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Dear Heather,
I listened to you for the first time on Friday and I didn't know what to think. I tried to like you and my loyalty told me to like you but somehow I found it difficult. I waited for the verses to build and to accumulate but each song or rendition stopped short or repeated itself and I felt somehow cheated. Others asked me what I thought and my loyalty told me to say..'it's different'.
I listened to you again on Saturday and I listened acutely to what you were saying and I think I knew what to think. I even compared the words to Ten New Songs and that was a mistake because Ten New Songs is ten new songs so I started again and listened to your renditions and your hidden melodies and accentuations and I felt somehow previously misguided. Others asked me what I thought and my loyalty told me to say...' it will grow on me'
Today I listened again and I listened and a hint of wallowing started to appear and there is now a desire to listen. I waited for each song as if waiting for the next verse and the whole album took on a new perspective. I now enjoy the songs that have now grabbed me and eagerly anticipate the ones that are waiting to ambush my initial perceptions. It is now in my head. Others will ask me what I think and I will cast aside my loyalty and just smile , they will know, without cause for any further explanation, that I have still found what they are still searching for.

Sincerely
Pete

Yes me too I still remember my mantra and the cost : At a price of $100/unit they sold "personal" mantras. I was not such interested by all the atmosphere around T.M., not very impressed by videos of Maharishi groppyng a flower while being boring in an unpleasant voice to my ears, but in my case, a friend of mine insisted to offer the mantra to me for my birthday. So I get initiated and given the secret mantra by this instructor (which was trying to levitate first, and pass through the walls after, because he said the material world is just an arrangement of atoms that the mind can rearanged) After the initiation me and my best friend (not the one who offered me the gift) told each other our secret mantra and we had the same, exactly.

However I practiced T.M. for a while, maybe one year or two in combination with yoga. I was more quiet during that time than never ever in my life. No high, but a peaceful state of mind.

So I figured that to sell mantras is a business as useful as selling vacuum cleaners.

I would have prefer they presented this as the efficient technique I think it is, a business like another one, there, I would have stick to the practice, but the tiny voice of Maharishi and the pseudo-mystic infatuated ceremonials (we-are-better-than-others-who-are-not doing T.M. among other things) I can not stand in the long run.

"Like a baby that is shivering" don't they say that the first and last years in life are very similar? And in the same time it is an admission of how it is important for him. How he is touched by this somewhere in a vulnerable part of the soul. Maybe.

My introduction to TM was at a local sports centre, where the teacher of TM had hired a room for the evening.
He was from a community in Skelmersdale, which is a small town to the east of Liverpool. The community he belonged to were all adherents of TM. They ran a small business within one of the town's industrial units and were a close knit society, welcoming inquisitive visitors.
From time to time they hired rooms in towns and I responded to their advert in our local newspaper. The evening was taken up with the teacher giving a broad brushstroke of what TM was.
At no time was the maharishi mentioned and it became clear later on that they did not follow his teachings. They followed the peace and self-fulfillment attained through TM.
At the end of the evening we were asked if we wanted to embark on a course and pay our cash. I had to tell the teacher that cash was something I did not have at that time and he said that was not a problem, because he couldn't turn away someone who was genuinely interested in the TM system.

Over the next 2 months we met at various homes in the area. My fellow students opened up their homes to us. We received full and detailed explanations of the foundations of TM. It was not until the teacher thought we were ready that, we had a personal session and one to one with him. He had described the state of mind we should try to relax into and then I received my mantra.

I then had a half hour meditation following my mind through a kaleidescope of colours as I chanted my mantra within my head. This form of TM is a way of learning to use a mantra key, which unlocks doors and flows passed obstacles within one's own mind.
The more I used TM, the easier it became to dive into vast open spaces laid out in front of my mind. The key develops one's ability to simply 'let-go.' For those of you who can dive into a swimming pool, I can best describe it as the trust in that leap of your body being pushed off the diving board, out into space and falling into the water for the very first time. It's not a leap of faith. It's a total acceptance of slowly falling off the edge into a bottomless pit. The pit has no gravity and one can soar and glide at will. One's mind has been set free and can go to places that we only usually see in vivid dreams when asleep. Who has dreamed that they are flying? I can get that sensation in a TM session.

