Experiences with Transcendental Meditation
Experiences with Transcendental Meditation
Transcendental Meditation is a secretive mantra meditation movement founded by an indian yogi/guru. Most research on meditation benefits is on TM. To learn it, one has to pay for and participate in a course led by a certified TM teacher.
Does anybody here have had experience with TM, participated in a course and received a mantra chosen by their teacher?
Do you really need a teacher to learn it? Is the course worth it or just profiteering? Anything else one should know before going to a course themselves?
That topic regularly came up on /r/meditation. The consensus was usually that it’s not worth it. You will learn a meditation style, yes, but it’s not better or worse than others, and you will also buy into a cult. So at best it’s an overpriced experience.
If you want to learn meditation, there are sooo many resources online and in books. Why not use one of those?
And even if you want to it retreat style, there’s free courses by dhamma.org all over the world.
it’s not better or worse than others
If you want to learn meditation, there are sooo many resources online and in books. Why not use one of those?
I was just curious, because TM is approved by artists like Scorcese, Lynch and Eastwood. There are also studies that claim its benefits are higher than those of other meditation types. I really just want to get a grasp on what this is about as I am atm greatly expanding my meditation practices and am trying out other meditation techniques.
So, I was curious about the “studies” part of your comment, and did some randomly chosen reading.
On the TM website they feature prominently: “Hypertension, June 2013: a scientific statement from the American Heart Association concluded that the TM technique is the only meditation practice that has been shown to lower blood pressure”
I wanted to see how that claim holds up when looking at more details.
In a meta analysis that includes those claims, the summary about blood pressure is:
“Magnitude of reductions of systolic blood pressure varies widely.
Study limitations including the methods of blood pressure measurements and bias in data ascertainment, high dropout rates, and different populations studied”
In the detailed section about meditation practice and blood pressure, two things become apparent: first, the data quality is bad. That’s usually an indicator for suspicion. Chances are high the data was milked to support a biased claim. Second, another, earlier study than that citation by TM concluded that both Zen meditation and TM lower blood pressure.
Now, given that zen meditation is much much closer to Vipassana than TM, and there is no suggested mechanism of how meditation is supposed to lower blood pressure and the effect is still rather small in all studies (each with their own bad data quality), that raises some eyebrows.
Let’s remember that all of these studies were made during the time frame of the replication crisis.
In effect, I’m still suspicious about TM as a whole. They have a product that they’re selling, and they have a marketing team. For me, that doesn’t sit right in the space of meditation, even more so because cheap and powerful alternatives are plentiful.
But to each their own. If spiritually and money go well together for you, and you have the spare money to do it, go for it.
It's literally just repeating a phrase in your mind over and over again, i.e. basic concentration meditation, except a mantra instead of your breath (or whatever object you prefer).
The only "secret" is how effectively they part gullible people from their money.
You want the TM experience? PayPal me $2,000 and I'll give you a "special" mantra phrase (chosen just for you by a 14th century reincarnated spirit and/or ouija board and/or monkey throwing a dart at the wall) and you can go nuts with it.
Not trying to make fun of anyone, but TM is your classic, boring scam/cult. I'm sure you can find their "secret" mantras if you google hard enough. It's baloney wrapped in mysticism with some TM-funded studies to lend more credibility. Truth is, meditation -- of any form -- is generally good for your mind and body. There are hundreds of meditation techniques, they all serve to soothe the nervous system, concentrate the mind, and/or bring mindful awareness.
Definitely not worth paying for. If you want to do it, just pick a phrase "peace", "relax", whatever, and silently repeat it to yourself for 20 minutes. That's all they're doing.
I think it's mantra meditation (which is to say, it's concentration meditation (aka samatha) with a mantra as your object). But I could be wrong. Maybe there's something special going on there. I met some TM people once. They didn't glow or anything.
When I do concentration meditation I prefer to use the feeling of breath in the tip of my nose as my object. I dislike mantra.
There are different types of meditation. Both mantra and breath meditation are types of focused meditation. I just wanted to know from people who learned TM, which is a secret technique, if it is actually worth it or if it is just a money making scheme, to ask people to pay to learn a certain meditation technique.
I have experimented with a few focus techniques. That is to say, the object differed.
I am of the opinion that the act of focus is most significant and the particular object focused upon is of much lesser significance. That the object should be selected simply for ease of use and minimal side-effects
Tho there are effects other than that of the focusing (stillness, clarity etc). Side-effects unique to some objects.
And I have heard of certain objects with special powers. Where the side-effect is of central importance. For example, the visualizations of the Tibetan Buddhists. Maybe the TM technique is one such.