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The initiate takes off his shoes and gathers his "offering": a fresh, white handkerchief, several pieces of sweet fruit and a bunch of flowers. TM claims to be totally secular, and the offerings are supposedly meant only as symbols: the flowers represent the flowers of life, the fruit the seed of life, and the handkerchief the cleansing of the spirit. After handing over his gifts, the newcomer is taken to a private room, where his teacher lights candles and incense and places the fruit, flowers and ha kerchief on an altar under a color portrait of Guru Dev. The teacher then chants in Sanskrit and introduces the meditator to his mantra, the one word that is meant to keep him meditating for the rest of his life.
The meditator is never supposed to reveal his mantra—not to wife, husband, lover or children. Each teacher is personally given a set of mantras by the Maharishi—exactly 17 according to one knowledgeable source. He must parcel them out to his initiates, based on a secret formula that presumably includes temperament and profession. Duly initiated, the fledgling meditator is ready for his meditating classes, which last about an hour and a half each and which must be taken on three consecutive days or nights. Together with others, up to 50 or more, he sits in a lecture room, meditates for ten minutes or so, opens his eyes with the others, then meditates again. With the help of charts and diagrams, TM theories are explained by instructors who, following the movement's dress code, are invariably well-groomed and conservatively clothed.
How do you meditate? According to Physicist Lawrence Domash, chancellor of the Maharishi European Research University in Weggis, Switzerland, describing meditation is like "trying to explain the innards of a color television set to a tribe of Pygmies. What you can do is tell the Pygmy how to switch on the set and tune in to a station so he can enjoy the program." In fact, say the TM people, there is no wrong way to meditate. About 30 seconds after the eyes close, the mantra should come into the mind on its own; if it refuses, the meditator gently nudges it and starts repeating it silently to himself. He does not have to repeat it at any particular speed or to any special rhythm, such as his heart beat or his breathing. Other thoughts can come into his mind—they almost invariably do—and the mantra can slip away for a time, to come back a few seconds or a few minutes later.
There are only a few rules for meditation. It must be done for 20 minutes (some people, for reasons that only their teachers know, are prescribed only 15 minutes) in the morning and late afternoon or evening, but it must never be done before going to bed. One couple who violated the rule by meditating at 9:30 p.m. told TIME Reporter-Researcher Anne Hopkins that they were so full of energy afterward that they could not fall asleep until 4 a.m. It must never be done immediately after a meal. Meditating can be done almost anywhere—on trains, in cars, in hotel lobbies.