mumbull, a critical look at the Maharishi University of Management and other enterprises of the Transcendental Meditation movement, is published by Bob Brigante, a satisfied TM customer and fan of Maharishi since 1968
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Last update 28Nov2008
Maharishi left India in the 50s seeking advice from competent people in technologically advanced countries -- too bad he didn't find any. Typical of the wildly inept and loopy management of the TM movement are the "fantasy island" productions from Bevan and his buddies, this time on the island of Rota -- attempts to gain sovereignty over a 100-acre plot of land are unlikely to be successful -- to say the least, a fact that TM managers could have found out without putting on a dog and pony show on Rota if they had just spent 10 minutes with a constitutional law lawyer who could have told them that sovereignty was an impossibility (unless Rota withdrew from its Commonwealth status vis-a-vis the United States, a near impossibility since the whole CNMI and the U.S. Congress would have to agree with this withdrawal, since the CNMI is part of the United States), even if the people on Rota were all for it (and they certainly were not) -- didn't these Global Country guys learn how futile it is to seek sovereignty in the Suriname debacle? Even if sovereignty were feasible (and it's not, even if the Global Country resorts to Waterworld), it's ridiculous for Bevan to think that world leaders who are now ignoring the TM movement will do anything but laugh when crackpot ambassadors from some stamp-size country show up to pitch the Global Country.
It's clear that TM administrators are clueless and grandiose, island-hopping goofs, but maybe it's a good thing they retard the growth of the TM movement... Why would retards be good for the TM movement? Because, as Maharishi said (1979) at Seelisberg, Switzerland: "Only a ridiculous movement can survive. Otherwise our adversaries would destroy us to the last extent. The time will come, where I will show my real face. Go ahead and do your work !"
During the mou.org press conference of 24Aug2005, Maharishi talks again about the difficulty of quickly overcoming a negative atmosphere in the world: ...the destiny of the people doesn`t allow
us to light the big
lamp so quickly so that immediately the deep darkness
simply disappears. It
is the fate of the people.
In 2005, Maharishi puts TMO activities in England on hold, saying that feeding nectar to a snake would only increase its destructive tendencies. But this is no new policy -- MMY long ago made it clear that the TMO could only proceed by fits and starts in an ignorant and dark world, whether by open announcements like this one about the suspension of TM activities in England, or by simply employing the notoriously fatuous managers of the TMO who guarantee slow or no growth.
Really, naming England is only symbolic, as little or no TMO activity is taking place anywhere in the West, because only India can support the transition to Vedic civilization. After the pundits have purified the atmosphere sufficiently in India, the people will embrace TM and other aspects of Vedic culture and serve as a lighthouse to the world.
I regard the comatose state of the TM movement in the West as OK, because the focus of the TM movement is going, and should go, to India, the natural home of Vedic culture that only needs the water of higher consciousness to cause Vedic civilization to bloom again, despite the bad character of the Kaliyuga. MMY says that it is
possible for SatYuga to intrude in the lifespan of the Kaliyuga,
because the wrongdoing of this age makes it weak, and possible to end
its life early, just as a human whose life is full of wrongdoing can
come to an early end of life.
In his press conference of 13Apr2005 at mou.org, Maharishi said that "As Indian national consciousness rises in coherence -- which is the basis of invincibility for the nation then world consciousness will rise in coherence which is the basis of permanent world peace...One sun rises, but its innumerable rays spread light everywhere...So it's natural for the influence of coherence to spread from India to the whole world." In the mou.org Press Conference 26 June 2002, Maharishi said:
"India is the only country which can assume a parental role for every
country of the world with this knowledge of the Veda, with this total
knowledge of Natural Law, the Will of God. And everything is possible
under the protective nature of the Will of God, invincible God."
I am realizing that it really does not matter that the TMO is
flunking out in the West. In fact, this was the strategy all along (carried out both deliberately and otherwise),
inspired not by any ordinary human analysis of what would work for
the TMO in the West or not, but a strategy guided by Divine
intelligence. The real reason that MMY came to the West was to delay the onset of enlightenment so that a Vedic India would not be too much of a shock
for the world. If MMY had stayed in India without lighting a few candles around the world, the onset of a Vedic India would have created "fear and havoc" in
material life around the world. The TMO will be wildly successful in a few years in India -- the people of India have always responded to a genuine revival of Vedic culture -- MMY says in the preface to his commentary on the Gita that "India is a country where Truth matters most and Indians are a people to whom God matters most. Indian soil has witnessed many times the revival of life's true philosophy. The people of India have never hesitated to return once more to the right path whenever it was convincingly pointed out to them that their way of life had taken a wrong course."; everything that is happening now in the West, the crowns and titles and all that, is just designed to hold a shell of an organization in place until TM is successful in India, where there have been no exclusionary price increases for TM instruction as there have been in the West. After Deepak Chopra's arrogance swept him out of the TM movement, MMY was determined not to let this sort of defection happen again if possible, so he loads up the inadequate personalities who manage the TM movement with fancy clothes and titles so that they, like a child at his birthday party, will feel the glow of attention of being needed and adored and stick around in the movement until Vedic India is restored, and the TMO's success in India can become a worldwide success.
