrong training-methods. I don't want to go in further detail.

Mr. Mahesh's meditation practice, namely that Transcendental Meditation is a natural method which doesn't use effort, etc and stays within those 2 times of maximum 30 minutes a day and it resembles very much to the method which Shankaracharya Shantananda had been teaching (see: >> sayings of swami shantanand saraswati - Paul Mason www.paulmason.info/.../Sayings%20of%20Swami%20Shantanan...), it seems to be rather reliable.

Furthermore, there's Paul Mason's analysis explaining Mr. Mahesh's dilemma and his solutuion per "Raja Yoga". (https://tmfree.blogspot.com/2010/02/paul-mason-developing-alternative-to.html).

Only the theme of the used mantras remains, because, in that text of Shankaracharya Swami Shantananda Saraswati, no mantras are mentioned explicitly. On the other hand those mantras (either according to those lists of TM-mantras on the internet or, based on every initiator's possibilitiy to look for further information about the given mantras anonymously on the internet) are classical and can be found in classical Indian literature. Besides, they aren't related to bad somethings or beings at all.

In addition, the Saraswatistotra gives some insight in its meaninglessness, non-religiousness because it depends on how it gets used; if used for Japa it's worshipping of the (Hindu-)Goddess Saraswati; if used for meditation it is related to abstract themes like infinity, formlessness, beyond activity, unfathomability.

On the one hand, why shouldn't Christians be able to soften down the mind's activities, too?

On the other hand, why shouldn't a Christian be able to use for that the mere sound-aspect of some words? Especially if these words' meaning depends on how one uses them. Using them for softening down the mind's activities they have no meaning.

Using them in the hope of being able to please some God, Goddess, gods by reciting these mantras, chanting them they appear to have that meaning of going for worshipping God, gods. The intention of wanting to do worship makes seemingly words for worshipping out of it. Having the intention of wanting to soften the mind down at its fullest, they are sounds without meaning. Meaning would even be a hindrance for that.

See it's the same problem as in the case of „mountain guides“. Many people who have been walking up the mountains have thought themselves to be able to guide others into the realm of the mountains here and there some day.

Unfortunately, that might and has sometimes ended with sudden death.

Many of those amateurish „mountain guides" haven't even known the problems which can come along with mountain disease, they haven't known its symptoms, etc.

Not had been able to see the symptoms of mountain disease they sometimes would have happened to have taken a wrong decision resulting in the death of the partner, friend, etc.

Once one understood the dangers at heights beyond 2500 m, one's readiness to follow a not well trained professional mountain guide would be less.

Mr. Reinhold Mesner, the well-known mountaineer, used to say something like: „the world of high mountains starts at a height of 2500 meters and ordinary people shouldn't go beyond on their own“.

Yet for certain, the risks of climbing as such are totally different. The risks of climbing exist at heights under 2500m as well. Even artificial climbing facilities in big cities, for instance in Germany, haven't been able to exclude even deathly accident. So, depending on the theme the risk can differ a lot. In certain cases, several risks can add up like in the case of climbing beyond 2500m of height.

Shankaracharya Swami Brahmanda Saraswati was acknowledged and is held in high esteem. He had studied the field of meditation thoroughly. He was a professional in that field. Mr. Mahesh was his secretary. Admitted, he had gone to him to learn about meditation, Atman, Brahman and all that. He hadn't gone to him to become a secretary. He was working as his secretary in the hope to learn about Atman, Brahman, meditation, etc. It's to be supposed, that he will have learnt more or less about all that. Anyway, in my eyes, he was someone like a private tutor and not more. There have been many people fond of meditation, Indian philosophy etc. Why shouldn't they listen to the comments, remarks, etc given by Mr. Mahesh? Some will have tried out "his" "TM-meditation", gained certain experiences, etc compared the experiences as well as the gained understandings with the given traditional knowledge (Patanjali Yogasutras, Vedanta, Brahma Sutras, Shankara's comments, writings, poems, Bhagavad Gita, etc), listened again to Mr. Mahesh and have been happy with this, have been successful with it, have explained others what they have been doing and why, etc, why not? So many having practised TM for quite some time was calling somehow for talking about that phenomenon of "their experiences" by means of statistically gained truthful precise expressions. Thus some sort of teaching, reports about experiences, etc came along.

Ok, regarding me personally, I haven't even accepted him to have been a "private tutor" of mine. I've never accepted him. That theme "Atman, Brahman, Birth&Rebirth, TM-meditation, etc" had been forced onto me and I have been trying to find truthful and only truthful answers in the sense of mathematics, neutral scientificness. There have been some positive results, yet the only bad consequences of the persecution by the state of Germany have been overshadowing all that and no-one from the TM-teachers, no lawyer, no rich one, no lover of freedom, no scientist, no philosopher, no theologist have helped me. What to do? Oh, Bhavani? Help thyself and take refuge in Thee, oh Bhavani, in you who might exist or might not exist, oh wow. If one knows the Truth about you, one can decide with less expense. Finding a better or even best strategy by means of decision-making theories will then be possible with less expense. So maybe it makes sense to use some 30 minutes twice a day for the sake of finding Thee by chance or beyond all randomness, maybe, oh Bhavani. It's restful, it's relaxing, it's enjoyable, it's enlivening, so it's not wasted anyway, oh Bhavani.

Let me add something and summarize regarding Mr. Mahesh:

I don't think that he had done all that to harm someone.

Yet, it looks like having got misused by communistic revolutionaries and additionally, later the KGB had been persuading his interests. Mr. Mahesh hadn't been very cautious in that regard and went into foot traps here and there. To be fair in respect of KGB, etc one can't but see that Mr. Mahesh had been on a sort of piteousness. He never had wanted to teach as he had told to more than 1000 course participants on the TM teacher training course at Playa La Antilla/Spain in March 1973 to May 1973. So, he had felt that all actions which had been designed to make him go for giving lectures would have been against his will, against his freedom of personal development. His subjective way of handling that situation of Maya hadn't been the best decision at all. Thus over and over again it happened that the problems arising from the TM-movement because of some individual TM-teachers here and there became too much for him, they had been overwhelming him repeatedly. As a result, he made repeatedly the wrong decision. Highly Interesting is in this respect that KGB-Agent Jui Bezmenow's Job had been "delusion" and thus directly related to that theme of Maya; his job had been a sort of application of "Maya", to cause some mistakes, some illusion, etc for the sake of creating a possibility for making use of that.

One example: Mr. Mahesh had started his "New Translation and Commentary on the Bhagavad Gita" in the late 1960s.

Fine, he assumed that TM could be found to be true in the light of the Bhagavad Gita. As a reader, one would naturally go for the method of "indirect proof". One assumes that the contrary would be the case.

Fine, if no contradiction could be found by the end of the Bhagavad Gita then the TM-teaching might be similar to the Bhagavad Gita's teaching.

See it's like that proof regarding the Euclidean geometry, the independency and completeness of the axioms of, let's say, Hilbert. The consistency cannot be proven by using anything but that axiomatic system of the Euclidian Geometry itself (see Kurt Gödel's theorem as Dr Michael Weinless mentioned in one of his MIU-lectures). Yet one can show that it's possible to build a model of the geometry using nothing but the theory about the real numbers. Finally one has the following line of reasoning: Because the real numbers are taken to be consistent and one can build a model with all the features of Euclidean geometry using nothing but the laws of the real number theory the Euclidean Geometry is as consistent as the theory of the real numbers. (It's true vice versa because using nothing but the Axiom system of David Hilbert - for example - one can derive the real numbers as the set of all points of a straight line and one can derive all the basic attríbutes of the real numbers using that Geometry).

Now, If Mr. Mahesh had finished his translation truthfully and he had completed his commentary in full consistency until the last statement found in the Bhagavad Gita, then he would have at least proven that the TM-teaching is similar to the teaching contained in the Bhagavad Gita.

Unfortunately, Mr. Mahesh never has finished his translation and commentary. Instead of had taken time for finishing that task, he started on this and that and nothing has got finished.

This reflects that he never had wanted to teach. He had wanted to live the life of a Sadhu outside of society. That "Starting something responsibly and bringing it to a good end" had been foreign to him. He hadn't wanted to start teaching and thus he hadn't wanted to end it either. Somehow there has been that risk of getting drawn into his mud of "Not-Knowing" which had pulled him into his teaching activities in the 1950s.

Thus, Mr. Mahesh has left behind some insights into proper meditation, into the Vedanta, the Bhagavad Gita, the Patanjali Yogasutras, the Vedas and different aspects of the vast Indian philosophical heritage.

As long as someone takes the risk on his own, one will find some TM-teacher here and there who teaches one how to practice TM.

But one thing is true for sure: Youngsters mustn't be forced to learn TM!

And it is this last aspect which calls for the state authorities. These can take care of the right of the youngsters to not been drawn into that field of MAYA and having nothing but TM to free themselves again, afterward.

In my opinion, Mr. Mahesh had been on piteousness and here and there he kept on fulfilling his private desires in contradiction to "His Holiness", "Yogi", Maharishi". That's why I have been calling him "Mr. Mahesh".

It's a big shame for the western world that neither the states nor those who criticized Mr. Mahesh harshly had been able to explain to him what had happened at South India those days and how he could have reacted much more skillfully. When I wrote it to him as a question for the "International press conference" I had given him a chance during his lifetime. Yet, his secretaries didn't pass it on to Him. In that sense, he was being persecuted by some near to him for the last years of his life.

