The TM-Sidhi Sutras and Hyperventilation

There are several problems with their claims. The very Hindu sources they use for these techniques, the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali and their commentaries by Vyasa and Shankara, mention nothing remotely like this. Then there are the logical fallacies inherent in their spiel. And the just plain scary physiological science of the practice.

We have no intention of arguing matters of faith. Our concern is the Maharishi attempts to make scientific claims for his teachings -- teachings that may be dangerous in the extreme.

Let's Talk Doctrine For A Moment

According to the "Holy Tradition" the Maharishi claims to come from, first the yogin "can walk on water and then on cobwebs and on rays of light. Thereafter he can move to the sky at will." (Yoga Philosophy of Patanjali, Swami Aranya, SUNY University Press, Albany, 1983, p.318. This is the translation used by the Maharishi to develop the techniques he sells as unique to his movement.)

Patanjali doesn't mention stages at all. How forgetful!

Vyasa doesn't mention shaking, sweating, and hopping. But his first stage is walking on water -- how strange!

Shankara, considered by most the ultimate interpreter of Vedanta and the most important figure in the Maharishi's Holy Tradition, mentions not 4, but 6 stages of flying -- also beginning with walking on water. But gosh, he left out shaking, trembling, sweating, and hopping -- how... how ... how embarrassing!

It would seem that any TMer who hasn't at least taken a few steps on a nearby pond hasn't achieved even the first stage of levitation -- never mind being half way there.

TM movement spokespeople and apologists continually bring up a little-known text on hatha (physical) yoga, the Shiva Samhita,* to support hopping as some kind of proof the TM-Sidhis work. (Rai Bahadur Srisa Vasu, trans., The Shiva Samhita, New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publisher, 30.)

Shiva Samhita does indeed state that if you practice a certain hyperventilation technique you will twitch and hop. But it makes no mention of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali or the mental technique that TMers practice.

Our guess is the reason that the TM movement champions this little-known document so often is it is the only reference to shaking, twitching, sweating, and so forth they could find anywhere in Indian religious literature.

A Brief Appeal To Logic

How can the Maharishi use a dubious, or at least obscure, Hindu reference to the effect of a hyperventilation technique to prove the efficacy of a mental, TM-Sidhi technique?

Some people believe aspirin will cure a headache. Some people believe pinching an accupressure point will. The efficacy of these two techniques are completely different.

Even if levitation exists, doubtful, wouldn't it stand to reason that some techniques are better than others at producing it? And that some techniques might not work at all?

The Movement's theory seems much like the logic of that lovable conman, Professor Harold Hill, in the The Music Man, who reasoned that because every musician thought "Minuet in G," before you played "Minuet in G," there was obviously no need to practice to become a musician. One need only think like a musician.

Logical fallacy.

And it seems to us that this is what the Maharishi is selling. In spades.

There are numerous logical circles here.

1. The Maharishi teaches techniques that he claims develop "passage through the skies" (levitation) and other paranormal abilities.

2. He can't produce a single successful practitioner of any paranormal ability after 20 years -- despite charging tens of millions of dollars to teach these techniques.

3. So as supposed proof that he's on the right path, he points to an obscure Hindu text that says if you hyperventilate you will sweat, shake, and leap -- and that eventually this can lead to "walking on air."

4. He makes the logical leap that, since if you hyperventilate you sweat, shake, and leap, and during the TM-Sidhis some people sweat, shake, and leap, therefore if hyperventilation can bring about "walking on the air" then TM-Sidhis must bring about "passage through the skies." Eventually.

5. Along come people who point out that this is at the least logically inconsistent. There is no similarity between hyperventilating and repeating "lightness of cotton fiber" (the actual practice of levitation in TM) noiselessly to oneself. And just because both reportedly cause people to leap, it doesn't follow that either or both techniques will ever lead to flying/levitation/whatever.

6. But then the Maharishi, and his TM apologists, obfuscate with, "Oh, you don't understand the subtlety of Indian thought. The translations could mean anything. They all point to something similar don't they? This text says 'walking on air' is possible and that's almost the same thing as 'passage through the skies,' after all. And other Christian, Islamic, and Indian saints have also been reported to levitate. So you see, we've really proved that TM-Sidhis work."

7. Here are the circles:

If you can't trust the translations, you can't use them as support for your argument in Step 3.

The texts are not very similar: they use different techniques, describe very different stages of attainment, and describe the paranormal ability in very different terms.