Having failed to get real sovereignty anywhere, the TM movement now decides that fake sovereignty is good enough...good enough, that is, until the government of Costa Rica cracks down on funny-money schemes. UPDATE: Elapsed time from the inauguration of the Global Country in Costa Rica until President Pacheco expelled Global Country goofs on 19 Jul 2002:
about 3 weeks -- this could be a record for quickest end to hare-brained TM-movement schemes (see story in Costa Rican newspaper).
Somebody didn't get the memo: In the 11 Dec 2002 issue of the MUM Review the dean of the MUM College of Arts and Sciences says about an MUM Study Abroad program: "Greece is a very beautiful place to go," Dr. Grant said. "It is the cradle of western civilization and the values we hold dear such as individualism and democracy." -- although MMY has condemned democracy (Dr. Grant and MUM parted ways soon after this). Even if Maharishi had not made explicit condemnations of democracy, nobody with an IQ above room temperature would regard MUM as a place where values such as individualism and democracy are held dear, which is quite obvious by just reading the so-called student newspaper, which never seems to question anything about school policy. Finally, in answer to a question from the press, Maharishi condemns "wild" monarchs and dictators, too (about minute 45 into the conference), saying the key element in governance is operating from the value of supreme awareness. Since, as Maharishi says, the government is an "innocent mirror" of the national consciousness, this means that a higher national consciousness will produce better leaders in any system of government, although democracy would not be chosen by the people if good leaders were available.
One of the many absurdities engendered by democracy is reported by Business Week (March 19, 2007, p.51) in its article "The trouble with India":
"If you have to build a road in China, just a handful of people need to make a decision," says Daniel Vasella, chief executive of pharmaceutical giant Novartis. "If you want to build a road in India, it'll take ten years of discussion before you get a decision." Blame it partly on India's revolving-door democracy. Political parties typically hold power for just one five-year term before disgruntled voters, swayed by populist promises from the opposition, kick them out of office. In elections last year in Tamil Nadu, for instance, a new government was voted in after it pledged to give free color TVs to poor families. "In a sanely organized society you can get a lot done. Not here," says Jayaprakash Narayan, head of Lok Satta, or People Power, a national reform party.
Democracy developed because people were tired of being exploited by despots -- only a higher level of national consciousness will bring about conditions that will allow inefficient democracy to fade away. 42 years ago, in his Science of Being and Art of Living, MMY said: "It is the governments of the democratic countries that hold the faith and goodwill of their people." ("Generation after Generation," ~p. 300), and that is still the case -- MMY is just speaking out of frustration with the slow progress of his mission to enlighten the world. Or, given the likelihood of his death within a few years, Maharishi is just making it clear that democracy is not a desirable system of governance, but just something unfortunate that came about because people were tired of being abused by wild kings and despots. The coming Sat Yuga (Golden Age) will produce leaders who will have the confidence of the people, so democracy, with its many problems and inefficiencies, will simply melt away in the light of higher consciousness in the Sat Yuga, when leaders who can operate from the supreme level of awareness are available. Every government is really a de facto democracy, because the average value of consiousness in a country is what determines the quality of governance:'National consciousness is the motivator for every action of a government,' Maharishi said. 'A government cannot do anything other than what is dictated by national consciousness. So, if we want government to be free from problems, then we have to improve the quality of national consciousness.'
MUM student stabbed to death in dining hall. Why didn't the school control a dangerous student? There was an assault (a fork-stabbing by a student, if I recall correctly) in the campus dining hall in 2003 (?), which resulted in an immediate arrest by the Fairfield police in Annapurna dining hall, and made MUM look bad both in Fairfield (the Ledger's police section reported the assault) and its crime stats web page which must be made available to prospective students or other interested parties. It looks like MUM officials were trying to avoid bad publicity by downplaying the first Sem assault, which led to the murder tragedy (security flaws are common in college slayings and MUM is not the worst offender when it comes to trying to cover up campus crime).
Read the shocking account of MUM negligence in the civil court filing over the slaying of Levi Butler.
