Flying School Dropout

When you fly, you are master of all the forces of nature, you don’t have to make an effort to get what you want.
—Maharishi

I have always been interested in exploring the mysteries of mind–body interaction, and curious about (but too poor for) the two-week residential TM Yogic Flying Course. So, when it was suddenly available for exactly the amount I unexpectedly had in my pocket after an overseas flight had been cancelled, I ‘applied’. This application included undergoing an interview with three ‘Governors’. They found me to be ‘psychologically stable’. They were soon to change their minds.

In the seventies, you could learn basic TM free at Melbourne University. Now, the same course costs $1500. The cost of learning to fly is usually $25,000. The founder of TM, the Maharishi (guru to thousands, including the Beatles and David Lynch), had passed away, hence this one-off ‘bargain’.

*

I am with ten others in the women’s Flying Room. White sheets, draped over a wall of windows, block out the beating sun. Two rows of white-sheeted mattresses cover the floor of the long room. The mattresses are to prevent us from ‘flying injuries’. There is a single aisle between the mattresses, leading to the front of the room, where there is a simple altar with photos of the gurus. There is also audiovisual equipment, which will be used, we are told, for ‘programming’. I will spend ten hours a day, meditating and ‘resting’ on the mattresses in this room’s sedating embrace.

Mother Divine, our women’s group leader, has a worn-out, motherly air. Our spindly male leader (and ‘Governor’), Dr Svengali, reminds me of a doctor out of a movie: the kind who administers the lethal injection to the prisoner while hypnotising with his dull, dark eyes.

We have all been assigned a ‘buddy’, who is not to let the other out of sight. The buddy has to make sure the other attends all sessions, and to report if the buddy stops eating or exhibits any ‘odd behaviour’. We must not read or phone or talk after we retire to the rooms at nine-thirty each night.

We learn the ‘flying instructions’, delivered through personal headphones via a DVD of the Maharishi. ‘You will experience some movement in the body, which is de-stressing, and then your body will reach forward, upward, with a strong impulse to fly. At the point of maximum body–mind coherence, you will fly.’ Repeating the flying sutra (words taken from Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras) will result, we are told, in a feeling of lightness in the body. This lightness precedes actual ‘flying’.

Over the next thirteen days, days we are to meet in the Flying Room for ten hours a day. We start at eight in the morning for four hours of alternating meditation, resting and listening to chants. Perhaps as a result of the constant ‘resting’ people are soon complaining that they cannot sleep at night.

After lunch we discuss ‘experiences’ with Mr and Mrs G, two visiting Governors from India. Men on one row of mattresses, women on the other. We are told having headaches and not sleeping is ‘de-stressing’. ‘Just never be alone, that is the main thing,’ they tell us. ‘When all the stress is cleared, you will all fly.’

In the afternoons and evenings there are DVDs of some ‘scientist’ from the Maharishi University spouting statistics, which, naturally, prove that TM gives Total Knowledge. We are told we will absorb all this ‘knowledge’, even if we drift off to sleep. Which most do. The routine of meditation, resting, is repeated until seven o’clock. After dinner we return to the flying room for another one and half hours of ‘programming’ until bedtime.

Nothing is written down. People are always asking each other where they are supposed to be, what they are doing next. ‘Just follow the program,’ says Mother Divine. ‘I love the program. You never have to worry about what you should be doing, where you should be if you just follow the program without intellect.’

Four days have passed like this: with our eyes closed, legs crossed, meditating on the sutra and awaiting the ‘strong impulse’ that will lift us up into the air. I do experience involuntary movements, a nodding of the head, a rhythmic movement of the shoulders and a definite reach forwards from the cross-legged position. These ‘strong impulses’ are encouraged by Mother Divine and Mrs G.

‘Hopping is the first step. The first plane only hopped, but it was flying nevertheless …’ The teachers tells us that people will take off ‘very soon’.

*

Long days of meditating and sitting/lying still are making us feel spaced out and high. One young girl coughs constantly and loudly. Others giggle uncontrollably during meditation. Soon the laughter turns to racking sobs. The Cough goes into raucous bronchial spasms.

Mother Divine and Mrs G praise these sobs and tears as ‘letting the stress out’. ‘Soon they will fly.’

The only ones who don’t laugh are my buddy, a woman whom I will call Truth-Seeker, and I. We are instructed not to ‘register’ these noises. To keep meditating.

‘Failure to fly can be caused by many reasons, including stress,’ says Mrs G. She then sits me next to the Cough, as she knows we annoy each other.

