There is quite an explosion of interest in meditation at the moment, and of course this is a good thing. But many people who have tried to learn to meditate from a book or a magazine article end up feeling frustrated because they didn’t get much relaxation, or feel a failure because they found it difficult.
If you think about it for a moment, how can it be possible to quieten your mind using effort? The effort creates activity, which is the opposite of silence. So any technique that involves any degree of effort whatsoever will serve only to keep the mind busy and lively.
When you learn TM it is almost as if you are learning (at last) how not to interfere with a completely natural tendency that the mind has, which is to settle down in a natural way and experience its own deep, inner nature.