If TM is a cult, then I’m a blueberry bush Excerpts from Church Times, 31 Oct 2003 (The Church Times, founded in 1863, has become the world's leading Anglican weekly newspaper.) IT WAS ON A dark street corner. The well-hidden location was surrounded by shuttered auto body shops and factories. I looked to my right and left before entering the gloomy stairwell. It wasn’t because I feared police surveillance in this unlikely spot, but I wanted to make sure I had the right address which I’d scribbled down after a long series of phone calls. I knocked on the door. I was greeted by an exceedingly thin Chinese woman. ... “Welcome to the Transcendental Meditation Centre,” she said. That was twenty five years ago and I still have no idea why I went there. It had nothing to do with celebrity examples from The Beatles, or Doug Henning, or even the Maharishi himself. On the contrary, I tend to mistrust these endorsements. I just went looking for a way to feel better and TM seemed the natural fit, although it was bloody hard to find. The next stage of my initiation involved listening to a lecture by a local TM bigwig. All along I was wary of joining a cult, but the speaker was not your Jim Jones wannabe. He was a local primary school teacher. The lecture was informative, but rather like enduring a speaker in a church basement. Those around me were no pack of rabid followers either. They reminded me of a group of over-40s backpackers, anxious to hear the lecture then be off up the mountain at six the next morning. As a result, I felt out of place. I didn’t want to get closer to my spiritual self. I was an advertising salesman. My job was stressing me out, and I wanted something to make me feel better. If I became a nicer person in the process, then that was an unlooked for bonus. So I signed up. The price in 1980 was about $180. I have no idea what the price is now but it is probably still about the same as a good winter coat. The initiation involved four consecutive meetings, from Friday to Monday, consisting of video tapes, lessons and rituals by the tiny Chinese woman. They seemed designed so she could get my measure and thus correctly prescribe my final mantra. A mantra is a Sanskrit word which you repeat mentally. I don’t know how many mantras there are, but I assume there are more than one. The idea is that it relaxes you by taking your conscious thought down through deeper and deeper levels, approaching your “centre of creative intelligence”. This spot, so far as I know has never been medically defined. No doctor can take a map of the brain and point to it. Rather, it is based on the idea that we have new thoughts continuously springing to mind all our lives and they have to come from somewhere. The idea is that, if you can get close to this source twice a day for 20 minutes, your life will follow a more natural path. Things will go better and you’ll be more relaxed in the bargain. That’s it. Then they kick you out into the real world again. If you ever need a tune-up it’s free, because you are automatically a member for life. It turns out I was in good company – there is a long list of doctors, scientists and religious leaders who testify that TM gives them greater depth and appreciation of their own faith. That was on a Monday. ... By Thursday I remarked to my then wife that I was certainly glad this meditation apprenticeship was behind me and running smoothly after so many weeks. “Weeks? You’ve only been doing it for three days,” she said. Days? To me it seemed like months had passed. It was like reverse jet lag. Somehow my perception of time had changed. My senses had opened up and I was taking in more; not second by second, but on a much more subtle level of which I was not even aware. Thus days seemed like weeks, weeks like months and so on. But it was very pleasurable: literally like getting more out of life. Another side effect was that people noticed my writing had improved overnight, and remarked on it. A total surprise to me, as it seemed exactly the same. I also noticed that TM was incredibly restful – like catching an extra eight hours compressed rest in 20 minutes. I began feeling sorry for people who didn’t do TM. It’s like not having shoes. I even did tricks with it. Once, after a serious operation a pretty nurse came to take my blood pressure. “Watch this,” I said. I closed my eyes, silently did my mantra and the blood pressure gauge plummeted. Showing off. Later, I was being cross-examined by a ruthless downtown lawyer as a witness in a lawsuit. I had been told to fear this man. I merely asked for regular TM breaks. Our lawyer said she had never seen anyone beat this guy so well – TM and the truth in equal parts. From time to time, charges arise that TM is a cult. If it is a cult then I’m a blueberry bush. I have never seen an organisation that so poorly recruits new members, bores them stiff, then loses track of them afterward. There are no pestering phone calls or mail-outs. ... If TM is a cult, then here I am, revealing their innermost secrets. Perhaps as punishment members will surround my apartment and meditate me to death. I hope so. That would be like being tossed around on a bed full of Valium and pillows. I read last week about a teenage girl who died of a heart attack after taking what she believed to be Ecstasy. I wish TM would get on the job and market their product in more earthly terms. Like I said, it is the best drug I ever bought. © Church Times 2003