[FairfieldLife] The Domes Revisited
Vivid and charming! The Domes Revisited A Personal Essay About Meditating in the Golden Domes Fairfield is home to over 2,000 Transcendental Meditation practitioners and Maharishi University of Management. BY SHARALYN PLILER Silence. Many people think of silence as a problem—the awkwardness when conversation grinds to an embarrassing halt, a mother’ssense of trouble when the kids go quiet, the media announcer’s frantic attempt to fill up air time with anything other than nothingness. But as a meditator, I know silence as something altogether different.To call it bliss seems trite, but even as a writer I fail to find an adequate description for that sweet spot inside so still that even breath causes ripples in it, that oasis hidden on the dark side of the moon, that place inside us where we flirt with genesis. Whatever name we give to inner silence, I’ve learned that the best place to find it is in the domes in Fairfield. We didn’t have domes when I learned yogic flying in 1978 on the first MUM student’s course. We’d heard whispers about flying, but I don’t think we really believed it, not even when we saw sheets of foam spread on the pod-house floors. But on that magical summer, almost before we had time to close our eyes, the woman next to me popped up with an astonished “oh!” as if someone had goosed her. Like a pot at the boiling point, the room fairly steamed with intermittent stifled gasps and giggles as more of us experienced that sudden, bubble-like lifting into the air. We learned that the foam was to soften the landing. After the course, we did programs alone. A few months later, a message came that Maharishi wanted everyone to meet in the fieldhouse. It felt like a secret-service mission as we almost tiptoed into that stodgy, dark building, finding the basketball court covered with foam. What an adventure! We seemed less about silence then than noise and exuberance.We were filled with a sense of wonder and daring as we made great leaps and wild sounds like fledgling giants testing their reach. We watched the stock market and world news go up and down, depending upon our numbers. I have never lost my sense of sadness that on the one day we did not do program together, the day of my graduation in 1979 when they took up the foam for commencement, an airplane crashed killing 271 people, the only such accident in months before or after. After graduation, I left Fairfield. While I was gone, Maharishi himself inaugurated the 22,000 square feet (approximately the size of a football field) dome, called the Maharishi Patanjali Hall of Knowledge, in 1980. On returning, the enormity of it, the sheer volume of space from floor to ceiling, reminded me of the mothership in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Tongue-in-groove wood ceiling, central skylights, red carpets, and gold velvet drapes covering more than a hundred arched windows all served to bring new heights to the depths of silence. I felt jealous because it had been built for the men, feeling only somewhat mollified when women got to use it on alternative months. At first, I felt traumatized by the segregation of the sexes. But the oscillation between dome and fieldhouse taught me what no amount of lecturing could have about why segregation was useful. It wasn’t for arbitrary puritanical standards but because we were different. Where the guys had been for a month, it smelled like a locker room. Nice smell, actually, but it had a different energy, a more forceful kind that I began to identify as distinctly masculine as compared to our softer, feminine energy. It left me with a greater appreciation for both sexes and a longing for the completion of the women’s dome, the Bagambhrini Hall of Knowledge, the twin to Patanjali. Looking up at the stars through its open rafters during construction, I was aware that, with every nail and board, history was being made. When we got to fly in it for the first time, in December 1981, it felt like coming home to a new level of silence. The pattern was clear—there was deeper silence in the fieldhouse than alone, more in Patanjali than the fieldhouse, and more for me, as a woman, in the women’s dome. But while inner silence had increased, the outer level had gotten out of hand. Before program, hundreds of us gossiped in loud whispers against a background litany of microphone announcements and security procedures. Noise may not be a barrier to meditation, but during program there was so much coughing, clanking of keys, and rustling clothing that when I had to leave again in 1987, I looked forward to doing program alone. The Power of Flying in a Group But on returning to Fairfield ten years later, it became obvious that the outward silence wasn’t what made the process work. At the Raj, where I stayed when I first arrived, program was obviously deeper. Then, when I moved six miles away, the quality of program dropped. The contrast was
Re: [FairfieldLife] The Domes Revisited
I find that meditating/flying in the Mens Dome to be disruptive and difficult. There are all of these people, sucking my energy from me, all this chaos in thoughts. On CCC I always liked the second round which had less people. My sweetest problems were at places like the Navasota Capital, with far few people or on weekend WPAs in Estes Park, Colorado. I've also attended official residence courses, where the sidhas had to do their programs in their rooms because we were on a residence course for meditators. These were also very sweet, very deep experiences. Some of the deepest experiences I've had with TM/TMSP were in Moore County, TN, population something like 1500. I've done program on top of Pikes Peak and was so full of prana that I'd be blissed out and seeing blinding white for days. The domes? Nah. The 7000 course? Well that was different, but not especially deep. On the Taste of Utopia you got sucked in. I'd hop without having to think my sutras, I'd have flavors of awareness without having to think my sutras.I drove all the way to Burlington, IA to do some shopping and didn't notice that power of the course wearing off at that distance.