Thus many activities had been done and a big huge upheaval had been held but the success had been rather poor.

Shankaracharya Shantanand had been willing to teach and he would have been asked for help. Instead of asking Him, judges, courts, and goverments - including local governments of cities, etc - went to maybe jealous, prejudiced, ignorant, non-enlightened psychiatrists, priests. Their nonsense has exceeded Mr. Mahesh's lack of professionality by far. In their case, evil-mindedness has played a major role at least in some cases.

That neo-inquisition as done by Pfarrer Wilhelm Friedhelm Haak and others cannot be accepted.

Look for this theme to https://www.theologe.de/theologe12.htm. Unfortunately, this text isn't yet available in the English language.

Others like Hans Löffelmann had got into that strange mud of activities.

Hans Löffelmann never had wanted compulsory psychiatric treatment for those who had practised TM etc. Yet, he had served them involuntarily according to what he has told me. He had relied on the strength of his words because of his being a psychologist, too. The reality has been, that he hadn't been able to undo the evildoings of those whom he had happened to had served. Later, he had been too sick to help the victims and again they didn't find help. Mr. Haak etc hadn't been able to avoid something. Yet, they criticized Mr. Mahesh for having got into problems similar to those in which they had got themselves. They kept on criticizing Mr. Mahesh for not having been able to avoid what they hadn't been able to avoid either. Only, Haak's set of followers had been even much smaller than the set of followers and helpers of Mr. Mahesh. Maybe, That small organization of Haak had been infiltrated to damage that Church. There's no doubt, they had been infiltrated by deprogrammers and whenever Mr. Haak, Mr. Löffelmann and others recommended their sort of self-help group to others who had come to them in search for help, Mr. Haak, etc had served those deprogrammers by delivering them further possible victims for their evil doing.

In my case it was even the truth that I never have had those problems which Mr. Haak, Löffelmann etc had taught my mother that I would have had. My problem had been infiltration and I had solved it already in that special case. Let's imagine that those who had infiltrated Mr. Haak's self-help group had been some KGB-agents. I had overcome that leftishism a few months ago. Would it really have been useful in whatever sense to had reported it to Mr. Haak's self-help group or to my mother who used to go there for a few years? Of course not! Are psychiatrists, priests, etc the appropriate officials for such themes? They were suffering and some have been suffering from a sort of delusion of grandeur!

Total reliability cannot be found in the Church of which Pfarrer Haak had been an employee nor in that one of Hans Löffelmann.

Total reliability cannot be found in police nor the military services.

Total reliability cannot be found in the ministries nor the field of medicine; neither in psychiatry nor at the courts.

What to do?

As long as Churches, Courts, physicians & psychiatrist would have stuck to the principles of freedom, no problems would have occurred for TM-practitioners.

Yet the Churches, Courts, physicians & psychiatrists didn't stick to that freedom and preferred to serve their private religious embitions, their belief in modern medicine, their blind belief in psychiatry, etc.

What do do?

Total reliability cannot be found in the TM-movement. Mr. Mahesh hadn't been reliable because he used to run away if problems had arisen.

For getting out of some philosophical problem, Mr. Mahesh used to turn to further and further Philosophies. From Bhagavad Gita to Vedas, from Vedas to Ayurveda, from Ayurveda to Vedanta, from Vedanta to Siddhis, just like that ... and he never finished anything and left behind new problems. He had been on his Sadhuic search for Truth and didn't want to bother for the results of "his" TM-movement.

What to do?

Neither state, neither psychiatry, neither physicians, neither philosophers, neither scientists can be asked for help, that's sure.

Yet, there are well-done translations of Vedanta, some sayings of Swami Brahmanda Saraswati and Shantanand, etc are available, too.

One cannot but take refuge to one's intellect, one cannot but try on one's own.

As long as the states accept that, fine,

Unfortunately, the state of Germany had started on persecution and didn't want to tolerate that; in their boundedness to the field of Maya, they meant that their psychiatrists, etc would be able to help by force, by violating freedom, etc.

What to do?

They want you to fight against them to have an excuse for putting you into prison including getting tortured by psychiatrists forever, that's sure.

One might flee into another country and state. It seems, that this looks like being a real good choice. If the KGB had been waiting for you there again, that wouldn't have been a good choice, either.

One might use the internationality of the TM-movement and work for nothing but one's living there. But why should one do that if one had been forced to start TM at all? How might it be accomplished if TM-practitioners believe and spread a rumour about you there, too?

What to do?

You wish those rather few evil-minded Germans prison forever and you know that they would deserve it for sure.

One can learn languages to improve one's chances for fleeing.

What to do?

One cannot but refuge to the intellect. (It's the advice given in the Bhagavad Gita)

One cannot but rely on oneself.

The Bhavani Ashtakam recommends:

"Take refuge to Bhavani".

One doesn't know.

What to do?

One takes refuge in what one knows, one takes refuge in decision-making theories.

One doesn't take refuge in becoming a Sadhu because a Sadhu who had lost his path caused one's problems, so why should that way of life be especially helpful?

One might say in analogy to the Bhavani Ashtakam: Oh Bhavani, it would be simpler, if Thou existed. Oh, Bhavani. But probably you appreciate "taking refuge to one's intellect and trying one's best" a lot, oh hopefully existing dear Bhavani.

Taking together, whether one looks at it from the Bhagavad Gita or the Bhavani Ashtakam one can't but rely on oneself, try one's best and take refuge in the intellect. Having had learned TM once, one can use it for deeper rest, for gathering oneself after a day of activities, duties, etc and one can use it before starting one's activities as a method for gathering oneself for the sake of being focused, self-contented, more peaceful. Having read the "sayings of Shantanand" one can compare one's meditation with his statements, too.

I wish you all good,

Adios

Appendix:

Remarks in the context of the Patanjali Yogasutras

Let's have first some quotations first It says at ...- I'm searching it to search this -

>>3.18 ...<<

At "Die Wurzeln des Yoga, die klassischen Lehrspräüche des Patanjali", O.W.Barth Verlag" (ISBN 3-502-67006-4) one can find as a translation of this verse into German on page 143:

Thus Patanjali accepts or even states birth and rebirth. Because Rebirth might happen as an animal one comes to a very important conclusion in the context of verse 4.1 of Part Four:

>> 4.1 ...<<

At "Die Wurzeln des Yoga, O.W.Barth Verlag" (ISBN 3-502-67006-4) it says:.... The word "mantra" is mentioned.

>> 3.23 ....<<

(Page 154 in the book "Die Wurzeln des Yoga, O.W.Barth Verlag" (ISBN 3-502-67006-4): >>24 ... <<

>>3.20 ....<<

(Translation into German for instance: page 152, verse 21 in the book "Die Wurzeln des Yoga, O.W.Barth Verlag" (ISBN 3-502-67006-4)

Remarks:

Mr. Patanjali just describes objectively the situation of mind, samadhi, yoga, so-called special abilities (which got translated as "Divine abilities" in the above translation by BonGiovanni) and because certain species can have very special abilities (for instance: chimpanzees, those birds that fly around the world in the context of summer and winter, those migratory birds, etc). All that are phenomenons of mind, spirit, etc. If Patanjali had wanted to be comprehensive, he would have had to mention all that. And for sure some animals can gain abilities to make themselves -more or less - invisible by vegetable drugs. Consequently, Mr. Pantanjali had no other choice but mentioning these facts, too. Human readers need to have a clear-minded look at such texts; otherwise, one might be caught up in that field of illusion, misunderstanding, this "Maya" about which, for instance, Mr. Shankara has written about.

The important conclusion from this analysis is that if one is born as an elephant one naturally will have the strength of an elephant; if one is born as a bird, one naturally will be able to fly, and if one is born as a chicken, one will naturally be able to give one's eggs a special coloring that makes them invisible in a certain surrounding by just eating specific vegetable substances (...thus certain "supernormal abilities will be gained by vegetable means "drugs" if one is a chicken. The Patanjali Yoga Sutras don't say that this will be true if one is born as a human being. Thus, Patanjali just didn't say that taking drugs might be helpful for humans in the context of striving for enlightenment, gaining special abilities, etc. Due to a lack of neutrality, objectivity, and comprehensiveness, some sentences have been misunderstood by some people...)

To be noted: One cannot derive from the "The Pantanjali Yoga Sutras" that taking drugs might ever result in enlightenment, any even "divine" ability, etc.

To make oneself un-clear-minded, to cause disorder to one's nervous system will result in reduced ability, in a lack of ability and not in some higher ability. One might say that by eating lots of Betacarotine a white human can change to a more brown skin without much need of time. Unfortunately one cannot get back that easily and quickly again.

The ability of the chameleon and certain sort of fish is quite different from that. Furthermore, I got to know from a man who had drunk about 1l of Carotte-juice a day because he thought that it would be healthy. Some day a physician had to be consulted and he came to the result that he was suffering from hepatic cirrhosis as the result of that liter of carotte-juice a day. What sort of higher ability would it have been if it had caused premature death or long-time suffering? So, what sometimes looks like some higher ability is nothing but an increase in stupidity. My teacher of Art at School, Mr. Dieter Stöver, one's has explained to us that some artists take some drugs and they paint the world as they had seen it afterward. Mr. Stöver has continued in his lecture and has taught: What those do cannot be called "Art" anymore.

