Dear Friends,
I went to Holland for Guru Purnima, with most of our North Carolina group, and most of us stayed on for close to a month, returning just over a week ago. Our trip came as a last-minute surprise, which is why I disappeared without warning. Being around Maharishi was as evolutionary as it's ever been. More so! Even though no one seems to get to see him in person any more, it doesn't matter. He is as attentive to every individual and every detail as he's always been, and much less cautious about what he'll say, to whom. These weeks were a refresher course in how he works, how he thinks. I think it was a great reminder and a great inspiration to everyone who attended, to see that he's still every bit the master and the mastermind.
The whole experience was great. Even being tripled up in little trailers in a vacation water park full of young children and teenagers for the first and last weeks proved okay, partly because we were never around the park during the daytime, and partly because I lucked out nicely on my roommates -- which luck lasted throughout the entire three-plus weeks.
Our meals and programs were all in tents beside the main building at Meru -- or, more romantically, "pavilions." For tents, these were pretty serious structures, of serious size, with solid floors, high ceilings, glass doors and windows, chandeliers (in the dining tent, anyway), air handlers, carpeting, and vestibules that afforded good protection from the frequent rain as we stood in line for food, and good protection for our shoes as they waited at the door for us to finish meditating. Purusha and Mother Divine were fortunate to have actual program tents, in addition to dining tents. Most conference participants, during the first five days of maximum attendance, had to do their program sitting in chairs in their dining/meeting tents. But no one seemed to be complaining.
We rarely glimpsed Mother Divine, partly because their tents were separate, away from the rest of the conference -- but we saw plenty of other folks, starting with the catering company handling our meals. It was odd to have waiters and especially waitresses, but we all adapted. The catering staff were mostly college students, generally from somewhere in Germany's East. They were pretty normal students, although either being German or wearing uniforms (or both) gave them a good, efficient, professional air. One of our guys struck up a conversation with one of their guys, and found he was a psychology student who, in the student's words, was spending the summer "studying human behavior." No lack of material for him!
Our dining and program tents were right in the traffic flow to the main dining and meeting tents, so frequent encounters with non-Purusha friends were inevitable. But surprisingly little socializing went on, beyond that. In fact, several of you may even have been there, without my ever seeing you. If I passed you with a blank stare (which I did to at least one of my dear friends, who eventually brought it to my attention), it's not that I was trying to ignore you! My attention just seemed more settled, less "outward" than it's been in the past. It wasn't that we were read the riot act about socializing, or anything like that. Purusha just seems to be maturing nicely into what Maharishi has always wanted us to be: self-referral, self-sufficient and "on the program." Nonetheless, it was wonderful to run into old friends, including some from distant corners of the world whom I hadn't seen in twenty years -- SO wonderful!
If we had followed the schedule that everyone else was on, though, we sure wouldn't have been on the program, or at least not on our usual program. Meetings regularly ran from 1:30 - 6:00 pm, then recommenced after supper, around 9:00 -- which was about the time Purusha was boarding buses for our somewhat distant quarters. I never asked anyone how late the meetings went. We stayed as close to our regular program schedule as possible, although having close to an hour's drive to our housing kind of demolished any possibility of a 10 o'clock bedtime.
As far as the meetings went, Maharishi was right there, all day, every day, sometimes on screen and sometimes only connected by voice. He did a lot of listening and watching, and a lot of commenting when circumstances called for it. It took me back to my Lake Tahoe days in the fall of 1972 and later ones on the shores of Lake Lucerne, watching and listening as Maharishi demonstrated his incredible capacity for planning, composing, editing, administering, molding, guiding, inspiring, correcting, etc., both on a global level and at the tiniest point values. He made it very, very clear that he's fully connected to what's going on in his Movement and to what's going on in the rest of world; and that he wants team players who can stick to his playbook. He lavished praise when appropriate, rapped a few knuckles when appropriate, and constantly helped us all to adjust our thinking in the direction of his own.
He was remarkably generous, both with his time and attention, and with lots of nice gifts and details that made the conference much more comfortable than it could have been. Everybody was given Amrit, for example (both pills and paste), and Maharishi Vedic Honey. Sweets and savories were flown in from India, and we all received some nice printed materials. They brought in about 2000 puja sets from India so that every Governor there could participate fully in the global puja on Guru Purnima. The catering company was there to feed us and wait on us (everybody, not just Purusha) throughout our entire stay. The food was generally abundant and delicious, although not entirely Ayurvedic all the time! Foam was initially a scarce resource, but Maharishi kept sending trucks to bring in more from various Movement caches around Europe.
