I remember growing up in the 70’s. I would watch “60 Minutes” Sunday nights with my dear grandparents and have some quality time with them.
A younger Dan Rather somberly intoned not once but a few times on the emergent cultural manifestations of “cults” taking over the young people.
Kool-Aid people, EST, the Hare Krishnas, Osho followers, and Transcendental Meditation were all grouped together. I remember specifically the “proof” that these were scary terrible sects. Something about not being able to go to the bathroom.
As a glad initiate now into Transcendental Meditation, and able to go to the bathroom whenever I want to, I kind of laugh at these memories of the show although it affected me at the time. I am now friends with a number of people who were lucky enough to be in the movement in the 70’s.
Also interesting to me is how the word “brain-washing” came up on the TV segments again and again. (Are there any youtube videos of these early shows? I couldn’t find them with a cursory search.))
You know what? The funniest thing is that I do feel like my brain is literally washed when I meditate, not in the old 60 Minutes sense, but like fresh laundry on a sunny morning.
It’s considered hygienic to wash your body of dirt and impurities. Why not wash and rinse your mind of unneeded stresses, even addictions (I am told), and hopefully, ultimately, of old vasanas and samskaras?
What are we collectively afraid of here? I’m just curious. Are there some attachments to the cultural significations of some of these impurities?
3 responses so far ↓
1 Sharon H. Russo // Jul 18, 2008 at 9:42 am
Hi all, Hi Renay,
This passage brought back fond memories of my time in 70’s and the hippie movement. Do you remember that song they had on TV–the coke commercial that said something about our all living in perfect harmony and about loving everyone? Does anyone remember the lyrics?
That, to me, has a universal theme that the hippies were trying to bring into our lives–universal love. And it is still a theme of mine, which I have found, never grows old.
Anyway, my sense of the general public’s reaction to the cults of that time and the practices was just fear of something new and experimental and perhaps you could say, creative. And I think that is true of all of us, and especially mainstream society, that we are afraid of the new, creative, and change–whether it’s a new movement in the world or something new we are undertaking in our personal lives. That is what I find true of me and what I have observed in other people and life currents as well.
Yes, I like the analogy of washing the mind of impurities through meditation–and I agree it is very different from the term “brainwashing” which reminds me of the Nazis and some of the programming that has taken place in some cults.
I was into TM back in the 70’s, too, and remember, too, that the retreats were kind of
regimented. I never quite understood or connected with that approach–seems kind of controlling with too many rules. Anyone have any thoughts about this? I’m thinking the rules are designed to keep order and organization in a group to meet the need of efficiency. That can get out of hand, though, if too strict, like anything else, and interfere with the individual’s creativity. Perhaps balance between rigidity and looseness in applying rules or discipline is a good goal.
Thank you for listening to my musings. May someone benefit from it and feel a sense of connection. Wishing all beings happiness and universal love.
Sharon
2 Lis' // Oct 13, 2008 at 8:55 pm
I remember watching the after school specials about cults and it always involved hired goons hired by the parents to violently kidnap the youth cult-ee. I used to wonder why not leave the kid alone if he’s happy there.
But there is some danger to cults: Jim Jones and who held the people there in Jonestown, in Guyana, after promising to build a pan-racial marxist paradise and wouldn’t let them leave and then poisoned the people with Kool-Aid (hence that dumbass political expression accusing folks of “drinking the Kool-Aid”. Many things of the 70s were not all happiness and harmony like they purported to be, and still aren’t.
But one thing that still is nice is that Coca-Cola commercial. Here’s a link to the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mOEU87SBTU
3 Renay // Oct 13, 2008 at 9:18 pm
Hi Lis. Yeah, Coca-Cola is the ultimate Kool-Aid, figuratively and literally IMHO. See my post for more of my travails with this product
http://ayurastro.com/astrology/?p=17
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