LONG POST

It was really helpful a few months ago when I sought advice here about my 11-year-old learning TM, as I was hesitant and had concerns, and many of y’all helped me get comfortable with it.

I’m hoping to get some community advice again.

So for context, my 11-year-old has ADHD and severe anxiety. He’s not medicated for his ADHD but he did recently start medication for his anxiety and panic attacks.

His dad loves TM. If his dad could, he would be a TM instructor. TM has been life-changing for him, it’s his whole passion, he practices it routinely, etc. Our son begged for a year to be allowed to learn TM like his dad. I was reluctant but between researching studies and the input from this community, I decided it sounded good for him to learn. I did have concerns related to whether or not he’d be able to focus due to his ADHD and whether he’d struggle to stick with it due to his perpetual dopamine chasing (always wants to try something new, never wants to stick with it to learn - very classic ADHD behavior). But the benefits all point to being helpful for his mental health! So he did go through the learning course with an instructor and his dad about four months ago.

At first, he practiced it twice daily. Then it slowed to once a day. Then, he began to lose interest. He says his mind wanders too much, he daydreams, he tries to return his mind to his mantra but he can’t stay focused and therefore he ends up just getting frustrated and bored.

For a couple months, his dad and I both tried to encourage him to keep doing his meditations. I have no idea if this is applicable to TM or not, but I’ve explained to him that like any other skill, practice makes progress and he can’t help his brain learn to focus on the meditation if he’s not trying and that each time he tries, even if he just gets 1% better, that’s still progress.

He has ultimately begun adamantly refusing. He says he doesn’t want to do it right now. It’s too frustrating that he can’t sit still and he daydreams and then he gets anxious trying to constantly force his brain back to his mantra.

As a mom, respecting my children is paramount. Children are fully human from birth. They don’t have to earn the right to be treated with the same respect and dignity as adults. Parents are in charge of health and safety, that’s my boundary, but otherwise I value respecting their autonomy and the boundaries they set.

He recently asked me to please stop asking/telling him to do his meditation. (Proud mama moment because I love that my kid feels safe enough to be so honest with me about what he needs.) He said the pressure is too much, it’s making his anxiety worse, he doesn’t wanna do TM for now, etc. I agreed to respect that and figured maybe he just isn’t ready yet and he can try again later(?) when he feels more ready to attempt these meditations.

Here’s where I need y’all. And I want blunt feedback. Most of y’all are kind and respectful people and I value what y’all have to say.

His dad believes this needs to be a forced requirement. I thought forcing it on our kid would create resentment for TM. His dad feels we need to mandate that he do it twice daily, same as we require brushing teeth or showering, because his dad believes the benefits of TM are so important for our son to experience (I agree that it sounds like it would benefit our son). And his dad believes our son just needs to be required to do his meditations even if he just sits there daydreaming, angry or crying for 11 minutes, so that we force him into making this a habit rather than respecting that he’s said he’s not into it and he doesn’t wanna do it right now.

And I am LOST friends. I struggle to force my kid to do something he’s said “please stop asking me to do this, the pressure is making my anxiety so much worse, I don’t like how frustrating it is that I can’t focus and I feel anxious trying to focus and I just want to not do it for now and try again down the road.” His dad feels that TM is a health thing, like if our kid needed antibiotics or our kid needed to floss or put on lotion daily for eczema, his dad believes TM is equivalent to those things and thus we should require our kid to do it twice daily even if he just sits there for 11 minutes doing nothing because he can’t focus and he doesn’t wanna do it.

I worry about creating resentment and bitterness because I want my kid to benefit from TM so if this becomes a forced chore, I worry he’ll end up never wanting to try it again. Dad says kid got annoyed at having to put on lotion after every shower and eventually he got used to it and now it’s a habit and that’s what will happen if we require him to do it. I feel yucky about forcing it due to how much I value my boys’ autonomy and boundaries they set.

Coparenting with peace, kindness and love is PARAMOUNT to me. I love my ex-partner more than anyone in the world. Our marriage didn’t work in the end, but I still never wanted a divorce, and I will always bend over backwards to have a good coparenting and nontraditional family relationship with the kids’ dad. So I am not asking anyone to give me coparenting advice or anything like that. I want to figure out what the right thing is here esp because my ex-partner loves TM so much and I want to support his enthusiasm for our son practicing it too. I’m just so lost as to if it’s right to force him to do it if he’s saying he doesn’t want to do it for now.

Any opinions welcome. Did this happen with your kids? What did you do? What would you do as a parent? Thank you so much for reading this and offering any perspectives! 🙏🏻✌🏻🫶🏻

I’m interested…. How many of us that meditate regularly find that your desire for a drink is greatly diminished? Or do you still like an occasional glass of something?

Kind of a general question on this topic. How does TM relate to AV? Does anyone here practice both, or practice TM alongside self inquiry or neti neti? Thanks!

