Transcendental meditation and other mantra meditation techniques

[braces_for_impact]

After a good deal of really feeling like I have no clue what I'm doing, I'm following The Mind Illuminated and seeing results. It was Sam Harris' book Waking Up that convinced me meditate initially, but I floundered around looking for a way to do so on the cheap. I'm most interested in increasing my concentration and other mental abilities, and emotional control.

The Mind Illuminated works well for me because it removes a lot of the ambiguity associated with meditation, the constantly nagging feeling of "am I doing this right" or what results I should be expecting.

From the cover:





It's very pragmatic, and lighter on the "spirituality" aspects, although they're not absent, which is actually come to be to my liking. I am just starting the beginning stages of the book, and it's designed so you can use the book any way you like, taking a section at the time, or reading it entirely through and then starting your practice, or using it as more of a referral guide.

Whatever works for you. There is no single path for all. It has to be what works for you individually.

Agreed.

 

[Thomas II]

Maybe it's just a way to practice disengaging the unconscious from the conscious. From what I've learned most of our thought processes are unconscious and an over-reliance on conscious mediation (with one "t") is inefficient and counterproductive. We go about everyday life always trying to think through how we should swing the golf club. Rather than trusting our intuition and how we feel about things, we trust in the chatterring monkey (Huston Smith would say a monkey that was stung by a bee). So meditation reminds us of the serenity that comes with trusting in the inner self (without the baggage that often comes with praying to an external god). The purpose of the mantra is to learn to accept how one needs to give up forcefully controlling one's thoughts. Otherwise the two are frequently in conflict, with the unconscious only available on (as David Eagleman says) a need-to-know basis. Just a guess as I haven't tried to meditate in many years.

Yes. A degree of unconsciousness is a nice goal regarding things where thought is an impediment. To disengage from the mind and get more into the body, so you can induce some spontaneous "effortless action" (wu wei, in Chinese thought) and do an excellent golf-swing without screwing it up with self-consciousness and over-analysis.

Chuang Tzu tells a story of a butcher who can slice a bull into slabs of meat effortlessly, never hitting a bone but passing cleanly between the joints. The animal practically just falls apart, and the butcher hasn't had to sharpen his cleaver in 18 years! That's wu wei (pronounced "oo way"). And so is an effortless sport or the fun-and-play with friends (similar to "flow" with some differences). It's done without being only half-present as a result of the mind wandering about into regrets of the past and anticipations for the future. Being fully bodily, sensorily present.

Meditation is good for relaxing. But it can be much more. It's a mindfulness practice. And mindfulness is wakefulness, it's bodily presence within self-and-world. There's a body-wisdom that's worth trusting. What something like mantras may help with is shutting up, or at least distancing from, the ranting bit of the mind that distracts from being present, wakeful, lucid. The mechanism is it aids a person to identify less with the contents of his mind and identify more with awareness itself.

Very interesting that concept of Wu Wei, as effortlessness...

 

[PyramidHead]

I will try to describe what it feels like when I do (what I assume is basically) TM.

First, the mantra is actually strange to repeat internally, because despite of the fact that I'm only thinking about it, I can always feel my throat and tongue muscles moving ever so slightly, like pre-forming the syllables. That took some getting used to.

Apparently the idea is to let your thoughts float by as the mantra is repeated, which I can now do; however, almost all of my thoughts are meta-thoughts about the meditation guidelines I have read, the interviews I have watched, and the underlying concepts that still pique my scientific curiosity. I allow these to happen while still making sure the mantra is back there somewhere like an echo.

After about 10 minutes, I start to feel like my body is sinking somewhat, immobilized and solid, with a loss of my 'sense of extremities' that normally tells me where my limbs and hands are. This is replaced by a kind of disembodiment, or more crudely, a feeling like my body has withdrawn into my torso like a turtle into its shell.

Towards the last 5 minutes, I get these waves of incomprehensible thoughts that completely overtake the mantra. Nothing I can put into words, just abstracted shapes and concepts that relate to one another in ways that only make sense when I'm thinking about them. The mantra totally recedes if I let myself sink too far. I'm still aware enough to gently reintroduce the mantra, but at this point it honestly feels like I'm entering a dream. Is TM a way of sleeping without sleeping?

