Maharishi & Me

by Susan Shumsky

  PART VII

  RIDICULOUS TO SUBLIME

  You are the master of all the laws of nature if you know the transcendental field.

  —Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

  23

  FROM TEAR-FILLED TO FEAR-FIELD

  1981 TO 1985

  We are not born to be the slave of circumstances. We are born to be the master of creation. I want to be the master of masters, not the master of slaves.

  —MAHARISHI MAHESH YOGI

  A few weeks after I started working at the Sidha Dress showroom, in October 1981, Maharishi announced a ladies’ “Thousand-Headed Mother Divine” course and men’s “Thousand-Headed Purusha” course—a “24-hours bliss program to be held in Switzerland with Maharishi.” I resolved to join it.

  Since Mother Divine was a lifetime commitment, I decided to visit my mother (Father had already passed on) for two weeks. Then I would feel free to dedicate my life as a Mother Divine hermit.

  However (with Maharishi there was always a “however”), after my maternal visit I was mortified to find I wasn’t accepted for the course! Out of hundreds in South Fallsburg, three were rejected: “Susan the Great,” an octogenarian, and me.

  Maharishi’s message for us three: “Go to Fairfield. We need 2000 flyers to create coherence.” What the blip! Maharishi considers me just one of the mob! Worse yet, by visiting my mother, I lost my quasi-ersatz “job” at the Sidha Dress showroom.

  The “Thousand-Headed” courses, hyped as “with Maharishi in Switzerland,” got shipped elsewhere, far from Maharishi, shortly after they began, and subsequently relocated repeatedly. All Purush-niacs and Mother Divine-iacs were required to raise $1000 per month for room and board. Much of their time was spent soliciting well-heeled meditators for sponsorships.

  Mother Divine-ers were told the best thing for their “evolution” was a celibate marriage with a Purusha male. Not sure how that would transpire, since communicating with anyone (other than their sponsors and banks, I guess) was forbidden. Thank God Maharishi excluded me. Begging for sponsors and enticing some Purusha to marry me? Tenk you veddy much, but no tenks!

  Though bidden to join two thousand warm bodies as a speck in Maharishi’s mob, “creating coherence” in Fairfield, I contrived to dodge the fragrant perfume of Iowa hogs and enchanting frozen Iowa tundra.

  While the idea of approaching Mindy Lebowitz nauseated me, I muffled my gag reflex and phoned her in Switzerland. She asked Maharishi to let me move to his latest acquisition, “College of Natural Law,” a dilapidated wino hotel five blocks from the White House in Washington. By getting “special permission,” from Maharishi, I could feel “privileged” rather than just a lowly kernel in his cornfield.

  Did I say I was a manipulative little brat, or that my mind was just slightly warped? Either way, I don’t think I’d win the title of Miss Best Disciple 1981.

  Off I went to Washington, DC, in January 1982.

  Maharishi’s latest idealistic scheme: create coherence in the federal government and transform the nation. TM national headquarters would move to DC, “Creating Coherence Courses” would be held, and families would relocate there and “fly” together.

  With drywall and paint, the rundown hotel morphed into a passable meditation center, decorated in typical Maharishi-esque style—cream-colored walls, red carpets, white trim, gold curtains, gold velour upholstery, furniture trimmed with metallic gold paint, crystal chandeliers, and world flags.

  The “Mother Divine” attendees moved into the building, and I hopped around on foam with them daily. One named Natalie knew I still carried a torch for Robert Schumacher. Yet she appeared at my door, flaunting her new, sexy lavender suit with matching wild fingernails (wild for the 1980s, anyway)—her calculated attire for landing a job as Robert’s secretary in New Jersey. Natalie brazenly declared her plot to marry Robert—a scheme that succeeded swiftly.

  One year later, after many visits to the White House, Capitol, and Smithsonian, and after getting mugged at knifepoint at a movie theater, I received an unexpected call from Seelisberg. Mindy Leibowitz informed me, “When Maharishi heard you were in Washington, he said you should move to Fairfield.” Then the kicker: “He needs 2000 flyers there.”

  My strategy for evading Iowa’s delightful ambiance was foiled, and my delusion about being “special” was shattered. Boohoo! In May 1983 I reluctantly left the posh but apparently perilous Washington, DC, for the hokey but seemingly safe Iowa cornfields. Just one of the mob.

