[FairfieldLife] Re: Describing Communal (Meditating) Fairfield

[dhamiltony...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

Fairfield, Iowa: The Peace Engine that Could.
 "A big part of life in Fairfield — in order to understand why everyone moved 
there and what the vision was — was that Maharishi had a theory that large 
groups of people practicing his trademarked form of meditation and his advanced 
form of meditation, which he called "Yogic Flying," would create world peace. 
He had a scientific formula that he had come up with where it was to be 
precise, the square root of one percent of the population — if that amount of 
people were meditating it would radiate this sort of peace engine that would 
change the world.
 So the people that moved there, moved there to meditate together. And in the 
late '70s, early '80s, they built these two gigantic, golden dome-shaped 
buildings. There was a women's dome and a men's dome, and twice a day, people 
would go and meditate together. In the '80s and into the '90s it was thousands 
of people and they would meditate for about an hour and a half to two hours 
each session. So it would be an hour and a half to two hours, twice a day, so 
three to four hours." 
 -Greetings From Utopia Park 
https://www.npr.org/2016/06/13/481845003/a-childhood-of-transcendental-meditation-spent-in-the-shadow-of-a-guru
 
https://www.npr.org/2016/06/13/481845003/a-childhood-of-transcendental-meditation-spent-in-the-shadow-of-a-guru
 


---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :

 Transcendentalism
 

 
 I am the Self, I am the body, I am the Veda, I am the universe, I am totality 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCDXALGej84
 
 
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCDXALGej84 
 
 I am the Self, I am the body, I am the Veda, I am the un... 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCDXALGej84 http://www.TM.org I am the Self, I 
am the body, I am the Veda, I am the universe, I am totality 1. Dr. Hagelin: 
Maharishi mentioned Vedic health care. The qu...
 
 
 
 View on www.youtube.com https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCDXALGej84 
 Preview by Yahoo 
 
 
  
 
“We are a group of people who have come together and created a community for a 
transcendentally important common purpose, which of course is to practice the 
Transcendental Meditation program and the TM-Sidhi program together as a group, 
for the sake of bringing coherence to national and world consciousness based on 
balancing labor and leisure to meditate while working together for the benefit 
of the community. Our Super-Radiance meditating community includes families of 
TM-Meditators and TM-Sidhas in the Fairfield, Vedic City and Jefferson County 
area.”


 

 ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :

 Fairfield Meditating: Living nice, cheap, and spiritual
 having some style and a good time, like on the Farm.
 

 
http://www.nationofchange.org/remembering-stephen-gaskin-conversation-man-behind-original-grid-farm-1406990309
 
http://www.nationofchange.org/remembering-stephen-gaskin-conversation-man-behind-original-grid-farm-1406990309
 

 

 Erin McCarley: What would you say were the founding principles of The Farm?
 Stephen Gaskin: We had all been spiritual students of one kind or another. We 
still are. I used to say, “If you took all religions, like on IBM punch cards, 
some of the holes would go clear through the stack.” And that’s what we’re 
interested in. We agreed that if you felt like we were all one, we could live 
collectively in a way in which everybody could have some of what was happening.
 

 For Lurkers looking in, for a perspective on how we live as the Fairfield, 
Iowa meditating community see the recent post/link to the organizational flow 
charts as to how we are as a living community here. The pundit thing is a small 
part of the Fairfield Iowa meditator experience.
 
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/FairfieldLife/conversations/messages/375646 
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/FairfieldLife/conversations/messages/375646
 

 Om well, to anybody who is *new*  to this, looking in on Fairfield, Iowa from 
the outside, you should know also for relative perspective that the pundit 
thing is an outpost of all that is the TM meditating community in Fairfield, 
Iowa.   Most Fairfield meditators don't have anything to do with it and there 
was never a lot of buy in to it for common Fairfield rank and file meditators. 
The pundit program is a pretty exclusive thing that is run by a few super-ru's.
 -Buck
 

 

 

 awoelflebater writes:
 feste37 writes:
 "feste37" wrote:
 

 That's a good summary.
 