My buddy is bored. We bet on who will fly first. This adds a certain suspenseful tension to the next flying session. We think it will be Top Girl, the most ambitious of our group. Within six days, Top Girl bursts into giggles and announces that she has flown. She gets a knock-back, however, from Mrs G.

‘I didn’t see your body leave the ground.’

‘Like, I did too fly.’

‘Well, do it again.’

‘I can’t with you standing there …’

If someone flies, they receive a flower from Mr and Mrs G and have to describe the experience at the meeting after lunch. So far, it has been only men. Each of these flyers becomes a star with followers begging them to reveal their secret. One of them starts looking at me as if he is trying to send me telepathic messages—telepathy is developed, they say, once one has flown, as are all the other yogic powers.

On the seventh morning we are sitting cross-legged as usual, with our eyes closed, when we hear a sudden thump on the mattress. Then another thump. I peep.

Top Girl, sitting cross-legged, is hunched over, like a lady-bug, eyes closed. Looking pleased with herself but slightly self-conscious, she strains to pull herself forwards and hop a few inches off the ground.

Top Girl gets her flower. ‘It’s just like bungee jumping,’ she reveals. ‘Just do it.’

The next two days are spent with more and more urgent flying sessions. We are late for lunch and dinner. There are sobbing, laughing and jerking bodies around me. Everyone is having headaches. I am taking pills for mine every night and sometimes during the day. Others are taking Dr S’s potions.

Questions receive one of two answers: ‘That’s just stress being released,’ or ‘It’s all part of the process … just do the program without intellect.’

The questions stop.

*

It’s the ninth day and we others are failing to launch. In desperation—no female has flown since Top Girl—the women are shown the flying video again: in that, people are effortlessly leaping six metres into the air. Mother Divine, encouragingly, tells us about the Flying Arena in the United States. ‘It’s divided into fast, slow and beginners lanes, like a swimming pool, and we have flying competitions …’

The pressure is mounting. Other groups, we are told, have flown much sooner than us.

That afternoon, the Cough flies. Strangely, I see it transforms her. She floats around like a little angel, all the stress gone from her face. Looking at her, I wonder then if trying to achieve motion, with legs locked into a seated posture, somehow revives memories of trying to stand up and walk as a child, and works for her as regression therapy might. She gets her flower.

Truth-Seeker, on the other hand, is constantly tearful, distraught. There aren’t many days left until the end of the course. I wonder if they will turn her out into the world as she is now—looking ten years older from lack of sleep, headaches and disorientation.

Questions asked at discussion time are mainly from those flyers seeking to improve. ‘What exercises can I do to get stronger so I can jump higher?’

Yet we had been told that this was not going to be an athletic event, that the body was going to suddenly take off.

The Cough’s cronies fly next. It’s a greater effort for the overweight ones, who give one or two hops and then lie down, exhausted.

*

Four days to go. They are ramping up the pressure and talking of bringing in ‘experienced flyers’ to jump-start us.

After lunch, I sneak off to the nearby student centre, which I know will be deserted. There is a pillar there with torn student notices on it—remnants of red, yellow and blue papers, some still attached with drawing pins and shreds of sticky tape. This pillar of notices is composed of radiant, sparking jewels.

I realise that I am tripping. Why? Moving from ten hours a day of isolation in a white room to the outside world overloads the senses. I don’t want to be in that vulnerable state (like Truth-Seeker) on leaving. So I decide to walk by this pillar each day, to monitor how high I am. To deprogram myself in readiness for leaving this place.

So now, instead of meditating, I fake, maintaining a meditative pose. I make the odd suitable neck roll in case the teacher is watching.

More and more men and women are flying, eyes glazing over, spouting predictable phrases. It reminds me of the change that came over the people in The Stepford Wives, after their lobotomies enabled them to fit in perfectly with the group mind.

Top Girl starts painting all the flyers’ toe nails with blue nail-polish. Mother Divine notices I am no longer ‘having strong impulses’.

‘You had definite impulses before,’ she insists. ‘Is there some stress I can help you with so that you can fly?’ I have come to learn that ‘stress’ is code for ‘psychological problem’. I feel I have somehow ended up in a mental hospital and that I am resisting treatment from this kindly beaming nurse.

I am summoned to an individual interview with Mrs G. She points to the floor, where I sit cross-legged at her feet. She asks me why I don’t have strong impulses any more. Gazing deep into my eyes, she says, very calmly, ‘How do you feel when you are thinking the flying sutra? Do you feel light?’

