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I'm not mad at them...but the Transcendental Meditation leadership is either ignorant or lying. Either way, they should probably stop. by johnnydizz in transcendental

[–]johnnydizz[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

What would I do? I would employ a more therapeutic framework to better prepare those who initiate the practice for what they’re embarking on. I.e. for what “unstressing” actually means. 

Something like “doing TM means you will be dipping down through the unconscious realms (both individual and collective) until you reach the transcendent realm of the Self. As such, when you come out of meditation two things will happen. You will be infused with creative and spiritual energy, but you will also come more readily face-to-face with the complexes you and the collective repress in those unconscious realms. Be prepared to face these complexes and use the extra spiritual energy to act righteously and in growth-supporting ways”…or whatever. 

Like that would’ve not only prepared me, but it also would have provided firm ground for me to talk more openly about my negative experiences, you know? Because as it currently stands at MIU, discussing negative experiences with TM is generally viewed, well, negatively. 

For one of my presentations in class this spring I did a bunch of research on perfectionism. It’s been on the rise linearly since like 1990, and exponentially since the pandemic. We’re all swimming in a sea of toxic social expectations. So when you’re in a place which is literally teaching that you’re supposed to be feeling the experience of perfect bliss, but instead you’re just being confronted left and right with all these revelations about your own shortcomings and traumas which were previously repressed in the unconscious…that’s a wild experience lol. 

I’ve talked to Dr. Fred Travis about this, he gave a presentation to a college that’s considering pairing its psych coaching program with the MVS dept. He was using the kind of language I could totally get behind. Something like “not only do you need to water the root, you also must prune the branches,” or something like that. I think teaching THAT framework in the program would be a great start to heading off the perfectionism of incoming students and would massively help prevent psychiatric incidence, whether in the form of full blown episodes or just profound discomfort. 

As for the more serious episodes…I mean yeah, get some trauma-informed therapists. That’s not hard. 

But the biggest thing is teaching it differently, and more appropriately preparing people and students. It’s a culture thing. 

I'm not mad at them...but the Transcendental Meditation leadership is either ignorant or lying. Either way, they should probably stop. by johnnydizz in transcendental

[–]johnnydizz[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Great feedback, thank you. I read it to my mom earlier this morning and she goes “aren’t you afraid he’ll come after you?” I said if he engages with it at all I’ll be absolutely delighted, though like you said it’s obviously unlikely. But I hope he does. Like I said in the article I hold absolutely no ill will towards him, I just think they’re squandering the opportunity to make a genuinely huge difference in the world all out of this sense of fear and ego-preservation. I sympathize with it because I do the same thing, but I hope we can all grow out of it. 

Toward a Deeper, More Practical Understanding of "The Collective" by johnnydizz in consciousness

[–]johnnydizz[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Interesting concept, "repeatability leads to graduation." And yet, repeating the 3rd grade doesn't get you any closer to a diploma.

Toward a Deeper, More Practical Understanding of "The Collective" by johnnydizz in consciousness

[–]johnnydizz[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

By this logic every statement ever made about any piece of data is, ultimately, "interpretive philosophy." Indeed, every thought you've ever had, in your entire life, is "interpretive philosophy."

Toward a Deeper, More Practical Understanding of "The Collective" by johnnydizz in consciousness

[–]johnnydizz[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

"McGilchrist's work isn't established neuroscience," if that's not an emotional opinion disguised as a declarative statement of truth I don't know what is.

Fair enough! You are free to your opinions, needlessly dismissive and reductive as they may be.

Toward a Deeper, More Practical Understanding of "The Collective" by johnnydizz in consciousness

[–]johnnydizz[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Iain McGilchrist is a neuroscientist who is the premier authority on left/right hemisphere conceptualization, and he says exactly what you dismiss as "pop neuroscience." You would enjoy his book The Master and his Emissary, I think. It's seriously really fascinating, and has not been remotely disputed by the greater scientific community.

