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TranceNet: Anonymous TM Victim #2

The advanced students were always encouraging us to learn the advanced techniques. You would evolve to a higher plane of consciousness. Pay $3000 or work one year for the movement, and at the end of the year you get the sidhis course as a reward for the year's work.

I went to Cobb Mountain in CA as a volunteer. It's a northern, remote TM facility with 200-people capacity. I had been there once or twice to do residence courses before.

I began to notice that the other TMers and I were experiencing extreme mood swings -- from extreme bliss to spaced-outedness or confusion on a mild level. I mentioned this to the people in charge. They said not to worry about it , it was just "unstressing" coming about due to our deep meditations.

I kept doing the meditation, working hard, and in [the Fall of] 1985 I entered the application for the TM-Sidhis. The movement puts you through a complicated process, asks lots of questions: about your past life, your devotion to TM and Maharishi, are you mentally and physically stable, and totally devoted to Maharishi.

In [the Fall] I began an 8-week course for the Sidhis -- first 6 weekends [on the West Coast] then the last 2 week block in-residence at Fairfield, Iowa [MIU].

There are a lot of different characteristics to the program.The most widely known is in the final week when they teach you to levitate or lift your body off the ground -- the "Flying Sutra."

They told us that the optimum coherence in brain waves comes when large groups of Sidhas do their meditation together and levitate together. It dissipates the stress in the world and therefore benefits the whole world. It helps create World Peace. I was very enthusiastic about this: Increase the coherence in my brain, give me more strength in my physiology. It would give me more strength, give me more energy, make me more fulfilled, and create world peace. I was ecstatic. I want this.

I experienced new levels of awareness and consciousness -- quieting the mind, feeling really connected to the source of life, feeling of extreme bliss. Almost a drug-like high.

It was, each week of the eight , like a new set of doors opening within me -- exciting. The two weeks back in Iowa were a very magical time. It seemed like the secrets of life were being unfolded before me.

In [the Spring of] '86, I went to Fairfield, to work there at MIU. I wanted to be with other Sidhas. The most Sidhas in the world are there. I thought I'd benefit my own physiology -- 1,500 to 2,000 Sidhas doing program, 1 1/2 hours in the morning and 1 1/2 hours in the evening.

I experienced deep feelings of bliss, peace, and fulfillment with universal forces. The first two months were pure happiness.

I started to notice the strangeness of the people around me at MIU. Some would be totally blissed out one day and the next day depressed, confused, angry, I noticed this on a large level. Not just a few people, but the great majority of the people there, 75% or more of those there.

I started to experience these same emotional swings. I would feel great emotional bliss, Supreme silence one day and the next day I would be depressed or confused. I started to notice lots of fatigue and tiredness almost on a day-to-day basis. Really tired. I mentioned this to the TM teachers and I was told it was just unstressing, that fatigue and tiredness from the past coming out now. They said that since I was practicing the TM-Sidhis, everything bad that had happened to me from the past was going to come out. So if I experienced depression, anger, fatigue it was just unstressing form the past, I was not to pay attention to it or focus on it. I was just to keep doing my program.

I was tired of working for them -- there were lots of contradictions. They worked from the level of fear, not from a nurturing level. They asked lots of us and were domineering. But I was still realizing a lot of value. So I enrolled in the MIU school.

When I came back[home in the] Summer 1987, I noticed a change that had happened within me. I was not as able to connect with my old friends or the life that I knew before. And I wasn't concerned. At MIU we were told everything outside of the movement was "The Age of Ignorance." It was only within the movement that we would find fulfillment.

[Late Summer] '87 I went back to MIU. We took one subject at a time for one or two weeks -- always with Maharishi tapes, tapes of the movement philosophy tying the [academic] subject in with SCI [Science of Creative Intelligence].

I was experiencing mood swings and fatigue. Talking with fellow students, I found that this was the norm for everyone. People were getting sick, tired -- bliss then depression. By end of the year, 30-40% had quit MIU because of the side effects. They kept us very busy. You have to go to program[group meditation/levitation practice], have to go to school. They come looking for you if you don't.

By the Summer of '88 I had had it. I had spent two years working for the movement, and one year in school [MIU]. They say one thing and do something else. Things that were supposed to be good for me, made me feel bad. It was all tiring and very confusing.