The main themes of the whole convention were the importance of inner reconstruction (longgggg programs); the *equal* importance of outer reconstruction (living in and working from perfect vastu); engaging builders to bring vastu out of the conceptual realm; turning Global Reconstruction into an investment opportunity for builders and bankers and private investors, alike; and, most generally, learning to take whatever Maharishi wants done and DO IT--simply, quickly, concretely. In a meeting with the New Zealand delegation, toward the end of the conference extension, Maharishi encouraged all of them (and, in the process, everybody else, as well) to begin living in vastu immediately, even if it meant buying a trailer to park in the yard, facing exactly East or North -- so that one could be properly oriented for the bulk of the day's activities. Use the house for things like cooking, etc., but eat, sleep and work in the trailer. Maharishi emphasized that this was just a temporary solution, because the ideal is to live in a place that's fully built according to vastu. I've noticed a difference here in Heavenly Mountain between the buildings that were constructed earlier (according to fewer vastu rules) and those put up later (according to more rigorous ones). There's a tangibly lighter, brighter feeling in the newer ones, even though the older ones had more amenities and showed more attention to detail. Coincidentally(?), it was after moving into one of our older buildings that I started experiencing some health troubles (nothing you need to worry about), and now I'm thinking that maybe I should try moving back into one of the newer ones, where my health seemed to do nothing but improve. On that same health front, by the way, the trip to Holland did me a lot of good all by itself, plus I have some promising new routines to follow (herbs, etc.) as a result of my visit.
This has turned out to be a much fuller report than I'd intended, yet it still only scratches the surface. Maharishi Vedic Organic Agriculture received lots of attention, particularly as an investment opportunity with which to approach investment bankers. That idea quickly snowballed to include funding Maharishi's entire reconstruction of the world through bond and/or equity offerings. It was really impressive to listen to Raja Bob Lopinto, Raja Bob Wynne, Dr. Harris Kaplan, and others with solid backgrounds in the investment arena working on these details in the presence of His Majesty Maharaja Nader Ram and under Maharishi's active guidance. Even their display of massive brainpower and financial expertise was still only scratching the surface, though. The depth was, as always, Maharishi. I hope there's been a wealth of conference footage coming across the Maharishi Channel and the Global Country or MOU website, and that you've had a chance to sample some of what we were enjoying.
It would have been nice to send a report or two directly from the conference, but computer access was really limited -- probably another blessing. The poor folks on regular staff! They shared one computer in a little room near the kitchen. Once Purusha discovered it, it became an all-day proposition for anyone to get on it, because just about all of us needed to check our email at least a couple of times, especially when our stay kept getting extended. After a few days of Purusha using the staff computer, we began to realize that we were intruding on their own precious few free moments for emailing and web stuff, so we started encouraging them go right to the head of the line whenever they showed up--as we should have done from the start. Once on the computer, we'd typically have (if no staff showed up behind us) 5 to 10 minutes before the next person started knocking on the door to check on our progress. It was such a slow computer, and AOL has such a slow web site, that I would barely have my mailbox loaded on the screen before the pressure to relinquish the computer began to build. So I didn't do any emailing, to speak of -- just deleted spam and begged my family only to send messages that were urgent. Waiting in line made for some interesting conversations. I met my first Bulgarian, for example, and was astounded at how active the Movement is there. I learned more about Bulgarian history and sociology than I ever did in school!
I was surprised by the lack of jet lag, both going and coming back. I think Maharishi may have been waving his magic wand over us. Now that I'm back, I'm reminded of other changes that are still underway in our lives. New surveying stakes popped up around Heavenly Mtn. in our absence, so I think there may be something happening on the property front. Maybe we'll have an announcement soon. In the meantime, Maharishi is proceeding full speed ahead on designing housing for us in Vlodrop. He really liked having us around (you can bet that the feeling was mutual) and wants us back in a month or two. Even in a best-case scenario, using modular buildings, it's hard to imagine that those quarters will be ready in less than three or four months, so if we do have to move off of Heavenly Mountain before then, it'll be interesting to see where we go. Speculation still ranges from Vedic City to the far corners of the country and world. The trailer parks in Holland kind of loosened up our boundaries as far as housing conditions go, so we're much better prepared for adventure than we were a month ago.
Our preparations to vacate Heavenly Mtn. had flagged a little, with the passing months and no news, but with the prospect of joining Maharishi in Holland, we're focused more strongly than ever on the task at hand. And now we're not just preparing to move, but trying to pare our possessions down to what we'll carry with us when we go back there -- or, if things change, to wherever. I should mention that we seem to be more successful in paring down our kitchen staff than our personal stuff. Knowing that their future is in jeopardy, some staff members have left in search of more stable employment elsewhere, so if you know anyone who might like to chop vegetables for a couple of months (or even to supervise a kitchen), we're in dire need! We do pay stipends.
And we're also still swimming in bliss. I wish the same upon you, in multiples of infinity.
Jai Guru Dev
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