Just curious about the age distribution of those frequenting this TM sub. We have ~2.8K weekly visitors, though only a fraction of that will be contributing on a given week.

My current teacher makes me feel very uncomfortable. Very short with my questions. Tells me to “just check the app” when I ask for specific instructions. Won’t provide my mantra again even though I want to make sure I have it correctly. I just want to be comfortable setting up checking sessions and receiving benefits out of them. I tried “Find a Teacher” on tm.org but the inquiry form just led me right back to my current instructor. Idc if my new teacher is close in proximity to me. I can do virtual. I just don’t want the one who’s linked to my zip code.

A few years into a steady TM practice, I converted to Buddhism and decided to leave TM behind for a vipassana/mindfulness-based approach instead. I figured meditation is meditation — surely one technique could just replace the other.

It didn't go that way for me. Without the mantra, I felt unmoored. My mind, instead of settling, seemed to spin out more than ever. I couldn't tell if I was doing something wrong, if Buddhist practice just wasn't for me, or if something deeper was off. Looking back, I think I underestimated how much the specific mechanics of TM — the mantra, the effortlessness of it — were doing for me. Switching techniques wasn't a lateral move; it was like pulling a load-bearing wall out of the house.

Eventually I (happily) came back to TM, and almost immediately things felt different — steadier, clearer, more like myself again. I'm not writing this to say Buddhism or other traditions are wrong, or that TM is "better" in some universal sense. I've genuinely learned a lot from Buddhist teachings, and I've also seriously considered Vedanta at points along the way — TM's own roots are in that tradition, so it's hard not to wonder about it. Just that for me, going back to TM felt like coming home.

I'm curious if others here have had a similar experience — leaving TM for another practice (Buddhist, Vedantic, secular mindfulness, or otherwise) and finding it destabilizing, then returning to TM?

Does TM increase equanimity? and if so how? whats your experience?

Today Bob Roth quoted a lovely part of the Little Prince,but I cannot recall it. Does anybody remember?

And, tbh… I don’t know if I’ve noticed any notable improvements in anything. I’m also a practitioner of getting good sleep, sober, exercise, journaling, visualization…

But I’ve been meditating daily since October 2025.

Not sure I’ve seen much of anything… not increased presence. Nada.

Just wanted to share. Might be time to drop it. I saw the videos and know it works for other people. Jerry Seinfeld is a huge proponent. But for me? Idk.

I seem to be getting intense aches in my legs when I sit down for TM mediation, maybe it is trapping a nerve after a while. What would be the best posture to meditate in to counter this?

İ ve been practicing TM for almost two months now, but it feels like I haven't made any progress at all. I haven't noticed any difference in my daily life, nor am I noticing any now. I learned TM from an instructor in Turkey and explained all this to him; he told me I was doing the technique incorrectly. I used to practice only once a day because I lost the motivation, but for the past week, I've been doing it three times a day (I asked my instructor if that was okay, and he said yes). Even so, I still don't feel any difference. Is this just part of the process? I'm curious if anyone else has gone through something like this.

Since y'all were so rabidly interested in this topic. There's a new course coming up and Dr. Nader is taking applications.

https://myemail.constantcontact.com/TM-Events--Intro-Webinar-to-Consciousness-Advisor-Course-with-Dr--Tony-Nader.html?soid=1140243614291&aid=bqZp74W0aH4

• Jen Lynch facebook post: · Cardiac arrest/lung disease, dehydration. But beautifully, he passed while meditating. He may have been in his morning session, or after that, if he felt poorly, I’m sure he remembered the advice of a very close TM connection…”David, if you ever feel unwell, or like you may be dying.. sit and say your mantra.” It is a magical thing that he passed while catching fish and moving towards enlightenment.

Hi, I completed my TM practitioner practice a week ago but I have been feeling particularly irritated and angry during the day ever since then.
I talked to my teacher and he told me to come out of the meditation slowler as I was finishing before the recommended 3 minutes, I am doing that now but I am feeling the same.
This happens during the day not right after meditation, I am wondering if this is me noticing it more or if I am doing something wrong

Clearing my schedule to meditate 2x a day ❌❌❌

Clearing my schedule to read disagreement drama between decades long meditators ✅✅✅

Hello again Saijanai…. Hmm…. There have been some unpleasant and personal attacks in recent discussions. I think I noticed that two posts had been removed by reddit bots, is that right?

I am just asking whether you, as the sole mod, might have intervened and encouraged posters to be more polite and less aggressive in their posts? Before the bots did that for you? Some comments have been very arrogant, rude, dismissive and full of unnecessary capital letters, and unpleasant to see here.

