Transcendental Meditation

I was a teenager in England when I first heard of transcendental meditation. It was an era described as the "Swinging Sixties", when British, especially Merseyside, pop music became internationally popular for the first time. The starting point for all this was The Beatles.

I was a great fan of The Beatles, even more so The Rolling Stones. It was in 1968 that John Lennon and George Harrison flew out to Rishikesh in India to study transcendental meditation; followed a few days later by Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr. It was there they met Maharishi and learnt about the "art" of transcendental meditation. The Rolling Stones were to follow in their footsteps later.

Of course, everything The Beatles did in those days was big news. Even if I had never heard of or read about transcendental meditation since, I am certain that I, and millions of other Beatle fans, would remember Maharishi and transcendental meditation all these years later. I can still remember the tv news images of The Beatles return to Britain; the Maharishi was famous over night.

As The Beatles were prone to do "weird" things (that was their humour and irreverence towards the norm) I am sure many just saw their exploits into transcendental meditation as another of their weird exploits that would soon pass.

However, despite the perceived weirdness amongst ordinary Britons, transcendental meditation has stood the test of time since the 1960's and has even been subjected to scentific study. The article below by F.Coppola looks at some of the results of scientific research into transcendental meditation.

Scientific Research on Transcendental Meditation (TM)

Scientific research has shown that the most beneficial meditation technique is Transcendental Meditation (TM). The striking reduction of stress and anxiety caused by TM are 3 times greater than the effect caused by most meditation and relaxation techniques.

Transcendental Meditation has been taught by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi since 1958. The first articles about the beneficial effects of TM were published around 1970 on important magazines and scientific journals such as

- Science (167, 1970),

- American Journal of Physiology (221, 1971) and

- Scientific American (226, 1972).

The basic research was conducted by two medical doctors from Harvard University, Herbert Benson and Robert Wallace. This research was made on dozens of American people who used to practice this technique regularly. These people were of any race, sex, age, job, and with different personal political or religious belief.

Later, a lot of research was made about this technique by several doctors and scientists, who wrote several articles on important scientific journals such as

- International Journal of Neuroscience,

- Psychosomatic Medicine,

- Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology,

- Journal of Clinical Psychiatry,

- Journal of Clinical Psychology,

and many more.

Dr. Benson never practiced this technique himself (Dr. Wallace did). Dr. Benson created his own relaxation technique, that is described in his book The relaxation response (HarperCollins, 1975, 2000), a best-seller that sold 5 millions of copies since 1975. Dr. Benson claims that his technique achieves the same results as Maharishi's TM. However, the actual results achieved by TM are 3 times greater than those achieved by the relaxation response technique, as shown by further research (Journal of Clinical Psychology, 45, 1989; and Journal of Social Behavior and Personality, 6, 1991).

Around 1995, Dr. Deepak Chopra created the Primordial Sound technique, that is very similar to Maharishi's Transcendental Meditation (TM) and can be considered as much as effective. Unfortunately Maharishi's TM and Chopra's technique are very expensive: the price of TM is prohibitive (US$2500.00). Chopra's technique is expensive also (starting at US$325).

Further on, a mystical atmosphere has been sorrounding the TM technique for years, and the Maharishi organization deals with several peculiar and weird projects that stun common people. This has prevented TM to be appreciated as it deserves. Transcendental Meditation is a simple, precious, effective technique that can help anybody to be more intelligent and creative, to live better and to reduce or remove stress, anxiety and other disorders.

That's why former TM teachers have started teaching this precious technique for less. For example check the websites: www.tm-meditation.co.uk (TM Independent UK) and www.natural-stress-relief.com.

Author Bio:
F.Coppola, Ph.D. in Physics at Pisa University (Italy), has been practicing Transcendental Meditation (TM) since 1983 and advanced techniques (such as TM-Sidhis) since 1989. He has studied brain wave modifications during TM sessions and collaborated in the creation of a new mental exercise, the Natural Stress Relief technique.

http://transcendental.meditation.onwww.net/