MUM says that it is going to review campus safety policies, but it's a sure bet that the antipathy created by tyrannical MUM management, which creates a ruthless environment where violence and every sort of unhappiness are always just around the corner, won't be reviewed -- MUM management will pay any cost in order to lord it over others. A glaring example of the Stalinist level of repression at MUM is seen in the fact that the March 17th 2004 issue of the MUM student newspaper, has no mention whatsoever of the murder, but merely a photo (in the print edition only) of Levi captioned "In loving memory." Can you imagine a student newspaper at any other college campus in the U.S. not reporting an on-campus murder? MUM tried to brush campus violence under the rug right from the first assault by Sem, and continues to do so by acting as if Levi's death was some mysterious disappearance instead of a murder of a poor guy killed while eating dinner in a school that loudly trumpets its fine atmosphere.
A very cagey reason why MUM security was not notified after the first assault by Sem (an unsuccessful attempt was made to contact the Director of Security on his cell phone, but no call was made to campus security guards, evidently to avoid having creating a campus security log entry which would become part of reportable campus crime stats) may be that some of MUM's security guards do not meditate and are actively opposed to TM and thus would not be helpful in hushing up yet another campus act of violence: "Non-meditator Mike Lauer works as a security guard at Maharishi
University. He's philosophically opposed to TM and
Maharishi's "consciousness-based" teaching. He uses his time on
campus to build relationships and evangelize his Christian faith."( From the Omaha World-Herald, Oct 2004).
A disinclination to report bad news is the hallmark of backward societies, like North Korea, whose newspapers are full of praise for the worker's paradise, while blithely ignoring a whole generation of children stunted by a starvation diet. The lack of progress and bad reputation that MUM enjoys has the same cause as in North Korea and every other forlorn dictatorship: power-hungry management condemns the group to stagnation through its refusal to allow people to think openly about problems -- a stranglehold on the people which likes to masquerade as a benevolent concern for the welfare of the group. But the fact is that students and other serfs just don't count (which is why they can't question any university policies in the campus newspaper) -- does anybody doubt that if somebody important, like MUM President Bevan Morris or VP Craig Pearson, had been stabbed with a pen by Sem, somehow the necessary steps would have been taken to keep his homicidal rage off campus?
MUM management has many deficits, but if an effective national advertising campaign were promoting TM (at a reasonable price, of course), resulting in 100,000 people a month learning TM, at least there would be plenty of stable students clamoring to study at MUM, and the school would not have to beat the bushes for mentally ill students, who have always been plentiful at MUM because the school struggles even to maintain its tiny enrollment in Fairfield, and because early adopters of TM have tended to be disproportionately crackpot.
MUM management continues to embarrass itself with its reaction to a report from the committee on campus safety, including have the nerve to say that the guy who was in charge of security when Levi Butler was killed is now going to be more in charge, although he will continue to be Director of Facilities Management just as before, which will continue to leave him with an inadequate amount of time and attention to devote to his work as security director.
In June 2005 Sem is found not guilty by reason of insanity and sent to an Iowa facility for the criminally insane -- he'll be eligible for release any time psychiatrists feel he is no longer a threat, but the real threat to MUM students, the utterly clueless management of the school, will continue to create unhappy situations for some time.
Bevan sends a pathetic preachy letter to presidents of American universities. It's hard to understand what Bevan is shooting for here. After all, MUM already has the lowest reputation of any Midwestern college (see U.S. News & World Report rankings), so it hardly seems necessary to lower MUM's reputation even more with a ridiculous anti-science tract that has no chance of appealing to its target audience. Maharishi left India seeking expertise from capable people in advanced societies in order to spread TM, a recognition that Maharishi does not have the social understanding necessary to maneuver in the modern world effectively. What Maharishi got was useless advice from crackpots...
The Bliss Nazis have spoken: "No dome for you !" and not only will there be less Celtic music on campus, but a classical pianist also gets barred from performing on the MUM campus. Why? She was seen in a newscast of a crowd visiting a lady from India, Ammachi.*** Some people think that all the "shunning" going on in Fairfield makes the TM movement look like a not-too-bright cult, but not to worry, folks, our fearless leaders are assuring us that it's just part of their brilliant plan to stop those pesky alien invaders. 
Be vigilant!!
Maharishi's wrong conclusions about the failure of TM marketing efforts cause him to say "I want to cater for the wealthy"
Why high prices for TM instruction are wrong and based on a complete misunderstanding of TM's failure-to-thrive. Not only will high prices not attract the rich, but many celebrities prefer to learn for free, like Madonna, who recently learned TM from a teacher no longer affiliated with the TM bureaucracy. Talk-show host Oprah Winfrey, who also learned TM cheap (if not free), has given $1 million to a Johannesburg college which features TM as part of the curriculum. High TM prices won't attract the rich, but they will turn off the non-rich, that's for sure. $2500 is as much a drop in the bucket for rich folks as the old $500 or less course fee for TM, raising course fees can't possibly be of any use in attracting the rich to TM.
