Maharishi & Me

by Susan Shumsky

  The next night thirty people gathered in a classroom at UC Berkeley. Jerry Jarvis called each person next to him, one by one. When my turn came, he asked, “What is your mantra?” I whispered, “Hing yama.” He corrected me.

  Then Jerry led a group meditation: “Just sit and wait for a little while, about half a minute. Then start repeating your mantra. If you forget it and other thoughts come, don’t try to hold on. Let it go. Then, when you remember again, just easily come back to the word. Remember, mental repetition is not clear pronunciation. It’s a faint idea. Now let’s begin.”

  The room went dead silent. I’d never been in a room full of people so quiet. I sat for a while, then started the mantra. After a few minutes I realized I wasn’t thinking the word, but other thoughts. I went back to the word. The word changed. It became a vibrational energy in my head.

  Suddenly I was in a deep place, somewhere I’d never been before. Down, down, down an elevator. Down to the bottom of a fathomless ocean. Out I stepped. It was perfectly calm. I let go of everything.

  I sank into a placid pool of complete solitude, without a ripple, silent and motionless. Nowhere to go—only here. I immersed in emptiness and wholeness, both at once. Profound relaxation, contentment, and peace, deeper than ever imagined, emerged within me.

  Time went by, but where was I? Did I fall asleep? No. I was still here with these people. But I went somewhere else. My body disappeared. It became nothing—light and transparent, like air. I was awake the whole time, but wasn’t thinking anything.

  Oh, yeah, I’m supposed to think the mantra. Repeat it again. The energy came back. A vibration, not a word.

  Deep, deep, deep. My body barely breathed. Everything stopped. My mind became still. Deepest relaxation I’d ever felt. Body and surroundings disappeared. Drawn into bliss, I became limitless expansion. My “I” no longer associated with the body. “I” was vast, profound, wondrous, and free.

  I was completion. I was the end of all seeking—expanded, perfect, and whole. A pool of immeasurable rapture welled up inside. Ecstatic euphoria. Nirvana. A humming, alive stillness washed over me.

  Oneness.

  Beyond words.

  After the meditation, Jerry said, “There are two aspects to life, the unmanifest absolute and the manifest relative field. The relative is the material plane of duality. Beyond the relative is an unmanifest field—absolute bliss consciousness, pure Being, which is transcendental in nature.

  “Maharishi says TM is like dying a cloth. In India, cloth is dyed by dipping it into a vat of dye, then placing it in the sun to dry. Most of the color fades, but some sticks to the cloth. By repeating this process over and over, the dye becomes colorfast. This is how we attain Cosmic Consciousness. We meditate twenty minutes twice a day, then engage in dynamic action, and thereby integrate Being fully into our awareness. Maharishi says it’s a five- to eight-year plan.”

  Five to eight years seemed like an incredibly short time, even for me at age nineteen. Cosmic Consciousness—permanent establishment of absolute transcendental Being 24/7/365, had been sought for generations from caves of India, monasteries of Tibet, to temples of Indonesia and Japan. Spiritual enlightenment, freedom from the wheel of birth and death, the end of reincarnation, and a state of eternal bliss—all realized in five to eight years? Really?

  Charlie Lutes (Maharishi’s right-hand man at that time) asked, “What’s this business about Cosmic Consciousness in five years, Maharishi?”

  “Ah Charlie, we have a confirmed meditator for five years,” Maharishi replied. “New meditators will think, ‘If I meditate five years, I’ll be in Cosmic Consciousness.’”

  Yes, it was a pitch, but we bought it. We longed to relieve our hopeless desperation. We craved the cessation of suffering and the end of the Vietnam War, Cold War, and war within our hearts that caused so much anguish. So we swallowed the whole enchilada plus dessert.

  And yes, TM did work. It ended a good deal of pain. And we were changed. We were renewed. We weren’t the Buddha yet. But twice a day for twenty minutes, we experienced something massively better than misery.

  I thought I’d found the answer to everything—a way to experience what yogis call samadhi, Buddhists call nirvana, and Zen Buddhists call satori. My goal of spiritual enlightenment seemed within sight. During the following months, a new feeling of well-being, equilibrium, and continuity of inner contentment grew.

