feste, loving what you say here that's so true, esp the part about having the
common background and also respecting all the different paths.
From: feste37 <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Sent: Thursday, July 9, 2015 10:12 PM
Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: The FF Meditating Community
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 [email protected], <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. #yiv0874978736 #yiv0874978736 --
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