Word: tm
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...heavy conglomerates. Powers of Mind is further evidence that Smith's publishing instincts are like those of a surfer who knows just when to catch the curl of the wave. For the New Purity is upon us-or at least upon the affluent who enroll in TM classes, biofeedback training, Esalen body rubs and Zen tennis lessons. Adam Smith has had a crack at all of these and more...
Other psychiatrists, always wary of anyone seeming to poach on their preserve, say that the TM organization does not screen prospective meditators and that the technique?especially a sequence of extra meditations called "rounding"?might well cause unstable persons to go over the edge...
Paradoxically, TM is also criticized for being too practical and not meditative enough. Most Hindu gurus, for instance, teach one or another form of yoga, which combines practical exercises with meditation to achieve union with Brahma?the ultimate reality or Absolute. Yoga itself is the Sanskrit word for a yoking, or union. The various branches of Buddhist meditation?Zen and Tibetan, for example?usually require great discipline and concentration to try similarly to gain nirvana, that ineffable state of liberation and union with ultimate reality in which suffering is eliminated and compassion and wisdom are attained. "Transcendental Meditation does...
...other hand, some Jews and Christians, like the placard-carrying fundamentalists in Los Angles last week, say that TM, despite its claims to being purely secular, is really Hinduism in disguise. Their argument has at least some merit, and though the ordinary meditator sees traces of religion only in the initiation ceremony, the rites for TM teachers are permeated with Hindu words and symbols...
Whatever it has borrowed from Hinduism, TM does owe something to religious tradition, and all major religions?Christianity, Judaism and Islam, as well as the Eastern faiths?at one time or another have included both meditation and the repetition of a mantra-like word. "Clasp this word tightly in your heart so that it never leaves no matter what may happen," advised a 14th century Christian treatise, The Cloud of Unknowing. "This word shall be your shield and your spear...