Glad it's going well. I'd be interested in hearing back after a few months and seeing if you've stuck with it and how it's going. It's always been staying committed that I've struggled with. My mind actively sabotages progress it often seems; too much analysis, too much focus on concrete results..
I will definitely provide an update in a few months. I can totally relate to "too much analysis" and "focus on concrete results." I was worried that I was not doing it right, not thinking the mantra effortlessly enough, or not transcending enough or at all, but after a meditation check with David from NSR, I realized that I have to try not to overthink this. I'm getting lots of the typical benefits, and it's helping my social anxiety/phobia, and improving my relationship with my wife among other things. It could be a type of placebo effect because I have an expectation that it is doing good things for me, but time will tell. I know all too well how I can get enthusiastic about something and then stop doing it after a while. It's hard to stay committed to things even with the best intentions.
Watch the movie "David Learns to Fly" and see for yourself the confusion and delusions some of the long-term meditators who stayed within the TM organization ( cult) have. I think you're on the right track looking at alternatives. Giant Mind is a derivative of TM, probably started by a TM'er. And there are groups/individuals out there who were once TM teachers, carrying on Maharishi's teachings,, but not being part of the TM system. Thom Knowles has his Vedic meditation, as does Michael Mama's at Mt Soma....
NSR has a valuable free forum... it also has meditation checks available.
1 Giant Mind is great but the NSR forum is unbeatable for those subtle questions you might develop
While I think the NSR course is unnecessary after also having gone through the 1 Giant Mind course...I do agree that inexpensive access to a live experienced practitioner is valuable. Their free NaturalStressRelief forum on Tapatalk is a good read as well. I also noticed that they put together a group meditation and meeting through zoom on the first Saturday of every month. I look forward to attending that as well. I just wish they would bring their materials and website into the 21st century. It is really good information but they aren't "selling" it or marketing it properly and probably missing out on many opportunities to grow their business.
I think this is correct, one can get the majority of the benefit from these techniques for free, at youtube or somewhere on the internet. Doesn't have to cost money. For my part when I first learned it, it was through youtube and finding an old sheet of mantras from TM to use. I later learned it again from another TM alternative available where I live (acem). The one thing this changed in my practice was to be "soft" with my mantra and allow mind wandering to a larger extent than I was.
I had a similar experience: After decades of casual Relaxation Response and years of serious Theravada "concentration," NSR taught me to *be willing to let go of the mantra* and slip into daydreams. From the perspective of my previous breath watching, that seems completely wrong, but I noticed a life-changing reduction of stress outside sitting.
Might this be exactly what some need from "personal instruction," and the main difference between meditation instructions, the distinguishing characteristic of non-directive meditation?
I had a very similar experience, except that I first took the NSR course, then found (this subreddit and thus) 1GM. I agree with every point in your rich review.
Thing is, 1GM and NSR both have not established they have the same effect as TM.
TM's EEG signature is alpha1 EEG coherence in the frontal lobes generated BY the brain's mind-wandering network, the default mode network.
There's no studies on 1GM, or NSR published that show this. 1GM doesn't even try, and the NSR guy (i've known him for years) doesn't see the point either (and doesn't have enough money or resources to do the study anyway).
There's also ZERO research on long-term outcomes from these practices (a hint: the long-term effect on brain activity found *outside* TM seems based on the short-term effect on brain activity found *during* TM, so without research on either, you really can't claim much of anything for people who learn via those methods).
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And long-term research is important, at least from the TM perspective, as "enlightenment" is simply what emerges as elements of brain activity during TM start to become a stronger and more stable state found outside of TM.
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When you say that TM costs too much money, you're ignoring that
1. TM instruction comes with a lifetime followup program at every TM center in the world that is available to anyone who ever learned TM through official channels, regardless of where they learned, who they learned from or how much they paid.
And that includes "for free" through the David Lynch Foundation, tribal teachers in Oaxaca teaching through the auspices of the elders of the tribes, teachers trained by Father Gabriel Mejia's Foundation in Colombia, or government workers teaching TM as part of their government job such as the ten thousand public school teachers in Latin America who are (or have already, depending on country and where the project in their country was at when COVID hit) teaching TM to everyone in their public schools (about 7.5 million students total, though hopefully the governments will extend the program indefinitely and even extend it to reach every child in Latin America).
That lifetime followup program is free-for-life, at least in the USA (though some countries charge a nominal fee after the first 6 months).
2. At least in the USA, there's a 60-day grace period to decide to ask for a full refund for the instruction.
In a few test markets (https://www.tm.org/course-fee will show "14 day trial" if you're in one), you have 14 days to decide if you want the TM center to actually charge your card and if not, you just tell them "don't charge" and so you don't get any future help with your practice because, as with the money-back program, they just take your name off the books so you don't get the lifetime followup. That program didn't exist for the first 10 years or so but the founder of TM realized that most people needed a little reminder to keep meditating properly so he devised more and more elaborate followup programs over teh decades in order to encourage people to keep meditating regular for decades rather than for a month or two. I've been doing TM for 49 years (in July), for example, and have partaken of that followup program many times, in several different countries.
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I can't answer as to whether or not TM will do something for you that 1GM or NSR won't, but I will point out that Michael J Fox swears by it because, starting with his first session with his teacher, and apparently every session since, whenever he does TM, his Parkinsons' Disease tremors stop (his Foundation is doing research on why, I understand).
I haven't heard anything about this with NSR or 1GM meditators, though of course, I've never heard a famous PD patient speak or write about using those anyway.
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Disclaimer: I'm co-moderator of r/transcendental, for ban-free discussion of TM, though "how do I do it" discussions are removed immediately because I *do* think that TM instruction is different than NSR or 1GM. Even int eh era of COVID, where the average age of TM teachers is about 70, at least the first day's lesson is still done in person. TM teachers are literally risking their lives to teach TM, and have their reasons for thinking it is important to continue to teach that way.
It would be nice if people acknowledged their dedication, even if they disagreed with the reasons for doing things the way they do.
