Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

Osho Quotes on Maharshi Mahesh Yogi

I call the Transcendental Meditation of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi a non-medicinal tranquilizer. It is good for people who are suffering from sleeplessness, who cannot fall asleep easily -- it is good. Perhaps that's why only in America it has so many followers, because America is the country which suffers most from sleeplessness, from such a restlessness that it does not allow them to fall into sleep; they go on tossing and turning. But any kind of repetition, remember... it need not be a Sanskrit mantra.
What Maharishi Mahesh Yogi calls Transcendental Meditation is only transcendental stupidity! Certainly it is transcendental -- it is no ordinary stupidity, it is very sacred! -- but stupidity is stupidity, and when it becomes transcendental it becomes more dangerous, more poisonous.
And all these people, like Maharishi Mahesh Yogi teaching transcendental meditation, are giving techniques which mind feels perfectly good with. The mind can use it. But there is not going to be any growth. The technique is not bad, but it simply gives you an illusory feeling of well-being -- as if you are evolving... and you are standing where you have been; there is no evolution, no growth. All these people are exploiting humanity by giving techniques -- and this is the worst exploitation because it stops evolution. I am against all techniques.

I am for a simple, natural process, which you already have, which once in a while you use. When you are angry, how do you become aware that you are angry? If there was only anger and nobody watching it, you could not become aware of the anger. Anger itself cannot become aware.So you are aware when you are angry, when you are not angry, when you are feeling good, when you are not feeling good. But you have not used this watchfulness consistently, scientifically, deeply, totally in every phase of the mind. And to me this word contains the very essence of meditation.
Whatever Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and other people like him are doing is good, but they are calling something meditation which is not. That's where they are leading people astray. If they had remained sincere and authentic and told people that this will give you mental health, physical health, a more relaxed life, a more peaceful existence, it was right. But once they started calling it transcendental meditation they have raised a very trivial thing to an ultimate significance which it cannot fulfill. People have been in transcendental meditation for years, and in the East, for thousands of years. But that has not become their self-knowing, and that has not made them Gautam Buddhas.
Selfknowledge is difficult because you are not ready to pass through any suffering. You think of selfknowledge in terms of tranquilizers; you think selfknowledge is a tranquilizer. People come to me and they say, "Give us peace, silence." If somebody promises to give you silence and peace without suffering, he is befooling you -- and you will be caught in the trap very easily, because that's what you would like to have. That is the appeal of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi type people in the West. They are not giving you meditation in fact, they are giving you tranquilizers. ... Because a meditation is bound to pass through suffering; it is not a play.

You have to move through fire, and only in that fire will your ego drop. Looking at the whole ugliness of it, it drops automatically. But Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and others, they say there is no need to suffer: "I will give you a technique -- just do it for ten minutes in the morning and in the evening and it will tranquilize your being. You will feel infinite peace and everything will be okay, and just in a few days you will become enlightened."

Not so easy -- it is arduous. Tricks won't help. Don't waste your time on tricks. Just by chanting a mantra for ten minutes, how can you become enlightened?
Many chanters of mantras fall asleep -- hence the use of Transcendental Meditation for people who suffer from sleeplessness, hence its appeal in America. Insomnia has become a normal thing. The more insomnia is there, the more will be the appeal of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, because people need some tranquilizers. A mantra is a prefect tranquilizer, but that is not its real use. There is nothing wrong in it -- if it gives you good sleep, good, but that is not its real use.
That's what TM is doing to many people in the West -- and that is the appeal of transcendental meditation, because Maharishi Mahesh Yogi goes on saying, "It will make you more efficient in your work, it will make you more successful. If you are a salesman, you will become a more successful salesman. It will give you efficiency." And American people are almost crazy about efficiency. You can lose everything just for being efficient. Hence, the appeal.

Yes, it can help you. It can relax you a little -- it is a tranquillizer. By constantly repeating a mantra, by continuously repeating a certain word, it changes your brain chemistry. It is a tranquillizer! a sound-tranquillizer. It helps you to lessen your stress so tomorrow in the marketplace you can be more efficient, more capable to compete -- but it doesn't change you. it is not a transformation.

^Top Back to Psychic World

Bookmark & Share