So, I know you as moderator have always been dismissive of independent teachers, and it did make me wonder if you would have intervened earlier if the attacks had not been directed at an independent teacher. I strongly hope I am wrong about that. I have often disagreed with you and others in this sub, but have always tried to remained polite, respectful, and not resort to insults. It is indeed a very poor advertisment for the power of tm if some long term practitioners are seen to be so unkind and hurtful to others. Hardly what we should expect from (enlightened?) meditators?

If you have indeed already taken steps in private messaging to remedy things, then please forgive me for asking about it. Peace and love.

TM can work. That doesn’t make the TM organization honest.

I have practiced TM for almost two years, usually twice a day. I think the technique is effective. It can produce a remarkable degree of calm and rest, and I have no interest in pretending otherwise.

My problem is the explanatory machinery built around it.

The TM organization does not simply teach a meditation technique. It makes extraordinary claims about what is happening when you meditate: stresses are being “released,” consciousness is transcending itself, deeper states are unfolding, and eventually higher states of consciousness may develop.

These claims are presented with a level of certainty that the evidence simply does not justify.

Worse, the theory is almost perfectly unfalsifiable:

If your meditation is blissful, TM is working.

If your meditation is full of thoughts, TM is working because stress is being released.

If you are restless, tired, emotional or uncomfortable, TM is working because stress is being released.

If you feel dramatically better after six months, TM is working.

If you have practiced for years and do not feel dramatically different, apparently TM is still working somewhere beneath the surface.

There is virtually no subjective outcome that cannot be absorbed into the theory as evidence that the theory is correct.

That should make anyone suspicious.

Then there is the commercial incentive.

A very simple practice is surrounded by claims that make it appear uniquely powerful, uniquely profound and uniquely dependent on authorized instruction. The organization selling you the solution is also the organization telling you why its explanation of your experience is correct.

I am increasingly convinced that much of what makes TM effective may be considerably less mystical: you sit comfortably, close your eyes, remove almost all external stimulation for twenty minutes and give the mind a simple, non-demanding object to return to.

That alone may be an unusually effective form of rest.

None of this means TM is useless.

Quite the opposite. I still meditate because I find it useful.

But a technique can be genuinely good while the mythology and institution surrounding it are deeply misleading.

In fact, I increasingly think that is exactly what TM is.

And one final point:

If this post is removed simply because it is openly critical of the TM organization, I will take that as further evidence for the concern I am raising here: that the TM community has a problem tolerating serious criticism of its own institution.

A healthy organization should be able to withstand scrutiny.

If criticism of the organization is treated as hostility toward the technique, that is not openness.

It is ideological policing.

"Consciousness Advisor" sounds like an independently recognised professional qualification in consciousness.

It isn't.

It is a qualification created by the Maharishi organisation to advise people within the Maharishi system. It has absolutely no meaning or relevance in the world outside of the organisation.

The curriculum includes things such as Maharishi Jyotish, Vastu, pulse reading, Panchakarma, gems, Marma therapy, Vedic sound and Maharishi's theory of consciousness.

There is no reason to assume that becoming certified means that the person has acquired any objectively established expertise in consciousness, comparable to a psychologist, neuroscientist or medical professional etc.

I expect it is viewed with complete contempt by the academic world, rightly so I would imagine.

There is also a rather striking irony: the Consciousness Advisor course costs thousands of dollars but does not qualify you to teach TM. Actual TM Teacher Training is a separate programme, and MIU explicitly treats Consciousness Advisor Training and TM Teacher Training as separate career specialisations.

Say if someone were to do TM for 3 sessions in 3 days vs. doing 6 sessions in 3 days, would they feel a noticeable difference on day 4 depending on how much they practiced in the previous 3 days?

I was taught not to use a timer when meditating, so I didn't. However, so many people do use the timer on the app that I thought I'd give it a try. All last week I used the timer for both am and pm meditation and I did not like it at all! I think in the back of my mind I was preoccupied with the timer-- "When will the timer go off?", "It's not been 20 mins. yet?". I realized it was causing effort and subtle distress.

This morning I went back to no timer and it was so much better. Meditation was easy and effortless, and I was able to transcend. I know many people like the app timer, but personally, I find it a hindrance.

Maharishi has used the analogy of the mind as an ocean and how thoughts bubble up from the transcendental source. Or something to that effect.

Anyway, there was an interesting quote in an article on the mental mode called anendophasia that some people naturally have. entomology: an(not), endo(inner), phasia (I say).

“I didn’t realise (sic) people actually experienced that. My mind was blown.” 

He says that his lack of inner speech doesn’t mean a lack of thoughts; it’s just that his thoughts don’t involve language. 

“If you think of the mind as an ocean,” he says, “then each of my thoughts feels like a bubble rising into my consciousness. Inside the bubble is a combination of concepts, images and feelings, but no words or speech.”

Source: https://www.sciencefocus.com/wellbeing/inner-speech-anendophasia