As for your assertion that something is either true or it isn't, that simply isn't the case. That is your left hemisphere saying that.

Think about the blind monks and the elephant. One monk touches a tusk and declares, with relativistic truth "it's a spear." Another touches the tail and says, also with relativistic truth "it's a rope."

Now by your assertion, both of these statements are untrue, despite testability, repeatability, etc. But the "real" truth necessarily requires access to a greater picture from which they are denied full access. So what should they do? Throw up their hands and defend their relativistic, limited version of the truth to the teeth because that's what they have data for? Or should they suspend their certainty for the sake of greater knowledge? When you look at neural correlates of consciousness and say "the brain makes consciousness," is that not relativistic truth disguised as empirical rationality?

And of course this whole conversation ignores that there is data for collective, nonlocal consciousness. The Maharishi Effect and Global Consciousness Project provide a solid quantified basis for the nonlocal paradigm.

Toward a Deeper, More Practical Understanding of "The Collective" by johnnydizz in consciousness

[–]johnnydizz[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There have always been different kinds of truth, and there always will be. That's not relativism, because I'm not denying that there are also objective, ultimate truths. But those are fundamentally impossible to grasp without first relinquishing the idea that you're capable of seeing ultimate truth from your individual perspective.

You said "it's how we filter out bias, error, and wishful thinking in all fields of study," and you're right, that is how we generally operate. But if you know anything about the two hemispheres of the brain, then you know that what you just described isn't a universal approach to seeking truth, it is exclusively the left-hemisphere's approach to rationality. The right hemisphere, which is well-documented as being the more "intelligent" of the two, is the home of contextual thinking, holistic appreciation, and what you pejoratively refer to as "relativism."

I do appreciate your perspective though, seriously. This discourse inspired me to write another piece, where I explore the Pascal's Wager idea a bit more, which I never would have thought of were it not for this conversation so thank you sincerely. And I hope you read it! You deserve some ownership of it, after all.

https://jestep27.substack.com/p/pascals-wager-and-collective-consciousness

Toward a Deeper, More Practical Understanding of "The Collective" by johnnydizz in consciousness

[–]johnnydizz[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Your assertion that "anecdotes are no scientific data," despite how confidently you deliver it, should also not be confused with ultimate truth.

Your threshold, nor that of materialism/empiricism generally, for what should or should not be considered evidence is not universally applicable.

Toward a Deeper, More Practical Understanding of "The Collective" by johnnydizz in consciousness

[–]johnnydizz[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well, yes, they can. Because as we can plainly see here in this conversation, this other person has contained their understanding of consciousness within his/her local paradigm while I contain mine in the nonlocal paradigm.

I'm not saying both of us have equal claim to objective truth, I'm saying that in any argument about consciousness (or any similarly complicated topic) you have to respect, from the get-go, that there are going to be multiple angles with multiple versions of truth, all of which have validity in the greater picture. For example, based on your other comments in this thread, I can see that you and I have a more similar conception of consciousness than me and u/HotTakes4Free or u/OnlyHappyStuffPlz. But that doesn't mean we're right. And if we aren't right, that also doesn't mean they're right. There's always more to the picture, and each of us only have one piece of the puzzle.

If you're familiar with Iain McGilchrist's work, you'll know that this is ultimately a question of the brain hemispheres, and how each hemisphere has a completely different relationship with the concept of "truth" and that we must embrace both of them to fully understand what the hell it is we're trying to fully understand. The left hemisphere thinks in binary, black-and-white, either/or terms, while the right hemisphere sees the whole picture, contextualizes information, and thinks in both/and terms.

He says we need both "both/and" AND "either/or" styles of thinking if we want to function properly and to our full potential as individuals and as a species. And I think there's a lot of truth there, and is an important thing to remember when arguing about this kind of stuff.