Re: [FairfieldLife] The Domes Revisited
Oh my God, her! She's an immature mood-maker supreme who wears army boots. --- Rick Archer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: www.iowasource.com Fairfield, Iowa The Domes Revisited: A Personal Essay About the Golden Domes Fairfield: Home to over 2,000 Transcendental Meditation practitioners and Maharishi University of Management BY ROSES DERISE (formerly Sharalyn Harris, who used to post here) Silence. Many people think of silence as a problem-the awkwardness when conversation grinds to an embarrassing halt, a mother's sense of trouble when the kids go quiet, the media announcer's frantic attempt to fill up air time with anything other than nothingness. But as meditators, we know silence as something altogether different. To call it bliss seems trite, but even as a writer I fail to find an adequate description for that sweet spot inside so still that even breath causes ripples in it, that oasis hidden on the dark side of the moon, that place inside us where we flirt with genesis. Whatever name we give to inner silence, I've learned that the best place to find it is in the domes in Fairfield. We didn't have domes when I learned yogic flying in 1978 on the first MUM student's course. We'd heard whispers about flying, but I don't think we really believed it, not even when we saw sheets of foam spread on the pod-house floors. But on that magical summer, almost before we had time to close our eyes, the woman next to me popped up with an astonished oh! as if someone had goosed her. Like a pot at the boiling point, the room fairly steamed with intermittent stifled gasps and giggles as more of us experienced that sudden, bubble-like lifting into the air. We learned that the foam was to soften the landing. After the course, we did programs alone. A few months later, a message came that Maharishi wanted everyone to meet in the fieldhouse. It felt like a secret-service mission as we almost tiptoed into that stodgy, dark building, finding the basketball court covered with foam. What an adventure! We seemed less about silence then than noise and exuberance. We were filled with a sense of wonder and daring as we made great leaps and wild sounds like fledgling giants testing their reach. We watched the stock market and world news go up and down, depending upon our numbers. I have never lost my sense of sadness that on the one day we did not do program together, the day of my graduation in 1979 when they took up the foam for commencement, an airplane crashed killing 271 people, the only such accident in months before or after. After graduation, I left Fairfield. While I was gone, Maharishi himself inaugurated the 22,000 square feet (approximately the size of a football field) dome, called the Maharishi Patanjali Hall of Knowledge, in 1980. On returning, the enormity of it, the sheer volume of space from floor to ceiling, reminded me of the mothership in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Tongue-in-groove wood ceiling, central skylights, red carpets, and gold velvet drapes covering more than a hundred arched windows all served to bring new heights to the depths of silence. I felt jealous because it had been built for the men, feeling only somewhat mollified when women got to use it on alternative months. At first, I felt traumatized by the segregation of the sexes. But the oscillation between dome and fieldhouse taught me what no amount of lecturing could have about why segregation was useful. It wasn't for arbitrary puritanical standards but because we were different. Where the guys had been for a month, it smelled like a locker room. Nice smell, actually, but it had a different energy, a more forceful kind that I began to identify as distinctly masculine as compared to our softer, feminine energy. It left me with a greater appreciation for both sexes and a longing for the completion of the women's dome, the Bagambhrini Hall of Knowledge, the twin to Patanjali. Looking up at the stars through its open rafters during construction, I was aware that, with every nail and board, history was being made. When we got to fly in it for the first time, in December 1981, it felt like coming home to a new level of silence. The pattern was clear-there was deeper silence in the fieldhouse than alone, more in Patanjali than the fieldhouse, and more for me, as a woman, in the women's dome. But while inner silence had increased, the outer level had gotten out of hand. Before program, hundreds of us gossiped in loud whispers against a background litany of microphone announcements and security procedures. Noise may not be a barrier to meditation, but during program there was so much coughing, clanking of keys, and rustling clothing that when I had to leave again in 1987, I looked forward to doing program alone. The Power of Flying in a Group But on returning to Fairfield ten years later,
Re: [FairfieldLife] The Domes Revisited
Now, now Dr. Pete--that's negative! Sal On Sep 23, 2006, at 9:55 AM, Peter wrote: Oh my God, her! She's an immature mood-maker supreme who wears army boots. --- Rick Archer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: www.iowasource.com Fairfield, Iowa The Domes Revisited: A Personal Essay About the Golden Domes Fairfield: Home to over 2,000 Transcendental Meditation practitioners and Maharishi University of Management BY ROSES DERISE (formerly Sharalyn Harris, who used to post here) To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional * To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/join (Yahoo! ID required) * To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Re: [FairfieldLife] The Domes Revisited