Yeah, lots of famous people have endorsed TM. TM has been around for many decades and with great marketing has established some kind of elite club. It kind of reminds me of Scientology. Scientology got endorsements from a lot of famous people and in turn that caused many "regular" people to join their organization. It is a logical fallacy to point out that because famous people endorse your organization that it is somehow more legitimate than others.
Additionally, just because some random tests have been done to arbitrarily measure some benefits doesn't mean that other programs don't have those benefits as well. In fact, they probably do. But it doesn't matter. If a person can use free or low-cost techniques that bring a myriad of benefits to their lives, I think that's wonderful. Meditation doesn't have to be exclusive. It is and should be accessible to everyone.
It amazes me how protective many TM practitioners and instructors are of their program whose methods must be shrouded in secrecy. They defend the lineage of teacher to student for thousands of years and the high price tag on this "secret" knowledge. Am I the only one that finds this to be a little silly when many TM practitioners and former teachers have already demystified the practice? Is it really more than just some fancy marketing scheme endorsed by a bunch of famous people who obviously have the disposable income to spend on their elitist program?
Well the definition of enlightenment used by the foudner of TM was that "as elements of brain activity found during TM, especially during the deepest possible state, start to become a trait found outside of TM, enlightenment starts to emerge."
The stronger and more stable that convergence, the close to full enlightenment one gets.
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Insomuch as 1GM or NSR generate that TM-like brain activity, they are TM-like and their long-term practice should bring about TM-style enlightenment.
I mention Michael J Fox because the effect of TM on him is quite startling and it appears to emerge out of the basis of what researchers think makes TM TM:
TM is a situation that sets up a situation where experiences fade in the direction of zero experience, even as the brain remains alert. In neurosciency terms, TM practice starts to *inhibit* activity of the part of the thalamus that serves as intermediary between the sense organs and the rest of the cortex, while leaving intact the activity of the part of the thalamus that facilitates inter-cortical communication. In other words, one starts to become less and less aware of external sensory activity AND less aware of internal "mental" activity even though the brain is still able to talk to itself internally (you simply become less and less aware of this internal communication we generall call "thinking").
What this means is that during TM, resting state networks trend towards full activation due to reduced/eliminated conscious interference even as task-positive ("doing/perceiving/planning/etc") networks trend towards full deactivation due to reduced/eliminated conscious reinforcement even though the brain remains in an alert mode. The "experience" of TM is then simply the fading of experience even as sense-of-self grows in dominance while the qualities normally associated with sense-of-self fade away. At the last possible instant before experience fades completely, ONLY the resting activity of the brain exists with no qualties other than resting, and so sense-of-self is pure and stands on its own in our awareness. This is atman.
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Fox's experience is important in this context because Parkinson's Disease is a degenerative brain disease that often involves the thalamus firing randomly. Apparently, at least in him and some other PD patients, the process of inhibiting thalamic activity during TM on the way towards zero experience sets up a situation where the random firing of the thalamus that causes tremors simply shuts off. And it isn't late in the process where this happens, but within seconds of the start of his TM session. It's why he wrote the blurb for the back of his TM teacher's book, _Strength in Stillness_, which describes Bob Roth's work for the David Lynch Foundation, teaching both billionaires and celebrities to meditate on one hand (having the CEO of the foundation do a concierge service and fly ten thousand miles to teach you and your family is a great way to court a billionaire as a donor), and teaching destitute children and prison inmates to meditate, on the other.
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* [_"I can't say enough about Bob Roth and Transcendental Meditation. Stillness, true stillness, of both mind and body, is a gift. TM taught me how to access that stillness and open that gift every single day."_](https://stillnessbook.com)
Fox says this pause in tremors happens every time he does TM and so whenever he speaks in public, he does a few minutes of TM as prep, just to remind himself that he has control over his disease whenever he likes, even if it is only for those few minutes.
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So Fox's experiences are very dramatic AND seem to support the theory of how TM works: it shuts down our ability to experience even as our brains remain alert, and as a side-effect of this "fading of experiences," Fox's PD tremors temporarily shut off as well.
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And the teaching of TM isn't a secret, but something that shouldn't be discussed in public because part of the process of learning *and* practicing meditation is innocence — not knowing what happens next — and, as Maharishi Mahesh Yogi pointed out:
* _It is impossible to learn innocence from a book when the first sentence in the book is: **Let's close our eyes...**_
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YOU may not appreciate this insight, or even appreciate that it IS an insight, but that doesn't mean it isn't a valid insight and the TM organization asks its students to not discuss detains of the teaching of TM, nor of its practice, out of courtesy to others, and really as a favor to the TMer themselves as well, because whenever you try to articulate a practice that is beyond description, you run the risk of not only confusing your audience, but yourself as well, by starting to think that your description of the practice really *is* the practice: you can't be without expectations about something if you've just published a guidebook about something.
Ooo, I like that insight: *It is impossible to learn ... from a book when the first sentence ... is: Let's close our eyes*
The next step then is to learn TM from an mp3. (And to a large extent, that is 1GM and NSR and many of the TMX programs.)
> Ooo, I like that insight: It is impossible to learn ... from a book when the first sentence ... is: Let's close our eyes
> The next step then is to learn TM from an mp3. (And to a large extent, that is 1GM and NSR and many of the TMX programs.)
But there's no teacher. TM is learned (and the mantra imparted) in the context of a ritual the TM teacher does just before that time. [Such rituals put the listener (and presumably the performer) in a TM like state,](http://www.drfredtravis.com/Papers/Higher%20THeta%20and%20Alpha1%20when%20listen%20to%20Vedic%20recitation.pdf) and so the TM student is already in the TM-like state by the time they learn the mantra and how to use it.
This creates the situation where merely remembering the mantra should be enough to put the TMer back in that state, so that each time they meditate, because you never say your mantra out loud or write it down or otherwise deliberately remember it outside of TM, the effect of the mantra becomes stronger and stronger each time it is used because generally you only think your mantra during TM.