So in [the Summer of ] '88 I [went to work for] my family's company. I practiced my program and went to [the local] TM center to lectures, etc. -- especially on Ayur Veda, the medical arm of the TM movement. It's based on an East Indian homeopathic/naturopathic approach to modern medicine. It promises to strengthen the physiology, improve everything: digestion, eyesight, get rid of disease, strengthen the mind-body connection, cure cancer, AIDS.

Fantastic.

I started taking herbal supplements and marma therapy ["chakra"/aromatherapy]. It was supposed to create coherence in the individual physiology and in the world. [I started taking] amrit kalash [herbal fruit paste], which they called the nectar of life, the vitamin of consciousness. Pill and paste, I took both types. It made me feel high. Got more of a buzz. They told me that Ayur Ved would smooth out the person, smooth out the unstressing. I thought amrit kalash would do the trick.

I went to [a holiday] course in '88 at Cobb Mountain. That's where I heard of marma therapy from Dr. "J." The TM people at Cobb said it gave great benefits, would strengthen my physiology, etc.

So in the [Spring of 1989] I applied for a course and went to Cobb. I paid $200 to see Dr. "J." He took my pulse. Supposedly he could recognize imbalances and, by prescribing marma oils, balance the physiology . He prescribed two oils for me and told me to put them on certain marma points, like acupuncture points, two times a day before morning and evening meditation: wrists, under breasts, and in the center of my chest. Do this with marma oil for three months, and at night burn marma oil for three months. He said that my state of imbalance would be turned to a state of balance.

I was amazed. I asked him, what about these oils, are they natural or chemical? He told me they were natural: rose, patchouli, and sandalwood oil.

I felt tingling inside my body that night. I burned the oil for three months As the months went by, everyday I felt higher and higher. Like every day it was a little more, more energy, more balance. I could feel life coming into my body -- so subtle. I started opening up -- very exciting. I was doing Sidhis, TM meditation technique, and eating amrit kalash, too. I felt I was opening up, light was coming into my body.

[In summer] '89 I started getting more and more fatigue. It was confusing as I was feeling lighter and lighter, but had this fatigue, getting more and more tired.

In '89 I went back to Iowa, to MIU, to take a one-month CCP course. There was extended practice of the sidhis. Twice in the morning and once at night. Approximately 4-5 hours in the morning, regular [meditation and levitation] program in the evening, plus a "knowledge program" at night. So in I began the CCP [Creating Coherence Program] program.

The Sidhis are very powerful, closed-eye techniques. I was eating amrit kalash and doing marma therapy, so things were happening at a fast clip within me. I was receiving light energy. I was in a pretty illuminated state of being when I arrived. With additional meditation and sidhis, something very powerful happened.

I was doing everything within the context of what was okay and recommended by TM or the TM doctors to strengthen the mind, increase the memory, stamina, and strength. I believed all this on a profound level to be true. I had utmost faith in TM and their program. I didn't question the validity of anything they said.

With the extended meditation and sidhis, things began to change on a more dramatic level. I would wake up eat amrit kalash, put oil on, go to the golden and do meditation and sidhis with 1,600 people. From 7 a.m. to noon doing program. Then we would come out, eat., talk with people, and walk together. Then back to the domes at 5:30 p.m. for 1 1/2 hours of sidhis, then oil, amrit kalash, and the evening knowledge meeting with a Maharishi tape.

I arrived [late Summer] and stayed on [the MIU] campus living with friends. As every day went by, I went deeper and deeper. Everything became bigger and bigger. I became calmer and calmer -- slower and slower and quieter and quieter. I changed from this thinking/doing person to a state of pure being--there was no thinking, no contradiction, there was just pure action; I was working from a state of pure being. Each day got deeper and deeper and more powerful.

I felt I was coming into contact with a strong energy force beyond this world. It was terribly exciting... charming... beautiful... sweet, very powerful. The light was just a light force of energy. I was just being ejected with high-velocity power.

I wanted to shine that out. I was able to give darshan [a spiritual blessing, said to beconferred by the sight of an Indian saint]. If someone is enlightened they can give and receive it, receive the pure light of god and shine that out on the people. You sit below them and when they open their eyes, they shine this light of love on you. You can actually feel this warm light, the love of god, shining on you.

People said it changed their life forever. I was having such a profound experience. I was able to give and receive darshan on people-- I was feeling illuminated, electric. From my heart and facial area, I could shine on people. People commented, there's some power or source coming from you.

Between the CCP and marma I became calmer and quieter. My words became few. I didn't need to speak a lot. An amazing experience. It was very real -- very, very real. Wonderful.