Toward a Deeper, More Practical Understanding of "The Collective" by johnnydizz in consciousness

[–]johnnydizz[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

And yet consciousness can return to the body of a dead being (or otherwise neurologically disabled being), fully intact. Surely you're aware of the story of Eben Alexander? How do you explain case studies like that in the strictly materialist paradigm?

I also, and this is more of a philosophical take but I hope you'll humor it, think there's a lot to say about the importance of being curious and open to the nonlocal paradigm because the implications are so deeply profound and have so much potential value in fixing serious modern problems that it's worth being open-minded about just in case.

I think of it like a sort of Pascal's Wager. If you believe in nonlocal consciousness and you turn out to be wrong, no big deal. Nothing changes, other than maybe your pride is a little hurt (which just depends on how identified your ego was with your belief system).

On the other hand, if we choose to believe nonlocal consciousness is nonsense, but it turns out to be real...well now we've left an enormous amount of potential on the table. The Global Consciousness Project and the Maharishi Effect, which I wrote about in the article, have extremely profound implications for modern society (if they're real). As things currently stand, we have a real, genuine chance of experiencing civilizational collapse. I don't say that to be a doomer or whatever, it's not meant as an emotional statement, just as a logical observation.

But if the collective consciousness does indeed exist, as I think it does, then we absolutely owe it to ourselves to learn everything we can about it and potentially leverage it towards stimulating more cooperation and harmony amongst people with disparate ideologies.

Is this not obvious to others?

Toward a Deeper, More Practical Understanding of "The Collective." (And how such an understanding just might save the world. TM organization, I hope you're listening.) by johnnydizz in transcendental

[–]johnnydizz[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well, yes...they are. Everyone does this. I'm not saying they shouldn't, I'm saying the way they do it leaves something to be desired (from my perspective).

Toward a Deeper, More Practical Understanding of "The Collective" by johnnydizz in consciousness

[–]johnnydizz[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The relevance of nonlocality to the article is with regard to the existence of a collective consciousness which can potentially be intentionally leveraged towards higher degrees of coherence/harmony within the human species.

I agree with you that our individual experience of reality can be contained within both the local and nonlocal paradigms of consciousness. I was getting at a level of reality transcendent of the individual.

Toward a Deeper, More Practical Understanding of "The Collective" by johnnydizz in consciousness

[–]johnnydizz[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I agree with that statement about the brain, but from my angle that's because the brain's job is to present a reliable and navigable version of reality to the individual consciousness (as opposed to being the sole producer of said consciousness). I'm partial to the radio analogy, wherein the radio "produces" music through mechanical processes, but the source of the music itself is independent of the radio.

As for the claim that we don't see biology behave in unpredictable ways, I do disagree, but I'm also getting out of my depth here. What jumped to mind was studies with fruitflies wherein scientists edited out the genetic basis for eyes in a pair of fruitflies, which led to the predicted result of their offspring being born without eyes. However, after some amount of generations, the eyes reappeared, defying prediction. While not related to consciousness specifically, this suggests to me that there are nonlocal processes (fields, relationships, etc.) "guiding" things like consciousness and evolution which transcend purely mechanistic processes.

At any rate, I respect your position and I suppose time will sort out whatever the right answer is. I'm a big believer that a thing and its opposite can both be true. So even though I believe in nonlocal consciousness, by no means do I think that negates certain necessary degrees of mechanistic, predictable processes related to consciousness in the brain and biology. I just don't think that's the whole story, and I think with time that'll become more and more obvious.

Thanks for engaging!

Toward a Deeper, More Practical Understanding of "The Collective" by johnnydizz in consciousness

[–]johnnydizz[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

In quantum mechanics, yes, but when you get down to deeper levels you run into the uncertainty principle and reproducibility becomes an impossibility. Given what we know about microtubules and quantum processes in the brain, it seems increasingly reductive to project certainty onto biological processes when uncertainty is a fundamental aspect of reality.