When the time is up, I let the mantra fade away but also shake off the fuzzy disembodied feeling and reacquaint myself with my body. I breathe faster and deeper, and get a sense of the room and the day. Then I open my eyes.

I think I will conduct an experiment next time: let's see how much of this will happen on its own just by sitting with my eyes closed. No mantra, no nothing. I wonder if the whole thing is just my body relaxing and preparing for sleep because I'm not doing anything and my eyes are closed. In which case, TM is just taking a power nap with the added hassle of thinking about a nonsense word, and the slight discomfort of sitting upright rather than lying down. I'll let you know how it goes.

 

[abaddon]

Most meditation has a specific object to attend to. Mantra, image, breath-counting, the feel of the breath entering/leaving the nostrils, the rise and fall of the belly, a candle flame, or something. The meditator is to attend to his object: hold it at the center of attention and when he drifts off into daydreaming, gently bring the meditation object back to the center of attention.

If the TM mantra meditation is essentially this sort of meditating (and I'm pretty sure it is), then what you described is you floating around in your head and not holding your meditation object at the foreground of attention.

Relaxation was never anything but a side-effect to meditation. A lot of westerners focus on relaxation as the point of it because they're stressed by their insane lifestyles and they're looking for relief. And it's hard for them to imagine anything that isn't active as something else than relaxing. They don't see the activity so the options they think of is it's half-sleep, like laying back and having a "power nap"; or maybe will imagine there's some mystical weirdness having to do with exotic states of mind.

If we're talking about basic meditation here, it's an exercise of concentration. And just concentration, with relaxation as a side-effect because minds that don't do well at holding attention tend to become stressed minds.

 

[Thomas II]

Most meditation has a specific object to attend to. Mantra, image, breath-counting, the feel of the breath entering/leaving the nostrils, the rise and fall of the belly, a candle flame, or something. The meditator is to attend to his object: hold it at the center of attention and when he drifts off into daydreaming, gently bring the meditation object back to the center of attention.

If the TM mantra meditation is essentially this sort of meditating (and I'm pretty sure it is), then what you described is you floating around in your head and not holding your meditation object at the foreground of attention.

Relaxation was never anything but a side-effect to meditation. A lot of westerners focus on relaxation as the point of it because they're stressed by their insane lifestyles and they're looking for relief. And it's hard for them to imagine anything that isn't active as something else than relaxing. They don't see the activity so the options they think of is it's half-sleep, like laying back and having a "power nap"; or maybe will imagine there's some mystical weirdness having to do with exotic states of mind.

If we're talking about basic meditation here, it's an exercise of concentration. And just concentration, with relaxation as a side-effect because minds that don't do well at holding attention tend to become stressed minds.

So how long have you been meditating? Because TM is not concentration...

The problem is that how can you know what it is unless you do it?

List of some of the people from all walks of life who learned TM: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_who_have_learned_Transcendental_Meditation

 

[Thomas II]

Many people that I would otherwise consider level-headed, practical human beings without much tolerance for wishy-washiness have publicly and emphatically sung the praises of Transcendental Meditation (TM). If it was just Deepak Chopra and David Lynch going on about cosmic consciousness, I wouldn't give it another thought. But I like Jerry Seinfeld and think he's pretty smart, and I've always admired Clint Eastwood despite his ramblings at an empty chair. And there are plenty of others who don't seem like your usual New Age types who seem to get something useful out of it. Hugh Jackman, hell even Rupert Murdoch. So this got me curious at least.

So, what is TM? As near as I can tell, it's a mantra meditation technique that involves little more than 'internally' repeating a meaningless word or syllable over and over while sitting comfortably with one's eyes closed. It's not like focusing or concentration, you can let yourself think, but when you wander too much, get back to repeating the mantra. 20 or 30 minutes in the morning and again in the afternoon. That's it. The TM Foundation charges an arm and a leg for someone to instruct you on the proper method, but it seems very simple.

