"Do you like it?" she whispered.

"Oh yes!" I said.

"Are any thoughts wandering through your mind?"

"Yes," I admitted, thinking I knew what she was getting at.

"Good. Now let your mantra begin just as easily as those thoughts."

"Impossible!" I hissed. But nevertheless I did try, and somehow, in that warm, dark room listening to that girl's warm voice, the meditation was reminiscent of my first ones. The next morning, back at Harvard, I couldn't recapture the spell, and since she hadn't even asked about particular conditions of my trouble the check-up didn't help.

In desperation, I had an interview with Charles Geer. Geer is president of the Boston chapter of SIMS, a student at Harvard Business School, and a likeable, earnest person. I asked him if he could explain why I, and others, hadn't been successful at meditation. Jerry Jarvis said the technique was a simple, mechanical matter, and he had assured prospective meditators that anyone would benefit from it.

Well, said Geer, of course one's state of mind is important. You've got to have the right psychological outlook. In Geer's opinion I wanted meditation to fail: I was trying to write a critical newspaper article, after all.

Any Attitude

Not necessarily a critical one, I answered. And I had been optimistic in the beginning, and besides, Jarvis had stressed that a person's attitude toward meditation was completely irrelevant. Was Geer willing to admit that, contrary to Jarvis, some people couldn't be reached by meditation?

He quickly amended his statement. "Anybody willing to go to a checker will find meditation successful," he said, "regardless of his attitude."

I had been checked, I reminded him.

He amended his statement again. "Anybody willing to go for regular checkups will find the technique fruitful," he promised.

Geer, who in his own experience, and those of his friends, has seen the great results meditation can have, was simply trying to defend a process that he regards as valuable. But he has the great flaw of all those connected with Maharishi's techings. He refuses to admit that any aspect of the movement, or any decision of the people in it, can be improved.

RATHER than admit that Jarvis misrepresents the case for meditation, he never warns people that "psychological attitudes" are important and can prevent success, or even that anyone prevent success, or even that anyone might be initiated and then stop meditating. Geer tried to explain my objections as "misinterpretations" of Jarvis' words.