They're still keeping the faith

Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr headlined a concert the other night at Radio City Music Hall to raise money for scholarships so at-risk people can learn Transcendental Meditation.

I know because an old TM friend, with whom I recently reconnected on Facebook, was there and waxed ecstatic about it on her Facebook page.

I know her from my TM days in Indianapolis. I learned TM on the first course ever offered in Indianapolis back in November, 1969. I threw myself into the TM program and our house was the first real TM center in Indianapolis. We hosted weekly meetings and introductory lectures and initiations on a regular basis for a couple of years until the TM movement got big enough to rent half of a duplex two doors down from us. That was the center for a few years until the movement ponied up $100,000-plus for a mansion in the 3400 block of Washington Boulevard. That was big money in those days - the mid-1970s - and it was a pretty deluxe place. There was even a carriage house out back where the sidhas did their flying program. (Go look it up. I don't feel like explaining it here.)

Anyhow, I drifted away from the TM program in the mid- to late-1980s and every now and then I run into someone from those days who is still on the TM bandwagon - like my friend who went to the concert.

I can't decide who's the fool here - me for moving on or them for keeping the faith. All I know is that by all measurements that I can think of, TM failed to live up to the promises Maharishi Mahesh Yogi made for it. He sent packs of sidhas to prop up failing dictatorships in Iran and the Philippines and promised world peace. They failed anyway.

He promised "Cosmic Consciousness" to anyone who meditated regularly for 5-7 years. I know of no one who achieved that goal in 20 years.

Those of us who took the sidhi course were led to believe that we would be able to levitate. As far as I know, nobody has ever gotten past the hopping stage.

That said, TM kept me and millions of other people drug-free, because recreational drugs and meditation are not compatible.

But I gave up the belief that it is destined to solve all of the world's problems a long time ago. The world has too many crazies and hate-filled loons who won't let that happen.

Maharishi was from the Kshatriya (warrior) caste, and he surely knew that.

And as far as raising money for TM "scholarships" goes, Maharishi always said the reason he charged for the technique was to make people value it and feel a commitment to it. If you give it away, people don't take it seriously and don't stick with it. The idea of "scholarships" seems to undercut that principle.