Meditation

Discussion of the SES, particularly in the UK.
anti_ses
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Postby anti_ses » Thu May 11, 2006 4:16 pm

Here's why I believe you can make TM what you want it to be. If you believe that there is something special about a certain mantra and repeat it in meditation, then clearly this involves belief and is "religious in nature". However, if you chant it just because it's what you've been told to chant, or even choose another random word from the dictionary with a calming effect (what about "calm"?), then there's no real belief as such. Sure, you're hoping it will have a positive effect, but I wouldn't say that makes it a religion!

Hardly hypnotism, either, in my experience. I have never found anyone who has practised TM susceptible to heightened suggestibility, a hallmark of hypnotism. The opposite is probably more true. People I know who have practised TM tend to demonstrate more creativity and have characters which differ more than others. In my experience.

Free, thanks for those links. But, in the same vein as previous replies to my query, they're largely anti-cult websites, therefore anything expressed in them is biased and not worth analysing.

Tom Grubb
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Postby Tom Grubb » Thu May 11, 2006 7:29 pm

anti_ses wrote:Free, thanks for those links. But, in the same vein as previous replies to my query, they're largely anti-cult websites, therefore anything expressed in them is biased and not worth analysing.

What a terribly closed-minded attitude!

anti_ses
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Postby anti_ses » Thu May 11, 2006 7:35 pm

Tom Grubb wrote:
anti_ses wrote:Free, thanks for those links. But, in the same vein as previous replies to my query, they're largely anti-cult websites, therefore anything expressed in them is biased and not worth analysing.

What a terribly closed-minded attitude!

Funny you only pick up closed-mindedness in people with whom you disagree.

daska
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Postby daska » Thu May 11, 2006 7:44 pm

I'd never associated my 'spacing out' with having to meditatei can remember trying to explain it to some of my friends - I would have been about 19 at the time - and them concluding it was deja vu, I could never get them to understand that this was more of a total separation between mind and body.

Looking back I was always described as a daydreamer, it is something I started to do during childhood and still do. It used to be a lot more frequent than it is now. Is this perhaps something that certain types of people have more of a tendency towards?

Free
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Postby Free » Thu May 11, 2006 8:07 pm

<delete>
Last edited by Free on Wed Oct 05, 2011 10:21 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Tom Grubb
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Postby Tom Grubb » Thu May 11, 2006 8:28 pm

anti_ses wrote:
Tom Grubb wrote:
anti_ses wrote:Free, thanks for those links. But, in the same vein as previous replies to my query, they're largely anti-cult websites, therefore anything expressed in them is biased and not worth analysing.

What a terribly closed-minded attitude!

Funny you only pick up closed-mindedness in people with whom you disagree.

Not at all, and I resent the accusation!

I may be more suspicious of evidence from certain sources than from others but, ultimately, it's the quality of the evidence that counts not who produced or funded it.

I have read the article that you linked to. It's interesting but hardly convincing. It's just a media report of a study. The media, as I expect you would agree, have a generally very poor record of reporting scientific findings in a balanced way. I would like to see more details of the study itself and the reaction to it of other researchers. If it is approved by proper peer review, and successfully repeated independently on a larger scale, I will be impressed.

Personally, I suspect poor randomisation, absence of double-blinding and difficulties with control. How many of the TM group chose to be in that group? Had any members of either group practised TM before the trial began? Very importantly, did the TM group know they were doing TM and did the control group know they were not? Did the control group have 20 minutes a day of sitting quietly at exactly the same time and in the same conditions as the TM group? What questionnaires did the students fill in? Assuming the two groups were taught by the same teachers at school, did the teachers know which students were in which group? What about parents, guardians, familes and friends of the students?