I did pay my way eventually when funds were sufficient.

Thanks for reading to the end.

Byron, no matter why you reached heights that I never experienced. Thanks to share this.

I have listened to it many times now and I just love it. What is special for me is Leonard's speaking voice. I love having the mixture of song and spoken word on this album. We are lucky he is still recording new material. Thank you Leonard.

Caz Mac wrote:I have listened to it many times now and I just love it. What is special for me is Leonard's speaking voice. I love having the mixture of song and spoken word on this album. We are lucky he is still recording new material. Thank you Leonard.

Caz Mac

I totally agree, especially the 'recording new material', although it took a few goes for me to get my head round it..... the balance between the spoken word and song is much appreciated.

pete

pete
thanks for writing what you did. I did not have this reaction with dear heather however I have only been listening to Cohen for a few years now and had decided (when his music and poetry realy started to pull me in) that I would get all his albums and books, if I could. well some of these I really didn't know what to think of and to tell the truth didn't really want to take the time to appreacheate them. since dear heather came out I found this site, then after reading a bit decided to go through and listen to every cd I have. I don't know who I was at that time of buying some of these but I am glad I am me at this moment. I have a greater appreciation and a deeper love for his music scince dear heather came out. I also understand now that I don't have to say I like it or try to like it. I can hate it now, if it's cohen I will most likley love it sometime.
I am not much for critiquing things I like dear heather very much as for that particular song I do like it I don't have a clue why it is so strang although someone I think lizzy mentioned about the white leggs have seen as a bad thing, I passed by a very beautifull woman the other day I had asked her out once. In a lot of ways she is very unique I find her very beautifull. I'm sure the people that do those makeover stories would find lots "wrong with her apperance".I hope she never changes. I think when we passed by each other I had dear heather in my head. I think I am starting to understand.

" . . the pseudo-mystic infatuated ceremonials (we-are-better-than-others-who-are-not doing T.M. among other things). . . " Yes, Tchocolatl. So true.

Oh, yes, definitely.......we revert to infancy in our old age. Generally speaking. Leonard acknowledges this fact. He also appreciates the kindness of those who care. Such a paradigm shift going from lush, adult images to a baby in need of loving care. Poignant. I love this song very much.

Don ~ Yes. There's a point where trust and unconditional love merge in the knowledge that, if it's by Leonard, appreciation will arrive. If not sooner, then later. I really enjoyed reading how this process occurred in you. Your anecdote regarding your woman of beauty added still another layer.

Pete ~ You go, guy ! I knew you could be counted on . Your love will go even deeper.

~ Lizzy

Liz and Tchocolatl, you both hit the nail on the head about the business that was built up around the mysticism. The age old practise of having a figurehead to look up to and follow (blindly in some cases) was and is, a total turn-off for me, which is why I appreciated the TM schooling that I learned.

It was for an individual to do in the privacy of their own home. No fancy candles, incense, music etc., but in a quiet room at a quiet time of the day. A bit like people holding strong religious beliefs for example, but not wearing it on one's sleeve and shouting about it to the rest of the world.

To coin a phrase, I would not be in yer face, but sitting quietly behind my own face.

It was very helpful after a bad morning at work, when I would pretend to be sitting and reading a book, but actually be in a TM trance for about 20 minutes.

It recharged my batteries and I returned to work in the afternoon with a mind cleared of the dross and stress from the morning and with renewed vigour.

We are supposed to do 2 half hour sessions each day. One before breakfast and one before dinner. Just stopping and taking time out twice a day is beneficial in itself. I would advocate that for everyone.

At the begining of my training, if I had learned that any money was going to pay for some bloke to wear colourful garb and have a choice of which Roll Royce to drive today, I would not have carried on.

I was lucky to find a non-profit making group who were not in it for the most money they could get out of people. Our fees paid for the hire of the room that we used during our first session and our teacher's petrol money to travel to and from Skelmersdale.

Yes, it was late last night, and I was exhausted, Byron. I meant to 'endorse' your own pathway into the TM world. An authentic sharing. I've still never spoken out my mantra, even aloud to myself ~ the premise given me was that doing so would create associations with it, that not having, benefits in taking/keeping you out of 'this' world. Correct; or simply a maneuver to keep the ruse concealed ~ $125.00 was [and still is ] too hard to come by .

