Om Schooling

The article in the Providence Journal, "No Place Like Om" (13 Sept. 2003), advocating the adoption of Transcendental Meditation in public schools, is an egregiously uninformed one. With the threat of schools adopting this practice, parents need to be informed and need to address the issue with their school committees. This article is a brief attempt to provide some helpful information.

Transcendental Meditation apparently produces some beneficial effects, at least in stable personalities, but it has no monopoly on such benefits. There is clear evidence that these can be produced by other, non-religious, meditative techniques. On the other hand, there are studies, such as that of Dr. Leon Otis of the Stanford Research Institute in California, that strongly contest the success claims of Transcendental Meditation practice. There are also on record, never mentioned by Transcendental Meditation advocates, cases of serious psychological disturbances arising out of its practice. The book Transcendental Misconceptions by R. D. Scott (a former Transcendental Meditation teacher)  is particularly instructive in these matters.

The key issue, of course, is whether Transcendental Meditation is a religion.  Its advocates claim it is not religious since it does not require adhering to a set of beliefs. Even if this were true - and it is not -- that is surely not the issue. Transcendental Meditation is unquestionably a religious practice, as any unbiased examination of it will show. Under US constitutional law, no explicitly Christian practice -- say, making the sign of the Cross, or singing a Christian hymn - would be permitted, much less required, in a public school, even if it involved no assent to Christian belief. Any such practice would be prohibited even as a mere practice. Why should Transcendental Meditation be exempted from this prohibition? Transcendental Meditation is similarly a practice (with or without belief), and indeed involves a clear and explicit act of worship. As such it has no place in public schools; or, if it does, then Christian (or Jewish, Buddhist, Islamic, etc.) practices would have an equal right to be there as well.

Transcendental Meditation's disavowals of its religious nature are deceptive. The initiation ceremony (puja) which every meditator must undergo -- the Maharishi has claimed that without this ritual Transcendental Meditation will not work -- is an invocation of Hindu deities (among those mentioned are Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva) and a repeated "bowing down" to them. This is obscured for most people because the ceremony is performed in Sanskrit and never translated. Initiators claim it is merely a memorial act in honor of the tradition.  The novice being initiated is urged to join in the ritual acts of worship without being told what is really involved. The mantras given - assigned not by what is alleged to be some secret process, but on the basis of age - are often the names of Hindu gods or goddesses. This is explicitly acknowledged by the Maharishi in an address ("Bright Light of the Himalayas") given forty years ago but carefully suppressed by his followers. In recent years the movement under the Maharishi has instituted yagyas - ritual sacrifices offered to Hindu deities by Hindu pandits - as enhancements to the practice of meditation. A calendar is provided indicating which days of the year are auspicious for offerings to specific deities. No observant Christian, Jewish or Islamic parents would knowingly consent to their child's association with such worship through the public schools.

There are now a number of former teachers of the movement who say that they found their practice and teaching deceptive and could no longer be a part of the movement.  Much of what they have to reveal can be accessed on the website trance.net.  In the light of all this, to believe that Transcendental Meditation is not religious is simply absurd.

US courts have recognized the religious nature of Transcendental Meditation and, on this basis, have prohibited its adoption in several public school systems. In 1977, U. S. District Court Judge H. Curtis Meanor found "not the slightest doubt" as to the religious nature of Transcendental Meditation's teachings and its puja ritual. In light of this, his decision was that the teaching of Transcendental Meditation in New Jersey public schools must be prohibited as a violation of the establishment clause of the first amendment. This decision was later upheld by the U. S. Circuit Court on appeal.

None of this is meant to criticize the religious nature or beliefs of Transcendental Meditation or its right under law to practice its religion freely. But its attempts to obscure its religious nature in order to infiltrate public schools and to profit from federal and state monies are certainly open to criticism and to legal challenge.  School officials need to take a long and careful look at some of the ramifications of opening their doors to such a program.  Parents need to be informed so they can defend their rights not to have their children proselytized in a pagan faith within their public schools. This defense can begin with a letter to your local school superintendent and to the state board of education setting forth your objections to any adoption of the program and giving your reasons for this opposition.

V. Rev. James M. Deschene, Abbot
Christ the Saviour Monastery
Providence, RI

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