The Mind Creative SEPTEMBER 2014 | Page 23

The Mind Creative People who know me also know that I have a dour disposition. I am—and have been—cantankerous by nature. I have a short fuse, and a caustic sense of humor. In short, qualities totally unsuitable for someone who wanted to pursue a career as a social worker. In a word, utterly disagreeable. Well, two words. When I moved to Canada from Uganda, a friendly shrink strongly suggested that what I needed (desperately, he said, for added emphasis) was to clean up my mind. Give it a thorough scrub, as it were; and he recommended Transcendental Meditation. TM for short. This was in the late seventies, and TM was making its presence known on the continent. There were many centres operated by people who claimed to have been inducted by the great one— Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. But I wanted the real stuff and so trekked to San Francisco when I heard that he would be there for a few months. Nothing like going right to the fount! When I got there, I was told that it was not possible to see the head pooba, but one of his disciples would be happy to oblige for a mere 1000 dollars. In the late seventies it was a steep price to pay for laundering your mind. I had an old aunt, who had a sure fire cure for almost any erratic behavior. For instance, when I was a small boy, I had the habit of sleep walking. She recommended to my mother that what she needed to do was to make me sleep under the cot. She did. It took only two nights and an equal number of nasty bumps on the head to cure me of that!! But, alas, the aunt is no longer 23