I am not againts T.M. itself. I was younger than you folks, here, when I did T.M. I was in my last years of teenage, so this is very different. The Maharishi Mahesh Yogi was not such an imposter to me than a very boring old man (and I'm sorry if this could be seen as superficial, but I can not stand his voice, really, it aches my nerves). And I am not againts business (I am just againts voracity) because everything is a trade when we live in society, and this is OK, business is the more achieved way of trading that we know for now.

And I tend to think that the secret is necessary (also) for a person to do a certain practice alone, for and by himself or herself (not just to keep the ingredients of the success from being stolen).

And I think this technique is efficient.

So thanks to MMY to have bring it from his old ancient archaic oral traditional world to our new very different culture that would have miss this boat otherwise.

And if he is not perfect, this man, well, who is? I knew that years ago something bad happened between him and George Harrison. Maybe it is not such a good thing to idealize someone or something like GH did, you know "you put me in a place where I must fall".

And, my experience with the people I met around T.M. was not universal.

I think that one can get drunk with those high vibrations of Love, in a same way one can go soppy with human romantic love (that is another kind of Love). But they can do it with eveything that put them in contact with high vibrations of Love, not just T.M.

Well well well, just to say that I understand and respect different experiences about T.M. and so far so good if they were pleasant and profitable.

Well, I never saw the video you spoke of, Tchocolatl ~ however, I share your feelings on his voice. Of course, voice is not what it's about. It 'felt' odd to me at the time that I should have to pay for a mantra. I did not receive any of the special instruction that Byron did. In fact, two people and I were in a small, atmosphere'd room.....and they were doing something standing [don't recall what ], while I sat. They were moving and, then, without warning or prior explanation, one of them uttered a word, which only after a short period of time, I realized that, that had been 'it'. I guess the premise of that method was that the word would enter into my consciousness, which it [fortunately!] did. I've often wondered what the process would've been if I'd said, "What did you say? What was that word?" It seemed the intention was to pass my mantra to me in some magical fashion.

'Almost' a day without "Dear Heather" ~ I brought to work, along with "Dear Heather," Pete's "Be the One" cd, Allison Crowe's "Secrets," and Judy Collins new one of Leonard's songs.....on the basis that, "If they're not here, I sure can't listen!" I was, at least, going to give the other three a fighting chance.

Thought I'd start with Judy Collins, and took the unlabeled cd that I'd made this weekend along with my also-unlabeled one of Dear Heather [not risking the original with transporting back and forth to work], as I'd quickly grabbed it from beneath its original this morning. However, then I saw a blank cd holder ! Oh, no!!! I left Dear Heather on my player, at home ! So, I resolved to having to wait until tonite to hear her .

When I put it on to play, here came "Go No More A Roving" ~ I had removed it from my player . What I'd grabbed was the blank holder for Judy's to be placed in, once I remove it from my cd burner, when I get home tonite [its being the last one I copied] !

Was any of that really important? Nope. However, it did accomplish bringing this thread back to Dear Heather ! Can you believe it !?! ME bringing a thread back on-topic !?! Progress ofttimes comes in increments, yes ?

Love,
Elizabeth

things tend to get off topic when it comes to this subject, I suppose any subject.
I did not see a review on Dear Heather in our school news paper. I figured I would start harrasing the editor. Instead I am writing one for them. Every time I start it ends up being a biography a critique or just praising his whole lifes work, a little long for a cd review. I am starting to get it shortened to just talk about this cd but it's hard. I still want it to say enough, I think it deserves at least half the paper. but then I read what I wrote and I think of that line. "I wish I could say everything in one word, I hate what can happen between the begining and the end of a sentance."

Don ~ I love your final sentence here. However, as for critiqueing the cd and giving a historical backdrop for it, by referencing Leonard and his work, I feel doing so is legitimate. The reason I say that is that the unfortunate reality is that many people don't know of Leonard. I feel that when people approach their reviews through a "this is Leonard and an overview of his musical history" that, they also are including the possibility of that. It is an opportunity to bring people to Leonard, through more than just one cd. There is an excellent possibility that other facts and realities may pique their interest.