Some people wonder: why pay money for meditation classes, and where does the money go? Instruction in the TM technique involves:
• Personalized training with a qualified, certified teacher
• A standardized, seven-step course of instruction
• Lifelong follow-up and one-on-one support as needed — for free
The TM course fee sustains the non-profit organization and allows these educational services to be provided. No one in the educational organization that teaches the TM technique has ever received large sums of money from the TM course fees, no one has gotten wealthy, from the bottom to the top: all the money goes to sustain teaching activities and make the technique available to more and more people, including at-risk populations who cannot afford to pay and who receive grants or learn for free. Because of the legal status of a 501(c)(3), all of this is public record.
Why there must be a course fee is explained more in-depth here: Learning the Transcendental Meditation technique
Here's how your course fee is used:
1. Educational expenses: Although the TM organization is non-profit, it pays the same overhead that businesses must pay — rent, utilities, teaching supplies, etc. The TM course fee helps sustain the teachers, teaching centers, the non-profit educational organization and TM teaching activities around the world. As with every tax-exempt organization, the finance records are available to the public.
2. To help others learn: Because others before you have paid their TM course fee, the program is now available to you in all its effectiveness. Everyone’s course fee helps ensure that others after them may enjoy the full benefits of the Transcendental Meditation technique — including future generations.
Additionally,
when you learn the TM technique you're helping support TM programs for
at-risk populations who cannot afford to pay anything — such as inner city
youth, military veterans with PTSD, the homeless, Native Americans on
reservations, and prison inmates—all of whom typically learn for free.
With the help of private benefactors such as the David Lynch Foundation, 300,000 schoolchildren in the U.S. and abroad have learned the TM technique free of charge and practice meditation twice daily during in-school “Quiet Time” programs. 3. Maharishi’s Program for World Peace: Another very important project supported by your course fee is the establishment of “peace-creating groups” around the world. These large groups of hundreds or thousands of people practice the Transcendental Meditation technique and its advanced programs together twice daily. Why? Because, as scientific research has shown, a sufficiently large number of people practicing the TM programs together create an intensified harmonious effect — not just personally for the individual meditator, but also for the surroundings. Through what scientists call a “field effect,” the quality of life of the whole society improves, measured by decreased crime and violence and improvements in the economy and other social indicators. These large groups have been established on almost every continent, and scientists continue to monitor the effects, with 13 research studies published in peer-reviewed scientific journals validating the phenomenon. (Read more about the possible effects of large group meditation on the Huffington Post: "Could Meditation Have Something to Do with Plummeting Crime Rates?"
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, founder of the Transcendental Meditation program, was concerned not only for the individual’s personal growth but wished to promote peace for the whole world. He theorized that a sufficient number of people in society ‘transcending’ twice daily, especially together in large groups, would have a significant positive impact on the whole society. This pioneering area of scientific research may still be outside the current paradigm of conventional sociological theories. But the studies thus far are highly promising and strongly support Maharishi’s formula for reducing collective stress in society and creating world peace through large peace-creating groups.
When you learn the Transcendental Meditation technique, your course fee helps support this peace-creating endeavor in your country and around the world. Admittedly, this is a bigger vision and more ambitious program than learning to watch your breath or relax, and a project with such global initiatives requires more funding than checking out a library book about meditation or learning meditation in a yoga class. But Maharishi remained true to his vision that life on earth can rise to a much higher level of human functioning. The certified TM teachers around the world continue to uphold the teaching procedures and policies that have proven so effective in bringing the benefits of the Transcendental Meditation program to everyone.
Filmmaker David Lynch answers this question