These are the kinds of questions I would ask about any such study, whoever conducted or funded it. I'm not saying the study won't turn out to be highly valid. I'll wait and see how the scientific world judges it. Given the track record of TM-related studies, however, I won't hold my breath.

leon
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Postby leon » Thu May 11, 2006 8:35 pm

anti_ses wrote:leon, your logic is twisted. If the article is written by a biased person, that does not make the article itself biased or any points raised in it unfair. It's like claiming a charged criminal will always give biased evidence under oath. I wish I had more relevant examples at hand, but your implication simply doesn't follow. The other sources you've all used are on the same subject, but not relevant to what I was asking.


It is quite clear this article is biased towards TM, this was obvious from first reading. The reason it is biased happens to be because it was written by a Maharishi committee dedicated to getting TM into schools, no doubt with some nice cash backhanders. (the school mentioned in the example, $300.000 to tell kids to chant a word with their eyes closed for 10 minutes a day?)

Do you think the article is without bias? The articles topic concerns introducing TM into schools, not your own pet 'Anti SES whatever you want it to be' version of TM, but the established trade mark version.

anti_ses wrote: In fact, what if it was made intelligible to a 10-year old.


whats there to understand? You sit in a room and say a word over and over again. As Maharishi says, it's so easy, so simple, so natural, (yet so pricey!)
In reality the actual ancient hindu explanations regarding why the mantra has such regenerative power although facinating are very intricate and to me impossible to understand, especially in english language. (Interestingly they do seem remarkably similar to various ideas on sound written by the 17c mystic Jacob Boehm, who I assume no knowledge of Tantra.)

leon
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Postby leon » Thu May 11, 2006 8:39 pm

Tom Grubb wrote:
I have read the article that you linked to. It's interesting but hardly convincing. It's just a media report of a study.


Actually it's not even that. It was written by the "committee for stress free schools" a Maharishi funded group. There is a link at the top of the article.

A study in 2003 found that in 700 TM tests spanning 40 years only 10 were conducted in the clinical tradition, and half of the 10 had members who were already practicing TM. Most studies go through the Maharishi's "univercities.
Last edited by leon on Thu May 11, 2006 8:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Tom Grubb
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Postby Tom Grubb » Thu May 11, 2006 8:48 pm

Good point, leon!

anti_ses
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Postby anti_ses » Thu May 11, 2006 9:22 pm

anti_ses wrote:But, in the same vein as previous replies to my query, they're largely anti-cult websites, therefore anything expressed in them is biased and not worth analysing.

Nobody seems to have spotted the wit in my statement here. I clearly meant there's no room for double-standards. If you're going to ignore an article because of its source, then those sites listed by Free must also be biased because they are anti-cult sites. You can't go both ways.

Most of you still haven't got my point. I don't care who wrote the article, who invented TM, etc. Leon, by saying "$300.000 to tell kids to chant a word" you're putting words in people's mouths - the article says no such thing.

Tom, I must say, has raised a good point about the validity of the research. One has to trust that the University of Michigan Medical School isn't run by some cult. I personally trust that research by a recognized university would be carefully conducted. In addition, try http://www.nestressfreeschools.org/research.html. Remember (though some seem to find this impossible to believe): funding from an organisation who propose a particular technique doesn't invalidate any research undertaken.

anti_ses
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Postby anti_ses » Thu May 11, 2006 9:49 pm

anti_ses wrote:Here's why I believe you can make TM what you want it to be. If you believe that there is something special about a certain mantra and repeat it in meditation, then clearly this involves belief and is "religious in nature". However, if you chant it just because it's what you've been told to chant, or even choose another random word from the dictionary with a calming effect (what about "calm"?), then there's no real belief as such. Sure, you're hoping it will have a positive effect, but I wouldn't say that makes it a religion!

Does this make sense? Just asking because nobody seems to have picked up this comment.

leon
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Postby leon » Thu May 11, 2006 10:04 pm

yes it makes sense, you want to have your cake and eat it.

The principle and co -founder of the $300.000 awarded Tm Nataki Talibah school mentioned in the article happens to be a panelist of the Maharishi funded stress free schools committee. Go figure. If your interested in *facts*.

anti_ses
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Postby anti_ses » Thu May 11, 2006 11:13 pm

leon wrote:yes it makes sense, you want to have your cake and eat it.

