Yes, good analysis. I remember those days of the daily trudge or car ride to the dome, seeing people I didn't actually know but whose faces became very familiar. It was indeed the daily communal ritual; it was the glue that held us together. Now it has largely fallen away, although of course many people do still go. But in some ways we are almost in a post-TM era here now. I know so many people who no longer practice TM or care about anything the TMO does. It is just no longer a part of their lives. Instead of having one communal meeting ground every day, twice a day, people have developed a network of smaller groups, from the Sufis to Waking Down (just to give two examples) to cater to their particular post-TM interests. And yet is it wonderful that almost all of us have that common background. We understand each other in ways that would not be possible without it. I spent over 30 years doing TM and do not regret a single moment spent with eyes closed in the dome or elsewhere. But I have no desire to practice any form of meditation now. I have moved on, and others have too. I also find there is tremendous respect among the post-TMers for all the different paths or no paths that people have chosen to best satisfy their spiritual needs as they understand them now, 40-50 years (in many cases) since we first began this long journey, in a puja room somewhere with incense burning, a picture of the guru—and the imminence of "transcendence," that sudden strange fall . . .
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <dhamiltony2k5@...> wrote : Living in the meditating community it is interesting that the meditating community in Fairfield, Iowa is large enough that we do not necessarily know each other in it. Living here you recognize folks as part of the tribe. In the tribe there evidently are circles of folks something like guilds by affinity of interests or work that might overlap like Venn diagrams do. It used to be easier to recognize folks twenty years ago when the meditation numbers where significantly higher whence twice a day lots of meditators regardless of social economics, rank or element in the community, everyone walked in to the Domes shoulder-to-shoulder for meditation. The Dome meditation times then also served as communal 'check-in' times with friends and the larger meditating community. The Dome numbers have fragmented and diminished since those times and elements of the tribe have drifted a part from each other but there can still be overlap. And every once in a while you meet someone who has been living here in the larger meditating community for 20, 30 or 40 years that you never met before. For the last year or so as a 'town meditator' I have been on committees meeting up on campus and it has been a revelation at times putting some faces to names of folks up there in that part of the meditating community. And, also renewing old friendships of people who have been around for decades here. -JaiGuruYou Edg writes: Never met George. Two decades in FF, and nope. But I heard his name every single week there...the guy was a true community gluer. Had to be that he was a solid Joe.
