I’ll never forget Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s words at Humboldt State College in the summer of ’73. Hundreds of us had travelled from all over the world to practice Transcendental Meditation and learn from him. We sat in the college’s gymnasium just waiting for the question and answer segment of each of his talks. It was a scramble for the microphones.
One Deep Well – A long-time TM teacher asked what he should tell initiates who wanted to know if Paramahansa Yogananda’s kriya yoga was a stronger spiritual practice than TM. Maharishi sat silent for a while reflecting, then said, “Everybody is always looking for a better way, the mind always searching, always wanting more. But this only scatters the mind, this running from one meditation practice to another. It is better to dig one well deeply than many that are shallow.”
Always a diplomat and storyteller, Maharishi was obviously recommending adherence to TM.
I didn’t understand the importance of his statement and paid absolutely no attention to that advice. A year later I subscribed to the Self-Realization Fellowship’s (SRF) weekly lessons and started practicing the Hong-Sau breathing technique taught as a prelude to learning formal kriya yoga meditation.
I slacked on my TM practice, but could not stop hearing Maharishi’s word in my conscience. I felt like a defector who had abandoned those who sincerely tried to help him. My mind kept vascillating. Some days I practiced TM, because that was my original and very effective meditation. Other days I would practice Hong-Sau, hoping for some flash of enlightenment TM didn’t give me.
Three years passed in this turmoil. My meditations became nothing more than a war between TM and kriya on the battlefield of my spiritual life. I practiced my SRF techniques half-heartedly, and did no better with TM. I eventually took the formal kriya initiation but abandoned that practice, too, within a few months.
Still Searching – I couldn’t get Maharishi’s words out of my head. I couldn’t sit still to meditate for more than a few minutes, no matter which technique I tried to use. Then, in 1980, I read Alan Watts’ book, The Way of Zen, and off I went on another meditative quest. I travelled to the zen teaching school at Tassajara Hot Springs in Big Sur, determined to finally decide which meditation was the perfect path to nirvana.
There I sat facing a wall in the zendo hall, one person in a long line of Zen students, trying to count up to 10 breaths without having a single intrusive thought. I never made it past three. Maharishi’s gentle recommendation rang in my ears. Mental pictures of the kind, thorough kriya initiators at the SRF headquarters on Mt. Washington in Los Angeles kept appearing to me. I wondered why there wasn’t any mantra in zen meditation. I could even hear the voice of Walter Koch, my TM initiator from 1971. I had not dug any well deeply. I had simply turned my meditative life into a field full of half-dug holes.
About Michael Hoffman
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