Soon all the boundaries started to breakdown between me and the outside world. And I could see the boundaries between individuals and things starting to dissolve,too. I could perceive and see one actual river of energy which was everything, I could see the molecules of all creation, no mistakes, no wasted energy, a perfect flow moving in one direction. No mistakes. Everything perfect.

I began to be able to read minds. I could see what they meant or if they were thinking something else. I could hear or perceive that they really mean something else. I started to bring that forth. I would speak to their soul. Personality was on the surface. I could speak to people's souls, not to their personality. Pretty soon they came around and started speaking from that perspective. I could put my hand on a book and discern what the contents were, what the book was about.

I started to see everything on a vibratory level. Grass, sky, everything vibrations. A deep knowing, deep recognition. It was happening more and more every day. It was a beautiful experience. All I wanted to do was glow and vibrate. Maybe too much. I had complete faith, nothing I could do was wrong.

The three months of marma therapy was ending. Dr. "J." was at MIU and told me this was great, a fantastic experience. He recommend a second marma treatment and two oils. Everything was getting deeper and more profound. I had broken through something. I was functioning on a different level -- Christ -like consciousness. A channel of energy through which the light of god shone forth. Beautiful experience. I'm sorry I don't do very well explaining it, but it was very special.

By the [Fall] things became more profound -- quiet and calm and yet energized.

I had an experience. I was at a friend's trailer at one end of campus. It was raining hard and it was a half -mile to lunch. I clearly remember, I was so calm and clear and in contact. I was 100% sure that as long as I was clear on the fact of not wanting to get wet, if I held a clear intention to not get wet, I wouldn't -- like Jesus walking on water.

I walked out the door towards lunch, clear that I would not get wet. I was drenched in 20 yards.

I sat down. I realized something was amiss. In my mind, I wasn't sure what was reality and what wasn't -- the old life or the new life. I dwelled on it. Then I forgot about it. A couple of days later I finished CCP and flew back [home].

During the rest of 1989 I felt very tired, everyone around me seemed to be moving fast. I just wanted sit down and rest. Just sit. I was traveling for the family business. I was very tired and had bit of trouble functioning, but I did. I was moving very slow. My girlfriend was totally amazed at how slowly I was walking and talking. She couldn't understand the dramatic change from 6 weeks before, before going to MIU.

[That Fall] fatigue increased more and more. I was spaced out. Light headed. Forgetting things. Very light in general. Not as high as I had been, but still very high. I didn't know what was going on, I was very confused. I was going through the motions.

[At a TM center on the West Coast] I got the primordial sound technique from Deepak Chopra. The lightheadedness got worse. I had fainting spells. (Also in August '89, right before CCP, I had a fainting spell. It lasted a couple of hours. My girlfriend drove me home.)

The fainting spells started, I was losing consciousness.

In {late Fall I traveled]. I was very tired, fatigued -- spaced out. I went to a store to get food. I couldn't remember what town, what state I was in. Pretty soon I couldn't remember what was going on at all. I was just a big ball of confusion. The fainting spells got worse and worse, total blackout, disconnection of soul, mind, and body. I was ready to turn into molecules and just dissipate into space. I was on my second three months of marma and amrit kalash. I was experiencing fatigue, sickness, being spaced out. I didn't know what was wrong. My thoughts were constricted, between my two eyes. I was tense, my heart was tense, squeezed, tired. I barely made it back [home].

By [Winter] '89 I was wigged out -- total anxiety, total fear. Throughout the day I was just a ball of nerves, just shaking, like someone had thrown a dark blanket of fear over me. I was having anxiety attacks and being assaulted by dark curtains of fear that would just come down on me. I would be driving a car, and would hear a voice, it would go right through me. I couldn't handle any stress, especially if anyone yelled.

It appeared I was going crazy. I went to see a [local medical doctor]. He said my inner sense of balance had dissolved, I was very stressed out, with a lot of anxiety. He suggested that I take a rest and started me on Vistaril [an anti-anxiety medication]. It didn't help. So much anxiety I couldn't sit without anxiety attack. I couldn't handle it. The anxiety was too much. I was hallucinating that dark forces were attacking -- I was experiencing constant fear, anxiety, confusion. It was a very black, dark, scary time. I don't know what was wrong.

