Dangerous Hindu Training For Public School Students

Like my friend Greg says, "In saner times, this would be a joke, but not today."

David Lynch (at right) plans to teach 1 million students Transcendental Meditation (TM) with the goal of transforming schools from "breeding grounds of stress and violence into centers of creativity and peace." While TM claims it is not a religious technique or sect, it is well documented that TM originates in Hinduism and its chief goal is to unite the participant with Brahman, the Hindu concept of god.

More disturbing are the similarities between the views of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and the sociopathic views of the Columbine killers, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold.

“YOU KNOW WHAT I LOVE??? Natural SELECTION! It’s the best thing that ever happened to the Earth. Getting rid of all the stupid and weak organisms.”

- Eric Harris on his website before the killings

Compare this with what the Maharishi said in the book Inauguration At the Dawn Of the Age Of Enlightenment,

There has not and there will not be a place for the unfit. The fit will lead, and the if the unfit are not coming along, there is no place for them. In the place where light dominates there is no place for darkness. In the age of Enlightenment there is no place for ignorant people. The ignorant will be made enlightened by a few orderly enlightened people moving around. Nature will not allow ignorance to prevail. It just can't. Nonexistence of the unfit has been the law of nature.

Clearly, Harris and the Maharishi were reading off of the same page of Darwinism and survival of the fittest. How can a person hold the same viewpoint on the judgement of the fit and unfit to live and yet profess to avoid the practical implications of such a belief?

Additionally, whatever the benefit of TM to help students, it is outweighed by the risks. An organization opposed to TM cites several scientific studies conducted. For example, one study in 1992 reported adverse affects of TM on a clear majority of the participants.

These adverse effects were relaxation-induced anxiety and panic; paradoxical increases in tension; less motivation in life; boredom; pain; impaired reality testing; confusion and disorientation; feeling 'spaced out'; depression; increased negativity; being more judgmental; and, ironically, feeling addicted to meditation.

Another study in 1989 reported,

uncomfortable kinesthetic sensations, mild dissociation, feelings of guilt and, via anxiety-provoking phenomena, psychosis-like symptoms, grandiosity, elation, destructive behaviour and suicidal feelings.

Instead of promoting peaceful creativity, it seems as though TM can induce states similar to that of the Columbine killers or the Virginia Tech psychotic, who claimed 32 lives just two weeks ago.

The connection between Harris' Darwinian manifesto and the Hindu Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's judgement on who is fit and unfit to survive combined with the documented side effects make for a destructive, or even a volcanic mixture. Yet they want to preach the TM message to a million public school students and they could end up doing much more harm than good.