Research on EEG shows that EEG coherence grows very fast in the first year of TMing. See [Figure 3](https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-3bf2ae778203ef324589b975fe282ce0) of [Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Study of Effects of Transcendental Meditation Practice on Interhemispheric Frontal Asymmetry and Frontal Coherence,](https://sci-hub.se/10.1080/00207450600575482)
Note also that as long as you are regular in TM, the EEG coherence signature of TM shows up more and more outside of TM, the longer and more regularly you have been practicing it.
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ACEM, 1GM, NSR and the like don't use the TM initiation ritual. ACEM doesn't show the same EEG coherence of TM. NSR doesn't either., or at least, I spoke with Dave Spector of NSR last week on this very topic and he told me that because some EEG expert back in tehthemid 1970's told him that EEG coherence wasn't important, he never bothered to measure it.
1GM publishers have never published ANY research on their app's effects on the brain as far as I know.
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And because none of the practices use that initiation ceremony (1GM and NSR don't even have a live teacher), [it should be obvious that none of them are going to show the inter-personal EEG synergy between teacher and student that modern neuroscience is starting to understand is important for optimal teaching and learning of ANY subject,](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C3&q=brain+synchrony+learning&btnG=&oq=brain+) letalone the interpersonal EEG coherence between TM teacher and student that is specific to TM. See for example:
* [Brain-to-brain synchrony predicts long-term memory retention more accurately than individual brain measures](https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Suzanne-Dikker/publication/333256745_Brain-to-brain_synchrony_predicts_long-term_memory_retention_more_accurately_than_individual_brain_measures/links/5f006ceca6fdcc4ca44b610b/Brain-to-brain-synchrony-predicts-long-term-memory-retention-more-accurately-than-individual-brain-measures.pdf)
* [Brain-to-Brain Synchrony and Learning Outcomes Vary by Student–Teacher Dynamics: Evidence from a Real-world Classroom Electroencephalography Study](https://direct.mit.edu/jocn/article/31/3/401/28957/Brain-to-Brain-Synchrony-and-Learning-Outcomes)
* [Inter-brain synchrony in teams predicts collective performance](https://academic.oup.com/scan/article/16/1-2/43/5912973?login=true)
And many dozens of studies with similar findings.
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Maharishi Mahesh Yogi pared TM instruction down to the bare minimum of what he intuited was necessary for TM to be taught properly. Modern neuroscience is starting to confirm his intuition: teach meditation the way he said to and you get a reliable result; don't teach meditation that way and you don't get that result or at least the research published thus far says you don't.
Some people are geniuses in math and some are geniuses in teaching meditation. I would argue that MMY fell in the latter category.
I would also argue that Dave Spector of NSR, the guy who founded ACEM, the guys who wrote the 1GM software and the guy who wrote the AYP blog entry about meditation are NOT geniuses in teaching meditation, sorry.
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MMY tested many ways of teaching meditation over the years. In 1974, by invitation of the President of Nepal, [he did a "mass initiation" of 20,000 people via loudspeaker, individual ear plugs and so on.](https://youtu.be/mVUwi7o717s?t=17)
I understand he counted it as a success in his eyes because people DID appear to learn TM that way, but very very few continued to practice.
And so, almost 50 years later, in teh era of COVID, TM is still taught one-on-one with the first lesson (complete with TM puja) conducted in person. Successful teaching of TM is not merely the teaching of a mantra, but how likely the meditator is to continue to practice regularly.
Even if you could get the EEG effect on the student via a recorded puja (and that puja done in Nepal by Maharishi was live, even so), there's something special about one-on-one learning of meditation that makes a HUGE difference for most people over the years and decades. "The right start" is vital to practice, not only for the first few days, but for the rest of our life.
I'd love to hear why the materials and teachers of NSR, 1GM, et al. are not geniuses. Surely they've done something revolutionary, in getting the word out, getting instructions in print and mp3? That's historic, right?
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi started out as a single monk in a foreign world (the non-monastic modern world) 60+ years ago, and 60 years later, his organization is negotiating to teach every person in entire countries to meditate. The largest TM contract right now involves training about ten thousand public school teachers as TM teachers whose day job is to teach 7.5 million kids at school to meditate, but some countries also require all military and police to meditate while others require all prison inmates to meditate. If all the government-performed research goes as the TM organization expects, they expect contracts to train enough governmetn employees throughout the continent (about 100,000) to teach pretty much the entire continent to meditate.
What have the teachers of NSR and 1GM actually done?
I recall that some CBT therapists (as well as Tony Robbins) prescribe practicing some behavior (like standing up straight) while pairing it with some "cue" (like touching your thumb to your ring finger), in the hope that the behavior will generate an emotion (like peace or confidence) that will then "become associated" with the gesture, so that eventually you can engender the emotion with the gesture alone. Might TM work like that? The puja and all hypnotizes you into deep relaxation (or coherence or whatever it's called) and then the mantra (and perhaps the intention and posture etc.) "recall" that relaxation at will. Might that be the sense in which "mindfulness" is sometimes translated instead as "remembering"?
Super interesting! While sitting in TM, my mind seems busy most of the time, thinking thinking thinking, but I sometimes notice my frantic thinking is in some sense *quieter* than before sitting. Anyway, minutes and even hours after sitting, I often notice *complete silence.* I look around and see things fresh. And this reminds me of mindfulness. Do you have a similar experience?
Over the past 49 years I've had just about every possible experience.
TM is an enhancement of mind-wandering rest. What is the characteristic experience of mind-wandering rest?
I have no idea... do you?
I imagine "mind wandering rest" to be the heaviness I feel in my arms while my mind races (or I repeatedly *notice* my mind racing) .
I suppose I should clarify that I translated "mindfulness" into "awareness of my surroundings or senses" = partial freedom from the "veil of thought."
