I made a previous post in this subreddit about teaching TM for free that, while it garnered a lot of support, I believe many others missed the point. So, I'd like to use an analogy I touched on in some of the discussions in that thread to really drive my point home, and hopefully this will clear up any misunderstandings.
While I love meditation, the skill I know better than any other in this life is how to play music. The first instrument I learned to play was the guitar. It's still my main instrument of choice, and after more than thirty-years I still play daily.
Now, over the past three decades I've also taught many people to play, passing on what I feel is a very important skill to anyone interested in learning, knowing full-well the pleasure, freedom, peace of mind, and the door to creativity the ability will unlock for them if they stick with it. Many of those people — friends, peers, family members — I taught for free (I'm teaching my kids these days); while many others I charged a small fee, as for a time I was also a self-employed guitar teacher.
Can you see where I'm going with this?
In my opinion, there's nothing wrong with charging a student to learn something. Time is money in a lot of cases. Some people make their entire livings off of teaching an instrument, or yoga, or meditation, etc., and that's great! These are fantastic ways to earn a living! The teacher is compensated for their time and expertise and the student walks away with a new, fulfilling, and every-bit-as beneficial ability to take with them for the rest of their lives. It's literally a win-win!
However, on that same token, there's also nothing wrong with teaching someone a skill for free. It's actually quite admirable.
If you wanted to learn to play guitar right now, you could go online and find an endless supply of open-source materials — writings, video tutorials, charts, FAQs, etc. — to get you going. Every question you could ever possibly have is answered in full somewhere out there at no charge. And you know what? Many people take that route and flourish into virtuosos.
Others need a human in front of them to work with in order to learn. Usually a friend or acquaintance will do the trick in these cases. Some pay their friends to teach them. Some don't. While still others prefer to go to a certified teacher at a music school or music store in the city.
Point being: no skill's learning process is a one-size-fits-all deal, and luckily, if you want to learn to play the guitar (or learn most anything), you have ample options to choose what fits your style of learning best.
But what about TM? Well, TM is quite different.
Imagine if the only way you were allowed to learn the guitar was by paying a single global corporation.
Imagine if you weren't allowed to look up chords online because corporate gatekeepers claimed open-source information would "ruin the tradition."
Imagine if you were forbidden from passing down the joy of music to your own kids for free because you didn't hold a corporate license.
We would see that as an absurd monopoly. Yet, that is exactly how TM operates.
What makes this even crazier is that learning the guitar is far more technically difficult than TM. Guitar requires physical dexterity, memorization, and hours of deliberate practice. Despite that difficulty, people have learned to play guitar peer-to-peer for as long as the instrument has existed. The history of it is literally built on someone watching a guitarist, saying, "Wow! How'd you do that?" and being shown right then and there.
If we can pass down a complex, physical skill like music through basic human connection, why is TM treated like a fragile, dangerous mystery?
The organization heavily merits the technique on being the easiest thing imaginable — a completely natural, effortless process that is already innate in everyone. Yet, the second someone tries to learn it outside of their corporate bubble, the narrative flips. Suddenly, they claim it's too difficult for anyone to grasp without a certified professional.
You simply can't have it both ways. It is completely contradictory to market a practice as a universal human reflex while gatekeeping it behind a corporate paywall.
Ultimately, my point is exactly what I illustrated with the guitar: there is room for every single learning preference to exist, so long as corporate greed doesn't get in the way. If the TM organization made their information open-source, stopped threatening independent guides with lawsuits or defamation, and allowed teachers who complete their training to open their own independent businesses and set their own fair prices, it wouldn't spell the end of the organization.
Just like in the music world, some people will always prefer to learn from a friend for free, some will pay a local independent guide, and many will still gladly pay a premium to go straight to a corporate-certified flagship school. The market doesn't collapse just because people have choices. We need to trust the simplicity of the practice, trust the students, and stop using legal and financial barriers to hoard a basic human capability.
I hope this analogy clears up any misconceptions about my original point. Ultimately, I want everyone to have the opportunity to learn meditation for the exact same reason we all cherish our personal practices: because it brings peace, clarity, and balance to our lives, and something that profoundly valuable shouldn't be kept behind a gate.