 

 

Ideas in the context of the Yogavasishta:

Absolute consciousness and about the possibility of the existence of God/gods:

Ideas, concepts, teachings in the context of the Yogavasishta - Absolute consciousness:
Looking at the Yogavasishta and its teaching about Samsara one can notice
the following aspects:

i) How to come to the possibility of the existence of absolute consciousness?
The phenomenon of the dream is well-known and generally accepted.
After all, it's everyone's own experience and thus it cannot be denied, it exists beyond doubt.

Now, during dreaming there can very well exist things, castles and there can exist other persons and of course, oneself is there to be found, too.
After waking-up one realizes that it has been a dream.
Now, from what has that dream-world been made?

Everything has appeared to be completely real and yet like an own world.
Seen from the waking state, it has just been like dreams and thus it has been nothing but some appearance of consciousness.
There has been some outside world, some other person and oneself.

In Conclusion, an outside world, another person and oneself have been
appearances of consciousness. That world, that person and oneself all that has been an appearance of consciousness and thus it looks similar to that Vedic teaching which says "I am That, thou are That and all is That". I'm an appearance, a manifestation of consciousness, Thou art an appearance, a manifestation of consciousness and all that world is an appearance, a manifestation of consciousness.

Furthermore, one can describe that situation by drawing into account the existence of some absolute pure consciousness which is the inner substance of everything and all living creatures. All beings and every world are appearances of that absolute consciousness, that - as Mr. Mahesh has was calling it - "pure consciousness".
Now, because all that happens in this so-called real world can happen in a dream-world, too, this world might be a sort of dream.

Taking these two thoughts together one cannot but conclude that this so-called real world and the living creatures in it might then equally well have that absolute consciousness as its inner substance. Furthermore, this world, as well as the living creatures in it, will have to be taken into account as being appearances, manifestations of that absolute consciousness. Also, that Vedic saying "I am That, Thou art That, all This is That" will hold for the "real world" as well as for any other world.

Consequently, the statement that there might exist some absolute consciousness which is the very inner substance of everything and everyone has been explained.

What can be concluded from that possibility that all this might be appearances, manifestations of pure consciousness? What are the conclusions of this finding that this world might be a sort of dream?

* The situation of "it might be like that, but maybe it's not like that" calls for decision-making theory and going for a good, reliable, practical strategy.

* God/gods might exist and again this situation calls for a good strategy.

* There might be a law of Karma and this calls for a good strategy as well.

* There should and might exist a method of realizing that
pure consciousness and this method, that path shouldn't be devoid of logic, practicality, seriousness.

ii) A German politician, Mr. Gregor Gysi, once said in an interview (probably it was with Mrs. Maybritt Illner in September 2009 or 2005; definitely, it was in the context of the "Bundestagswahl", the election to the German parliament) that according to his conviction God/gods cannot exist because there's suffering in the world.
His line of reasoning was: „If God might exist He/She/They would have made an end to the suffering of course at once“.

The Yogavasishata explains that this world was „SAMSARA“.
Western psychiatrists, scientists and also the Bible accept the phenomenon of the dream. Scientists are convinced that dogs – for instance – dream, too.
There is a movie with a sleeping dog whose legs suddenly make movements as if he were running and the same time he starts to try to catch something – that in reality doesn't exist at all - using his mouth.

If everything that can happen in this „real“ world might happen also in the world of dreams then it's a simple logical and rather an obvious conclusion that this „real“ world might be nothing else but a dream-world.
Thus, in reality, one would have been in some real-world and there one had fallen asleep and had started to dream; thus „this“ life in this world would be that dream.

If one died in this world one would – in reality – wake up in the real
world.
And the real world might in reality very well be such that it's not possible to violate any other creature, that world, etc at all – because it might be done like that.
(Like tigers or lions in a well-done zoo – they cannot injure or kill anyone
there and yet they get everything that they need for life.).

Rishi Vasishta has taught according to the Yogavasishta, beyond waking, dreaming and sleeping there's the absolute consciousness. Only by becoming familiar with that absolute consciousness, by gaining knowledge about it, it's possible to realize the nature of this world as Samsara. Only by no longer being attached to Samsara one can get out of it and unwanted effects of the ignorance about and the attachment to it.

The non-existence of God/gods cannot be proven; in other words: God/gods might exit:

So, when some people stated - similar to Mr. Gregor Gysi - that they were able to prove the impossibility of the non-existence of God/gods by using that there's suffering in this world they would have to accept:

Because this world might be a sort of dream, a "Samsara", the suffering in this world thus won't be “real“ and God/gods will know that this „real“ world here is nothing but a dreamy world and all that suffering isn't anything but a sort of bad dreams. Thus it's nothing but a logical conclusion, that God/the gods don't have to do anything at all against suffering. God/the gods are completely free, not bound to human beings and not obliged to do anything at all for some human being here and there.

Thus, on the one hand, the conclusion is that God/the gods might exist very well and that they are free and they don't have to do anything like what that politician Gregor Gysi had stated; they aren't something like slaves of some humans. Similarily enlightened angels, the immortal and enlightened demon Prahlada, the immortal bird Busunda - who is mentioned in the Yogavasishta -, etc might exist, too.

On the other hand, there's no reason why God/gods,... might not be able to influence happenings in this world; God/god, etc might help someone in this world and God/gods might help this world as a whole, too.
Someone has a bad dream and someone awake speaks soothing words and the badness of the dream usually stops and often the one who has been sleeping didn't even wake up. Similarily God/gods might help beings amidst some dreamy world if they want and if they don't want then they don't have to do it.

So it's very simple, from the "existence of suffering", one cannot conclude a Non-existence of God/gods because this world might be a sort of dream, a Samsara.

Yet furthermore, God/gods won't help anyone to commit a crime against nature, animals, plants, even demons, themselves, etc and thus the ignorance of humans, ignorant strivings, desires can cause a situation in which God/gods cannot help a human as he/she/it is longing for. On the one side, they might not be able but to accept the situation in this world as a phenomenon described by "Samsara". On the other side, they will know about the so-called "Law of Karma". Taking all this together it can be that some human desires cannot be fulfilled by God/gods. Some ways in which some humans want to achieve something might be unsupportable, too.

Similarily it's obvious that something like a „Law of Karma“ might also exist.

Law of Karma:

As long as someone is still dreaming of killing, sexual violence, destroying the
primeval forests or as long as someone is still finding lines of reason
for killing, to which he/she/it has been clinching on he/she/it will have
less joy in the real world; his radius for activities will be less there.

On the one hand, conceiving o the possibility of the existence of God/gods, one can conclude from there, that there might be a law of Karma.

On the other hand, one knows from dreams that there are unenjoyable dreams, nightmarish dreams, too. That natural ability and necessity to look at things and situations from both sides or its different sides might have caused a bad life situation in the next life if one had done evil in the or a previous life. A real, yet highly unenjoyable life might result from that natural situation that not only even those who commit a crime but even all the more those will be in an all the more urgent need for looking at situations from different sides. It's simply because there is police, there are judges who are eager to punish them. Additionally, the victims will defend themselves to their best. Thus bondage is associated with crime, always.

For sure, thinking that not thinking about the consequences of one's deeds will make oneself more successful, will make life easier, more relaxed, will not give shelter against nightmare. And just because this world might be a Samsara, a dream-world which one takes - out of ignorance, because of not having gained enlightened - as a real-world, a life full of problems, suffering, sickness, etc might be the result of crime in the world of one's new life which one will take as real as the crimes from which one had hoped to draw joy, to yield advantages, to cede success, etc.

Because crime leads to bondage, an even increased attachment to that sort of world which one will take to be as real as the worlds of one's crimes isn't excluded. Thus the suffering-full consequence of evil-doing might be experienced as being even more real and thus all the worse than the advantages which one had wanted to gain by crime. Thus suffering is supposed to be the result of crime including crime against nature, animals, plants, even demons, etc. As a result of attachment someone commits a crime and as a result of crime attachment will result. Thus crime cannot be a way out of birth and rebirth. Crime can never be a way to enlightenment. Crime is the consequence of taking this world to be real, crime is seeking freedom in something that leads to even more bondage, that leads to unfreedom, crime is the result of not seeing clearly but living in sort of bad dream which is - out of ignorance - taken to be real. Crime is an expression of wanting to have bad dreams, to live in a world in which bad dreams full of suffering seem to be real. Crime will never be a way leading out of that but it binds to a vicious cycle.

Likewise in general, the attachment cannot cede freedom of suffering and thus cannot cede real freedom.

Thus it's the logical conclusion that from that statement „this world might be a sort of dream“ it cannot be concluded that one was allowed to do whatever one does.

Yet, that doesn't amount to being allowed to do whatever one wants to do, because the situation is as it is and there might exist a law of karma very well, too.

Birth and rebirth:

Conceiving of the possibility that this world might be „SAMSARA“ a sort of dreamy world it's also the mere logical conclusion that there might be birth and rebirth.
That's simply because „death“ in the SAMSARA-world wouldn't be nothing but waking up in the real world.
One simple conclusion from this is that the death penalty doesn't make sense at all. Why? See, if to some bad one applied death penality then - maybe -he/she would return the next day. This "the next day" resulted in the fact that he/she wouldn't have learned anything new, etc. On the other hand, he/she would have got a new DNA, new identity, etc and thus a new chance for his/her evil doings in this world of SAMSARA and a new chance for committing crime on the one side and a chance of not getting caught and accused this time, on the other hand. Thus, that death penalty wouldn't but have served crime.