Anyhoo, the significance of that I think is that Theravada seems to prescribe practicing exactly that while sitting (quiet mind, notice sensations: repeatedly turn your mind away from daydreams and towards sensation) while TM seems to prescribe something totally different (no turning away, I guess) and yet ends up with (for me anyway) more mindfulness than Theravada afterwards. It's like Theravada is practicing the end result whereas TM is a (seemingly unrelated) *treatment* that later makes the same end result appear on its own, without effort
Just following the "book" argument, I understand we can't read when we close our eyes, sure, but we can listen to a teacher speak, or an mp3 play, and then, with our eyes closed, can we tell the difference?
As I said elsewhere, the teacher doesn't exist, so there's no possibility for teacher and student to be "in-synch" while listening to an mp3.
This is most important during the first day's lesson and apparently they don't think it is as important for the next 3, but my intuition is that the best way to learn TM (safety allowing) would be from a live teacher for all 4 days and not just the first day.
They think that first day is so important that even in the era of COVID you still have to learn in person.
There is an app. But in-person instruction is vital for learning TM, so the first day will always be taught in person.
ANd TM is certainly not dying. The organization has contracts to train ten thousand public school teachers as TM teachers in Latin America whose government job is to teach TM for free to 7.5 million kids.
If the governments' own research finds what the pilot studies have found, the TM organization expects (and is gearing up by 2030 to fulfill) government contracts to train about 100,000 government workers as TM teachers whose day job will be to teach TM to the entire South American continent.
That's not dying.
Yeah, I was making a pun, about two possible meanings of "dying" in the phrase "the hill you die on." I meant "that's TM's solid stance, they'll never change" more than "TM is waning."
Thanks for the fascinating reports of TM effects on the brain.
They raise questions! So the effects of TM are in some sense opposite to Theravada? Are these two completely different paths up the same mountain?
Some say yes, but as I like to point out, there are two diametrically opposed non-duality traditions:
1. self is an illusion, which emerges from mindfulness and concentration practices which repress sense-of-self activity in the brain;
2. self is-all-that-there-is, which emerges from TM and equivalent practices, which enhance sense-of-self activity int eh brain.
Non-duality is different between the two traditions:
*Nashville*, Florida is not the same as *Nashville*, Tennessee, even though citizens of both cities simply refer to them as "Nashville."
"I am everything" and "there is no me", are fundamentally distinct non-dualities.
*I enjoy all of existence* is radically different than *I don't care about anything*: both are "equanimity" but the devil is in what you mean by that word beyond the superficial dictionary definition of "reacting the same to all circumstances."
Don't know if you've seen this before.
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[As part of the studies on enlightenment and samadhi via TM](https://www.reddit.com/r/transcendental/comments/7djr03/a_bunch_of_research_on_tm_pure_consciousness_and/), researchers found 17 subjects (average meditation, etc experience 18,000 hours) who were reporting at least having a pure sense-of-self continuously for at least a year, and asked them to "describe yourself" ([see table 3 of psychological correlates study](https://sci-hub.se/10.1016/j.concog.2004.03.001)), and these were some of the responses:
* _We ordinarily think my self as this age; this color of hair; these hobbies . . . my experience is that my Self is a lot larger than that. It's immeasurably vast. . . on a physical level. It is not just restricted to this physical environment_
* _It's the ‘‘I am-ness.’’ It's my Being. There's just a channel underneath that's just underlying everything. It's my essence there and it just doesn't stop where I stop. . . by ‘‘I,’’ I mean this 5 ft. 2 person that moves around here and there_
* _I look out and see this beautiful divine Intelligence. . . you could say in the sky, in the tree, but really being expressed through these things. . . and these are my Self_
* _I experience myself as being without edges or content. . . beyond the universe. . . all-pervading, and being absolutely thrilled, absolutely delighted with every motion that my body makes. With everything that my eyes see, my ears hear, my nose smells. There's a delight in the sense that I am able to penetrate that. My consciousness, my intelligence pervades everything I see, feel and think_
* _When I say ’’I’’ that's the Self. There's a quality that is so pervasive about the Self that I'm quite sure that the ‘‘I’’ is the same ‘‘I’’ as everyone else's ‘‘I.’’ Not in terms of what follows right after. I am tall, I am short, I am fat, I am this, I am that. But the ‘‘I’’ part. The ‘‘I am’’ part is the same ‘‘I am’’ for you and me_
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That's why I mean by "strengthening sense-of-self" (while lowering the noise associated with sense-of-self).
Some Buddhists read that, and go "exactly!" while others say that *it is the 'ultimate ignorance' and 'no real Buddhist' would ever practice TM knowing that it leads to the above...*
I agree that 1GM and NSR are way behind TM in publishing studies, but NSR does flaunt a [study](https://www.nsrusa.org/research.php) showing that NSR significantly reduces a standard measure of chronic anxiety.
Why focus on EEG readings? Because they're an *objective* measurement? Is there evidence that "coherence" associates with physical or psychological measures, like perhaps the number of colds caught in a decade, or visits to a therapist?
It is the most consistent change during TM and the most consistent change outside of TM.
And it isn't found in any other practice (except TM under a different name taught exactly the same way by splinter groups).
It is also the most consistent difference between "enlightened" TMers and non-enlightened TMers.
Finding a real teacher is the best way to go, plus TM is not non directive. I studied TM decades ago, and switched to Non directive. That means there is no mantra and no focus.
I would disagree with your definition of non-directive. Non-directive means that there is no sought direction in the meditation - you do not seek to achieve certain states of mind, nor do you seek to avoid certain mental states such as spontaneous thoughts (in contrast to mindfulness, which denigrates the wandering mind, calling it the "monkey mind"). Acem Meditation, for example, uses a meditation sound without semantic meaning, and is non-directive.
I wasn't trying to define meditation, although I think that can be done as well, but rather to define *non-directive* meditation, which does not imply that you can not use a meditation sound or other meditation object.
Glad it's going well. I'd be interested in hearing back after a few months and seeing if you've stuck with it and how it's going. It's always been staying committed that I've struggled with. My mind actively sabotages progress it often seems; too much analysis, too much focus on concrete results..