  Nearly a decade later, in 1991, Maharishi advised his sidhas in DC to “save yourself from the criminal atmosphere.”257 His coherence-creating group of flyers put their homes on the market and relocated to Fairfield.

  Fairfield’s climate was groovy for growing corn—not so nifty for human habitation. Temperatures rose and dipped to unimaginable extremes while humidity persisted relentlessly. Due to the punishing climate and absence of gainful employment, attracting and keeping “yogic flyers” became nearly impossible. Maharishi used radical coercive tactics—threatening no less than the end of the world.

  Saving the world or not, meditators reveled in the unmistakable spiritual atmosphere of two thousand like-minded seekers meditating together. But the majority struggled in subpoverty. Many came, tried, failed, and bailed. It seemed Fairfield’s only redeeming feature was remoteness. Far from any rat race, its location inspired meditation.

  Hardly anyone in Fairfield had spent time in Maharishi’s direct presence. I’d spent seven years. Strangely isolated by my intimate association with him, I didn’t fit into the social milieu. There was no advantage to befriending me. I was just another slob hopping around on foam mattresses with a thousand other women.

  My jewelry design business prospered. I hired women to ink in my designs. They were grateful for any work in Fairfield’s dismal economy. I bought a charming two-bedroom house, circa 1900, near the town square. The bright and cheerful but drafty thirteen-hundred-square-foot dwelling on a small corner lot had ten-foot ceilings and tall windows. Its oak floors inclined slightly, especially on the second floor, due to a less-than-solid foundation. I guess my own foundation was a bit rocky, too.

  An Amish contractor made renovations, while I planted gold drop potentilla shrubs and evergreens. I unearthed a huge rose quartz crystal partially buried, mysteriously, in the backyard. My home filled with ferns, banyan trees, Chinese scheffleras, and other tropical plants, standing and hanging. Soon they became trees, touching the ceiling. I parked my white Buick Lesabre in my rickety, unattached, one-car garage.

  In 1959 Maharishi predicted a fraction of the world practicing TM would create coherent positive energy and significantly improve quality of life globally. Over fifty scientific studies proved his theory. TM researcher David Orme-Johnson defined the “Maharishi Effect”: “A phase transition to a more orderly and harmonious state of life, as measured by decreased crime, violence, accidents, and illness, and improvements in economic conditions and other social indicators.”258

  “Phase transition” refers to the particle coherence required for a quantum mechanical phase transition, creating a Bose-Einstein condensate, as in superfluidity, superconductivity, laser light, and absolute zero kelvin (glad we got that straightened out … in case you can follow any of it).

  For the Maharishi Effect to manifest would require 1 percent of a population practicing TM, or square root of 1 percent practicing group TM-Sidhi Program. To this end, from December 17, 1983 to January 26, 1984, in subzero ice and snow, about five thousand sidhas crowded into teeny Fairfield, joining two thousand already in residence, for the “Taste of Utopia Course.” Two extra dorms sprouted on campus, and two hundred mobile homes became “Utopia Park.” Several friends from my International Staff days stayed or dined with me. I received an oversized certificate for my efforts. Whoop-de-doo.

  Course attendees met with Maharishi in a gigantic, hastily constructed metal building called “The Shed.” Due to disgruntled meditators’ lawsuits accusing Maharish
i of various things they whined about, he traveled with armed bodyguards and sometimes dodged process servers by exiting through the back door. However, in Fairfield the sheriff managed to serve him a subpoena anyway.

  From far-off Australia, Leslie Marshall and new husband Peter stayed in my home. I always admired Leslie and her friend Harriet. They were so utterly devoted to Maharishi, who entrusted them with greatest responsibility on Staff.

  “Where’s your best friend, Harriet? Is she coming?” I asked.

  “Australia, working for the TM Movement,” Leslie said.

  “How about you?” I asked.

  “Not working for the Movement, that’s what. Got our own business now,” Leslie said. “Publishing.”

  “You’re kidding. You were always so devoted to Maharishi.”

  “Got burnt out on the Movement. So hypocritical.”

  “I’d never believe that if I didn’t hear it from your lips,” I said.