The principle and co -founder of the $300.000 awarded Tm Nataki Talibah school mentioned in the article happens to be a panelist of the Maharishi funded stress free schools committee. Go figure. If your interested in *facts*.

Yum, cake's quite nice, thank you. :)
What you say is true. The principle of the school, being a panelist of the Maharishi-funded stress free schools committee, feels the techniques might be useful to schoolchildren. This inevitably costs money, since meditation should be taught by qualified people. General Motors and Daimler/Chrysler foundations thought it was a good idea, and therefore contributed towards the expense. So?

leon
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Postby leon » Thu May 11, 2006 11:51 pm

qualified? Where did the members of the committee get their meditation qualifications? I wonder where.....let me guess.....

Must be easy in any case to get a qualification on a subject that can be whatever you want it to.

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Ben W
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Postby Ben W » Fri May 12, 2006 10:14 am

xstJ wrote:Does anyone remember the meditation 'checks' we used to have in our homes (I'm presuming it wasn't only me)? I can't remember the man's name now but he used to come over in the evening about once or twice a year to perform this 'check'.


I vaguely remember something along these lines. I had been meditating for a few years and seemed somehow to get missed off the list for this. (Was it called meeting your "meditation tutor"?) I was eventually identified as having been missed, and people began hassling me to meet. It was at a time of my life (13 or 14?) when my week was absolutely stuffed with SES commitments and I pushed back for as long as I could. I finally had a compulsory meeting at Sarum Chase.

It was a cold winter's night and I reluctantly made the journey over from Harrow to Sarum Chase - a shortish walk to the station, a train journey to Finchley Road, a bus to the bottom of Platt's Lane, and a lonely walk up the hill. The building itself was as quiet and dark as a disused church and the receptionist directed me up a staircase I had hardly used before to a room I had never noticed somewhere overlooking Hampstead Heath. In it was a 30 something year old man who engaged me in what turned out to be a rather stilted conversation. Apparently he had been my meditation tutor for quite some time and had been trying throughout that period to meet me; he met all of his meditation "pupils"(?) every 6 months. So I had a relationship with him which I had known nothing about.

He asked me a few questions about meditation. How did I find it etc - to which I gave rather mumbled and non-descript replies (thinking - what is going on?). After a few minutes he suggested we try meditating together for a while. For some reason I found this a strange request and told him that I normally only meditated at dawn or dusk. (The truth was that I didn't meditate that much, but - as you (xstj) said - felt nebulously uncomfortable.) Anyway we did meditate for 10 minutes, after which he asked me how it was. I gave some further non-descript responses and was out of there within 5 minutes. The only question I can remember asking was in relation to one group meditation experience I had had sometime earlier. I "came to" once during meditation, opened my eyes, and looked around. I was in a darkened room surrounded by members of my group. My eyes were drawn to one particular man (who would have been in his 20's but seemed terribly grown up to me at that stage) who had a very studied look and was giving a little nod about once every three seconds. (Writing this so many years later I am reminded of the moment Neo wakes up in pink goo having taken the blue pill and suddenly realises he is surrounded by people permanently asleep.) My own repitition of the mantra was more like 3 times a second and I suddenly worried that I might be doing it all wrong. The tutors response on this point was not unhelpful - he said that it didn't matter how anyone else approached it, and that I should simply do what felt right.

The whole visit took less than 20 minutes and suddenly I was back out in the cold dark night trudging back down the hill to wait for the 2b bus and thinking to myself - "Now what was that all about?"

I rewarded myself at the Wimpey near Finchley Road station - and no doubt listened to Dark Side of the Moon on my portable cassette player under my pillow that night.
Last edited by Ben W on Sat May 13, 2006 7:09 am, edited 1 time in total.
Child member of SES from around 1967 to around 1977; Strongly involved in Sunday Schools ; Five brothers and sisters went to ST V and St J in the worst years


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