Maharishi's technique of Transcendental Meditation is the most widely practised and extensively researched programme of self-development in the world.

Answers to common questions about the Transcendental Meditation Technique
by Global Good News staff writer
7 October 2010

Back in the 1970’s, Maharishi offered timeless advice, published in Enlightenment magazine, volume 2, issue 3, on how to address the various questions and personal considerations which come up from students, educators, and everyone with respect to learning the Transcendental Meditation Technique.

The topics on which he commented were:

Why does the Transcendental Meditation Technique need to be taught if it is so natural?
What if I would like to meditate but don’t have time?
I thrive on nervous energy and don’t want to lose it. Will meditation make me relax so much that I will no longer have this energy?
I am already happy. How will Transcendental Meditation help me?
I like my lifestyle and don’t want to change it. Will meditation change my interests?

Following are the questions in Enlightenment magazine and Maharishi’s responses to them.

Question: One classic question that comes up at Introductory Lectures is why do you need to be taught if it’s so natural?

Maharishi: It is very natural to speak. Everyone is born with the ability to speak. But when without training one speaks, one speaks at random: “ah, ah, ah, ah, ah.” Therefore even though speaking is natural, it has to be cultured. One has to be cultured in speaking. So even though we are born with the ability to speak, it’s through training, the alphabet—A, B, C, D—language, that speech is channelled, is cultured.

Like that, we are born with that ability to go to a field of greater happiness. Mind naturally goes, but even so, it must be cultured. So when we don’t object to culturing speech, we can’t object to culturing the mind in a spontaneous manner in Transcendental Meditation. Even though it is natural, we have to get trained in order to be usefully natural.

Question: What do we say to a person who says that he’d like to meditate, but he doesn’t have the time to meditate?

Maharishi: We tell him, someone doing business in the market must have time to go to the bank. If he says he doesn’t have time to go to the bank, he’s only saying he doesn’t have time to improve his business. Whatever the level of life, if one wants to advance and grow, then one must have broadened awareness. One must use more of his potential. Using more of his potential, he’ll be more effective for what he wants to accomplish.

If a businessman evades going to the bank, it’s not a wise policy. If he says “I have no time, I’m so busy that I didn’t get time to take a bath,“ he’ll have a very pale, dull sort of a face in the market. He was in a hurry to go to the market, but without dressing, without taking a bath, he just presents himself. It’s not the way to success.

Meditation is the bath of the mind, just as a water bath freshens the body. With a fresh body, we have a better personality and better presentation, better success in life. If one doesn’t take a mental bath, then the mind is dull and lazy and it doesn’t shine in the field of competition. The world is a playfield of life, a big competition.

There is a proverb: “First impression is the last impression.” How a man looks when you see him for the first time, that is the first impression, and they say it’s lasting. Therefore, appearance plays a great part. Bath helps. Mental bath helps.

Appearance of the intellect—what you say, how sweetly, how lovingly, how effectively, how logically, how innocently and simply you speak—that gives the address of the inner awareness. From where the words are coming out? One word spoken, and that is the picture of one’s heart and mind and level of evolution. One word spoken and there you are screened. Speech is like an X-ray. The inside is shown very clearly.

Therefore we must take a mental bath so that the inner personality which is expressed through speech and action is expressed in a neat manner. Learning Transcendental Meditation is installing the cosmic bath at home. If you build a home, there is a bathtub and nice, fine hot water. Meditation room is for the cosmic bath of the mind based in pure consciousness. It comes out purer, effective, blissful. With a fresh mind, you do things more effectively, more efficiently. You do less and accomplish more.

Those who are busy people, they know that after meditation they don’t have to rush so much. In their easy pace, they accomplish more than double. Therefore, it’s no excuse that you didn’t get time. First meditation, then the second thing. Just as it’s no excuse that you couldn’t take a bath. Only after bath, you come out. Finished.

Question: What can we say to people who claim they live on nervous energy, and are afraid that meditation will relax them so that they won’t have this nervous energy to work from?

Maharishi: We tell them it is the stresses and strain that restrict the free flow of energy, and when stresses are released, there is free flow of energy for effective action and more rewarding results.

Question: What about people who ask how meditation can be helpful if they feel that they’re perfectly contented?

Maharishi: Tell them a story. During the first world tour when I stopped in Hawaii, one lady asked, 'I have everything that I want. Have you something to offer to me?' I said, yes, if you have everything that you want, and if it is really so, then I’ll present the suffering of the world to you to neutralize it with your happiness. That means, if you have everything, you have the technique of fulfilment. I would invite you to come out into the world and give that technique to all the people who are suffering.

But let us analyze whether you really have everything that you can think of. I said, maybe you think your living room has everything that you want, but would you exchange it for a living room which is equipped so that you will get things by merely desiring? You desire and the thing is there. Whatever you desire, it’s there. Would you like to have such a living room?

She said, 'Who would not like to have it, if there is some possibility that a room could be there where anything could be gained by desiring, naturally anybody would like it.'
   
Then I said, this means your contentment is only due to the lack of knowledge that there could be something better. The moment you gained the knowledge that there is something better, you are ready to trade. This shows that the contentment is not real, it is not complete. And such a contentment will be overthrown at any time you have better information for a better possibility. And when contentment is not complete, it is obvious that you don’t have bliss consciousness, complete happiness in a permanent manner. And if you don’t have that, here is TM.

Question: What to say to someone who is happy with his lifestyle and is afraid that his interests will change because of the effects of meditation?

Maharishi: We tell him that it will not change in a manner different from what it has been till now since birth. There was interest in the toys; that changed. There came interest in the books; that changed. There came interest in wealth, in this property; that also must change. So we know the interest is not constantly on the same thing all the time. It is changing, it is changing. It has been changing. And it will not be a new change if the present also changes. The interest changes with age, with experience. And therefore it has to change.

Change is inevitable. So we tell him that you have been changing all the time. Only if you change from suffering to happiness, it’s worthwhile. Change has always been there. It will always be there. No one could like the same thing all the time.

And then add to this—through change, we evolve. If we don’t change, we don’t evolve. And no one can stop his evolution, because the force of evolution is pushing everything on and on. No one can stop it.

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