jwm@stdc.jhuapl.edu (James W. Meritt) (04/18/88)
Trans means across
dental means teeth
meditation is thinking
so
transdental meditation is thinking across your teeth!!!
Disclaimer: Individuals have opinions, organizations have policy.
Therefore, these opinions are mine and not any organizations!
Q.E.D.
jwm@aplvax.jhuapl.edu 128.244.65.5doug_rands_merritt@cup.portal.com (04/20/88)
You might want to see "The Nature of Human Consciousness" edited
by Robert E. Ornstein (c) 1973. Among many other topics, it
includes an EEG study of Zen meditation, which appears to me to
be essentially the same thing as Transcendental Meditation.
There are other, more direct EEG studies of TM but I don't have
the references handy. I originally got references to the scientific
literature simply by asking the TM people themselves (there's a
TM center in just about every major city, as far as I know).
The whole point of the technique is to achieve relaxation, but of
to a more complete and extreme point than the usual techniques derived
in Western tradition.
There is a lot of mystic airy-fairy stuff associated with the ultimate
state of mental relaxation, which they call "Cosmic Consciousness",
and which appears to be identical to similar terms in other mystic traditions.
However, personal experience tells me there's nothing mystical whatsoever
about this state. After following their technique faithfully for
six months (around 1973 or so), I experienced the symptoms that they
described to be associated with "Cosmic Consciousness". All of these
symptoms (bad word for it, but never mind) I found to be very positive,
beneficial and generally desirable, but none contradicted any
scientific principles, even though the experience was decidedly out
of the ordinary.
The subjective experience was of *extreme* calm, clarity of mind,
self control, clarity and intensity of perception, a general feeling
of benevolence and humor directed towards the world at large and
people in particular, a feeling that the world was a loving and
nurturing environment, etc.
There were some more objective things, too. I found that people's
responses to comments and actions became extremely obvious and
easy to predict...I'd know what they'd say in response to my comment,
and I'd be right, word for word. You could still call this subjective,
if you like, since I can't prove it. Doesn't matter.
Some people would claim that the above constituted telepathy or
precognition or some such similar crap. To me it just seemed to be
a matter of normal common sense reasoning carried out much more
effectively than usual.
Similarly, in science class, the teacher would start a problem on
the blackboard, and get to a hairy calculation, and ask students
to figure it out on their (then-newfangled) calculators. I found
I could somehow guess the answer, correct to 5 decimal places, while
people fiddled around with their calculators for another minute or
two. This seemed pretty eerie, but it's not necessary to postulate
anything mystic. This kind of thing is called "hypercognition", and
it isn't especially well understood, but there are a lot of instances
in the psychological literature of people pulling off mental feats
effortlessly and without awareness of mechanism. Lightning calculation
and eidetic memory ("photographic memory") are similar examples of
eerie but non-paranormal phenomena.
Anyway, just meditating is not guaranteed to get you into this state.
It's almost a precondition, but it's not sufficient. They don't teach
the rest of it, probably because the people in the organization (most
of whom are clearly *not* in this state) don't really *know* what it
takes to get there. I've known quite a number of people who have
practiced TM for many years, and though they found it relaxing and
generally beneficial, never hit this state of "Cosmic Consciousness".
I might have gotten luc because I augmented TM with posthypnotic
suggestions aimed at achieving exactly the state I'd read about...
I was trying to speed up the process of getting to "Cosmic Consciousness".
It seems to have worked.
Some people would claim that I was just deluding myself, but what the
hell, it was a very pleasurable state, with no negative side effects.
It disappeared when I (A) stopped meditating regularly and (B) began
drinking and such regularly [ah, those wild high school days].
Doug Merritt sun.com!cup.portal.com!doug-merrittjboggs@inco.UUCP (John Boggs) (04/21/88)
In article <253@aplcomm.UUCP>, jwm@stdc.jhuapl.edu (James W. Meritt) writes: > > Trans means across > dental means teeth > meditation is thinking > > so > > transdental meditation is thinking across your teeth!!! > I've heard, through a similar interpretation of the word's components, that it means: Talking over your head while putting the bite on you. -- John Boggs McDonnell Douglas - Inco, Inc. McLean, Virginia, USA
tracer@stb.UUCP (Jeff Boeing) (04/26/88)
Before you all go thronging off to Maharishi Iowa University in search of your Cosmic Consciousness through Transcendental Meditation, you should all know the flip side as well. Psychotherapists, particularly those who are sensitive to their patients, notice a considerably "thinned-out aura" coming from those patients who are chronic meditators. Those therapists who think the whole aura thing is a bunch of sheep's piddle tend to notice their meditative patients as being more "spacey" and less "in contact." TM, like hypnosis, is a means of getting into the so-called "alpha state," where most of the brainwaves lie in the alpha (6-12 Hz) frequency range. The right hemisphere of the brain operates most effectively at these alpha wavelengths. This allows a person who would otherwise be a left-brain zombie to tap into that other half of himself, realize his creative potential, et cetera. But on the other side of the coin, the left brain hemisphere operates primarily at beta ( > alpha) frequencies. While in alpha state, the left side of the brain is effectively "tuned out," or even turned off. Without the reasoning power of the (larger) left hemisphere to filter incoming information, the meditator/hypnotized person becomes extremely susceptible to suggestion. This is why hypnosis works so well. In the case of a chronic (read: daily) meditator, the left brain will begin to have problems coming back on. Some of the liveliness and sharpness-of-wit, as well as hard motivation, will begin to disappear. A healthy person needs BOTH sides of his or her brain operating at full capacity; it's not a "good right brain versus evil left brain" kind of a deal. One final word. The T.M. people have this whole mystical thing about giving you your "mantra," which they will usually charge you rather steeply for. Since a mantra is just something that has no specific meaning (to you) which you repeat over and over, I would think that any old syllable would do. Well, that's my two cents' worth. Have a nice day. -- Jeff Boeing (which is not my real name) | ...!uunet!stb.uucp!tracer ------------------------------------------|---------------------------- DISCLAIMER: YES! Everything I write ABSOLUTELY reflects the opinions of my employers DOWN TO THE LAST LETTER! Nyaah!