There should and might exist a method of realizing that absolute consciousness and this method, that path shouldn't be devoid of logic, practicality, seriousness:

In the Yogavasishta several persons get mentioned and how they have found to the state of realization. Thus examples have been given including how te demons Bali and Prahlada have gained enlightenment. (See for instance https://www.forgottenbooks.com/en/readbook/ATranslationofYogaVasishta_10000087#98)

Thinking on my own, I come to some border-lines as follows:

Natural and safe:

Some mountaineers said, that when they do climbing, extreme mountaineering, it will be like meditation.
Yet, quite a lot of those who did that happened to "stay" in the mountains as Reinhold Mesner used to express it; they've died due to their passion, in other words. If one looks at that sort of "meditation", one will have to decide against it, because the worst case will be highly probably early death or lifelong suffering due to reduced health after a severe accident. (Admitted, usually, mountaineers didn't start mountaineering because they had wanted to start meditation; maybe some felt it be meditative later. Of, course it had been a good sort of discipline, restful and relaxing to go to the mountains with my parents. My father had used to go with his children for walking up some mountains not higher than 2000m - always using only the given trails - almost on each weekend and has taught to his children not to talk during walking.)

Others proclaim strange rigid disciplines like having oneself fixed to a tree and thus having to stand on one leg for months or even years. If one follows such fanatic methods, health-problems might highly probably be the result. Furthermore, it isn't compatible with day-to-day-life at all. (Yes, I have seen that movie „An den Ufern der Heiligen Flüsse“ and it gives a lot of helpful information and, no doubt, that "Hathayoga Baba" lives an impressive life. - for details see: https://www.moviepilot.de/movies/an-den-ufern-der-heiligen-fluesse/trailer -. Another interesting movie in this regard is: "Sadhu"; see: http://www.filmstarts.de/kritiken/221404.html. Admitted, Tat Wale Baba had been living an impresive life, too and, different from other Sadhus, he seems to have taken care of his living on his own and not lived by alms; he hadn't been reduced to begging.)

Other strange methods like sex-practices in the name of Tantra might end in pregnancy and that they hadn't wanted to have a baby, afterward. Certain sicknesses might be the result, too.

The situation of being ignorant about absolute consciousness, of not yet having realized it is such that one might make severe mistakes.

In conclusion, a method of meditation which is a useful strategy will have to be natural and not dangerous. Admitted, to live like a hermit isn't unnatural at all and humans must have the freedom do decide for such a way of life.

Yet, it is unacceptable if some Sadhus come and will rob some people the freedom to follow their own way of life amidst society. Furthermore, to live like a good, yogic hermit can be learned before one starts on that. Buddha has said that too much of ascetics might be more damaging than useful.

Yes, military services here and there are able to teach to be a "single fighter", to live alone and to survive alone. Unfortunately, they don't usually teach a good vegan, yogic way. Ok, a single fighter who serves the animals, trees, etc and who doesn't hunt, will have some additional chances to be warned in time and thus to survive.

Past teachings:

If someone wants to change to veganism, it's advisable to study the nourishment of those who had lived like that in the past. It's advisable to use those experiences. In addition, one can draw into account nutritional value tables. That's a little bit difficult because of all those cruel animal experiments which have been done in the context of chemistry, biology, and medicine. The principle is rather simple: If one finds in the bones of some natural died person with healthy bones (...who had agreed that his body gets used for such studies...) some percentage of calcium, manganese, fluor, etc then somehow those substances either won't disturb there or they will be even necessary.
By means of some analysis here and there some recommendations have resulted.
If it turns out that, on the one hand, some way of nourishing oneself will be ok from the point of view of traditional experiences by persons who had been living that and, on the other hand, it's ok from the viewpoint of those nutritional value tables, then one will be on a rather safe path.
In that regard, one might go for help to some good professional nutrition specialists.

Likewise, it's recommendable to look to past teachings about meditation.

In addition, one can have some strategical analysis.
If both come together, that'll be a rather safe path.

Furthermore, one can go to consult some good specialists.
One might compare different teachings.
One might try for comprehensive information about the field of meditation.
Jean Herbert has said that the Yogasutras of Patanjali are to be respected.

By now there are 4 results:
Naturalness, without danger, examples form the past, one might find good specialists, some good advisors in the present.

As an example "TM":

To sit comfortably and to close one's eyes in one's own room, at a safe
place, cannot be called dangerous.

To get rid of one's thinking which veils that absolute consciousness, the "TM-teaching" uses a mantra. To be more precise, the sound-aspect of some mantras - known from the past - gets used. It's not a constant repetition of the mantra, it's not recitation. It's a natural method for coming to that transcendental restfulness of that absolute consciousness.
That understanding about "mantra" isn't foreign to the western world:
There was a painter, a German professor for art, Fritz Winter, who once wanted to paint nothing but the color itself. In an exhibition in Munich Museum for Modern Art, I once saw some of those paintings and that explanation (https://www.pinakothek.de/ausstellungen/fritz-winter-die-1960er-jahre-jahrzehnt-der-farbe; 11.3.2017). Thus, why should it have been foreign, betraying, lying, etc when Mr. Mahesh had taught to use the sound-aspect of some mantra, the sound beyond any meaning, meaningless "words"?

The "Sayings about Meditation" of Shankaracharya Shantanand" can be a good source of information, too.
It explains meditation very well.
Additionally, Swami Shantanand Swaraswati has been a Shankaracharya and it had been recommended by Shankaracharya Swami Brahamanda Saraswati who has been such an outstanding personality that after about 130 years of no Shankaracharya at Jothir Math he had been asked to accept that "job".

Thus, Shankaracharya Shantanand has been a recommended teacher of proper meditation. For more see: http://www.paulmason.info/gurudev/Shantanand.htm.

Furthermore, there are some booklets with quotes from Swami Brahmanda Saraswati himself and they are found at Paul Mason, who's an experienced journalist (http://www.paulmason.info/gurudev/miscellaneous.htm; http://www.paulmason.info/gurudev/upadesh.htm; http://www.paulmason.info/gurudev/WorldWar.htm; http://www.paulmason.info/gurudev/Diwali.html).
There are several other sites with quotes, for instance: http://oaks.nvg.org/gurudev-teachings.html.

It's rather obvious. That absolute consciousness has been found as
an integral part of oneself, everyone and everything. It's not foreign
and thus it doesn't have to be produced but to be realized.
(interesting in this context is for instance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y233Tq5u-fw, at time12:12;
also https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JusE_IWSnTk, at time 7:50)

If it has to be in accordance with day-to-day life, one will not be able to use several hours for it. Thus the way of Life of Tat Wale Baba won't meet the requirements of day-to-day life in the world. That doesn't mean that he couldn't say useful things about meditation. To go for a recluse way of life is everyone's freedom in the free parts of the world. It's not the right way for everyone. Shankaracharya Shantanand Saraswati had been living a life within the society as a married man and family. He became a recluse disciple of Swami Brahmanda Saraswati, later. So he could understand both sides. (Paul Mason writes about all that.)

A rather beautiful and experienced description about meditation can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JusE_IWSnTk
(Audiotape of MAHARISHI and TAT WALE BABA Rishikesh 1969.); Part two of this can be found at: ?
Part three of it can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y233Tq5u-fw
(MAHARISHI and TAT WALE BABA at RISHIKESH meeting PART 3 Audio 13mn Part 3 of the meeting of Maharishi and Tat Wale Baba at Rishikesh. About Leshavidya. ( Audio 13mn) Voice of Tat Wale Baba.)

 

Coming to an end of this part of my homepage:

To come to an end in this part of my homepage, in the other part "Home verpfuschtes Leben" which is in 2019 not yet available in the English language, I deal with the theme of that "Transcendental Meditation" as has been taught by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and many TM-teachers (trained by Mr. Mahesh) throughout the world.
It's that meditation method that I had been forced to learn and to practice in 1971 by a stately teacher when I had still been of minor age.

My whole life got unrepairably disturbed by those few of the TM-movement who had tried to draw advantage from the mistake of that stately teacher. Yet, I had started being based on the principles of objectivity and fairness as had been taught by the teachers of mathematics, physics, chemistry, history, art, etc. Only one teacher had turned out to try for something different. He had been fond of "personality-stuff" and instead of teaching comma, grammar, spelling, Art of writing, etc he repeatedly had tried on changing the personality of some pupils and was failing in that; thus he had caused destruction, damages, problems, conflicts.

After all, it has been one TM-teacher who had tried to make use of it and he initiated me after that teacher of the German language had forced me to go for getting initiated for the sake of being able to explain the details about proper meditation in school later. That TM-teacher violated the rules of Mr. Mahesh and initiated me without the written permission of my parents; the signature of my parents hadn't been falsified by me, either. That's how it happened to me to had been drawn into too much of sort of mud. That was in 1971.
About 5 years later, in spring 1976 I had succeeded in getting out in that by means of  having had maintained objectivity and fairness. I've come to the conclusion that secret services - including the Sovjet Union's KGB - had tried to make use of the TM-movement to disguise themselves and their activities in favour of those atheistic and communistic revolutions here and there. That insight of mine was supported when former KGB-agent Juri Bezemenow has explained all that on some US-TV about 8 years later; see:

https://uselessdissident.blogspot.com/2008/11/interview-with-yuri-bezmenov.html

But now the State of Germany started to fight me in all that typical German manner of cruelty, intolerance in the result of their ignorance, prejudice, etc.

