| Copy and pasting my earlier comment about TM - TLDR for it is that the org is terrible but the technique is not bad (it's pretty generic: sit comfortably, repeat your given mantra, allow other outside thoughts to rise up and pass through you. Don't fight them, just think them and then go back to your mantra. Repeat for 15-20 minutes twice a day). TM is a pretty terrible organization. They used to officially believe all sorts of crazy things, like that their meditation could make you fly, or make you invisible, or that if the square root of 1% of a city meditated, then it would dramatically lower violent crime. They charge huge amounts of money for very little value - a course to learn TM is something like $500, even though the whole technique could be described in 30 seconds. They claim that you get a unique mantra based on your personality, and that the mantra is a powerful magical vibration energy word (or some such junk). In actuality, the mantra is chosen based on only your age (and sometimes gender). The TM centers also sell snake oil - they have tons of teas, powders, supplements, etc, for cleansing your toxic energy. Of course they have studies done by practitioners of TM that claim it is amazing, but there aren't really any unbiased studies about it. The current leader of the movement, a former physicist, received the Ignobel Prize (like the Nobel prize but for stupidity) for his beliefs in the crazy parts of TM. All of that being said, as a technique, it's not bad for meditation. It's just run by a shady organization that believes in magic and will charge you tons of money. |