  I raved incessantly about how meditation changed me, saved me. All I desired was to take meditation retreats, volunteer at the Center, become a Meditation Checker, go to India, and become a TM teacher (an “Initiator”). Fellow art students became impatient with my obsession with TM. But I was hooked—in what I believed to be a good way. At the time, I felt it was my best way.

  “Maharishi will be in Los Angeles this week. Wanna go?” a volunteer from Berkeley TM Center asked. We piled into two cars, a crew of sundry hippies, young, old, gay, straight. I was the youngest.

  They informed me to say “Jai Guru Dev” (Hail to the holy teacher) when I see Maharishi. In this case “Guru Dev,” a common salutation in India, referred to Maharishi’s guru, Brahmananda Saraswati, Shankaracharya of Jyotirmath, Himalayas, former religious leader of North India. When I learned TM, his picture sat on the altar.

  We arrived in time for Maharishi’s airport landing. About a hundred people made a double line with a central aisle to walk through. Nearly everyone held flowers—expensive flowers from flower shops. Nervously I clutched the scrappy, ripe wildflowers I’d picked along the road.

  Then, like sunrays bursting at dawn, Maharishi appeared—a diminutive but muscular figure, about five feet tall, with large hands and thick fingers, wearing white robes, red beads strung in silver, and a shawl that looked like undyed cashmere. His long wavy hair and mustache were jet black. His beard had turned snowy. His ebony eyes sparkled with humor and wisdom.

  Enveloped in a nimbus of splendor, he glided deliberately and gracefully through the corridor of followers. So small, yet powerful and majestic. His face radiated joy. His body shone with luster and grandeur. His feet—why, they were iridescent. And what strange sandals—polished foot-shaped wood with rust-colored rubber straps.

  As Maharishi drew closer, my teeth clenched and jaw tightened with mixed emotions of excitement and a sort of terror. What is making me afraid? My hands turned cold and clammy as blood receded from my extremities. I gripped my wildflowers tighter.

  Blissful and childlike, he cooed, smiled, and giggled. Collecting flowers from both sides, he welcomed each devotee with warmth and exuberance.

  Maharishi finally got to me. He stopped and looked me up, down, and back up again. His face became stern. He looked through me, not at me—as though he were scanning hidden corners of my mind. I felt naked.

  What’s he thinking? He seems to disapprove, I thought.

  “Jai Guru Dev,” Maharishi said in a high-pitched Indian accent. He snatched the wildflowers from my hands briskly, in what seemed a derisive gesture. He didn’t smile. He smiled at everyone else, but not me.

  “Jai Guru Dev,” I finally managed to chirp, after he’d moved to the next person.

  My nineteen-year-old mind started churning: He doesn’t like the way I look. My clunky handmade leather sandals held together with big ugly nails. My hairy legs and underarms. My secondhand rayon dress from the 1940s—dull gold printed with black patterns. No bra. Homemade glass bead necklace, disheveled hair, granny glasses. I must look like a ridiculous hippie to him.

  But he looks even more like a hippie. Carrying bunches of flowers, with long black hippie hair, white robes, long beads. He’s wearing a skirt, not pants.

  On the way to the lecture, my fellow travelers were busy talking about Maharishi. But I stared out the car window in silence.

  At the auditorium, hundreds waited in a double line to greet Maharishi with flowers. He smiled at them all. Why did he scowl at me at the airport? I loathe to admit it, but I did sort of look like a scary Charles Manson Fam
ily reject.

  I’d read about disciples who first found (or more precisely returned to) their beloved masters (whom they’ve known for lifetimes). Nearly all described a heartfelt homecoming, love exchange, and immediate recognition.

  My first encounter with Maharishi could not, by any stretch of imagination, compare with such wonders. However, guru first-encounters aren’t always showers of rose petals and strains of violin strings. Sometimes they’re violins strung with barbed wire.

  Paramahansa Yogananda’s first meeting with his guru Sri Yukteswar began as a love fest of hearts, daffodils, and butterflies. Within a few minutes, however, when Yukteswar told the youngster to return to his family in Calcutta, Yogananda obstinately refused. The mood then deteriorated rapidly into what Yogananda described as “controversial tension.”

