TM

I’ve been looking back through this diary back to June and last summer’s entries; all my problems and worries seem so trivial. They're long-forgotten, all sorted out. What does it all really matter? Lee rang up to ask about the soccer last night and ended up coming across. He stayed a couple of hours and scavenged the old bike in the garage for its rack. I arranged to meet him at the King's later to go to the Preparatory TM talk.

The talk was held at the new Easterby TM Centre. Sally, the woman who gave the introductory talk, ushered us in to a room with easy chairs and vases of flowers. On the walls there were numerous pictures of Guru Dev and Maharishi and there was a smell of incense. All of these religious overtones immediately made me suspicious. There were six other people there; four blokes (two elderly, two youngish), and two middle-aged women, the latter seeming to be typical gullible mystical-believer types, willing to accept anything. Sally talked about mantras and a ceremony to thank the Vedic masters and told us we should each bring six flowers, two pieces of fresh fruit, and a clean white handkerchief to the next meeting. That was it as far as I was concerned; it all smelt of a con, and Lee and I could barely stifle our laughter. After this, we had a short personal ‘interview’ with Sally, and I told her I was racked with doubt but promised to give her a ring in the future.

A part of me wants to do the thing, but another part of me doesn’t, and I hate all the “His Holiness Maharishi” crap. Why can’t they just do TM without all the pseudo-religious overtones? On the way back I met Simon Dyson and he invited me in for coffee and a game of snooker.