I thought maybe because I had left MIU dark forces were attacking me. I had left a spiritual place. I thought I had done something very wrong and bad.But at the time I was not of sound mind, not in this realm of being. I was very scared. I was looking for an answer, but getting worse and worse -- anxiety, fainting, fear. I couldn't handle it. I just wanted to go in a corner and cover myself over with a blanket.

So I went back to MIU and went to work for them.

The anxiety and the fear were constant 24 hours a day. I thought of suicide just to make the pain stop. It felt like my whole brain was being erased -- all memory, all functional ability, being erased. I was turning into an empty shell of fear and anxiety. Like hands were squeezing my soul, my brain was collapsing.

I filled out a form, not remembering how to write, barely able to scratch out words. They gave me a job. Friends noted that I was acting strange. Now it's [Winter] '90. Because of anxiety attacks, I'm a walking basket case. Working at MIU, day after day, doing program in the dome.

I was in constant fear, hiding my panic attacks. I thought, they will kick me out of MIU and I can't go back to the relative world [outside of MIU]. When I was meditating in the dome, I was having deep programs. I was so far in my thoughts, I thought, whoa, I'll get so far in I can't find my way out. What if they come over and shake me to leave and I am not in my body anymore?

I am way down in there and the meditations are too deep. I am confused, anxious, panicked. I can't remember my own name. Takes me 4 or 5 times to cross the street. I look to the left , look to the right, maybe there's a car coming. It takes me 5 minutes before I cross the street. I finally just walked and hoped no one hits me.

My fatigue is great. I'm totally shaking with anxiety and fear all the time. I'm in the MIU enclosed environment. 2 hours in morning and 2 hours in the afternoon. I'm in my room rest of the time crying. There's no one I can talk to. I hid my problems. I couldn't remember where I lived. I kind of remembered , but went I went home to my dorm room, it seemed like the first time. I didn't recognize it.

I would look in the mirror and wouldn't recognize myself. This heightened my anxiety and fear. I was going to lose myself. It was a very bad, very dark time.

[In the Spring] things are not getting better. I'm looking for a string to lead me back to reality. If I got a lot of rest, avoided stress, minded my own business, I started to feel better. But I wasn't sure I could walk 150 yards without exploding into molecules, or falling down and falling apart. I mean total falling apart, dissipating into molecules, my mind and body separating, breaking apart.

I got a lot of rest -- then glory hallelujah. I had been there 4-5 months before I got the idea I had some control over my body.

I was so far out there. I stopped marma therapy. I saw an Ayur Vedic doctor. He said, "My god, what have you been doing?" He said that it probably came from being out in the material world [outside MIU]. Now that I was back at MIU everything would be okay. He suggested that I quit Vistaril and marma for awhile. My symptoms lessened.

[That Spring], I put marma therapy on and the symptoms started to come back. I started to think maybe it was marma that brought this all about. I was confused. I wrote Dr. "J.", stating that marma therapy had something to do with light-headed fainting spells. I feared telling him all, because the movement would kick me out. "Yes ," he said on the phone, it could be. In April I saw him a third time.

I was feeling better, but Dr. "J." took my pulse and turned white. He didn't like what he saw. Marma hadn't caused the problem, no, it revealed what was there, that I had a heart murmur that I didn't have before. He said there was no reason to be alarmed, "Did I have health insurance?" He recommended another marma oil.

I was still very ill. My reasoning was that a regular GP didn't fix it, maybe Dr. "J." was the only way to solve it.

In a couple of days I felt strange. I felt constriction in my heart, a squeezing. One night it was like a heart attack. I was rushed to University of Iowa Hospital. The emergency clinic couldn't find anything but knew something was wrong. I went back for tests on my heart. The doctors didn't know what was wrong. I asked about the marma therapy and a woman MD sent me to a psychiatrist. He sent me back to MIU and suggested that I rest, relax,and take it easy.

I stopped marma therapy and taking amrit kalash.

By the summer of 1990, I felt better. More rested. But by October, I found [my new job] at MIU mentally too stressful. In the [Winter] of 1990, I took one week off, took a panchakarma treatment. -- which is massage with sesame seed oil and colon cleaning techniques.

My skin had become very stressed out. I couldn't put new things on my body: no shampoo, no insect repellent, or my symptoms would return. I just used sesame oil, no sandalwood.

I don't know what herbs were in the colon cleansing.But it was a great mistake. My symptoms were worse than ever: fainting, fear, anxiety, confusion.