And the fact that other people claim that they've levitated is in no way a proof that TM-Sidhas ever will levitate. Who knows what techniques they used -- if any? Even if the reports are to be believed?

If you accept that logic, you would have to accept this: Sleeping causes one's respiration to decrease; meditation causes one's respiration to decrease; sleeping and meditation are both equally effective in causing one's respiration to decrease.

And we still have that pesky problem that the head-Hindu-honchoes Patanjali, Shankara, and Vyasa never mention shaking, sweating, OR leaping when they discuss levitation. But they do talk about "walking on water" as the first stage of levitation. So what is the anonymous author of the obscure Shiva Samhita talking about?

Okay, Let's Mention Science In Passing

Hyperventilating to extreme lengths by anybody may cause trembling, twitching, sweating, and epileptic-seizures of the extremities -- which could result in a kind of hopping if one is sitting in lotus position. It can also cause neurological and brain damage.

Rajneeshis/Oshos and Lifespringers practice hyperventilation to this extent. Liefespring even reportedly has its own jargon for this "spiritual" experience: "Crabbing" refers to hands and feet spasming into claw-like shapes; "lobstering" refers to flopping around on the ground, with arms and legs twitching. Rebirthers and followers of Panditji Ravi Shankar's Sudarshan Kriya may also have similar experiences.

It should be noted that pranayama simply means "control of breath," and that there are dozens if not hundreds of pranayama techniques. Some are calming -- and may actually be used by Western doctors to treat hyperventilation. Most "advanced" pranayamas are in fact various forms of vigorous hyperventilation, however.

According to the standard Western medical work on hyperventilation, The Hyperventilation Syndrome: Research and Clinical Treatment, (Robert Fried, 1987, The Johns Hopkins University Press), hyperventilation is not defined in terms of "bellows" breathing or any other outwardly obvious form of breathing, but rather by parameters of blood gases:

"While acute hyperventilation is readily observable in most persons, chronic hyperventilation may be quite subtle, and its effects may not invariably be obvious.... My clinical experience has been that it is much more likely that a person with no overt dyspnea [labored breathing] may be hyperventilating than that a person with typical signs [the symptoms below] is, in fact, not doing so.... When this increased ventilation results in a change in the level of carbon dioxide in the blood, the person is said to hyperventilate. Hyperventilation may be accompanied by physical and/or mental symptoms due to changes in the oxygen transport system, changes in circulation to the brain, and neural and cardiovascular adjustments to low carbon dioxide (hypcapnia)." pps.6-8

Signs or symptoms of hyperventilation syndrome [either advanced or chronic hyperventilation] include:

• "initially, there is a slight transient tremor of the eyelids and facial musculature--usually one side only (and typically the right side); *tremors are replaced by muscular rigidity in the face and hands--the lips form a circle, close against the teeth, thumb and fingers are extended; the width of the hand is reduced to the 'obstetric ian's hand' configuration [claw-like];
• if hyperpnea [overbreathing] is discontinued at this point, no rigidity is noted in other parts of the body;

  ....

• lightheadedness, giddiness
• fainting, syncope [blackout]
• headache [including onset of migraine]
• blurred vision
• tremors, twitching [including tetany, powerful spasmodic contractions of tonic muscles, and epileptic-like seizures]
• numbness, tingling, prickling (paresthesia)
• chest pain, discomfort
• nausea
• vomiting
• abdominal pain
• lump in the throat
• dry mouth
• difficulty breathing
• weakness, exhaustion
• apprehension, nervousness" (op. cit., pps. 58-60)

The symptoms appear to mimic aspects of both epilepsy and panic attacks.

"Brain hypoxia [lack of oxygen caused by hyperventilation] is typically evident in elevated mean theta in the EEG.... [Just as reported by Banquet, Orme-Johnson and other TM researchers during TM -- and especially the TM Sidhis]

"Engel et al.... attributed EEG slowing to ischemic hypoxia ..... [Just as reported by Banquet, Orme-Johnson and other TM researchers during TM -- and especially the TM Sidhis]

"Holmberg (1953).... confirmed the fact that spontaneous spike and waves, a typical pattern in idiopathic epilepsy, can be increased threefold in the resting EEG by hyperventilation.... [Just as reported by Banquet, Orme-Johnson and other TM researchers during TM -- and especially the TM Sidhis]

"Hyperventilation may be accompanied by low-frequency, high voltage brain-wave activity (theta).... [Just as reported by Banquet, Orme-Johnson and other TM researchers during TM -- and especially the TM Sidhis]

"Theta is generally held to be accompanied by cerebral vasoconstriction and reduced blood flow, producing, in some instances, paroxysmal vasospasm and seizures....