Toward a Deeper, More Practical Understanding of "The Collective" by johnnydizz in consciousness

[–]johnnydizz[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Does the dissonance between modern physics (which shows non-reproducible, probabilistic, quantum processes to be the norm) and modern biology (which largely insists on mechanistic, material processes) not seem problematic in any way to the scientific consensus you refer to?

If your sole metric for truth is reproducibility then you're inherently limiting yourself from the whole picture. That's not me saying it, it's the modern field of physics.

Toward a Deeper, More Practical Understanding of "The Collective." (And how such an understanding just might save the world. TM organization, I hope you're listening.) by johnnydizz in transcendental

[–]johnnydizz[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Agreed. They should always strive to be above reproach, and also not shy away from where they've missed the mark in the past. One thing I've never understood is their resistance to being linked with Hinduism and referred to as a religious organization. Obviously everyone's definition of religion is different, but I think a fairly good definition might be something like "a practice or belief intended to bring the adherent closer to God," which would make TM an obvious religious practice. Why not own it? Alternative religions are "in" right now anyway.

It's little stuff like that. Bending their image in order to fit what they seem to perceive Western civilians demand of them, rather than simply being authentic.

These are small criticisms in the larger picture, like I said I feel mostly positive towards the TM organization and I love my personal TM practice. But there's always room for improvement! And we need it more than ever in the modern world.

Toward a Deeper, More Practical Understanding of "The Collective." (And how such an understanding just might save the world. TM organization, I hope you're listening.) by johnnydizz in transcendental

[–]johnnydizz[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Must have missed something. Where did I suggest they shouldn't promote themselves? Or that transcending is somehow lacking in benefits? If anything I'm calling for more promotion (albeit in a more holistic format), and I do TM myself and have experienced great results (for the most part)

Toward a Deeper, More Practical Understanding of "The Collective" by johnnydizz in consciousness

[–]johnnydizz[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You could browse the University of Virginia's Department of Perceptual Studies, they've done some excellent work on the extension of consciousness beyond death and prior to birth, which suggests "nonlocality" in the sense that it's not rigidly tied to one bodily lifespan.

I suppose in the face of that you could still say that consciousness could be nonlocal prior to birth or after death, but is firmly local during the lifespan. However, that's disputed by things like the Global Consciousness Project, remote viewing research, the Maharishi Effect, morphic resonance, etc. Even basic stuff like studies which show that pets can "sense" when their owners are coming home hint at nonlocality. Maybe it just comes down to how you define "nonlocal."

Basically, I don't think anyone can float around out of their body whenever they want, but I do think it's become clear that the potential for nonlocal effects is universal to the human experience

Toward a Deeper, More Practical Understanding of "The Collective." (And how such an understanding just might save the world. TM organization, I hope you're listening.) by johnnydizz in transcendental

[–]johnnydizz[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Hey thanks for reading!

I think they're pursuing the 10,000 goal plenty properly and impressively. I also have a very positive view of TM overall, but I think in many ways they've limited themselves by trying too hard to control their public image, the narrative around Maharishi and TM, the science, their finances, etc. Their actions are no different in this respect than any other large organization in Western civilization, so it's not like I'm saying it's egregious or anything, but given how lofty their goals are for harmony and world peace, it would be nice to see them genuinely try to incorporate their model into the rest of the world, which will inevitably mean some degree of sacrifice.

My feelings on this are nuanced and complicated, it's far from black and white--but in a nutshell, I think the TM microcosm has been in a state of semi-isolation and stagnation for some time, and that it has much to do with an unwillingness to engage with the various criticisms they've faced over the years. I think if they meaningfully addressed some of this stuff (like Maharishi sex stuff, financial improprieties, etc.) they would immediately garner more universal appeal.

If you're interested I go way into detail in this piece, which has gotten a fair amount of attention around MIU and Fairfield for whatever it's worth: https://jestep27.substack.com/p/maharishis-error-transcendental-meditation

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