I was ill in bed. For months after the panchakarma, I was in a terrible dark state of being.[In the Spring of] '91, I couldn't function at all at my old job. They put me on [a new] mindless job. I had a place to live and work. But I couldn't go back [home]. I couldn't function on that level. Going into town was difficult.

In [the Spring] I was better but still awful. I went home for 5 weeks. I was glad to be out of MIU. I sat in my parent's house and went back packing in the mountains. I was really confused, spaced out, anxious -- what was going on? I didn't suspect TM or the other practices because the doctors at the University of Iowa hospital had said no.

Lots of other people I asked had these experiences, but no one had them to the degree I had experienced them. Dr. "J." had said some people do have these experiences.

I went back to MIU to work at MIU Press, I met someone who told me he worked for Dr. "J.". The man said "Can you keep a secret?First Dr. "J." doesn't know what he is doing, he's experimenting on people. He just pretends to know. He doesn't read the information forms they send back. He tells people that the marma oils are all natural, but he got things from a chemical company in Germany."

Then he opened a jar of ingredients for the marma oil and a noxious gas odor came out. Quickly he put the lid back on. The people around,after 3 or 4 seconds, could smell it 30 feet away.

I became overcome by fear and anxiety and quit my job. For two weeks, I experienced darkness, fear, anxiety, and didn't sleep. I quit my job, traveled, and when I returned to normal, I came back to MIU. It became clear to me I wasn't the only one having these experiences. Maybe the rest of the TM movement was having them, too. So I saved my money so I could get out. I stopped doing the Sidhis. I just did TM and felt stabler and stronger.

Now in the Spring of 1992 I'm ready to get out of MIU. I've got to get out of here.

I'm still having panic attacks and dark sheets of anxiety. But I'm also having beautiful spiritual experiences. It's a pendulum, going back and forth between the two.

Intense.

In [Spring] '92, I left on vacation [for home because of family emergency]. Once I left I knew I wasn't going back. I spent the Summer of '92 backpacking, confused, hurt. I had one thousand dollars, I was incapacitated, and couldn't work in the relative world [outside of MIU] and deal with those stresses. My money ran out.

I got a couple of jobs. Taking the bus zapped my energy. I felt chewed up. I was working [as an attendant]. All I could do was just be there, travel to work, not sleep well, and keep up this schedule. I felt like a normal person would working 100 hours a week.

In [Fall] '92 the symptoms returned, anxiety, fear. I thought I was going crazy, I had no hold on reality. I quit my job. I was at the end of my rope. I called the mental health hot line, described my problem and have been seeing them ever since.

Now, [in the Fall of] '93, they've said my entire nervous system is trashed from the practices. "TM caused your inabilities." They told me to stop meditating, prescribed imipramine [an anti-depressant] and cognitive therapy once a week. They suggested I take a simple job.

In [the Spring of] '93 I applied for SSD. During the psych evaluation the doctor, a state psychiatrist, said she found indeed that my system had been compromised, and I was unable to do lots of things. My nervous system is trashed, I can't handle stress of anyone.

In [Summer] of '93, I went on full Social Security Disability. I have my own place and work a little bit. The symptoms have returned. Sometimes better, sometimes worse. The more I rest and avoid stress, the better I feel. Even exercise is too much, my symptoms return. I've been getting better and better. I live a simple life style, get lots rest, and avoid stress.

In [Spring] '92 when I was preparing to leave MIU, I had quit the sidhis, realizing it was not the best place for me. I began feeling connected to my emotions again. Parts of me had shut down and turned off for so long. I felt cut off from parts of myself.

For two months I cried every night. I felt good about that -- lying on my stomach in my dorm room, a single bedroom. I was asleep with the door locked. Someone tapped me on my shoulder. I turned and knew that the God Presence was in my room. My room was filled with energy, brilliant light, a soothing, nurturing energy.

" I knew it," the Energy said telepathically, "you called, here I am." The God presence said, "You have been having this problem. I came down to explain it."

My eyes were open, I was able to see a plain of land, viewing it from above, with a river going through mountains in the distance.

"See that river, that's your path of life, the things you want are over here to the side. Swamp. You will just have this swamp."

I have been wanting a relationship with a God Force. This is all in my mind, this Entity, talking telepathically the whole time....

"I'm going to go now. I am always here. I am always listening, always willing to help. Just ask. I will be here."

Then It was gone. I had just met the Big Guy. I pinched myself before mirror, like a kid who met Santa Claus.

Amazing.

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