What actually is going on when someone does this, and why does it work? I'm assuming it actually works and isn't 100% placebo effect, because millions of people do it and say it changed their lives. It doesn't seem like a Scientology type of deal, at least not obviously, and while there are some Eastern mysticism trappings about the "source of ultimate reality" the success of the technique by all appearances does not rely on belief in any kind of metaphysical claims. So it must be a physiological effect, and not one that is ordinarily achieved by e.g. listening to a monotonous noise. That tends to put people to sleep. TM practitioners say it gives them this boundless creative energy. Reflect on that for a moment: thinking about the sound 'ay-ma' or 'ki-rim' repeated in one's mind for about 20 minutes can make you feel like you've had a good night's rest and a big breakfast. How is this possible?

There are published studies that examine the effects of TM, most of which seem reputable, though some are of course funded by the Foundation. They are largely interested in characterizing the result of the technique, such as what kind of brain waves it is associated with, what kind of skin response, and how those variables are correlated with whatever the practitioner is hoping to gain (or lose, like stress and anxiety). I haven't found anything that proposes a testable model for how this mental repetition causes what people say it does, and what are the necessary and sufficient components. Does it need to be a meaningless word, or can my mantra be 'coca-cola'? Do I have to keep my mantra a secret? Can I concentrate on repeating a long mantra, like the entirety of the Gettysburg Address? What if my eyes are open? What if I record myself saying my mantra and listen to it in headphones? Is it possible for this technique to be harmful to my health if overdone or done the wrong way?

Also, there are a host of TM alternatives, many of them organized by former TM instructors who didn't feel right about charging the exorbitant fees. Their lawyers have instructed them to claim their technique is not the same as TM, but I don't see how it could be so different since TM is extremely simple. But there are those who insist TM is the only 'real' way.

Does anybody here actually mediate in the way I described, and if so could you offer your thoughts on how you imagine it works on a physiological level?

Seinfeld, Eastwood, Jackman and (arguably) Murdoch are all entertainers - their careers have been in generating popular media for wide consumption. Nothing about this career path suggests that they have any more valuable opinion about TM than any random man in the street. Why would you consider their opinion valuable?

The idea that a person who is well known is somehow an authority on matters outside their area of learning is a common cognitive failing; We evolved in an environment where a person's popularity was likely closely linked to their ability to make life better for the tribe, so it made for a sensible heuristic - weight people's opinions based on their level of popular support and/or their degree of fame and renown.

But in the specialist age that began with the agricultural revolution about five thousand years ago, and particularly in the recent information age where mass celebrity is possible for talented (and even not-so-talented) actors, directors, newspaper barons and even singers, this is a poor way to decide what is or is not a good idea.

People all over the world are shoving strange things into orifices that they really shouldn't, simply because Gwyneth Paltrow is famous, and recommends the practice.

Never mind Seinfeld; What do neuroscientists, psychiatrists, and psychologists have to say about TM? Singing the praises of something is what entertainers do for a living, and smart people pay it no heed (even if the entertainer in question is a paragon of extraordinary wit).

Assuming it actually works and isn't 100% placebo effect, because millions of people do it and say it changed their lives, is yet another bad heuristic. Lots of positively dangerous things are very popular. You could make the same argument for Christianity, Islam, aromatherapy or homeopathy.

Popularity and celebrity endorsement, as the only support for something, are generally a good indication that that something is bullshit - non-bullshit claims don't need to be promoted by celebrities, nor said by millions to have changed their lives, in order to be seen to be worthwhile.

There might be something to it - but the description you give, and in particular, the reasons you give, suggest otherwise.

As Tim Minchin (entertainer) points out, "By definition, alternative medicine has either not been proved to work, or been proved not to work. Do you know what they call alternative medicine that's been proved to work? Medicine."

I would no more ask Clint Eastwood's advice on the value of TM than I would ask my psychologist for movie acting and directing tips.

One of many...

TM would be great for you and Gaynor! Ask your psychologist!

http://www.doctorsontm.org/

https://www.amazon.com/Transcendence-Healing-Transformation-Through-Meditation/dp/1585428736/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1300722142&sr=8-1

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_E._Rosenthal

 

[Thomas II]

I will try to describe what it feels like when I do (what I assume is basically) TM.

