It's about time.
I was just mentioning, yesterday, that there aren't enough documentaries on NewAge. I've, also, covered a bunch of the subjects in this movie - Transcendental Meditation, the Maharishi's death, Yogic "Flying", the embarrassment in Germany as TM's crew of weirdoes got booed for spouting Nazi slogans - but I didn't ever think anyone was actually filming it all.
Well, somebody was, and the resulting movie is called David Wants To Fly - a title which is close enough to Werner Herzog's Little Deiter Wants To Fly that, like that film, it's sure to provide more-than-a-few chuckles amid some really surreal NewAge moments.
So, buckle-up meditators, and hop/fly on down to the local cineplex - these are your people, in all their twisted glory, revealed by someone who came to you for "help".
I'll be the black guy in the back of the joint, laughing my ass off at all you paid-up (and life-long) "searchers", only now discovering the truth:
"Gurus don't sell their knowledge, they share it."
[Click the tags, below, to know more about the lunacy of TM.]
You blatantly misconstrued the "TM crew's" message in Berlin as "Nazi slogans." But don't feel bad, several German folks, understandably hypersensitive to Nazi reminders, were right there with you in the fiasco, which was all created by the unfortunate misinterpretation of a single word (translated in English as "invincibility"). Maharishi uses this word simply to convey the quality of "being unshakable," a natural, innocent quality that the Buddha and every great teacher espoused.
ReplyDeleteRegarding the documentary about TM
that you make much of, critical thinking demands that you consider the possibility that this utterly one-sided film is a total sham--a fact evident to anyone who actually knows David Lynch personally or knows what TM is really about.
Maharishi did not "sell" his knowledge, as you imply. You could never put a price on the meditation technique, but you can set a course tuition (as every educational institution does) that will allow the teachers and non-profit organization to function.
Maharishi revived the ancient technique of "effortless transcending" and restored its original effectiveness. Before he introduced the TM technique in 1955, this particular meditation practice was unknown to Indian society and "Hindu" culture; for all practical purposes, it was lost.
Maharishi systematized the non-religious practice into a seven-step course to preserve it, so that teachers could be trained to teach it in every language and the technique would give consistent, all-positive results for people everywhere--bringing the benefits of effective meditation to this and future generations.
That's the story not told in the so-called "honest" documentary.
Jason Stanley