Why You Can’t Learn the TM technique From a Book or CD
It’s all in the name: Transcendental Meditation.
The word transcend means to go beyond—beyond the norm, or beyond the material to the spiritual. We might say that “supper was transcendent,” indicating it was heavenly or that it surpassed anything worldly. The word transcendent is usually reserved for that which is meta-physical, beyond physics—pure existence, Being.
During the TM technique and instruction in the technique, the mind shifts gears: instead of continually experiencing the most concrete levels of thought and experiencing one concrete thought leading to another, we experience a down-shift in which thought is experienced at progressively subtle, less discernible, more vague stages. When the thinking process is transcended, the mind is left awake to itself in a calm quiet inner collected state—its most fundamental state, beyond activity—Being.
Is that the time one could turn to page three, or fast forward, to get the next instruction? Obviously not. And that is one of the reasons why a certified trained TM teacher must be there with you to instruct, prompt and respond.
About the Author
Janet Hoffman is the executive director of TM for Women Professionals, a division of TM for Women in the USA