  Leslie said, “You were always the true believer. I remember so vividly, Susan. No one was as attached to Maharishi as you.”

  “No. You’re kidding. But we all were.”

  “Not so, Susan. You were definitely the most desperately devoted of any disciple I ever saw. Way off the top of the scale.”

  “But it can’t be,” I protested. “You were just as devoted.”

  “No way, Susan. Everyone used to talk about you. So hopelessly attached to Maharishi.”

  “Everyone?” I asked, dumbfounded.

  “Yes. I remember one incident vividly, in Hertenstein,” Leslie replied. “You were standing next to Maharishi’s car. Staring at him intensely like a teenager with an impossible crush. He was about to drive off to Engleberg for a few days. Your pleading, desolate eyes longed despairingly for him to invite you to ‘Come, come in the car.’ When he looked at you, you lit up like a lightbulb. When he drove off, every ounce of your energy drove off with him. I never saw anyone look so utterly empty. Like he was the Sun and you were the Moon, with absolutely no light of your own. Every ray of light was reflected.”

  Picking up my jaw from my lap, I said, “Oh my God! It’s hard to believe what I’m hearing, Leslie. But I have to trust you. Like Robert Burns says, ‘to see ourselves as others see us.’ Wow!”

  After Leslie’s stunning revelation, I began to question myself. Was I a devoted disciple, or groveling groupie? Was I pursuing enlightenment, or seeking approval?

  I considered myself a sincere spiritual student. But why this seeming unhealthy attachment to Maharishi? Why did he keep me around so long, yet sent nearly everyone else away? He did say, “You are too dependent on me as a person. I won’t always be here.”

  Leslie’s disclosure raised lots of questions, but no answers.

  I always loved meditation. I loved hopping around on foam with hundreds of women, immersed in the vast ocean of inner silence. I would be perfectly content meditating all day, every day. Crazy as it sounds, I began to wonder whether I was addicted to TM.

  If I didn’t meditate in the morning, I craved the TM fix all day. If I waited too late for evening meditation, I became irritable. Others shared similar feelings. Beach Boy Mike Love said, “My addiction, if it’s an addiction, is to meditation.”259 But why would meditation be addictive? What made us so dependent on TM?

  After two decades of meditation, I questioned my spiritual attainment. In 1967, Maharishi claimed five to eight years to Cosmic Consciousness. He dangled the carrot of ultimate possibilities. He promised the sun. Yet our allotment seemed to be moon rays.

  Attempting to reach Maharishi’s unachievable standards, I tried to be unwaveringly devoted and tow the TM line. Someday I’ll be enlightened, I thought. But, after all this meditation, how “evolved” was I? I was immeasurably happier than before starting my TM journey. But when was graduation day? No one ever seemed to graduate.

  While on International Staff, I was frequently fearful of losing my position. Was I spiritual, or self-absorbed? Had I become more humble, compassionate, generous, kind, patient, nonjudgmental, loving, accepting? Or a “b” with an “itch”? Or “itch” with a “b”?

  Maharishi used to say if we meditated twenty minutes twice daily, it didn’t matter what we did the remainder of our time. TM was touted as a mechanical technique anyone could do without giving up anything—no rules or regulations. Whatever happened to that?

  Maharishi often said for TM to last generations, we must maintain “purity of the teaching.” This made sense and was simple enough, namely: Teach TM exactly as Maharishi told us, and practice TM exactly as we learned it.

  But gradually the “purity of the teaching” proviso inflated into a leviathan. No longer did it encompass just the hours devoted to meditation. Now we were expected to dedicate every other hour to “purity.” Following a strict routine of asanas, pranayama, meditation, early bedtime, pure diet, pure thinking, and ideal lifestyle equated with “on the program.” Any deviation was “off the program.”

  Our “evolution was enhanced” by vegetarian diet, Ayurvedic treatments and herbal remedies, fasting, enemas, pulse taking, scripture reading, Vedic astrology, exorbitantly priced yagnas (Vedic rituals), celibacy, dressing modestly in pastel colors, and Indian ragas played at prescribed hours. Vastu (Indian Feng Shui) defined our homes’ architecture, with east entrances and other complications. We took cold showers, slathered our bodies and hair with warm sesame oil, slept heading east or south, faced east for morning meditation and north for evening, and avoided pets. Optimum meditation time was Brahma Muhurta, ninety-six minutes before sunrise.