That part of my life has been explained in principle by Juri Bezmenov, too:

Character Assassination has started right after I had left the TM-movement. I don't say that it had been done by the KGB, but there's a striking similarity to what Mr Bezemenov talked about in 1984. It reached its climax in 1980 when a physician has started to spread lies about me; Those lies would have been unmasked easily if I had been given a copy of what that physician has spread only among the community of physicians. Much later some physician handed that paper over to me; he didn't sit with me and go through it point by point and accuse that physician finally because of having had committed deception against his colleagues. None helped me, no lawyer (Instead, one lawyer gave me wrong information and wrong advise in 1982!), no court, no judge, no public prosecutor, no politician, no doctor, not the allied military government, not the Bavarian ministry of education whose teacher has caused the avalanche by means of violating the Allied Forces Military Government's command regarding the educational system after world war II.

Only the German Military Secret Service (MAD) has helped me regarding some very important point. The prosecutor general from Karlsruhe helped me in regard to what MAD had helped to be known, too. Yet, he told me that it was not his area of responsibility. The local prosecutors refused activity, even though the prosecutor general had written to me that it's up to the courts to deal with it, of course. One lawyer and his team have helped me to avoid further getting tortured. So, thanks to those very few.

Thus one cannot rely on a teacher, nor on co-students, nor on friends, nor on brother, nor on TM-initiators, nor on clergy-men, nor on prosecutors, nor on judges, nor on lawyers.  One cannot rely on the one because of bad experiences and others out of prinicple. What to do? Rely on oneself, use decion-making theories and take refuge to Thee, oh Bhavani. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qlI3e4URDE. (This link was ok on September13th, 2019) (That situation just reminds me of these verses of Shankara's  "Bhavani Ashatakam".)

So I won't teach TM here.

I have been analyzing that theme, carrying together items of information about that Puja and those mentioned Masters of Meditation, Samadhi and absolute consciousness, those mantras - according to those lists on the internet -, Mr. Mahesh (including mistakes, problems, inabilities, etc), and I reply to some critical publications by some courts, some clergymen and sect-employees.

In my opinion that TM hasn't been dangerous, it hasn't been bad at all, it's practical, it's useful, that path can be gone. Yet some further information should have been given ahead. These days something similar is availabale: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDcFIZRwbJc, and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bm6mRzzTPi0. According to Paul Mason, that has been the result of Shankaracharya Swami Shantanand Sarswati, too. (see http://www.paulmason.info/gurudev/Shantanand.htm).

There are very interesting findings of Paul Mason regarding TM; see https://tmfree.blogspot.com/2010/02/paul-mason-developing-alternative-to.html

(Since some years those items of information have been sold in form of some books.)

It's no good idea to go for practicing TM and not wanting to accept its consequences on day-to-day life. If one doesn't want the growth of Yogic virtues in one's life then there can be a danger and damage for money-making etc might result. On the other hand, there won't be a chance to escape from Karma, Birth&Rebirth, and ignorance about absolute consciousness without the necessary amount of growth in the yogic virtues.
Yet, one can think on the ordinary thinking level about one's changes to bring yogic virtues and day-to-day life together. Furthermore, there might be quite a lot if misunderstandings about the yogic virtues and for sure, it seems impossible to correct one's understanding about Samadhi without gaining it. Yet, based on intellectual analysis one can gain that insight in the possibilty of the existence of that absolute consiousness and it's relationship to the world. Based on that, one can go for a reliable, practical strategy regarding realzing it.

In my opinion, it's just this what has to be done first, if one's path shall be smoothe.
On the one hand, I cannot recommend not to practice TM, but I cannot recommend a foolhardy plunging into it, either.

Guidance by psychiatrists, physicians as TM-teachers I reject completely. Fine, there have been physicians who had become TM-teachers. That's no problem. Yet, the state of Germany has called for getting meditation, etc under the control of the state and his co-workers in the field of medicine. On the one side, practicing those cruel animal experiments and, on the other side, teach meditation later, cannot make sense. They are like those who worship God/gods through animal scrifices. TM-Puja as preparation to become a TM-teacher is incomparable better.

A stately teacher has caused all that chaos in my life, stately judges have afterward been unable to read some writings against me carefully and to ask me about those points and to ask detectives to verify my answers by going to the witnesses which I could and would have told them, etc. The judges followed some stupid, fanatic physicians blindly and preferred to take lies as truth. No thank you, no new inquisition!
In such a situation calling for control - regarding the field of meditation - by the state cannot be useful and accepted.

Absolute consciousness cannot be controlled by states. Some organizations here and there can be prescribed certain general rules. But for sure, not a rule for the TM-movement which isn't also a rule for the Churches, the soccer-clubs, etc.
Never having criticized that stately teacher of the German language, but has criticized the TM-teachers all the more, has been something expression if deep ignorance on the side of the state of Germany.

Results:

Of course, the Yogavasishta expresses basic values.

All four points (this world might be SAMSARA, God/gods,..might exist, the Law of Karma might exist, too; there might be Birth and Rebirth) show that the evil in this world of SAMSARA might be overcome by knowledge.

This SAMSARA world requires what sort of knowledge?

The knowledge about something that lays beyond waking, dreaming and sleeping.
(...The Shivasuktas elaborate on that, too and state that there is also „Turiya“, a fourth state beyond waking, dreaming and sleeping...).
How to get to Turiya? That's the field of proper meditation.

Turiya has to do with knowledge. (See also Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turiya; Turiya is discussed in Verse 7 of the Mandukya Upanishad; however, the idea is found in the oldest Upanishads. For example, Chapters 8.7 through 8.12 of Chandogya Upanishad discuss the "four states of consciousness" as awake, dream-filled sleep, deep sleep, and beyond deep sleep.)


And thus the Yogavasishta started with the statement that Rama's problems
wouldn't be a sickness but the result of lack of knowledge.

This shows that knowledge mustn't be denied. There might be a Law of Karma and
that is why one mustn't do what one just desires to do.

Because this world might just be SAMSARA one might need knowledge and thus one mustn't deny or even fight „knowledge“. Through torturing animals, plants, nature, rivers etc one cannot expect to ever gain true, reliable knowledge.

As long as someone thinks that by utilizing causing suffering to others he/she/someone might get out of his suffering, problems, etc he/she/someone clinches on to suffering and thus just cannot get rid of it at all.

The Yogavasishta's starting point shows – as well as the starting point of the Bhagavad Gita – that a good teacher teaches the knowledge contained in the
Yogavasishta (Bhagavad Gita or even both to make the points clear) first.

It's obvious that it's nonsense to start even to teach without having been
able to teach properly the knowledge contained in the Yogavasishta.

What had been the basic mistake of Rama and the Pandavas?

They had a very bad strategy. They had been blindly relying on God/gods and that
He/She/they would for certain take care of them and thus that something might be the will of God/gods or the strong advise of some enlightened being, etc.
The Pandavas had taken part in that gambling and Duryodhana had organized that gambling. Both had been lacking a well-done strategy; both strategies had
been equally bad and unacceptable.
On the one side, one mustn't just take the risk to lose one's wellbeing, one's freedom, etc and on the other side, one mustn't risk that others lose their wellbeing, their freedom, etc.
This shows that also from the western point of „decision-making theory“, „game theory“, „vector optimization“, etc, one comes to the same insight that they
had been lacking some very important knowledge.

Conceiving of this, one comes to the result:

Violating this world, killing, etc cannot be a good strategy at all.

For sure, mankind can live in a safe, good vegetarian manner, etc.
Also one can live in harmony with creation.

It's not necessary to build houses from wood and after the next hurricane one will cut tress again and will build a new one.

There's no need for buying new furniture over and over again. Old furniture can - in general - be repaired for some hundred years.

It has been the result of research conducted by the Bavarian Ministry for Environment, that Recycled Paper holds for at least 30 years. That research was done some ten years ago.

And there are many thus availabilities for living a better and even good-enough way of life.

I have explained that already: Of course, an inexperienced lion that just wanted to play with a human might injure that human very severely by mere chance; it's because that lion is heavier, etc – one mustn't mix it up. By the way, the TV-channel „ZDF“ once reported that lions use to nourish themselves for about 50% through naturally having died animals anyway; it's only difficult to film that. Recently a TV-movie has shown a flock of 100 000's of Karibus together and a wolf has tried to get one to kill it; the wolf has tried very hard and over and over again he has started to run after them and after one of it; finally he has been exhausted. Obviously „20 years of lifespan together with 365 days a year and 100 000 Karibus together“ results in a certain amount of naturally dying Karibus every day - there will be a certain statistical distribution- ; thus its a matter of waiting, feasting some days, not over-exhausting oneself to be able to feast some days etc and balance in the populations of the different species. There are those animals who can nourish themselves vegetarian and also in that other way. In case too many naturally died animals lay around, those will be able to „help“...