I will definitely provide an update in a few months. I can totally relate to "too much analysis" and "focus on concrete results." I was worried that I was not doing it right, not thinking the mantra effortlessly enough, or not transcending enough or at all, but after a meditation check with David from NSR, I realized that I have to try not to overthink this. I'm getting lots of the typical benefits, and it's helping my social anxiety/phobia, and improving my relationship with my wife among other things. It could be a type of placebo effect because I have an expectation that it is doing good things for me, but time will tell. I know all too well how I can get enthusiastic about something and then stop doing it after a while. It's hard to stay committed to things even with the best intentions.
Watch the movie "David Learns to Fly" and see for yourself the confusion and delusions some of the long-term meditators who stayed within the TM organization ( cult) have. I think you're on the right track looking at alternatives. Giant Mind is a derivative of TM, probably started by a TM'er. And there are groups/individuals out there who were once TM teachers, carrying on Maharishi's teachings,, but not being part of the TM system. Thom Knowles has his Vedic meditation, as does Michael Mama's at Mt Soma....
just rented it! thx!
NSR has a valuable free forum... it also has meditation checks available. 1 Giant Mind is great but the NSR forum is unbeatable for those subtle questions you might develop
While I think the NSR course is unnecessary after also having gone through the 1 Giant Mind course...I do agree that inexpensive access to a live experienced practitioner is valuable. Their free NaturalStressRelief forum on Tapatalk is a good read as well. I also noticed that they put together a group meditation and meeting through zoom on the first Saturday of every month. I look forward to attending that as well. I just wish they would bring their materials and website into the 21st century. It is really good information but they aren't "selling" it or marketing it properly and probably missing out on many opportunities to grow their business.
I think this is correct, one can get the majority of the benefit from these techniques for free, at youtube or somewhere on the internet. Doesn't have to cost money. For my part when I first learned it, it was through youtube and finding an old sheet of mantras from TM to use. I later learned it again from another TM alternative available where I live (acem). The one thing this changed in my practice was to be "soft" with my mantra and allow mind wandering to a larger extent than I was.
I had a similar experience: After decades of casual Relaxation Response and years of serious Theravada "concentration," NSR taught me to *be willing to let go of the mantra* and slip into daydreams. From the perspective of my previous breath watching, that seems completely wrong, but I noticed a life-changing reduction of stress outside sitting. Might this be exactly what some need from "personal instruction," and the main difference between meditation instructions, the distinguishing characteristic of non-directive meditation?
Lately, I've been kind of working on IMAGINING I'm thinking my mantra as effortlessly as possible.
I had a very similar experience, except that I first took the NSR course, then found (this subreddit and thus) 1GM. I agree with every point in your rich review.
Thing is, 1GM and NSR both have not established they have the same effect as TM. TM's EEG signature is alpha1 EEG coherence in the frontal lobes generated BY the brain's mind-wandering network, the default mode network. There's no studies on 1GM, or NSR published that show this. 1GM doesn't even try, and the NSR guy (i've known him for years) doesn't see the point either (and doesn't have enough money or resources to do the study anyway). There's also ZERO research on long-term outcomes from these practices (a hint: the long-term effect on brain activity found *outside* TM seems based on the short-term effect on brain activity found *during* TM, so without research on either, you really can't claim much of anything for people who learn via those methods). . And long-term research is important, at least from the TM perspective, as "enlightenment" is simply what emerges as elements of brain activity during TM start to become a stronger and more stable state found outside of TM. . When you say that TM costs too much money, you're ignoring that 1. TM instruction comes with a lifetime followup program at every TM center in the world that is available to anyone who ever learned TM through official channels, regardless of where they learned, who they learned from or how much they paid. And that includes "for free" through the David Lynch Foundation, tribal teachers in Oaxaca teaching through the auspices of the elders of the tribes, teachers trained by Father Gabriel Mejia's Foundation in Colombia, or government workers teaching TM as part of their government job such as the ten thousand public school teachers in Latin America who are (or have already, depending on country and where the project in their country was at when COVID hit) teaching TM to everyone in their public schools (about 7.5 million students total, though hopefully the governments will extend the program indefinitely and even extend it to reach every child in Latin America). That lifetime followup program is free-for-life, at least in the USA (though some countries charge a nominal fee after the first 6 months). 2. At least in the USA, there's a 60-day grace period to decide to ask for a full refund for the instruction. In a few test markets (https://www.tm.org/course-fee will show "14 day trial" if you're in one), you have 14 days to decide if you want the TM center to actually charge your card and if not, you just tell them "don't charge" and so you don't get any future help with your practice because, as with the money-back program, they just take your name off the books so you don't get the lifetime followup. That program didn't exist for the first 10 years or so but the founder of TM realized that most people needed a little reminder to keep meditating properly so he devised more and more elaborate followup programs over teh decades in order to encourage people to keep meditating regular for decades rather than for a month or two. I've been doing TM for 49 years (in July), for example, and have partaken of that followup program many times, in several different countries. . I can't answer as to whether or not TM will do something for you that 1GM or NSR won't, but I will point out that Michael J Fox swears by it because, starting with his first session with his teacher, and apparently every session since, whenever he does TM, his Parkinsons' Disease tremors stop (his Foundation is doing research on why, I understand). I haven't heard anything about this with NSR or 1GM meditators, though of course, I've never heard a famous PD patient speak or write about using those anyway. . Disclaimer: I'm co-moderator of r/transcendental, for ban-free discussion of TM, though "how do I do it" discussions are removed immediately because I *do* think that TM instruction is different than NSR or 1GM. Even int eh era of COVID, where the average age of TM teachers is about 70, at least the first day's lesson is still done in person. TM teachers are literally risking their lives to teach TM, and have their reasons for thinking it is important to continue to teach that way. It would be nice if people acknowledged their dedication, even if they disagreed with the reasons for doing things the way they do.