  Yukteswar said in a stern voice, “The next time we meet, you will have to reawaken my interest: I won’t accept you as a disciple easily. There must be complete surrender by obedience to my strict training.”2 Then the guru threw the boy into a tailspin with this zinger: “Do you think your relatives will laugh at you?”

  Yogananda wondered “why the miraculous meeting had ended on an inharmonious note.”3 After this initial meeting, twenty-five years elapsed before Yukteswar again gave Yogananda any affirmation of love.

  Considering the rebellious Yogananda’s contentious meeting with his guru, I figured perhaps I was in good company. I speculated why Maharishi wasted no time administering harsh treatment. Was he resuming a long-standing relationship, picking up where he’d left off—as if I were already a close disciple? Or was he assuming a familial or fatherly role, where scolding was acceptable?

  At the time, I didn’t know Maharishi’s scowl was just the first of many “tests” he would deliver over the next decade. This was the beginning (or perhaps continuation) of a unique relationship that would change me profoundly.

  Serampore, India: guru Sri Yukteswar, white haired and bearded on left; disciple Paramahansa Yogananda, dark haired on right. Paul Fearn/Alamy Stock Photo

  Many guru/disciple relationships start with a courtship. Irina Tweedie’s guru, Radha Mohan Lal, said that at first the guru woos the student in order to get him/her to stay. But once the disciple loves the guru, then problems begin: “He will feel like crying ‘Why does the Master not notice me, does not speak to me? Is he angry? Why is he here and I there?’ and so on. Before this time comes one should run away quickly.”4

  For me, running away wasn’t an option. The moment I first laid eyes on Maharishi’s photo at the TM center, that was it. I was all-in. I was never a guru dabbler, riddled with doubts, questioning whether this was a spiritual master or Mr. Ordinary Joe.

  On his way to the stage, devotees handed Maharishi flowers or placed garlands around his neck. He emerged through walls of followers toward a dais bedecked as for a wedding, with formal floral arrangements in pastel tones festooned with ribbons and the whole schmear. Above a gold velour sofa, a large, elaborately carved picture frame held a painting of Maharishi’s guru.

  No one was smoking, which was rare for 1967. Maharishi said tobacco had a negative influence, so smoking wasn’t allowed near him.

  The crowd stood up at their seats and placed palms together, as though praying to Jesus. “Put your hands like this,” someone said. “It’s an Indian greeting.” I assumed the prayer position like a dutiful Catholic.

  Maharishi ascended the platform and, with palms together, bowed his head in reverence to Guru Dev’s picture. He then turned to the audience and said, “Jai Guru Dev,” smiling and shining, buried by massive colorful buds and garlands received from devotees.

  “Jai Guru Dev,” the crowd responded in unison.

  Charlie Lutes, president of Maharishi’s organization for adults, Spiritual Regeneration Movement (SRM), placed an animal hide over a white sheet covering the sofa. Maharishi sat on the hide, removing garlands and placing flower bundles onto a coffee table before him. His bare feet slipped out of his sandals. He crossed his legs, tucked his robes under them, and placed a pink rose in his lap. The sofa’s immensity further emphasized his diminutive frame.

  Maharishi surrounded by flowers.

  Everett Collection/Newscom

  After Maharishi took his seat, everyone sat down. His devotees always stood when he rose, and sat after he sat. Maharishi closed his eyes. The hall went dead silent. No one moved. Ten minutes passed. The only sounds were a few coughs. I peeked at him. He seemed to radiate and glow, exuding a powerful energy. He reminded me of the yogi who appeared at my apartment one year before, but looked nothing like him.

  Maharishi picked up the rose from his lap. With a thick Indian accent, he spoke in a melodious tenor that flowed sweet and smooth as honey. In a gentle, soothing tone, more like song than speech, his words seemed to emanate from an ancient hall of wisdom where life was much simpler, or a place beyond time and space. It wasn’t so much what he said, but the feeling it invoked, that echoed a faraway, other-dimensional land.

  He began by saying that the natural tendency of the mind is to seek a field of greater and greater happiness: “Life isn’t meant to be a struggle. Life is bliss. Man was not born to suffer. He was born to enjoy.” He described the inexhaustible reservoir of energy and intelligence within, at the source of thought, which we can tap using the simple, natural, effortless Transcendental Meditation technique.