Better and easier than to kill the snow-leopards, those admirable animals will for certain be if some realized yogi who feels his end coming very soon takes a last walk of pilgrimage up to the snowy world of the snow leopards, he/she/that Yogi takes along with Him/her some natural having died animals that he/she
might happen to have found while taking that last walk.
Then he feeds some coming snow-leopard, makes friends with him, shares his last warmth of his body with him, protects him a little bit from the cold winds by means of his something like 8okg, something like 1,80 meters of length, etc and finally after his Mahasamdhi has given some additional food to his last, very intelligent, very beautiful, may-be even fully realized yogic and lovingly friend of this world of SAMSARA and may-be forever. Yet it's unduely dangerous.
It's something like a Pareto-better decision but is it "Maxmin"-better or even "Maxmin"-best, too? What about the worst case?

The same principle might be fulfilled by that Parsee's funeral ceremony. Prof. Paul Deussen has written about that in his book "Erinnerungen an Indien" ("memories to India") which deals with his 1/2 journey to India in 1892. See https://www.britannica.com/topic/Parsi, too. Items of information regarding those "Towers of Silence" according to that religion dating back to Zaratostra have been mentioned by Wikipedia (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_Silence). Fact is that those Parsi have a special way of funeral by means of those "Towers of Silence". (The Parsi have fled from Persia die India when Islam started to spread in their mother country.)

Thus there are safe methods of funeral which resemble that rather fancifull idea about the snow-leopard. So it's obvious that there are safer strategies and less safe ones. Now, one has taken care of the human part of the worst case. What about the snow-leopard's worst case?

Of course, to complete the strategy one should do something in favor of the snow-leopards, for the protection of their field of life. It doesn't need many words about how that can be accomplished. The World Wide Fund for Nature and others are specialists for that and one can learn from them, what can be done.

Thus there's really a safe strategy fulfilling the hopes, dreams of that rather fanciful "path". That's what can be accomplished if one doesn't just jump into some activity teaching meditation; it's true for those who want to learn it, too. Furthermore, it will be an important part of a good strategy in regard of teaching meditation to let the new meditators have the necessary freedom to think about it on the rational, thinking level first and to give them all helpful information ahead.

That would be a rather comprehensive theme and it cannot be recommendable to make mistakes in some such activities, but Sadhus might go for that snow-leopard-way of entombment and funeral ceremony....

If some Sadhu walks to some lonely, holy lake beyond a height of 6000m, he's on himself anyway and in case he suffers some heart-attack, some severe mountain-sickness that Sadhu might find himself in such a situation anyway.

In Result, it's important to distinguish between the Sadhu-way of life and the social way of life.

That's about mankind's possibilities for a strategically well-done way of life.
A way of life worse than that cannot be a useful strategy at all.

There's that certain „as good as possible“ besides that „good enough“.

Buddha has said once (it is said that) that too much of asceticism would cause more damage than it might yield advantages. It's very recommendable to make use of his advise.

In that sense, such a lifestyle can very well-conceived of and be understood as a strategical something as well.

final remarks:

On the one hand, let's think of a young man who is very intelligent according to his very good marks at school.

He has majored in that rejection of those cruel animal experiments.

His knowledge about chemistry and those nutrition-tables (...containing reliable information about how much of vitamins, proteins, fat, energy, etc are contained in for instance 100g of corn, rice, bees, apples, oranges are contained....) is such that the protein contained in soya would be the same as the protein contained in flesh and thus he is well prepared and ready for a vegetarian way of life.

He can read in English and ready to go for understanding Indian philosophical texts properly.

He has a very good chance for a great career and without involving into those bad activities of killing, polluting the environment, destroying the primaeval forest, killing trees, etc.

He is still of minor age and thus cannot accuse someone at the court etc.

If someone has added compulsorily TM to that life and nothing else has come out but poverty, getting persecuted by his society and finally even by more or fewer individuals of the TM-movement, then it's obvious that something must have been wrong in that „TM“-stuff!

Hadn't they promised: „It doesn't contradict day-to-day life. It's like tooth-brushing. It's also for those who live amidst society?“

Has tooth-brushing ever resulted in getting persecuted, loss of even the possibility to make a well-enough available good career, being prevented from doing one's study with full concentration, etc?

Well-brushed teeth improve the learning ability because of the reduction of those acids in the mouth which cannot bother the body after the toothbrushing and thus eliminate one disturbance.

On the other hand let's have a look at an adult who has felt persecuted because someone had put up lectures for him, even he had tried to say that he wouldn't want to lecture out of principle.

Of course, one feels sorry for that adult. One feels sorry for that Mr Mahesh, for that Sadhu. (See also The Maharishi Years - The Untold Story: Recollections of a former disciple... by Depaak Chopra
skepticaleducator.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Deepak-Chopra-The-Maharishi-Years-The... )

Now, let's look at those two cases concerning the interrelationship and comparison.

One of that adult's activities is – among others - that a/some youngster/~s has been persecuted, TM-initiation has been done even so he/she/they had said clearly that they will never get the written permission of their parents and even though the youngster/~s has said clearly and in the mother-tongue of that TM-teacher as well as in his mother-tongue: „Doesn't matter, I might come in about 2 years; I'm not fond of learning it now at all. I won't get the written permission by my parents either“. Instead of feeling sorry for that illegal initiation, advertisement-activities got organized for that youngster even though he has said „I don't want to do that!“, lecturing was organized for him even though that youngster hasn't wanted it to be done, etc and by means of all that together his career has got destroyed by those adults before his career could have started.

If all that happened like that then obviously and undoubtedly something very fundamental must have been wrong in those organizations who have dealt with that or even have been founded to serve that adult, for example, Mr Mahesh Yogi from India! Mr Mahesh had tried to solve his problem by taking it as the will of God. Fine, but that had been his way. In the attempt to serve that Mr Mahesh some adults seem to have joined his "taking it as the will of God" and that hadn't been "for sure, truthful" anymore. If Mr Mahesh had added by words "what you call lecturing" and as "no" he just had shaken his head, then - according to the truth - he would have made that mistake of having generalized body language. In reality, all would have been due to some ignorance on behalf of Mr Mahesh. He had been given that advice by that elderly Sadhu not to forget that beyond Haridwar it would have been the field of Maya, the field of misunderstandings, even - in somewhat the worst case - the field of delusion. Mr Mahesh reported that story repeatedly but it seems that he never followed that advise. He didn't conceive of a mistake by himself nor did he think of delusion in the context of that leftish revolution in Ethiopia and the 1%-effect-publication shortly afterwards.

It really would have been better if they would have put that adult into a sort of prison – 1 day should have been enough in that case - for the sake of learning because of his obvious inability to handle the words „yes“ and „no“ in the required manner!

If someone decides for the Sadhu way of life, for a life outside of society then he mustn't run after MAYA to help society. Mr Mahesh wanted to live the life of a Sadhu, fine. For sure, it never has been up to him, to cause persecution for those who didn't want to live the life of a Sadhu!

As a matter of example, one basic mistake in the TM-movement was that - in my case - many TM-teachers had known that I had been of minor age but there hadn't been a simple possibility for them to check whether I had written permission of my parents or not. The TM-teacher who had initiated me had made a mistake - no doubt - and some TM-teachers since then felt as if they had been taken on by my parents to co-educate me by their, sometimes really strange and harmful methods of education. Again a case of that problem of snake and rope: They felt to be taken on by my parents but never had been. They didn't just take it to be their right, no they even had taken it to be their duty. When I tried to - at least - inform the TM-teachers about what had happened (..quite a couple of years later after I had been able to escape from those who had persecuted me very cruelly and harmfully ..) there had been one TM-teacher who didn't even now want to accept that fact and replied: "You had falsified the written permission of your parents". What cruelty! I never had falsified it nor have I ever told such nonsense to anyone! If someone cannot believe that fact he might follow the advice of Shankara and have a close look at it: Mr Manfred H. had initiated me in the middle of March 1973.

A few, even quite a lot of, TM-teachers including Adolf Beck, Thurid Müller and Dr Peter Hellerich, had been able to behave well and out of principle had behaved in that helpful dignified manner that hadn't been in contradiction to the basic principles of what had been the general education at stately schools under the guidance of the Allied Military Government who had been taking care of Germany after world war II.

Others had behaved at least well enough.

But dangerous had been those rather few who had been on their esoteric trips including leftish trips.

But even more dangerous had been those who had submerged the TM-movement, including those from the German secret services. One of them once had happened to sit beside me in an aeroplane and we talked with each other (those days I hadn't yet got known by chance why He had been in the TM-movement in reality); had asked him why he had started TM and he had reasked me and I had told him that story about that teacher at school and his awful mistake (....because I used, to tell the truth, if someone wanted to know that...). Now about 2 hours later he happened to make a severe mistake by a wrong not safely given advice and the natural result had been that I kept myself away from him, from him who had been - I didn't know those days because he had been a secret service man - in charge of those of minor age in the TM-movement. By his mistake, he had happened to take care that he had got rid of that stately duty of his and thus obviously he had brought himself into the position that he had been unable to help me in opposition to what had been his duty, the duty for which he had been paid for by the state.

Another one came to me to get initiated someday in 1973; he had said that he had been a close co-worker of priest Haak (..who has written quite a lot of books which are not written out of objectivity as he wrote in his last book "Guruismus"; he wrote very critical und rather against TM, etc; he had taken a 1-year information-tour throughout all of India and he had returned from it deathly sick; 1 year later he had died...). Shortly before Priest Haak died I met him and asked him about that man and whether he ever had been his co-worker: Priest Haak said that that man had never been a co-worker of Him and that he didn't know him.