First, the mantra is actually strange to repeat internally, because despite of the fact that I'm only thinking about it, I can always feel my throat and tongue muscles moving ever so slightly, like pre-forming the syllables. That took some getting used to.

Apparently the idea is to let your thoughts float by as the mantra is repeated, which I can now do; however, almost all of my thoughts are meta-thoughts about the meditation guidelines I have read, the interviews I have watched, and the underlying concepts that still pique my scientific curiosity. I allow these to happen while still making sure the mantra is back there somewhere like an echo.

After about 10 minutes, I start to feel like my body is sinking somewhat, immobilized and solid, with a loss of my 'sense of extremities' that normally tells me where my limbs and hands are. This is replaced by a kind of disembodiment, or more crudely, a feeling like my body has withdrawn into my torso like a turtle into its shell.

Towards the last 5 minutes, I get these waves of incomprehensible thoughts that completely overtake the mantra. Nothing I can put into words, just abstracted shapes and concepts that relate to one another in ways that only make sense when I'm thinking about them. The mantra totally recedes if I let myself sink too far. I'm still aware enough to gently reintroduce the mantra, but at this point it honestly feels like I'm entering a dream. Is TM a way of sleeping without sleeping?

When the time is up, I let the mantra fade away but also shake off the fuzzy disembodied feeling and reacquaint myself with my body. I breathe faster and deeper, and get a sense of the room and the day. Then I open my eyes.

I think I will conduct an experiment next time: let's see how much of this will happen on its own just by sitting with my eyes closed. No mantra, no nothing. I wonder if the whole thing is just my body relaxing and preparing for sleep because I'm not doing anything and my eyes are closed. In which case, TM is just taking a power nap with the added hassle of thinking about a nonsense word, and the slight discomfort of sitting upright rather than lying down. I'll let you know how it goes.

You should give it a week meditating twice a day so you can see the patterns a bit better.

My personal advice is to first learn from a TM Center to get it right. Ask them to give you a discount if that is an issue.

 

[abaddon]

So how long have you been meditating? Because TM is not concentration...

The problem is that how can you know what it is unless you do it?

List of some of the people from all walks of life who learned TM: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_who_have_learned_Transcendental_Meditation

Why do you think a list of people matters?

I didn't say meditation is concentration. If I'm in error about something, it's for thinking the OP was interested in meditation more generally.

If it's TM only, then that's different. And maybe a lot different...

Reading more about TM I see it's trance and not wakefulness. Chasing "bubbles of thought" into weird states of mind is just trance, it's a relaxation achieved by getting soft-headed. And it's associated with an organization that several have claimed has similarities to scientology.

Donning the scientific skeptic's hat seems very appropriate to this particular sort of meditation and the teachers of it (and the lists of "level-headed" people).

 

[Thomas II]

So how long have you been meditating? Because TM is not concentration...

The problem is that how can you know what it is unless you do it?

List of some of the people from all walks of life who learned TM: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_who_have_learned_Transcendental_Med itation

Why do you think a list of people matters?

I didn't say meditation is concentration. If I'm in error about something, it's for thinking the OP was interested in meditation more generally, the sort Sam Harris and other scientists write about as healthy.

If it's TM only, then that's different. And maybe a LOT different...

Reading more about I see it's trance and not wakefulness. Chasing "bubbles of thought" into weird states of mind is just trance, it's a relaxation achieved by getting soft-headed. And it's associated with an organization that several have claimed has similarities to scientology.

Donning the scientific skeptic's hat seems very appropriate to this particular sort of meditation and the teachers of it.

Just showing all walks of life are compatible with meditation.

You don't know how to meditate, so you are talking from inexperience. At least PyramidHead is trying...

I don't know what the group is doing nor I follow them. You don't need to belong to any group in order to practice TM. I haven't been to a TM Center in ages. Once you learn you're good to go.

You mentioned Wu Wei, is that what you do?

 

[PyramidHead]

So how long have you been meditating? Because TM is not concentration...

The problem is that how can you know what it is unless you do it?

List of some of the people from all walks of life who learned TM: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_who_have_learned_Transcendental_Meditation

Why do you think a list of people matters?