"An abnormal pattern of brain waves has been shown to be present in the majority of persons with hyperventilation.... This pattern is observed as an elevation in power in the four-to-eight Hertz [theta] segment of the EEG frequency spectrum... [Just as reported by Banquet, Orme-Johnson and other TM researchers during TM -- and especially the TM Sidhis]

(Interestingly, Fried recommends TM, the Relaxation Response, and Zen meditation to treat hyperventilation based on the early research of Benson, Wallace, Banquet, and others -- which showed depressed delta and theta waves and heightened alpha waves. He doesn't appear to be aware of the later research showing increased delta and theta waves -- or the TM sidhis at all. He is, however, very knowledgeable about Patanjali's Yoga Sutras and quotes them frequently.)

In any case, it's not unusual to see any or all of these effects in a TM-Sidhi hall during the "levitation" technique -- and during the "rest" period afterwards. And nearly every practitioner of the TM-Sidhis have experienced the sudden rushes of "energy" throughout their nervous system that is the hallmark of extreme hyperventilation.

By Way Of Summation

1) If the Siva Samhita (to use the more prevalent spelling) recommends hyperventilation for achieving levitation, and if the Maharishi thinks so highly of this source that he cites it as proof that his levitation technique is valid -- why the heck didn't he teach TMers to hyperventilate rather than think sutras?

2) If the sutra technique in Patanjali is actually superior, why doesn't he quote from the Yoga Sutras when discussing the stages of flying? Which clearly says in the words of Patanjali, as well as the bashyas of Vyasa and Shankara, that the first stage is walking on water?

3) Has any TMer ever walked on water? If not, how can we claim that TMers have even reached the first stage of flying/levitation? Or that the TM Sidhi techniques work at all -- even after 20 years of practice?

4) When every mainstream source that we can find indicates that practicing sidhis is actually an obstacle to transcendence, by what authority does the Maharishi claim the exact opposite?

5) When the Siva Samhita, other texts on pranayama, and the Yoga Sutras all warn readers not to practice any of these advanced techniques without personal supervision of an experienced guru, why does the TM organization teach them to the public after only a few months of meditation -- and without consistent or even easy contact with experienced teachers? Couldn't this be the source of the "unstressing" problems/victim stories at http://www.trancenet.net/personal?

It's clear to us that for an organization to claim that they teach techniques for supernormal abilities, to offer no physical proof, to back it up with inappropriate and misapplied quotes from minor Hindu scriptures as theoretical underpinning, and to charge an unsuspecting public many tens of millions of dollars for this chicanery, at the very least is not quite what we expect from a "spiritual" outfit.

And to allow the neurological damage they cause to continue unchecked in literally tens of thousands of people around the globe is a crime against humanity.

*We recommend to readers who doubt that this technique will cause hyperventilation to try doing it for about 3 or 4 minutes. We will be very surprised if you don't experience dizzyness or lightheadedness within 10 or 20 breaths.

There is no doubt in our mind that controlling and holding the breath in this manner will vary the CO2 in your blood stream -- which is the only meaningful Western definition of hyperventilation.

22. Then let the wise practitioner close with his right thumb the pingala (the right nostril), inspire air through the ida (the left nostril); and keep the air confined -- suspend his breathing -- as long as he can; and afterwards let him breathe out slowly, and not forcibly, through the right nostril.

23. Again, let him draw breath through the right nostril, and stop breathing as long as his strength permits; then let him expel the air through the left nostril, not forcibly, but slowly and gently.

....

39. When the Yogi can, of his will, regulate the air and stop the breath (whenever and how long) he likes, then certainly he gets success in kumbhaka, and from the success in kumbhaka only, what things cannot the Yogi command here?

40. In the first stage of pranayama, the body of the Yogi begins to perspire. When it perspires, he should rub it well, otherwise the body of the Yogi loses its dhatu.

41. In the second stage, there takes place the trembling of the body; in the third, the jumping about like a frog; and when the practice becomes greater, the adept walks in the air.

42. When the Yogi, though remaining in Padmasana, can rise in the air and leave the ground, then know that he has gained Vayu-siddhi (success over the air), which destroys the darkness of the world.

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