Draft Paper: The Avowed and the Unavowed Goals within the TM Community:
Doug Hamilton
Analyzing the Avowed and Unavowed Community..
As a tool of distinction one can find examples where avowed and unavowable goals may seem not so much obvious to an economic system of a group that may be in collapse, while simultaneously within fragmentation of a communal system there is fracturing in missions to where people 'withdraw' from the social contract of what was a larger cohesive community. Where both avowable and unavowable missions in groups are existing and then one or the other being primarily avowable at different times for different people, relative ‘avowablity’ as an ascertainment becomes a fair concept to apply to groups and people. - For instance in a larger discussion about the TM community this critique is helpful in drawing subtler things out.
Avowable and Unavowable Goals in Community
In concept,
Dr. Greg Brown writing:
“Within this paper something avowed is proclaimed and affirmed as essential; something unavowed may be spoken of in agreement but is not avowed as being of critical consequence; and unavowable will be used as that which for some reason is not or cannot be affirmed and proclaimed even though it may be present. I will use these terms to look at the community of Robert Owen at New Harmony, Indiana in order to provide a more tangible exploration of Blanchot’s abstract and philosophical vocabulary.”
“..Maurice Blanchot lived through both the twentieth-century fascination and later disillusionment with grand social designs..
..much of his work focuses on the neuter, or that which is missing, which leads in part to my presentation of him here. He was a constant student of that which any system of thought omitted.”
Blanchot’s Unavowable Community, New Harmony, and Developmental Communalism
Dr. Greg Brown
(Presented at the CSA Annual Conference, October 3, 2020, and expanded to include Blanchot’s emphasis on responsibility to others anonymous to the community at the time of the (New Harmony) experiment.)
The Avowed and the Unavowed Goals within the TM Community: Faith-based Versus Experienced-based Community of TM.
There have always been two groups of people in the TM movement community. One that is practical and is in community by virtue of their experience with their practice of meditation and another that wants the movement to be about a sense of ‘faith and belief’ as devotees. The second group was often referred to as the “mood-makers” or the “true-believers”.
Always one would see in coming into the TM community avowed practitioners who are there for their spiritual practice and then unavowed guru devotees who motivated themselves by ‘devotion’ to Maharishi and to ‘The Knowledge’ as devotion. The practical motives of the practitioners were often more overt while the motive of the devotees have been more covert.
It seems that over the years the practitioners have disengaged from the organization and by a default have left the .org community in the hands of a “faith and belief” autocracy. In TM evidently it is not enough to simply be a practitioner but there is an unavowed judgment of people’s devotion in the group that is beyond reason. Hence an arrogance that is in e-mail letter communication sent from the administration of the organization by the TM-Raja.
It now appears (2020-2022) that the practitioners have broken away, fragmented from the faith-based TM movement.
Written responses in comments:
“Realists vs idealists”.
Good comment.
Thanks, this is another way of making the same observation. At a conference (Annual Conference of the Communal Studies Association, 2021 a paper was given introducing the idea of avowable and unavowable goals that can be in communities or organizations.
I shared this idea of ours (TM’ers) being practitioners and believers within the culture of our larger TM group. ‘Realists and idealists’ is another good way of differentiating between these two in the group.
This is another good way that Paul offers of expressing the divide:
“Faith-based versus experience-based”.
. I appreciate the way this is drawn out here:
Miguel Cebol writing:
“The sad truth is the movement at the beginning had both groups working in more or less harmony (our goals were the same) but with time the idealists took over and the realists either gave up and left, because they realized there was no solution with the existent ideological framework, or were kick-out of TMO. The idealists became more extreme and deluded turning what was once a benevolent spiritual movement, into a full blown intolerant and dogmatic cult.
..Once everyone gets this, then they will also get how they think and act. It isn't really much of a mystery, it's a pattern.”
Fragmentation:
The two groups within TM get connoted differently. More recently the ‘faith’ part of the TM movement community has been referred to as the ‘Maharishi Movement’. It would take a monumental mediation to fuse these two fragments back together now (2022).
By several hours long international Zoom meetings dubbed the ‘New Beginnings' Symposia', TM teachers and well wishers present the several progressive ways that the old teaching TM movement has separated away from and moves actively beyond the contemporary TM-Raja administration movement of “The Global Country of World Peace”.
- With communication closed off and unwilling by the TM-Raja administrative movement, things in TM appear deeply separated & beyond reuniting.
Apparently a lot of work has been done in the TM community that overtly moves practitioners beyond the breach the TM-Rajas have created in the last years since the passing away of Maharishi (2008).
Beyond unification in the TMO,
cataloging the need for separation (2020-2022):
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1601897850082187/permalink/3173791236226166
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Doug Hamilton
"..Most of us who learned to meditate signed up because we wanted a technique to improve our quality of life, not because we were looking for an object of devotion. Even those of us who went on to become teachers did so primarily because we wanted to share more widely the benefits we experienced, rather than because we wanted to become devotees or disciples. Granted, for a small number of teachers there was a strong devotional aspect. This led some to join the 108s or international staff in order to spend more time with Maharishi. But while the vast majority of teachers venerated Maharishi and still hold a place for him in their hearts, their priority was to share the knowledge. It was about spreading the message, not worshipping the messenger.
It is clear that the inner circle around Dr Nader is now comprised almost entirely of devotees. We see this in their body language and in their speech. Rajas talk of Dr Nader’s “divine guidance” and “divine virtues”. Dr Bevan Morris refers to his “blessed presence”. While devotion - Bhakti Yoga - is one of the paths to God realisation outlined by Maharishi in the Science of Being, it is not a path for everyone, and it is not the path that Maharishi recommended. He preferred the ‘mechanical path’ of Transcendental Meditation, or Karma Yoga.
It seems to me that a great number of the problems we see in the TMO today are due to the prevalence in the inner circle of a certain type of Bhakti, where devotion is directed at the spiritual leader. For such devotees, the result of action is unimportant; what counts is obedience to the leader. It is hardly surprising that so many TMO initiatives come to nothing when most of its key officers put more emphasis on the depth of their devotion than the success of their actions."
-David Laird, August 18, 2022
David's post:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/335426281637061/permalink/579689250544095/