Having sacked the Natural Law Party in December 2000, Maharishi takes another step in the right direction
by announcing in a 10 Jul 2002 broadcast that the TM movement will stop wasting time on trying to persuade governments
Hagelin announces on 21 April 2002 that $71 million out of a target $100 million has been raised
for YF groups in India from a handful of millionaires: do the math, John -- $100 from a million meditators adds up to $100 million, so put an end to elitist appeals to the rich and teach TM to the masses, who would gladly support YF groups if they only knew the benefits of TM, something which can only be achieved by effective advertising, not by self-important lecturing to the world. Also, the ranks of rich donors in the TM movement have obviously been depleted, whereas the TMO could collect $100 million every year by asking for $100 donations from a million people -- better to go for a renewable resource than trying to "soak the rich."
Maharishi blasts Israel and the U.S.:
"Israel is a child of America. I have forgotten about Israel because
when people are murderers, who can bother about them? All that is happening
in Israel is the doing of America. Wherever there is destruction, it's the
doing of America. For the sake of politeness, one may not say that, but
those are my thoughts." If the Pope were to say this, there would certainly be a furor and possibly a change in policy, but, really, outside of a few people in the TM movement, who cares what Maharishi says? There are many disputes over territory throughout the world -- if you are not regarded by at least of some of the principals in the dispute as an authority, there is simply no point in discussing one of them (even one that, in an absurd re-make of the Crusades by proxy, ties the fortunes of the world's only superpower to the homicidal Israeli state which appears headed for a future as a radioactive parking lot). The TM movement needs to get back to its core business, and raise consciousness, not issues...
Why Maharishi, who never reads newspapers, needs to hire some advisors who are not from another planet
...this is just sad...Bush a "wild man?"...with "holes in the brain?"...you can't turn on your TV at night without hearing some comedian deriding the holes in Bush's brain -- what good does it do the TM movement for Maharishi to throw in his two-cents worth?...the knuckleheads around Maharishi have convinced him that NATO is a big threat*** Does it matter if Maharishi alienates the West?
***What a top scientist thought of the $1 billion proposal***Hagelin is dragging Dr. Salk around in order to get face-time with politicians (no pol can afford to show disrespect to somebody with a famous and well-regarded name like Salk), but there is not a chance that these meetings will amount to anything more than a polite brush-off for Hagelin's billion-dollar proposals to the U.S. government
Remember that Natural Law Party flake, hand-picked by Hagelin, who ran for governor of California in 1998?
NLP candidate and Maharishi Ayurveda consulting psychiatrist Dr. Harold Bloomfield got busted in Dec 2001 for doing the nasty with his patients after drugging them. Any mention of Dr. Bloomfield was removed from mapi.com after his arrest (although you can still find references to Bloomfield in the archives of the Wayback Machine, like this page from Nov 2001). Bloomfield termed California "a diseased patient" when he ran for governor there, but the fact is that NLP candidates are likely to be the sickest puppies in any kennel...Bloomfield's hypocrisy and mental illness is a commonplace throughout TM management...Bloomfield pleads guilty in exchange for a light sentence.Boy, sure is a good thing Maharishi put an end to the NLP in December 2000, huh?
(as if Hagelin and crew would pay any attention to what Maharishi said if it didn't support their half-witted plans to take over the world)
John Hagelin shows off his aluminum foil beanie...
Finally, a project worth supporting!
Break open those piggy banks for the establishment of large Pundit groups in India...
MAHARISHI KILLS THE NATURAL LAW PARTY!
"Don't even waste time on closing it down...We were wasting our time in imaginary illusions of political sovereignty"...but the NLP-USA says "Hell no, we won't go!"
Did the North Central Accreditation Association just declare MUM to be "the North Korea of Universities?"
Will the study showing that TM ameliorates atherosclerosis translate into sales of TM instruction?
Britain's National Health Service to pay for TM instruction, MUM gets an NIH grant, and U.S. military veterans learn TM for free since 1994 -- how significant are these government grants?
George W. Bush is the second U.S. President to have learned TM.
The front page of the 17 Jan 2001 print edition of The MUM Review proudly shows Dubya wearing a Maharishi University baseball cap, but Maharishi wants to stifle GWB's "bombing tendency."
Think Vedic astrology is as non-predictive as Western astrology? Dubya's Jyotish chart looks about right to me...
MUM's bottom-of-the-barrel reputation
Levitation makes a comeback
The brilliant TM plan to end poverty
Open letter to MUM President Bevan Morris
What readers have to say
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