[Buddha-l] Maharishi Mahesh Yogi dies

[Curt Steinmetz]

I became enamored of Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Shamanism, etc while a 
high-school student in the thriving metropolis of Anderson Indiana. I 
didn't realize how lucky I was though - because for some reason Anderson 
has, in truth, been a thriving center of spiritual weirdness since the 
1840's. I was very fortunate, for example, to have a social sciences 
teacher who fancied himself to be a Secular Humanist, a Platonist and 
also a Zoroastrian and who often turned his "history lessons" into rants 
against fundamentalist Christianity (this was in the early 1970's).

During my senior year a friend and I checked out the local Nichiren 
group, some lectures on TM at the local library, and some other stuff 
(including dropping acid and interpreting hidden messages in Uriah Heep 
lyrics). I was also reading lots of Nietzsche, Castandea, Ram Das, 
Hesse, etc. Anyway, the guy who gave the TM lectures seemed like a 
genuinely nice, sincere and knowledgeable guy. I was impressed that he 
had a PhD in psychology and by his claim that TM was thousands of years old.

So I took some of my money from my job at the mall as a busboy at MCL 
Cafeteria and I got some flowers, an apple, and a clean white 
handkerchief and got "initiated". For the next several years I did 
meditation haphazardly. I liked the idea of meditating - but I 
completely lacked the discipline to do it on a regular basis. I didn't 
stay in contact with the International Meditation Society because I was 
a little turned off by the number of people who were obviously mentally 
ill and using TM as part of their therapy. Not only did that kind of 
give me the creeps - but I was also not interested in associating myself 
with people who provided such clear evidence for a link between 
spiritual practice and mental illness.

I never experienced any negative results from TM that some other people 
have reported - but then again I didn't do it very often and didn't 
associate with others who were doing it. For me it was a simple, easy 
(and fairly shallow) way to feel a tangible connection with "eastern 
spirituality". I found that my experience in doing TM was very helpful 
later on when I became much more serious about the practice of meditation.

Curt Steinmetz