Question: How did you find out about Transcendental Meditation?

Answer: I first heard about Transcendental Meditation about 10 years ago. I wanted to learn more, so I asked what it was all about. A teacher played some Maharishi tapes and every tape I listened to, even though he’s not my rabbi or my spiritual mentor, everything he said was exactly on par with the Torah. I couldn’t believe it. I said, “This is not new age; this is the wisdom of the ages. They are different because that is the Torah and that is the Bhagavad Gita that he brings it from, but the wisdom, the thought process is the same. He came to the same conclusion that the greatest rabbis would give.”

Question: Is Transcendental Meditation a religion?

Answer: TM is nothing like a religion because no one has to do anything. You have to follow your own path in it. You have to find your own self within TM. You can be a great Jew, you can be a great Catholic, Christian, Protestant, etc. It doesn’t talk about God. It just opens yourself up to God because that’s the God within us. That’s the beauty of TM. It’s just a procedure, a technology, a method, a practice. It’s not religion at all.

Speaker: Rabbi Abe Shainberg
Length: 4:49

Cheryl Stone
Author: Cheryl Stone

Project Manager