I didn't say meditation is concentration. If I'm in error about something, it's for thinking the OP was interested in meditation more generally.

If it's TM only, then that's different. And maybe a lot different...

Reading more about TM I see it's trance and not wakefulness. Chasing "bubbles of thought" into weird states of mind is just trance, it's a relaxation achieved by getting soft-headed. And it's associated with an organization that several have claimed has similarities to scientology.

Donning the scientific skeptic's hat seems very appropriate to this particular sort of meditation and the teachers of it (and the lists of "level-headed" people).

Bear in mind that TM is virtually identical to many other established meditation practices that predate the organization. TM is a corporate version that co-opts these practices in ways that make them seem more esoteric than they really are, while also making them marketable (and claimable as intellectual property). There is really no such thing as "meditation more generally" in the sense that there is a blanket description or goal that applies to all of them. Mindfulness meditation is just one of several approaches, and another approach is meditation as stress relief/relaxation.

You can learn the exact same technique taught by registered TM practitioners from a number of places run by ex-TM people who didn't want to cough up the $16,000 for "re-certification" the organization demanded of all teachers in the 2000's. The foundation really does have Scientology-esque financial impositions. However, I don't believe it's a dangerous cult, and I don't believe it hurts people like Scientology does.

As for the technique itself being a trance state, I'm not sure. I don't feel suggestible or soft-headed when I meditate this way, I just feel very relaxed. I don't believe the nonsense about transcending to the source of thought, I just like the way it centers me and gives me a little more energy and clarity for not much investment at all.

 

[PyramidHead]

Back to the scientific matter about mechanism of action, if such a term can be used, I can definitely say that meditating without the mantra does not produce the same effect. Obviously, there is no way to verify whether someone is thinking about a mantra or not, nor is there any way to know whether the mantra's repetition is itself the relevant variable, versus the practitioner's belief that the mantra is effective. But couldn't this be the point of the practice, after all: to trick your mind into entering a calm, relaxed state of awareness that recharges and refreshes? If it turns out that the only thing at play here is the power of suggestion, is that really such a high price to pay for a handy stress management technique?

 

[Thomas II]

Why do you think a list of people matters?

I didn't say meditation is concentration. If I'm in error about something, it's for thinking the OP was interested in meditation more generally.

If it's TM only, then that's different. And maybe a lot different...

Reading more about TM I see it's trance and not wakefulness. Chasing "bubbles of thought" into weird states of mind is just trance, it's a relaxation achieved by getting soft-headed. And it's associated with an organization that several have claimed has similarities to scientology.

Donning the scientific skeptic's hat seems very appropriate to this particular sort of meditation and the teachers of it (and the lists of "level-headed" people).

Bear in mind that TM is virtually identical to many other established meditation practices that predate the organization. TM is a corporate version that co-opts these practices in ways that make them seem more esoteric than they really are, while also making them marketable (and claimable as intellectual property). There is really no such thing as "meditation more generally" in the sense that there is a blanket description or goal that applies to all of them. Mindfulness meditation is just one of several approaches, and another approach is meditation as stress relief/relaxation.

You can learn the exact same technique taught by registered TM practitioners from a number of places run by ex-TM people who didn't want to cough up the $16,000 for "re-certification" the organization demanded of all teachers in the 2000's. The foundation really does have Scientology-esque financial impositions. However, I don't believe it's a dangerous cult, and I don't believe it hurts people like Scientology does.

As for the technique itself being a trance state, I'm not sure. I don't feel suggestible or soft-headed when I meditate this way, I just feel very relaxed. I don't believe the nonsense about transcending to the source of thought, I just like the way it centers me and gives me a little more energy and clarity for not much investment at all.

Mantra meditation is as old as they come, so before the Maharishi, and for millennia, people have been using bijan mantras to meditate. They are nothing new.

Yes, he market it for the West. Back when I started, they had sliding scales and people were charged according to how much they made, and things like that. There is always going to be conflict between benefits measured in mental well being, and benefits measured in money.
How much is it worth to you? How much would you charge? How much do you think they should charge? That sort of thing...

Personally, I think that it should be paid by your government and be part of a Health Plan.

BTW, happy to hear you're doing well!