TM comes from the advaita vedanta tradition of the northern Shankaracharya tradition (as this little link explains in detail).
Advaita Vedanta enlightenment is exactly the opposite of what most on Quora are used to to hearing about.
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi convinced his students to pioneer the study of meditation and enlightenment many decades ago, saying:
"Every experience has its level of physiology, and so unbounded awareness has its own level of physiology which can be measured. Every aspect of life is integrated and connected with every other phase. When we talk of scientific measurements, it does not take away from the spiritual experience. We are not responsible for those times when spiritual experience was thought of as metaphysical. Everything is physical. [human] Consciousness is the product of the functioning of the [human] brain. Talking of scientific measurements is no damage to that wholeness of life which is present everywhere and which begins to be lived when the physiology is taking on a particular form. This is our understanding about spirituality: it is not on the level of faith --it is on the level of blood and bone and flesh and activity. It is measurable."
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A list of many of the studies that have been done on the topics of meditation, samadhi/pure consciousness and enlightenment can be found here.
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As part of the studies on enlightenment via TM, researchers found 17 subjects (average meditation, etc experience 16,000 hours) who were reporting at least having a pure sense-of-self continuously for at least a year, and asked them to "describe yourself" (see table 3 of psychological correlates study), and these were some of the responses:
- We ordinarily think my self as this age; this color of hair; these hobbies . . . my experience is that my Self is a lot larger than that. It's immeasurably vast. . . on a physical level. It is not just restricted to this physical environment
- It's the ‘‘I am-ness.’’ It's my Being. There's just a channel underneath that's just underlying everything. It's my essence there and it just doesn't stop where I stop. . . by ‘‘I,’’ I mean this 5 ft. 2 person that moves around here and there
- I look out and see this beautiful divine Intelligence. . . you could say in the sky, in the tree, but really being expressed through these things. . . and these are my Self
- I experience myself as being without edges or content. . . beyond the universe. . . all-pervading, and being absolutely thrilled, absolutely delighted with every motion that my body makes. With everything that my eyes see, my ears hear, my nose smells. There's a delight in the sense that I am able to penetrate that. My consciousness, my intelligence pervades everything I see, feel and think
- When I say ’’I’’ that's the Self. There's a quality that is so pervasive about the Self that I'm quite sure that the ‘‘I’’ is the same ‘‘I’’ as everyone else's ‘‘I.’’ Not in terms of what follows right after. I am tall, I am short, I am fat, I am this, I am that. But the ‘‘I’’ part. The ‘‘I am’’ part is the same ‘‘I am’’ for you and me
So, the above is what it is like to be in the begining stage of enlightenment as defined in the advaita vedanta tradition. It is as far from what most people call Buddhist enlightenment as it is possible to imagine, so if you go with the Buddhist definition, then, to quote the moderators of r/Buddhism, TM-style enlightenment is the ultimate illusion.
YMMV as to what you think is the real deal. englightenment-wise.
However, if you recall, when the Dali Lama was told the old joke about the Buddha at the hot dog stand, saying “make me one with everything,” the Dali Lama didn’t get the joke.
It’s a joke about advaita vedanta enlightenment, not a joke about Buddhist enlightenment, which begins by realizing that “me” doesn’t exist.
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