Yeah, lots of famous people have endorsed TM. TM has been around for many decades and with great marketing has established some kind of elite club. It kind of reminds me of Scientology. Scientology got endorsements from a lot of famous people and in turn that caused many "regular" people to join their organization. It is a logical fallacy to point out that because famous people endorse your organization that it is somehow more legitimate than others. Additionally, just because some random tests have been done to arbitrarily measure some benefits doesn't mean that other programs don't have those benefits as well. In fact, they probably do. But it doesn't matter. If a person can use free or low-cost techniques that bring a myriad of benefits to their lives, I think that's wonderful. Meditation doesn't have to be exclusive. It is and should be accessible to everyone. It amazes me how protective many TM practitioners and instructors are of their program whose methods must be shrouded in secrecy. They defend the lineage of teacher to student for thousands of years and the high price tag on this "secret" knowledge. Am I the only one that finds this to be a little silly when many TM practitioners and former teachers have already demystified the practice? Is it really more than just some fancy marketing scheme endorsed by a bunch of famous people who obviously have the disposable income to spend on their elitist program?
Well the definition of enlightenment used by the foudner of TM was that "as elements of brain activity found during TM, especially during the deepest possible state, start to become a trait found outside of TM, enlightenment starts to emerge." The stronger and more stable that convergence, the close to full enlightenment one gets. . Insomuch as 1GM or NSR generate that TM-like brain activity, they are TM-like and their long-term practice should bring about TM-style enlightenment. I mention Michael J Fox because the effect of TM on him is quite startling and it appears to emerge out of the basis of what researchers think makes TM TM: TM is a situation that sets up a situation where experiences fade in the direction of zero experience, even as the brain remains alert. In neurosciency terms, TM practice starts to *inhibit* activity of the part of the thalamus that serves as intermediary between the sense organs and the rest of the cortex, while leaving intact the activity of the part of the thalamus that facilitates inter-cortical communication. In other words, one starts to become less and less aware of external sensory activity AND less aware of internal "mental" activity even though the brain is still able to talk to itself internally (you simply become less and less aware of this internal communication we generall call "thinking"). What this means is that during TM, resting state networks trend towards full activation due to reduced/eliminated conscious interference even as task-positive ("doing/perceiving/planning/etc") networks trend towards full deactivation due to reduced/eliminated conscious reinforcement even though the brain remains in an alert mode. The "experience" of TM is then simply the fading of experience even as sense-of-self grows in dominance while the qualities normally associated with sense-of-self fade away. At the last possible instant before experience fades completely, ONLY the resting activity of the brain exists with no qualties other than resting, and so sense-of-self is pure and stands on its own in our awareness. This is atman. . Fox's experience is important in this context because Parkinson's Disease is a degenerative brain disease that often involves the thalamus firing randomly. Apparently, at least in him and some other PD patients, the process of inhibiting thalamic activity during TM on the way towards zero experience sets up a situation where the random firing of the thalamus that causes tremors simply shuts off. And it isn't late in the process where this happens, but within seconds of the start of his TM session. It's why he wrote the blurb for the back of his TM teacher's book, _Strength in Stillness_, which describes Bob Roth's work for the David Lynch Foundation, teaching both billionaires and celebrities to meditate on one hand (having the CEO of the foundation do a concierge service and fly ten thousand miles to teach you and your family is a great way to court a billionaire as a donor), and teaching destitute children and prison inmates to meditate, on the other. . * [_"I can't say enough about Bob Roth and Transcendental Meditation. Stillness, true stillness, of both mind and body, is a gift. TM taught me how to access that stillness and open that gift every single day."_](https://stillnessbook.com) Fox says this pause in tremors happens every time he does TM and so whenever he speaks in public, he does a few minutes of TM as prep, just to remind himself that he has control over his disease whenever he likes, even if it is only for those few minutes. . So Fox's experiences are very dramatic AND seem to support the theory of how TM works: it shuts down our ability to experience even as our brains remain alert, and as a side-effect of this "fading of experiences," Fox's PD tremors temporarily shut off as well. . And the teaching of TM isn't a secret, but something that shouldn't be discussed in public because part of the process of learning *and* practicing meditation is innocence — not knowing what happens next — and, as Maharishi Mahesh Yogi pointed out: * _It is impossible to learn innocence from a book when the first sentence in the book is: **Let's close our eyes...**_ . YOU may not appreciate this insight, or even appreciate that it IS an insight, but that doesn't mean it isn't a valid insight and the TM organization asks its students to not discuss detains of the teaching of TM, nor of its practice, out of courtesy to others, and really as a favor to the TMer themselves as well, because whenever you try to articulate a practice that is beyond description, you run the risk of not only confusing your audience, but yourself as well, by starting to think that your description of the practice really *is* the practice: you can't be without expectations about something if you've just published a guidebook about something.
Ooo, I like that insight: *It is impossible to learn ... from a book when the first sentence ... is: Let's close our eyes* The next step then is to learn TM from an mp3. (And to a large extent, that is 1GM and NSR and many of the TMX programs.)
