Concept

Transcendental Meditation

Overview

Transcendental Meditation (TM) is a form of silent meditation developed by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. The TM technique involves the silent repetition of a mantra or sound, and is practiced for 15–20 minutes twice per day. It is taught through a standard course of instruction, with a cost which varies by country and individual circumstance. According to the TM organization, it is a non-religious method that promotes relaxed awareness, stress relief, self-development, and higher states of consciousness.

The Maharishi began teaching the technique in India in the mid-1950s. Building on the teachings of his master, the Advaita Vedanta monk Brahmananda Saraswati (known honorifically as Guru Dev), the Maharishi taught thousands of people during a series of world tours from 1958 to 1965, expressing his teachings in spiritual and religious terms. TM became more popular in the 1960s and 1970s as the Maharishi shifted to a more secular presentation, and his meditation technique was practiced by celebrities, most prominently members of the Beatles and the Beach Boys. At this time, he began training TM teachers. The worldwide TM organization grew to include educational programs, health products, and related services. Following the Maharishi's death in 2008, leadership of the TM organization passed to neuroscientist Tony Nader.

Related organizations such as the Global Country of World Peace and the David Lynch Foundation have promoted TM. The technique has been variously described as both religious and non-religious, with the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit notably upholding the federal ruling that TM was essentially "religious in nature" and therefore could not be taught in public schools. The TM movement has received criticism for allegedly disguising religious claims in pseudo-scientific language.

Research on TM began in the 1970s. Studies suggest that TM has a comparable effect on general psychological wellbeing as other meditation techniques. TM practice may lower blood pressure, an effect comparable with other lifestyle interventions.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

Possible passages

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This is that which is called happy and grateful to the Gods. And for this reason it is that poets celebrate those who have died before they have become old, and propose them for examples, as the most excellent men and of divine extraction, as him for instance, Beloved by Jove…
Plutarch, Plutarch's essays and miscellanies, Vol. 1
States what Transcendental Meditation is.
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Other methods of deliverance from evil are in the excessive acts of penance performed by the Indians, to which a retreat within themselves is added. Now when the Indian thus internally collects himself, and retreats within his own thoughts, the moment of such pure concentration is called Brahma, the one and the clearly supersensuous state, which the understanding calls the highest possible existence. When this is so…
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy
States what Transcendental Meditation is.
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But both adjustments and executions would obey the reflex type. Both would be the result of sensorial and ideational processes discharging either into each other within the brain, or into muscles and other parts outside. The peculiarity of the adjustments would be that they are minimal reflexes, few in number, incessantly repeated, constant amid great fluctuations in the rest of the mind's content, and entirely…
William James, The Principles of Psychology, Volume 1
Close in meaning to Transcendental Meditation; the term itself is not named.
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Philosophers who discussed Transcendental Meditation

Swami Vivekananda

Related ideas

Place in the tradition

Part of New Age.

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