Start the week #98

In this week's issue: meeting Maharishi, reflections on language

Greetings!

I hope you enjoy this week’s newsletter, which has a couple of serious sections for a change.

But enough of this persiflage! On with the newsletter.

Terry

Meeting the guru…Maharishi

Having been practising Transcendental Meditation for a number of years, I was very excited at the prospect of meeting Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. The way it happened was as follows. I was booked in for a residential course in a place called Mentmore Towers. I met up with a group of other meditators, and we’d been told that a minibus would collect us from the train station. Well, we arrived but the minibus didn’t. I jokingly said, maybe they’d heard that Maharishi was going to visit. Someone found a public payphone that hadn’t been vandalised, and phoned the venue.

“Get a taxi and come straight away”, came the breathless response. “Maharishi’s on his way!”

Mentmore Towers was set out like this:

Mentmore Towers, by Terry Freedman

“We only received the phone call this morning, and we’ve been polishing the floors, stairs and bannister rails for the last three hours!”

I could believe it: the surfaces were so shiny that I thought the floor was a skating rink.

A car drew up, Maharish emerged, and the first thing he said was:

“It’s such a beautiful day. Let’s go through to the garden.”

And so, without looking to the right or the left, he walked from the drive, through the house, and straight into the garden. All that polishing and scrubbing, all for nought.

I’ve often wondered whether it was Maharishi’s way of teaching a lesson of some sort. I don’t know. I always liked the fact that while Maharishi had great wisdom, he also had a good sense of humour and was very down-to-earth — and was always laughing.

Take, for instance, this exchange after Maharishi had given a lecture:

Audience member: Does it make any difference which direction you lie down in to sleep at night?

Maharishi: Well, it probably does make a bit of a difference, but it’s not worth worrying about. The only thing I would say is, try to avoid sleeping with your head facing North if you can.

AM: But isn’t that the way people are placed when they die in certain cultures?

M: Yes, because it hastens the process of decay, which is a good reason to not do it while we are still alive. 😂😂

Another example:

Audience member: If someone is sleeping in the same room as you are meditating in, would that affect the quality of your meditation?

Maharishi: No, because your meditating will enliven the atmosphere, and that would wake him up. So you wouldn’t need to do anything. Unless he is snoring, in which case you should use more direct methods of waking him up. 🤣🤣

And finally…

Maharishi: If someone has achieved enlightenment, they will automatically be supported by Nature. For example, if an enlightened person loves peas, and they attend a conference, peas will be served at dinner.

Audience member: But what if there’s another enlightened person at the conference, and he doesn’t like peas?

Maharishi: Well, he doesn’t have to eat them, does he? 😂🤣

If you’re interested in how I came to TM, you might enjoy this article:

No, I don’t wear saffron robes!

If you enjoyed this, you might also like The Babbling Brook by

Kate Brook

. I don’t read Kate’s articles often enough, but whenever I do I find them hugely enjoyable. She writes about meditation (not TM) and spirituality, and is always gentle, uplifting and down-to-earth.

I’ve been thinking of writing about other gurus I’ve met in some sense or other. If you enjoyed this story and would like to read similar ones, please let me know in the comments.

Reflections on… language

Whenever politicians (in the UK at any rate), are caught with their fingers in the till, they almost invariably “strenuously deny any wrongdoing”.

Strenuously? I think that little word tells you a lot. If it is such an effort to deny that you’ve done anything wrong, then you must be guilty. Otherwise, it would be easy, wouldn’t it?

It’s the same in job adverts for school teachers. I never applied for any job in a school whose motto was something like “Striving towards excellence”. Firstly, why is the school not excellent yet? Well, I suppose, being generous, a really good school would never feel satisfied with what they’ve achieved¹. But again, there’s that little word which gives the game away: striving. Why is it such a struggle to achieve excellence?

By the same token, I would always avoid schools whose adverts stated that they have excellent discipline. Why the need to say it? It should go without saying.

In my opinion, these are examples of what Stephen Potter referred to in his unforgettable expression, “the petrification of the implied opposite”. This was in his book called Supermanship.

The principle is virtually foolproof. For example, when a senior politician screws up, listen for the party leader’s pronouncement that he or she has total confidence in the offender. That is almost always a guarantee that the person will be given the order of the boot within a week.

When, several years ago, the Government in England introduced a policy called "Supporting People", in the area of social care, I immediately surmised that they intended to reduce the help available by cutting the funding available. I was right. Presumably the support was achieved by making people (the elderly, and people in general who could not live independently) stand on their own two feet.

That was a real life example of this principle.

I could say a lot more about language, and especially the way in which word meanings have been changed in what I regard as a corrupt way. But perhaps that’s an article for another time.

Quick look: The Great Exchange

The Great Exchange: Making the news in early modern Europe, comes out in July, but I’ve been sent a review copy already. I haven’t read very much, but so far it’s a lively and informative read. The author, Joad Raymond Wren, is at pains to point out that this is not a book about the history of newspapers, but that of news. He maintains that the real history of news is not about a chronology of technological inventions.

It seems very interesting, including as it does pamphlets and even at least one diary or chronicle. Jan de Boer kept a diary in which he recorded news as well as personal activities.

So far, I’ve learnt that a few hundred years ago editors were more like collators. They would gather together bnits and pieces of news from various sources and writers and produce a pamphlet. There was no copyright or editorial stance as such.

Anyway, I’ll have more to say about this book once I’ve read rather more of it!

For the musicians…

I’m always looking for how-to videos for playing the saxophone, and saxophone solos, so it’s not entirely surprising that this Pro Muso bloke turned up in my YouTube timeline. He talks about the mistakes musicians make on stage, and other useful topics. His videos are aimed at people like himself, solo artists who sing and play guitar in pubs and at weddings. However, much of his advice, such as how to overcome stage fright, is applicable more generally.

I’ve been devouring his videos: they are packed with good advice and down-to-earth humour, which is why I’ve subscribed to his YouTube channel. Here’s his latest (and there’s another one near the end of this newsletter):

Articles you may enjoy

How to hug a teenager: a heartwarming and humorous tale from

Good Humor by CK Steefel

A very profound joke: the joke is an old one, but I liked the way

John Cleese

links it to Behaviourism.

You wait for an article about jury service, and then two come along at once — just like London buses. Here’s one from

Tom Pendergast

: Jury Service and one from

David Roberts

: I was a nightmare juror. Both are very interesting — and very honest.

Letter from Rebecca by

Rebecca Holden

. It’s my turn to reply, which I hope to do on Wednesday (I’m just not sure which one yet!²).

Experiments in Style: mystery algorithm. I accidentally sent this out to paid subscribers only, but it’s now open to all. Do read it. Pretty please? It took me quite a while to construct it. Can you identify the algorithm at work in this, the latest version of simple short story?

Videos you might find chortlesome

Tommy Cooper’s Glass of Milk Trick

Charlie Williams: Dustbin Man

Pro Muso: are you hungry?

Well, I hope y’all enjoyed this newsletter. Do tell all your friends and non-friends about it. And remember, if you liked (or disliked) the sections on meeting Maharishi and language, please let me know in a comment.

1. A bit like me with regards to my saxophone playing — except that I’m nowhere near excellent and it really is a struggle!

2. When I phoned my best friend a few years ago he said, “Hello! When you said you would phone in October I assumed you meant the same year! 🤣”