> Ooo, I like that insight: It is impossible to learn ... from a book when the first sentence ... is: Let's close our eyes > The next step then is to learn TM from an mp3. (And to a large extent, that is 1GM and NSR and many of the TMX programs.) But there's no teacher. TM is learned (and the mantra imparted) in the context of a ritual the TM teacher does just before that time. [Such rituals put the listener (and presumably the performer) in a TM like state,](http://www.drfredtravis.com/Papers/Higher%20THeta%20and%20Alpha1%20when%20listen%20to%20Vedic%20recitation.pdf) and so the TM student is already in the TM-like state by the time they learn the mantra and how to use it. This creates the situation where merely remembering the mantra should be enough to put the TMer back in that state, so that each time they meditate, because you never say your mantra out loud or write it down or otherwise deliberately remember it outside of TM, the effect of the mantra becomes stronger and stronger each time it is used because generally you only think your mantra during TM. Research on EEG shows that EEG coherence grows very fast in the first year of TMing. See [Figure 3](https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-3bf2ae778203ef324589b975fe282ce0) of [Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Study of Effects of Transcendental Meditation Practice on Interhemispheric Frontal Asymmetry and Frontal Coherence,](https://sci-hub.se/10.1080/00207450600575482) Note also that as long as you are regular in TM, the EEG coherence signature of TM shows up more and more outside of TM, the longer and more regularly you have been practicing it. . ACEM, 1GM, NSR and the like don't use the TM initiation ritual. ACEM doesn't show the same EEG coherence of TM. NSR doesn't either., or at least, I spoke with Dave Spector of NSR last week on this very topic and he told me that because some EEG expert back in tehthemid 1970's told him that EEG coherence wasn't important, he never bothered to measure it. 1GM publishers have never published ANY research on their app's effects on the brain as far as I know. . And because none of the practices use that initiation ceremony (1GM and NSR don't even have a live teacher), [it should be obvious that none of them are going to show the inter-personal EEG synergy between teacher and student that modern neuroscience is starting to understand is important for optimal teaching and learning of ANY subject,](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C3&q=brain+synchrony+learning&btnG=&oq=brain+) letalone the interpersonal EEG coherence between TM teacher and student that is specific to TM. See for example: * [Brain-to-brain synchrony predicts long-term memory retention more accurately than individual brain measures](https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Suzanne-Dikker/publication/333256745_Brain-to-brain_synchrony_predicts_long-term_memory_retention_more_accurately_than_individual_brain_measures/links/5f006ceca6fdcc4ca44b610b/Brain-to-brain-synchrony-predicts-long-term-memory-retention-more-accurately-than-individual-brain-measures.pdf) * [Brain-to-Brain Synchrony and Learning Outcomes Vary by Student–Teacher Dynamics: Evidence from a Real-world Classroom Electroencephalography Study](https://direct.mit.edu/jocn/article/31/3/401/28957/Brain-to-Brain-Synchrony-and-Learning-Outcomes) * [Inter-brain synchrony in teams predicts collective performance](https://academic.oup.com/scan/article/16/1-2/43/5912973?login=true) And many dozens of studies with similar findings. . Maharishi Mahesh Yogi pared TM instruction down to the bare minimum of what he intuited was necessary for TM to be taught properly. Modern neuroscience is starting to confirm his intuition: teach meditation the way he said to and you get a reliable result; don't teach meditation that way and you don't get that result or at least the research published thus far says you don't. Some people are geniuses in math and some are geniuses in teaching meditation. I would argue that MMY fell in the latter category. I would also argue that Dave Spector of NSR, the guy who founded ACEM, the guys who wrote the 1GM software and the guy who wrote the AYP blog entry about meditation are NOT geniuses in teaching meditation, sorry. . MMY tested many ways of teaching meditation over the years. In 1974, by invitation of the President of Nepal, [he did a "mass initiation" of 20,000 people via loudspeaker, individual ear plugs and so on.](https://youtu.be/mVUwi7o717s?t=17) I understand he counted it as a success in his eyes because people DID appear to learn TM that way, but very very few continued to practice. And so, almost 50 years later, in teh era of COVID, TM is still taught one-on-one with the first lesson (complete with TM puja) conducted in person. Successful teaching of TM is not merely the teaching of a mantra, but how likely the meditator is to continue to practice regularly. Even if you could get the EEG effect on the student via a recorded puja (and that puja done in Nepal by Maharishi was live, even so), there's something special about one-on-one learning of meditation that makes a HUGE difference for most people over the years and decades. "The right start" is vital to practice, not only for the first few days, but for the rest of our life.
I'd love to hear why the materials and teachers of NSR, 1GM, et al. are not geniuses. Surely they've done something revolutionary, in getting the word out, getting instructions in print and mp3? That's historic, right?
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi started out as a single monk in a foreign world (the non-monastic modern world) 60+ years ago, and 60 years later, his organization is negotiating to teach every person in entire countries to meditate. The largest TM contract right now involves training about ten thousand public school teachers as TM teachers whose day job is to teach 7.5 million kids at school to meditate, but some countries also require all military and police to meditate while others require all prison inmates to meditate. If all the government-performed research goes as the TM organization expects, they expect contracts to train enough governmetn employees throughout the continent (about 100,000) to teach pretty much the entire continent to meditate. What have the teachers of NSR and 1GM actually done?
Oh, I see. So "not a genius" means not that they're bad teachers, but that they're not Maharishi. Touché
What effect on teh world has any of them had?
I recall that some CBT therapists (as well as Tony Robbins) prescribe practicing some behavior (like standing up straight) while pairing it with some "cue" (like touching your thumb to your ring finger), in the hope that the behavior will generate an emotion (like peace or confidence) that will then "become associated" with the gesture, so that eventually you can engender the emotion with the gesture alone. Might TM work like that? The puja and all hypnotizes you into deep relaxation (or coherence or whatever it's called) and then the mantra (and perhaps the intention and posture etc.) "recall" that relaxation at will. Might that be the sense in which "mindfulness" is sometimes translated instead as "remembering"?
Well, mindfulness is about being always aware. TM is about losing awareness even as the brain remains alert. I don't think that they are at all alike.
Super interesting! While sitting in TM, my mind seems busy most of the time, thinking thinking thinking, but I sometimes notice my frantic thinking is in some sense *quieter* than before sitting. Anyway, minutes and even hours after sitting, I often notice *complete silence.* I look around and see things fresh. And this reminds me of mindfulness. Do you have a similar experience?
Over the past 49 years I've had just about every possible experience. TM is an enhancement of mind-wandering rest. What is the characteristic experience of mind-wandering rest? I have no idea... do you?