Thus also rather a strange kind of people had been moving around in the TM-movement and for sure not all had been in favour of Truth.

Now, the activities of that adult have been such, that the career of that youngster got destroyed and that he got tortured, etc.

Of course, the starting point of those two was the same. Both had said or expressed "no". In both cases that "no" had been violated. In both cases, only ignorance can be said to be the cause.

But, in the case of the youngster there had been a clear rule, not to initiate those without written permission of the parents/legal guardians. All that had been in the mother-tongue of that TM-teacher and the TM-teacher had said himself, that he mustn't violate that. First, that TM-teacher made a big upheaval out if his need for the written permission of my parents. Yet, he forgot all his decisiveness to do everything properly when he had been in that mental state of doing initiations at the date which he had forced on me. Strangely, he was seized by absent-mindedness.

In case of that adult, it was a little bit different. He got approached whether he would talk, that day. In his opinion, he had said clearly that he doesn't want to give lectures. Yet that librarian announced a lecture for that adult and may-be that adult (...Mr Mahesh...) had made a mistake when he had tried to express "what you call lecturing, I don't". Anyway, his reaction had been pell-mell. Fine, he didn't want to become angry; but his reaction was such that he put all his (left) anger onto those of that world outside the Sadhu-world. His "I took it to be the will of God" was a lame excuse for his inability to handle that situation intelligently. Remembering that advice of the elderly Sadhu to take the world beyond Haridwar it to be MAYA, one can only say that Mr. Mahesh suffered from a strange forgetfulness on that day in 1955. Only why did that TM-teacher follow him into that forgetfulness, too?

In fact, there's is some story about Krishna. he asked some man to bring him some water. That man went to some water well for getting it. When that man saw himself in the water he fell asleep, started to dream something and about 40 years later he arrived back at Krishna with the cup of water. Krishna smiled at him: "Oh, it took you quite some time". (Where did I read it? Don't remember. May-be in the Yogavasishta of Rishi Vasishta written by Valmiki. That book contains quite a lot of highly informative stories.).

Yes, one feels sorry for that adult.

Only, as the time was passing and activities were going on, that adult used to put all critics, all problems which had been caused by his "teaching-activities" aside with that concept: "I had said no; sorry, but I couldn't do it better and that's why I didn't want to lecture at all."

But in the context of that one of minor age that concept of putting off all responsibility appears as nothing but a lame excuse, a stupid "Oh that must have been your karma".

If an adult allows himself to be drawn into some go-ahead attitude (Mr Mahesh took it to be the will of God and went on and on and on.) and he takes it to be something great, then that'll be his problems. Of course, Mr Mahesh would have been intelligent, scientifically skilful enough to learn the fundamentals about decision-making theories, but he hadn't been taught in a manner in which he could have understood it. That teaching of the elderly Sadhu "Beyond Haridwar is the field of MAYA, don't forget that" would have been such a good strategy for Mr Mahesh's purpose. Yet, Mr Mahesh didn't see the perfection in it and didn't follow it.

If an adult draws some youngster in some daredevil attitude, in some go-ahead attitude then it cannot be tolerated. The knowledge about decision-making theories is truthful, too. That knowledge cannot be taught using drawing someone into foolhardiness and looking away afterwards.

TM isn't enough; one has to be able to take care of one's day-to-day life and it is that age-old problem in the field of practising Yoga as mentioned in a CD-booklet of Anuradha Paudwal: "How to bring together Day-to-day Life and spirituality?"

remark: I planned to improve the text regarding mistakes of typewriting, mistakes due to my limited skills in the English language, etc in 2015. Indeed, Cambridge Certificate C1 has been given to me in July/August 2018. In result, I'm more confident in expressing properly what I want to say. Hopefully, I can improve further, in future. I'm planning for C2-certificate, too.

One of that adult's activities is – among others - that a/some youngster/~s has been persecuted, TM-initiation has been done even so he/she/they had said clearly that they will never get the written permission of their parents and even though the youngster/~s has said clearly and in the mother-tongue of that TM-teacher as well as in his mother-tongue: „Doesn't matter, I might come in about 2 years; I'm not fond of learning it now at all. I won't get the written permission by my parents either“. Instead of feeling sorry for that illegal initiation, advertisement-activities got organized for that youngster even though he has said „I don't want to do that!“, lecturing was organized for him even though that youngster hasn't wanted it to be done, etc and by means of all that together his career has got destroyed by those adults before his career could have started.

If all that happened like that then obviously and undoubtedly something very fundamental must have been wrong in those organizations who have dealt with that or even have been founded to serve that adult, for example, Mr Mahesh Yogi from India! Mr Mahesh had tried to solve his problem by taking it as the will of God. Fine, but that had been his way. In the attempt to serve that Mr Mahesh some adults seem to have joined his "taking it as the will of God" and that hadn't been "for sure, truthful" anymore. If Mr Mahesh had added by words "what you call lecturing" and as "no" he just had shaken his head, then - according to the truth - he would have made that mistake of having generalized body language. In reality, all would have been due to some ignorance on behalf of Mr Mahesh. He had been given that advice by that elderly Sadhu not to forget that beyond Haridwar it would have been the field of Maya, the field of misunderstandings, even - in somewhat the worst case - the field of delusion. Mr Mahesh reported that story repeatedly but it seems that he never followed that advise. He didn't conceive of a mistake by himself nor did he think of delusion in the context of that leftish revolution in Ethiopia and the 1%-effect-publication shortly afterwards.

It really would have been better if they would have put that adult into a sort of prison – 1 day should have been enough in that case - for the sake of learning because of his obvious inability to handle the words „yes“ and „no“ in the required manner!

If someone decides for the Sadhu way of life, for a life outside of society then he mustn't run after MAYA to help society. Mr Mahesh wanted to live the life of a Sadhu, fine. For sure, it never has been up to him, to cause persecution for those who didn't want to live the life of a Sadhu!

As a matter of example, one basic mistake in the TM-movement was that - in my case - many TM-teachers had known that I had been of minor age but there hadn't been a simple possibility for them to check whether I had written permission of my parents or not. The TM-teacher who had initiated me had made a mistake - no doubt - and some TM-teachers since then felt as if they had been taken on by my parents to co-educate me by their, sometimes really strange and harmful methods of education. Again a case of that problem of snake and rope: They felt to be taken on by my parents but never had been. They didn't just take it to be their right, no they even had taken it to be their duty. When I tried to - at least - inform the TM-teachers about what had happened (..quite a couple of years later after I had been able to escape from those who had persecuted me very cruelly and harmfully ..) there had been one TM-teacher who didn't even now want to accept that fact and replied: "You had falsified the written permission of your parents". What cruelty! I never had falsified it nor have I ever told such nonsense to anyone! If someone cannot believe that fact he might follow the advice of Shankara and have a close look at it: Mr Manfred Haas had initiated me in the middle of March 1973.

A few, even quite a lot of, TM-teachers including Adolf Beck, Thurid Müller and Dr Peter Hellerich, had been able to behave well and out of principle had behaved in that helpful dignified manner that hadn't been in contradiction to the basic principles of what had been the general education at stately schools under the guidance of the Allied Military Government who had been taking care of Germany after world war II.

Others had behaved at least well enough.

But dangerous had been those rather few who had been on their esoteric trips including leftish trips.

But even more dangerous had been those who had submerged the TM-movement, including those from the German secret services. One of them once had happened to sit beside me in an aeroplane and we talked with each other (those days I hadn't yet got known by chance why He had been in the TM-movement in reality); had asked him why he had started TM and he had reasked me and I had told him that story about that teacher at school and his awful mistake (....because I used, to tell the truth, if someone wanted to know that...). Now about 2 hours later he happened to make a severe mistake by a wrong not safely given advice and the natural result had been that I kept myself away from him, from him who had been - I didn't know those days because he had been a secret service man - in charge of those of minor age in the TM-movement. By his mistake, he had happened to take care that he had got rid of that stately duty of his and thus obviously he had brought himself into the position that he had been unable to help me in opposition to what had been his duty, the duty for which he had been paid for by the state.

Another one came to me to get initiated someday in 1973; he had said that he had been a close co-worker of priest Haak (..who has written quite a lot of books which are not written out of objectivity as he wrote in his last book "Guruismus"; he wrote very critical und rather against TM, etc; he had taken a 1-year information-tour throughout all of India and he had returned from it deathly sick; 1 year later he had died...). Shortly before Priest Haak died I met him and asked him about that man and whether he ever had been his co-worker: Priest Haak said that that man had never been a co-worker of Him and that he didn't know him.

Thus also rather a strange kind of people had been moving around in the TM-movement and for sure not all had been in favour of Truth.

Now, the activities of that adult have been such, that the career of that youngster got destroyed and that he got tortured, etc.

Of course, the starting point of those two was the same. Both had said or expressed "no". In both cases that "no" had been violated.

But, in the case of the youngster there had been a clear rule, not to initiate those without written permission of the parents/legal guardians. All that had been in the mother-tongue of that TM-teacher and the TM-teacher had said himself, that he mustn't violate that.

In case of that adult, it was a little bit different. He got approached whether he would talk, that day. In his opinion, he had said clearly that he doesn't want to give lectures. Yet that librarian announced a lecture for that adult and may-be that adult (...Mr Mahesh...) had made a mistake when he had tried to express "what you call lecturing, I don't".

