>
>
>
> > > >
> > > > If history has anything to say,
> > >
> > > If history had anything to say, it wouldn't keep
> > > repeating itself. :-)
> > >
> > > > > what I think you're "feeling" in
> > > > > revering Shakerisms is the same thing you try to
> > > > > promote here on FFL, Doug -- a sense of "community."
>
The Fairfield Meditating Community?
The Larger FF Meditating Community:
Its residents are determined to "secure as many hours as possible from
necessary toil" in order to spend more leisure time "for the production of
intellectual goods." The meditators are not countenancing primitivism, but
hope to provide "all the elegances desirable for bodily and spiritual health:
books, apparatus, collections for science, works of art, means of beautiful
amusements". The Fairfield meditating community is not conceived to be a
pastoral retreat from life but intent to be a revived "city on the hill"
community.
In a practical alternative to American competitive capitalism the Fairfield
meditating community is a place for those eager to pursue the transcendental
spiritual practice of inner Self-culture within a community of like-minded
souls.
It "will be a light over all this country and age. If not the sunrise, it will
be the morning star."
The Fairfield unaffiliated meditating community, "aims to be rich, not in the
metallic representation of wealth, but in wealth itself, which money should
represent, namely, in leisure to live in all the faculties of the soul."
-1840's excerpts
> FF meditating comunity?
>
> Some lot like 1840's transcendentalists, evidently would be alot like going
> out at noon and dining in FF downtown.
>
> "They call some of the residents here "Transcendentalists." You may
> judge from the name that they must be either very good or very bad
> people, but they represent people of education who are a little "high
> stilted" in their religious views, and do not take in all the wonderful
> Mosaic traditions. At least, this is as near as I can explain it to
> you. It is the fashion to call every one who has any independent
> notions a Transcendentalist, but I do not know who invented the name or
> first applied it.
>
> The people here do not dispute on religious creeds; they are too busy.
> They work together, dine and sup together year in and year out in
> intimate social relation, and do not either have angry disputes, or
> quarrels about creeds or anything else. On the contrary, I am much
> surprised at the earnest inquiry that is often made into the beliefs of
> others, or rather into the groundwork or foundation from which the
> churches sprung which have different tenets from their own."
>
> Brook Farm:
>
> http://infomotions.com/etexts/gutenberg/dirs/etext05/brkfm10.htm
>
>
>
>
> > > >
> > > > Not revering, just observing. Just proactive interest.
> > > >
> > > > Not just Shakerisms.
> > > > Not revering but steeping some little in 18th and 19th
> > > > Century American spiritual movements and their European
> > > > and Eastern roots.
> > >
> > > With all due respect, I think we can safely say
> > > that any "Eastern roots" you see in early American
> > > spiritual traditions were projected there. No such
> > > influence would have been possible or tolerated.
> > >
> >
> > Om by the way. Actually, Jefferson kept a copy of the B. Gita in his
> > library.
> > Emerson, Thoreau, Fuller, Parker delighted in study of the B. Gita in their
> > time.
> > These later referenced and wrote about it and it seems some carried it with
> > them for their own inspiration then. Jai Guru B. Gita?
> >
> > Evidently there were translation copies around and they were passed around
> > some
> > in Colonial through the 19th Century. No, no need to project any hopeful
> > values back on to them. Seems they was there anyway in the mix.
> >
> > JAS,
> > -D in FF
> >
> > > > Is a lot of descriptive material available and some that
> > > > is proscriptive, that can be learned from about life of
> > > > spiritual movements. The proscriptive insights they give
> > > > in their own voice can be a useful perspective to how it
> > > > is going for Transcendental Meditation.
> > >
> > > That is true. And I think that as much can be learned
> > > from the failures of previous spiritual movements as
> > > can be learned from their successes. For example, if
> > > a community such as Shakerism felt that they had "The
> > > Answer" to a happy life but died out within a century,
> > > there is something to be learned from that. If the
> > > reclusive, divorce-ourselves-from-the-outside-world
> > > communities tended to fade out and disappear (as they
> > > did), that might in fact bode badly for the TMO.
> > >
> > > Clearly, I enjoy tripping on past spiritual movements
> > > as well. I am quite taken with the Cathars and their
> > > lifestyle, even though their dualist philosophy is
> > > 180 degrees opposed to my own. I think one can learn
> > > some valuable lessons from how they lived, and what
> > > happened to them as a result of living that way.
> > >
> > > The same is obviously true about early American com-
> > > munities. America's whole *myth* revolves around the
> > > idea of religious freedom -- a place where you can
> > > go and really *act out* your beliefs, no matter how
> > > oddball and non-mainstream they are. That was not
> > > permitted in Europe, so many came to America hoping
> > > to create communities that reflected their beliefs.
> > > I guess my only point in jumping in to your posts
> > > about the Shakers is that if you're going to "learn
> > > from history," one of the lessons you shouldn't
> > > ignore is whether the spiritual community you're
> > > studying is still around. If it isn't -- for what-
> > > ever reason -- there is probably as much to be
> > > learned from *that* history as there is from a
> > > study of what they believed.
> > >
> > > If the TM movement is still around in a hundred years,
> > > historians will be interested in what they believed.
> > > If it isn't, they will be interested more in why what
> > > they believed didn't work.
> > >
> >
>
