TM in Scotland: A Brief History
Transcendental Meditation was founded by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi over 40 years ago. Since then over 180,000 people have learnt the technique in the UK, and over 4 million worldwide.
Transcendental Meditation comes from from the ancient Vedic tradition - a universal system of knowledge preserved for many generations by a long line of teachers in the Himalayas.
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
Maharishi is now regarded as the world's foremost teacher in the field of consciousness. Many academic institutions have recognised the importance of his contribution to the development of human potential.
Maharishi began teaching Transcendental Meditation by travelling from one country to another. During his first world tour in 1960 he first visited Edinburgh where he gave a lecture at the YWCA Hall on 4th November:
"Meditation is that technique which brings our mind from the surface level of life to the depth of our being...
Meditation we don't do just for the sake of meditation, we want some positive effects in life. The contentment of man through this meditation is not only contentment. Along with the contentment wisdom grows, creativity grows, peace grows, with the greater ability of action. That is why it is not something which will make a man static, it is something that will make a man dynamic in the field of activity...
Concentration is static ... but meditation is a dynamic process, leading the mind at every step towards greater happiness, attracting the mind without any effort."
After this lecture he taught 30 people. Maharishi visited Scotland's capital city on two further occasions in 1965 and 1974. Maharishi enjoyed his visits to Scotland and found the people "...Always gay and happy." In his first lecture in 1960 he said, "I need not talk much in terms of tensions because I find people in this part of the world [Scotland] are much more relaxed than I found in England and in other countries"
History of Transcendental Meditation in Scotland
It all began with a flower. Scotland's National Leader, Ralph Cowan, recalls that first sight of Maharishi, which inspired him to learn Transcendental Meditation and establish Edinburgh as one of Britain's most successful and long-established centres.
"An in-law of ours, Mrs Christie, was "into" things. She saw Maharishi at the Albert Hall, London, in 1960, went backstage and invited him to Edinburgh. Maharishi replied, "If you will guarantee me an audience, I'll go anywhere!" So he came. I met him at the station; I saw this little figure all in white, carrying flowers. He gave me one and I was captured!"
Maharishi's special feeling for Scotland is well illustrated by his own recollections, recorded when a Scottish journalist interviewed him about five years ago.
"......it doesn't matter if England and Scotland are politically separate. Culture is separate anyway. Scottish nature can never become serious British nature. They are always gay and happy."
"...I remember when I was going to Scotland the first time I was on the train. And suddenly I began to feel so fresh. I said, "What is here?" And somebody said, "We are crossing the border." I will never forget that experience. A sudden gaiety there. Some freshness."
Ralph remembers Maharishi's first visit to Edinburgh with affection. "Maharishi stayed with Mrs Christie. She fixed a lecture in the YWCA hall off Princes Street, Edinburgh , on 4th November 1960 and thirty of us were initiated subsequent to that, including our whole family - my wife, Reeva, and two teenage sons, Mark and Nicholas. The day after we were taught, we saw Maharishi and then never saw another meditator for over a year.
"Maharishi came back twice to Edinburgh. He always used to say he liked it here. We took him about in the car, sitting cross-legged on the seat. He was always practical - on his second trip to Edinburgh , he wanted to see the Forth bridge and asked all about how it was constructed. He was probably thinking about having a bridge built across the river at Rishikesh so people could come more easily to visit him there.
"Another time, we took him to the lochs in the Pentland Hills. My son picked heather for him. It was a beautiful, quiet day. Maharishi admired the reflections in the water and said he would like to live in a hut there.
"In those days, you had such easy access to him. All you had to do was wait. A dozen people would gather round him in his bedroom and he would talk far into the night."
The first teacher in Scotland was 'Val', Caroline Valvona, a member of Scotland's valuable Italian community, who went off to Rishikesh , India, to join Maharishi's first teacher training course in 1961.
Initially the first teaching took place at Ralph and Reeva's Edinburgh home with young teachers coming to stay, and a Student Meditation Society was started at the university. "One day, I had a 'phone call," recalls Ralph. "I was invited to train asa TM teacher under Maharishi's guidance, by Lake Geneva in Switzerland. Then some of us clubbed together and we bought our flat in Buccleuch Place, near the present Edinburgh centre. And installed the leader of the Student Meditation Society to look after it . It was only for the young and healthy - right at the top of several flights of stairs - so when we got the chance of a historic house in West Bow, tunnelled into the rock of Edinburgh Castle, we bought that."
In 1980, the centre received a very generous legacy from the late Janet Thin, one of Edinburgh's very first TM teachers, and was able to move from there into a listed nineteenth century building near Arthur's Seat. It continues to grow and prosper, bearing witness to Maharishi's maxim: "Well begun is half done."
Mary Ross