  He spoke about going deep into the thinking process, into subtler and subtler states of thought and then eventually transcending thought. In that transcendental state, we experience pure being—absolute bliss consciousness.

  Maharishi’s voice flowed gently, sweetly, flute-like and ever enthusiastic. The end of many sentences was punctuated by a lyrical “hmm?” sound. As I listened, my mind became serene. My body became relaxed, humming with electric energy. Awestruck and entranced, I was immersed in his presence.

  Maharishi continued to speak about the state of unmanifest being, which is reflected by our nervous system as “restful alertness,” where the whole body settles down, heart rate slows, and breath becomes subtle and refined. At the same time, the mind becomes quiet and still as it experiences pure consciousness.

  I closed my eyes and breathed deeply, as if imbibing his essence through the air. I bathed in his radiant energy. Every sensation was heightened. The room seemed to vibrate with increasing power, until the “I” that I thought was “me” got swallowed by the charged intensity of his atmosphere.

  He continued: “In transcendental being, the self is not aware of anything else. It was aware of the thought, and now the thought has dropped off. The self remains all by itself. When I am awake in myself, this is self-realization. It is wise to know one’s self first. And what we find is our existence is enormous, unbounded, eternal, bliss, infinite happiness, infinite energy, infinite intelligence. Look at the great possibility, hmm?”5

  I was spellbound by words that rang true, by what seemed the only sane voice in a world gone mad, by the real promise of relief from suffering, and by an energy that transported me to another world—a rapturous wonderland. I was entirely captivated by the headiness of Maharishi’s charismatic, magnetic aura, and his inscrutable air of mystery. His beguiling presence was at once impenetrably enigmatic and entirely irresistible.

  Maharishi has all the answers, I thought. Meditation is where it’s at. I’ve got to put it out of my mind—the fact that he scowled at me and smiled at everyone else.

  In December 1967, Jerry Jarvis held a one-week TM retreat at Asilomar, down the California coast near Monterrey. On Friday night, during the first meeting, he said: “This time is very precious. Now we must take advantage of this opportunity. We’ve been given this priceless knowledge, this ability to experience the fulfillment of Yoga Philosophy, the state of turya, which in Sanskrit means ‘fourth state.’ Until now, we’ve experienced three states of consciousness—waking, sleep, and dream states. The transcendental, fourth state of absolute bliss consciousness is our focus thi
s weekend.

  “Tonight we’ll go to our rooms. Tomorrow we’ll only come out twice—for lunch and dinner. The rest of the time we’ll sit comfortably and meditate. Sit either in a chair, on your bed, or on the floor, however you are comfortable. Stick to the routine. Tomorrow night, when I see you next, we’ll have a contest to see who has meditated the most hours.”6

  Surely he’s kidding, I thought. Meditate all day?

  Next morning I sat up in bed, propped pillows behind my back, and began. Hours went by. I thought, I went back to the mantra, thought, went back to the mantra, thought, back to the mantra. On and on and on. When I came out for lunch, I felt something I’d never felt before.

  HAPPY. Really happy.

  Back to my room. Meditating again. On and on and so forth. Until dinner.

  I came out of meditation, stoned on my own energy. Joy welled up inside. My head felt bigger, as though stretched to stuff more consciousness inside. Feelings of buoyancy and vitality energized my body. Deep serenity and contentment saturated my mind.

  The food never tasted so good. I never felt so great. I thought, TM has got to be the key to the universe, the answer to all mysteries. The be-all, end-all of everything.

  That night at the meeting, Jerry asked, “How many hours did you meditate?”

  Hands went up. “Twenty hours,” one guy said.

  People gasped.

  “Sixteen hours,” another said.

  “Eighteen hours.”

  “Twenty-two hours.”

  More gasps.

  I only meditated twelve hours. I guess I’m not doing that well. How could anyone meditate twenty-two hours? Didn’t they sleep or eat?

  The next day I did better. “Eighteen hours,” I reported.

  “Good,” Jerry replied.

  Good, he said. He thinks I did good.