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TranceNet: Abandoned TM Techniques, II

"Age of Enlightenment Techniques"

As many people within the TM movement know, the Maharishi has experimented with very many mental techniques that he later abandoned as unproductive.

Reproduced below for the first time on the Internet are one version of the "Age of Enlightenment" techniques and "rapid pranayama" taught only to TM teachers ("Governors") in the late 1970s. (These practices were to be kept secret from "regular" meditators and sidhas.)

Just as basic TM appears to be based on Sivananda's version of japa, the "Age of Enlightenment" techniques appear to be based on introductory techniques taught by Yogananda. They also resemble some of the "Dream Yoga" techniques of Tibetan Buddhism.

Excerpted from court records of expert witness interview, for civil case 85-2848, Kropinski vs. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, WPEC-US, MIU

ON "AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT TECHNIQUES"

Robert Kropinski: I also wanted to describe to you the Age of Enlightenment techniques.

Age of Enlightenment techniques were taught to me during the siddhis course by the president of MIU. He did a ceremony. Dr. Bevan Morris. The "Dr." of course was given by Mahesh. I walked into a room, the same scene, two chairs. '77. Busy year. I was on my course, had been rounding, walking into the room, we were all getting these special new age [of] enlightenment techniques right after getting the siddhis, which added 10-30 [minutes] to your program. These techniques, they never told us what they were supposed to do but we were just supposed to do them.....

So he went through the [puja] ceremony and afterwards we sat down and he asked me about my experiences. I discussed everything I'm discussing with you with him and he said, "wonderful." He said, "That's very, very good. You're having very clear experiences of Soma going through your body. It's very, very good...."

He was going to give me this new instruction. The new instruction was that after you do your asanas and pranayama and your 20 minutes of meditation, but before you begin the TM siddhi program, what you do is you take your attention and you place it on the nose for 10 seconds. Then you place your attention on your forehead.

Q:Eyes open, eyes closed?

A: Closed. Then on your lips. Chin. Ears. Whole head. Neck. Chest. Upper arms, lower arms, fingers, palms. Each place 10 seconds. Just take your attention and place it on your palms. 10 seconds. Place it on your shoulders. Back. Lower back. Thighs. Lower legs. Ankles. Feet. Then your whole body. Attention on your whole body for 10 seconds. Then attention on your whole body in your house, where you're living. Attention on your whole body in your house in the city where you live. Whole body, house, city and state. And the country. And then North America. And then all the continents, one by one. Then in the world. Whole body related to the world. Whole body related to the sun. Whole body related to the moon. Whole body related to the galaxy. The solar system. The whole body related to the galaxy. Whole body related to the universe. Whole body related to the self, the absolute. The fountainhead of creative intelligence [Hiranya Garbha/"cosmic egg"/god]. Then begin the attention back to the whole body only. Then you begin TM siddhi program. That was supposed to take 10 minutes. You'd space out and not remember anything.

Q: So that in that process...

A: I don't know what the effect of all that is, but .it sort of--by myself, my own personal experience was your mental imagery was that you were expanding and it incited that energy also.

Q: Did it make you feel more turned on?

A: More turned on. Sort of like I'm becoming as big as the universe-- I'm sort of exploding out into the universe. Then you do the siddhis and then of course you do the siddhis for 20 minutes and then the flying for 20 or 30 minutes....

ON "FAST PRANYAMA"

Robert Kropinski: The movement of the energy would start to occur because when you were doing the fast pranayama you'd alternate your attention between the center of your forehead and the tip of your spine. What would happen would be bolts of energy would fly up your spine during the fast pranayama. That's when you would enter meditation. Then meditation would keep it going, the meditation would just continue it. Then eventually we were taught the siddhis. So after about a month and a half that was going on, I honestly found myself screaming. I started screaming. I was talking in tongues. I was flailing around. I was all over the place. I talked some version of Chinese, or some version of a weird language. It had that particular sound to it.

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