That's why I gave her army boots. --- Sal Sunshine [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Now, now Dr. Pete--that's negative! Sal On Sep 23, 2006, at 9:55 AM, Peter wrote: Oh my God, her! She's an immature mood-maker supreme who wears army boots. --- Rick Archer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: www.iowasource.com Fairfield, Iowa The Domes Revisited: A Personal Essay About the Golden Domes Fairfield: Home to over 2,000 Transcendental Meditation practitioners and Maharishi University of Management BY ROSES DERISE (formerly Sharalyn Harris, who used to post here) To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional * To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/join (Yahoo! ID required) * To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] The Domes Revisited
Title: The Domes Revisited www.iowasource.com Fairfield, Iowa The Domes Revisited: A Personal Essay About the Golden Domes Fairfield: Home to over 2,000 Transcendental Meditation practitioners and Maharishi University of Management BY ROSES DERISE (formerly Sharalyn Harris, who used to post here) Silence. Many people think of silence as a problem-the awkwardness when conversation grinds to an embarrassing halt, a mother's sense of trouble when the kids go quiet, the media announcer's frantic attempt to fill up air time with anything other than nothingness. But as meditators, we know silence as something altogether different. To call it bliss seems trite, but even as a writer I fail to find an adequate description for that sweet spot inside so still that even breath causes ripples in it, that oasis hidden on the dark side of the moon, that place inside us where we flirt with genesis. Whatever name we give to inner silence, I've learned that the best place to find it is in the domes in Fairfield. We didn't have domes when I learned yogic flying in 1978 on the first MUM student's course. We'd heard whispers about flying, but I don't think we really believed it, not even when we saw sheets of foam spread on the pod-house floors. But on that magical summer, almost before we had time to close our eyes, the woman next to me popped up with an astonished oh! as if someone had goosed her. Like a pot at the boiling point, the room fairly steamed with intermittent stifled gasps and giggles as more of us experienced that sudden, bubble-like lifting into the air. We learned that the foam was to soften the landing. After the course, we did programs alone. A few months later, a message came that Maharishi wanted everyone to meet in the fieldhouse. It felt like a secret-service mission as we almost tiptoed into that stodgy, dark building, finding the basketball court covered with foam. What an adventure! We seemed less about silence then than noise and exuberance. We were filled with a sense of wonder and daring as we made great leaps and wild sounds like fledgling giants testing their reach. We watched the stock market and world news go up and down, depending upon our numbers. I have never lost my sense of sadness that on the one day we did not do program together, the day of my graduation in 1979 when they took up the foam for commencement, an airplane crashed killing 271 people, the only such accident in months before or after. After graduation, I left Fairfield. While I was gone, Maharishi himself inaugurated the 22,000 square feet (approximately the size of a football field) dome, called the Maharishi Patanjali Hall of Knowledge, in 1980. On returning, the enormity of it, the sheer volume of space from floor to ceiling, reminded me of the mothership in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Tongue-in-groove wood ceiling, central skylights, red carpets, and gold velvet drapes covering more than a hundred arched windows all served to bring new heights to the depths of silence. I felt jealous because it had been built for the men, feeling only somewhat mollified when women got to use it on alternative months. At first, I felt traumatized by the segregation of the sexes. But the oscillation between dome and fieldhouse taught me what no amount of lecturing could have about why segregation was useful. It wasn't for arbitrary puritanical standards but because we were different. Where the guys had been for a month, it smelled like a locker room. Nice smell, actually, but it had a different energy, a more forceful kind that I began to identify as distinctly masculine as compared to our softer, feminine energy. It left me with a greater appreciation for both sexes and a longing for the completion of the women's dome, the Bagambhrini Hall of Knowledge, the twin to Patanjali. Looking up at the stars through its open rafters during construction, I was aware that, with every nail and board, history was being made. When we got to fly in it for the first time, in December 1981, it felt like coming home to a new level of silence. The pattern was clear-there was deeper silence in the fieldhouse than alone, more in Patanjali than the fieldhouse, and more for me, as a woman, in the women's dome. But while inner silence had increased, the outer level had gotten out of hand. Before program, hundreds of us gossiped in loud whispers against a background litany of microphone announcements and security procedures. Noise may not be a barrier to meditation, but during program there was so much coughing, clanking of keys, and rustling clothing that when I had to leave again in 1987, I looked forward to doing program alone. The Power of Flying in a Group But on returning to Fairfield ten years later, it became obvious that the outward silence wasn't what made the process work. At the Raj, where I stayed when I first arrived, program was obviously deeper. Then, when I moved six miles away, the quality of program dropped. The