‘Yes, I feel light.’

‘Very light?’

‘Yes, very light.’

And I am feeling light indeed, going under a trance again, my body beginning to sway.

‘When you reach the point of maximum body–mind coherence, you will fly.’ Her eyes bore into mine. ‘When you fly, all your desires will be fulfilled.’

‘But …’

‘Nobody can help you,’ she said, suddenly impatient, turning away.

*

My buddy, Truth-Seeker and I—the only remaining non-flyers—have been summoned. After the private talks, we all return to the Flying Room. Three ‘experienced flyers’ enter. It is deadly serious now. We meditate together, eyes closed, sitting in a circle, while these three (and the other flyers) pound around the room, ‘flying around us’, sounding like kangaroos—but more threatening.

One in particular targets me, keeps so close to me that I can smell her body odour and her breath as she bounces sweatily around me. It arouses an animal response in me. My heart is racing. There seems to be a buzz of mental electricity between us, which I block. It feels for ten minutes as if I am being systematically hunted by a predator.

Mrs G then tells me to lie down, giving up on me.

I open my eyes for a peek and see Mrs G standing in the middle of the flyers, in her scarlet and gold sari, intently directing them where to attack next, a circus ring mistress. She is the only one standing, a very short woman, now towering above those who scramble around at her feet. By the end of this highly invasive session, one more flies.

By now my buddy is feeling ‘strong impulses’ for the first time and is very excited. She asks Mrs G if it is ‘time to fly’.

‘You should have flown three days ago,’ is the curt reply.

Will my buddy resist the pressure to join the Stepford group? Will she fly? The suspense builds as valkyries circle around her. There is not one smiling face. It feels intimate and aggressive. Finally, all the flyers slump, tired out. Not even a twitch from my buddy.

Next in line for attack is Truth-Seeker. She is hopeful because she too has recently felt ‘strong urges’. Mrs G tells her, looking into her eyes, ‘You will fly today.’ They sit her in the middle, repeat the attack.

She doesn’t jump, waiting, innocent as always, to be lifted up into the air by some magical force. After all, she says, that’s what we were promised before the course, that this ‘flying’ would not involve any ‘athletic effort’.

Mrs G is clearly peeved. ‘You have some stress to come out yet. You will fly.’

I walk to the student centre again. The pillar is now just a lot of scrappy, dirty papers. All the sparkles have gone.

In the Flying Room, the once white sheets are now yellow and shabby. They have not been changed for two weeks. There are dust bunnies between the mattresses. No-one complains. There have been no complaints either about headaches for a long time, though many still have them. The jug in the women’s kitchen has broken and we are boiling water in one small saucepan. There is no hot water. The food is running out in the kitchens.

Dr S announces that we will start the ‘going home’ program tomorrow. There is a buzz of panic. What is the new program? Where are we supposed to be? When? He gives the entire day’s program in his flat voice. No-one remembers it. Some are asleep, others drowsy.

‘Say it again?’

‘Why are we so spaced out?’ asks Cough.

Dr S smiles mysteriously. ‘Any other questions?’ Dr S doesn’t looks up, expecting none.

But Truth-Seeker speaks now, her exhausted voice forming the words slowly. ‘I know someone who did the flying sutra two years ago and he is still not flying.’

Mrs G answers. ‘That is not possible. If you do the flying sutra, you will fly.’

‘I know someone else’, Truth-Seeker persists, ‘who did it twenty-five years ago with the Maharishi, and he still hasn’t flown either.’

‘I told you that it is not possible. Or perhaps there is some stress there that needs checking or some … psychological problems.’ She darts a look at me.

Dr S takes over. ‘What you have now is Total Knowledge. You have learnt that the mind moves the body. You did not expect to move like this, and you have. You have defied the world’s expectations. You have completed the course and now have Total Knowledge.’

Mrs G tells us this has been a relatively straightforward course. ‘One time in Serbia all the group were on a mountain howling like wolves letting the stress out and all the villagers arrived with fire torches because they thought they were being attacked by wolves …’

‘But it is easier now, because of increased world consciousness,’ says the Cough, who now, like all flyers, has Total Knowledge.

Or perhaps is it easier because TM has perfected the exact combination of hypnotism, sleep interruption, isolation, regression therapy, group pressure and the high of extreme sports? Or is it the playground bonding that takes place whenever everyone does a silly thing together? No-one wants to say the emperor has no clothes, because you don’t have any either.

Or just the good old-fashioned leverage of massive fees?