  Teachings, philosophies, and practices other than TM were forbidden. As restrictions escalated, the list of prohibitions lengthened: psychics, mediums, tarot, astrology, prayer, religion, classes on any subject not TM-sanctioned, visiting spiritual masters, and even traveling to India for a vacation!

  The tyrannical Board of Governors made its mission to ferret out anyone “off the program.” A menacing cloud hung over our heads, the horror of getting blacklisted—expelled from the golden domes and future courses, spurned from the elect clique of eventually-to-be-enlightened, our only chance for spiritual evolution obliterated.

  For TM teachers, writing books that weren’t TM advertisements or teaching/leading/guiding anything other than official TM courses was grounds for banishment. First on the chopping block were authors like John Gray and Barbara DeAngelis, who taught harmless relationship classes—nothing at all threatening TM’s proprietary methods.

  Depression, addiction, or instability was labeled “unstressing”—handy blanket denial for the mentally ill, who never got help, since counseling, psychiatry, psychology, and AA weren’t recommended. Unstressing also became a nifty excuse for abusive, obnoxious, and even criminal behavior.

  It seemed ideal “on the program” behavior included burying negative emotions, telling lies on TM course applications to avoid rejection, speaking TM platitudes, and generally acting like hypnotized automatons.

  Maharishi’s paranoia about “purity of the teaching” perhaps began in the 1970s in Switzerland, when several “golden boys” unexpectedly abandoned Maharishi. Some left due to Maharishi’s increasing tendency to justify sketchy means to reach his goal of saving the world. Others left due to Maharishi’s trysts with his girlfriends (yes, skin-boys called them “girlfriends”).

  At Maharishi’s bidding, skin-boys ordered “thirty of the finest saris” from India for a certain shapely blond, Jocelyn. Late at night, after all others had been dismissed, she would be summoned, dressed in a sari and makeup. After “reading the mail” or “reciting poetry” to Maharishi, she would emerge from his chamber rumpled, mussed, and smeared. One skin-boy cracked open Maharishi’s door to ask permission to enter. Maharishi, half-undressed and bare chested, pushed hard on the door to stop the intrusion. Jocelyn was inside his room.

  Weary of her yearlong ordeal, Jocelyn wanted to escape. Trying to persuade her to remain, Maharishi asked Jerry Jarvis to deliver to her an envelope st
uffed with pesetas. But she fled to Switzerland and stayed with Leslie and Harriet, with help from her best friend Alice (who also claimed to have had Close Encounters of the Erotic Kind with Maharishi). Alice was promptly sent back to the USA. Maharishi phoned Jocelyn repeatedly, imploring her to return to Mallorca, even shouting—to no avail.

  During our time in Seelisberg, sometimes girlfriends mistakenly rang the call buzzer. One skin-boy walked in on Maharishi lying on his bed, the girlfriend nearby, and a feeling of “whoops” in the air. During the 1968 Rishikesh course with the Beatles, a German fashion model claimed Maharishi fondled her repeatedly. In Lake Tahoe, 1972, skin-boy Gregory tried to open Maharishi’s bedroom door to announce an urgent overseas phone call. But the door was uncharacteristically bolted from inside and Maharishi unexpectedly didn’t respond. A dozen people waiting in his anteroom witnessed his female nightly visitor finally answer the door. Around the same time, her husband became angry and suspicious and refused to return to the estate.

  Several skin-boys and “girlfriends” reported similar incidents.

  It was unthinkable to imagine Maharishi as a sexual being. I’d believed his title Bal Brahmachari (lifelong celibate). Yet several women personally confessed to me they had sexual intercourse with him, or were bidden to. In every case, I found their testimonies credible. One liaison with a Canadian woman spanned more than eighteen months: 1972 to 1974. Two “girlfriends” were with me in Rishikesh, where skin-boys spotted them tiptoeing in and out of Maharishi’s bungalow. I had wondered about Maharishi’s fascination and fawning over Vivian. Now I knew why. (She was one of us six that traveled to Bangalore with Maharishi in 1970, and her affair with Maharishi lasted more than one year.)