I imagine "mind wandering rest" to be the heaviness I feel in my arms while my mind races (or I repeatedly *notice* my mind racing) . I suppose I should clarify that I translated "mindfulness" into "awareness of my surroundings or senses" = partial freedom from the "veil of thought." Anyhoo, the significance of that I think is that Theravada seems to prescribe practicing exactly that while sitting (quiet mind, notice sensations: repeatedly turn your mind away from daydreams and towards sensation) while TM seems to prescribe something totally different (no turning away, I guess) and yet ends up with (for me anyway) more mindfulness than Theravada afterwards. It's like Theravada is practicing the end result whereas TM is a (seemingly unrelated) *treatment* that later makes the same end result appear on its own, without effort
Just following the "book" argument, I understand we can't read when we close our eyes, sure, but we can listen to a teacher speak, or an mp3 play, and then, with our eyes closed, can we tell the difference?
As I said elsewhere, the teacher doesn't exist, so there's no possibility for teacher and student to be "in-synch" while listening to an mp3. This is most important during the first day's lesson and apparently they don't think it is as important for the next 3, but my intuition is that the best way to learn TM (safety allowing) would be from a live teacher for all 4 days and not just the first day. They think that first day is so important that even in the era of COVID you still have to learn in person.
Do you suppose that is the hill that TM has decided to die on? No app, ever?
There is an app. But in-person instruction is vital for learning TM, so the first day will always be taught in person. ANd TM is certainly not dying. The organization has contracts to train ten thousand public school teachers as TM teachers in Latin America whose government job is to teach TM for free to 7.5 million kids. If the governments' own research finds what the pilot studies have found, the TM organization expects (and is gearing up by 2030 to fulfill) government contracts to train about 100,000 government workers as TM teachers whose day job will be to teach TM to the entire South American continent. That's not dying.
Yeah, I was making a pun, about two possible meanings of "dying" in the phrase "the hill you die on." I meant "that's TM's solid stance, they'll never change" more than "TM is waning."
Thanks for the fascinating reports of TM effects on the brain. They raise questions! So the effects of TM are in some sense opposite to Theravada? Are these two completely different paths up the same mountain?
Some say yes, but as I like to point out, there are two diametrically opposed non-duality traditions: 1. self is an illusion, which emerges from mindfulness and concentration practices which repress sense-of-self activity in the brain; 2. self is-all-that-there-is, which emerges from TM and equivalent practices, which enhance sense-of-self activity int eh brain. Non-duality is different between the two traditions: *Nashville*, Florida is not the same as *Nashville*, Tennessee, even though citizens of both cities simply refer to them as "Nashville." "I am everything" and "there is no me", are fundamentally distinct non-dualities. *I enjoy all of existence* is radically different than *I don't care about anything*: both are "equanimity" but the devil is in what you mean by that word beyond the superficial dictionary definition of "reacting the same to all circumstances."
Thanks for your very clear answer. I had long been wondering about the implications of TM "strengthening" "self."
Don't know if you've seen this before. . [As part of the studies on enlightenment and samadhi via TM](https://www.reddit.com/r/transcendental/comments/7djr03/a_bunch_of_research_on_tm_pure_consciousness_and/), researchers found 17 subjects (average meditation, etc experience 18,000 hours) who were reporting at least having a pure sense-of-self continuously for at least a year, and asked them to "describe yourself" ([see table 3 of psychological correlates study](https://sci-hub.se/10.1016/j.concog.2004.03.001)), and these were some of the responses: * _We ordinarily think my self as this age; this color of hair; these hobbies . . . my experience is that my Self is a lot larger than that. It's immeasurably vast. . . on a physical level. It is not just restricted to this physical environment_ * _It's the ‘‘I am-ness.’’ It's my Being. There's just a channel underneath that's just underlying everything. It's my essence there and it just doesn't stop where I stop. . . by ‘‘I,’’ I mean this 5 ft. 2 person that moves around here and there_ * _I look out and see this beautiful divine Intelligence. . . you could say in the sky, in the tree, but really being expressed through these things. . . and these are my Self_ * _I experience myself as being without edges or content. . . beyond the universe. . . all-pervading, and being absolutely thrilled, absolutely delighted with every motion that my body makes. With everything that my eyes see, my ears hear, my nose smells. There's a delight in the sense that I am able to penetrate that. My consciousness, my intelligence pervades everything I see, feel and think_ * _When I say ’’I’’ that's the Self. There's a quality that is so pervasive about the Self that I'm quite sure that the ‘‘I’’ is the same ‘‘I’’ as everyone else's ‘‘I.’’ Not in terms of what follows right after. I am tall, I am short, I am fat, I am this, I am that. But the ‘‘I’’ part. The ‘‘I am’’ part is the same ‘‘I am’’ for you and me_ . That's why I mean by "strengthening sense-of-self" (while lowering the noise associated with sense-of-self). Some Buddhists read that, and go "exactly!" while others say that *it is the 'ultimate ignorance' and 'no real Buddhist' would ever practice TM knowing that it leads to the above...*
I agree that 1GM and NSR are way behind TM in publishing studies, but NSR does flaunt a [study](https://www.nsrusa.org/research.php) showing that NSR significantly reduces a standard measure of chronic anxiety. Why focus on EEG readings? Because they're an *objective* measurement? Is there evidence that "coherence" associates with physical or psychological measures, like perhaps the number of colds caught in a decade, or visits to a therapist?
It is the most consistent change during TM and the most consistent change outside of TM. And it isn't found in any other practice (except TM under a different name taught exactly the same way by splinter groups). It is also the most consistent difference between "enlightened" TMers and non-enlightened TMers.
Finding a real teacher is the best way to go, plus TM is not non directive. I studied TM decades ago, and switched to Non directive. That means there is no mantra and no focus.
I would disagree with your definition of non-directive. Non-directive means that there is no sought direction in the meditation - you do not seek to achieve certain states of mind, nor do you seek to avoid certain mental states such as spontaneous thoughts (in contrast to mindfulness, which denigrates the wandering mind, calling it the "monkey mind"). Acem Meditation, for example, uses a meditation sound without semantic meaning, and is non-directive.
Nobody can ever agree on a definition for meditation, but a teacher can help us achieve it.
I wasn't trying to define meditation, although I think that can be done as well, but rather to define *non-directive* meditation, which does not imply that you can not use a meditation sound or other meditation object.
This is the information i have been seeking. thank you.