Yes, one feels sorry for that adult.

Only, as the time was passing and activities were going on, that adult used to put all critics, all problems which had been caused by his "teaching-activities" aside with that concept: "I had said no; sorry, but I couldn't do it better and that's why I didn't want to lecture at all."

But in the context of that one of minor age that concept of putting off all responsibility appears as nothing but a lame excuse, a stupid "Oh that must have been your karma".

TM isn't enough; one has to be able to take care of one's day-to-day life and it is that age-old problem in the field of practising Yoga as mentioned in a CD-booklet of Anuradha Paudwal: "How to bring together Day-to-day Life and spirituality?"

remark: I planned to improve the text regarding mistakes of typewriting, mistakes due to my limited skills in the English language, etc in 2015. Indeed, Cambridge Certificate C1 has been given to me in July/August 2018. In result, I'm more confident in expressing properly what I want to say. Hopefully, I can improve further, in future. I'm planning for C2-certificate, too.

Remark: I have been correcting the text up to here on the 14th September 2019 using "https://app.grammarly.com" that I had been led on to by the online-dictionary of Langenscheidt, too.

Remark: I have been correcting the text up to here on the 13th September 2019 using "https://app.grammarly.com" that I had been led on to by the online-dictionary of Langenscheidt, too.

 

 

An appendix to this:

 

There is that interesting movie named "David wants to fly" by David Sieveking that is offered for English speaking people, too.

 

Here, some comment of mine: 

Actually, David Wants to fly offers many items of information.

Yet, there's one basic problem that comes along with it.

Towards the end of this movie, there's an Interview with thosedays Shankarachraya of Dwarka, Swami Swaroopananda Saraswati.

　

Swami Swaroopananda has criticized the TM-Mantras as nothing but worldly stuff, etc.

Yet, then has happened a severe mistake.

Swami Swaroopananda recommends - as answer to his 'no thanks' to that Transcendental Meditation (="TM") that had been spread by Mr. Mahesh (whom some or many of his disciples used to call "Maharishi Mahesh Yogi")' - a going to the spring of the Ganges and emphasized that this would be a "spiritual path".

That wasn't alright.

　

Why? As a matter of fact, Altitude Sickness can happen beyond 2500m above sea level.

In fact, Bhagirathi which is one of the two rivers that come together to become the Ganga, comes from a height of about 4350 meters above sea-level (about 18 km from Gangotri which is situated at about 3050m).

Actually, the other river - named Alaknanda - of these two rivers which form the Ganga, springs where two glaciers ("Satopanth" and "Bhagirtah Kharak") meet. Satopanth is situated at about 3,850 metres above sea level and Bhagirath-Kharak at a height of about 3,800 metres

　

All this is in the region where altitude sickness will have to be drawn into account, if one wants to return lively and healthy.

Unfortunately, neither Swami Swaroopananda mentioned these facts nor does David Sieveking.

　

Supposingly, even Shankara - the founder of the Shankaracharya Tradition - seems not to have known it.

According to the sayings, Shankara died at an age of about only 30 years at Kedarnath which is situated at about 3400m beyond sea level. Maybe, Shankara himself has unfortunatley died because of altitude sickness those days.

　

Furthermore, there is a chronic form of altitude sicknes (Chronic mountain sickness)

Even I'm no expert for that field of knowledge, it's likely that Swami Brahmananda Saraswati who had been the Shankarachraya of Jothir Math from 1940 to 1953, might have died because of that. There's a final decision of the Supreme Court of Allahabad in regard of a quarrel between Swami Swaroopananda Saraswati and Swami Vasudevanand Saraswati. In the written explanation the Court mentions certain facts about the health-problems of Swami Brahmananda Saraswati before he died unfortunatelly, unexpectedly and without having had the time to train his followers to utmost perfection. Those symptoms mentioned by the Surpeme Court of Allahabad fit to chronical altitude sickness. Even the place of his death (Calcutta at sea level) fits to probably taken attempts to heal him those days.

As far as I'm informed, Swami Swaroppananada has added some further building near Badrinath temple at more than 3000m. (He had claimed to be the Shankarcharya of Jothirmath, even though the Courts didn't accepted him as such. Thus, a special suitable Temple had been built nearest to Badrinath Temple.)

The traditional Jothir Math lays in Joshimah, a small town, which suffers geopgraphical instabilties these days. A lot of the buildings there are more or less seriously damaged, by now. This included that ancient budling for the Shankaracharya of Jothirmath; Badrinath Temple has been damaged, too.

Thus, Shankarcharya Tradition should take these new facts into account for the future.

　

Actually, even Christianity shows a similar lack of knowledge about this special problem.

There's that story of the devil who lead Jesus on top of a tower and then said to Jesus something like: "Come on, just jump; Angels will come and they will rescue you."

Jesus is said to have replied something like "One musnt't tempt God!"

Fine, this is well known.

Yet, later the same Jesus is said to have said to his followers something like "All powers in regard of heaven and earth have been given to me; go to all the people of this world and bring my teachings to them all!"

Actually, Jesus behaved at that moment exactly as the devil in the first story (Tower, jump, angels will come). What is supposed to would have happend, if some of his followers had went to the people of the highlands of Ethopia (as said about Jacobus in his later days), or even Tibet, or Peru?

It's to be assumed that the one or the other will have died because of altitude sickness.

"If someone just walks up some mountains beyond 2500 m, he or she musn't expect angles to come to rescue him or her from altitude sickness", will have been the true teachings as christianity has used to teach in prinicple.

Yet, Jesus didn't stick to that teaching himself.

　

In fact, the same spreaders of Christianity have taught that Jesus would have been God himself who had come to earth. Yet, for instance acording to Jacobus, from God comes never anything bad. Thus Jesus couldn't have been God and after all more similar to that Devil of that story about "the Tower, jump, angels will come and Jesus's true answer"

Thus, there's a contacdiction within the teachings of Christianity.

　

Just as the Shankaracharya Tradition will be able to correct this aspect which belongs to the field of action, the Christan Tradition will be able to correct their teachings.

　

In fact, that Mr. Mahesh has handled (that aspect of offering TM all over the world) with more caution. He used to say to the new trained TM-teachers (I can only speak for that TM-teacher-training course from march to may 1973 at Playa La Antilla/Spain) that they now should return into the countries from where they had come.

But Mr. Mahesh himself and certain aspects of some of his lectures would be another theme.

His personal weakness - his having disguised himeself as a monk and not having lived up to those ideals - have been mentioned by David Sieveking by means of that interview with Judith Bourques and Mr. Mahesh's Sex-affair with her. (see. "Robes of Silk and Feet of Clay" written by Judith Bourques, available as E-book). Mr. Mahesh hasn't been such a friendly, reliable kind of person as he had posed himself those days.

Yet, this is only the one story. Transcendental Meditation, which has been called as a useful master key to Vedanta - and the knowledge of Vedanata and thus Shankara , Vyasa, etc - by Shankarachary Shantanand Saraswati (this can be found thanks to Paul Mason, his books and that quotation to be found in Wikipedia) , the Shankaracharya of Jothir Math after Swami Brahmananda Saraswati, is another story. For sure, this story would be worth it to be looked at keenly as is true for the commentaries and teachings of Shankara and many well-trained Shankaracharyas. Paul Mason offers lots of details about it, its sources etc. Maybe he'll write further books. His books are written in English language. There are also benedictory discourses from Sringeri Math available via YouTube which can correct some of the weak points in Mahesh's teachings (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UV0VAdFbpg&feature=emb_logo)

　

In other teachings similar problems can be found; yet that's not the theme in this context.

Please excuse my mistakes in the English Language (Happily, I've passed Cambridge C1 certificate about 5 years ago; maybe I can take time to improve in a few years.

　

 

 

Details and further items of information can be found from different authors; among others:

https://dialogue.earth/en/climate/benchmark-glaciers-in-the-himalayas-keep-receding/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altitude_sickness and https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaumukh

Judith Bourque,"Robes of Silk, feet of Clay", Waterside Press, 2055 Oxford Avenue, Cardiff, Ca 92007, ISBN-13: 978-1-947637-80-1; gibt es auch als E-Book

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shantanand_Saraswati

"Höhentrekking und Höhenbergsteigen" Taschenbuch – 26. November 2010, by Klaus Mees (Prof. med. Dr.), ISBN-13: 978-3765454936, in German Language

https://indiankanoon.org/doc/37475462/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronic_mountain_sickness.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oO1RLVfHE9Y

https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/joshimath-jyotirmath-shankaracharya-math-in-uttarakhands-sinking-town-develops-crack-3673374

https://zeenews.india.com/india/joshimath-is-sinking-cracks-in-shivling-of-shankaracharya-madhav-ashram-temple-landslide-taking-a-formidable-form-uttarakhand-2558691.html


Rösch, P. Dr. Konstanatin, "Das Neue Testament", Übersetzt und erläutert von P. Dr. Konstanatin Rösch, O.M. Cap., Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn, Imprimatur Herbipoli, die 31.Juli 1946 Dr. Miltenberger vic.gen. Impimatur Congluentiae in Valle, die 2.Juli 1946 P. Rainerius O.F.M. Cap., Min. Prov.

 

Back to the beginning of

"In my Opinion, about Mr. Mahesh"

 

Proceed to the beginnig of this WEBsite