 Thanks. It is interesting that you responded first to this. I actually was 
thinking of asking you to help me edit this particular paper [below] for this 
particular scholarly audience. I pushed ahead anyway and they seem quite 
pleased with this as an entry in to the subject of TM and Fairfield for 
discussion. -Buck 
 

 

 But if the scholars didn't know about TM and Fairfield, I'd be interested in 
knowing what were the Utopian/spiritual/intentional/communal groups that they 
did discuss, especially those currently in existence. Where 

[FairfieldLife] Re: Describing Communal (Meditating) Fairfield

[dhamiltony...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

Transcendentalism
 

 
 I am the Self, I am the body, I am the Veda, I am the universe, I am totality 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCDXALGej84
 
 
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCDXALGej84 
 
 I am the Self, I am the body, I am the Veda, I am the un... 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCDXALGej84 http://www.TM.org I am the Self, I 
am the body, I am the Veda, I am the universe, I am totality 1. Dr. Hagelin: 
Maharishi mentioned Vedic health care. The qu...
 
 
 
 View on www.youtube.com https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCDXALGej84 
 Preview by Yahoo 
 
 
  
 
“We are a group of people who have come together and created a community for a 
transcendentally important common purpose, which of course is to practice the 
Transcendental Meditation program and the TM-Sidhi program together as a group, 
for the sake of bringing coherence to national and world consciousness based on 
balancing labor and leisure to meditate while working together for the benefit 
of the community. Our Super-Radiance meditating community includes families of 
TM-Meditators and TM-Sidhas in the Fairfield, Vedic City and Jefferson County 
area.”


 

 ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :

 Fairfield Meditating: Living nice, cheap, and spiritual
 having some style and a good time, like on the Farm.
 

 
http://www.nationofchange.org/remembering-stephen-gaskin-conversation-man-behind-original-grid-farm-1406990309
 
http://www.nationofchange.org/remembering-stephen-gaskin-conversation-man-behind-original-grid-farm-1406990309
 

 

 Erin McCarley: What would you say were the founding principles of The Farm?
 Stephen Gaskin: We had all been spiritual students of one kind or another. We 
still are. I used to say, “If you took all religions, like on IBM punch cards, 
some of the holes would go clear through the stack.” And that’s what we’re 
interested in. We agreed that if you felt like we were all one, we could live 
collectively in a way in which everybody could have some of what was happening.
 

 For Lurkers looking in, for a perspective on how we live as the Fairfield, 
Iowa meditating community see the recent post/link to the organizational flow 
charts as to how we are as a living community here. The pundit thing is a small 
part of the Fairfield Iowa meditator experience.
 
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/FairfieldLife/conversations/messages/375646 
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/FairfieldLife/conversations/messages/375646
 

 Om well, to anybody who is *new*  to this, looking in on Fairfield, Iowa from 
the outside, you should know also for relative perspective that the pundit 
thing is an outpost of all that is the TM meditating community in Fairfield, 
Iowa.   Most Fairfield meditators don't have anything to do with it and there 
was never a lot of buy in to it for common Fairfield rank and file meditators. 
The pundit program is a pretty exclusive thing that is run by a few super-ru's.
 -Buck
 

 

 

 awoelflebater writes:
 feste37 writes:
 "feste37" wrote:
 

 That's a good summary.
 

 Thanks. It is interesting that you responded first to this. I actually was 
thinking of asking you to help me edit this particular paper [below] for this 
particular scholarly audience. I pushed ahead anyway and they seem quite 
pleased with this as an entry in to the subject of TM and Fairfield for 
discussion. -Buck 
 

 

 But if the scholars didn't know about TM and Fairfield, I'd be interested in 
knowing what were the Utopian/spiritual/intentional/communal groups that they 
did discuss, especially those currently in existence. Where are these groups 
located? Who are they?
 

 Communal studies:  Yesterday in Fairfield I met a couple of young people 
visiting Fairfield from a commune in Missouri. They had heard about Fairfield 
and came up from southern Missouri to visit. They had their back-packs with 
bed-rolls and were on the square downtown. I stopped and asked them what they 
were about. They were from a communal group different from Dancing Rabbit 
located much further south than the communes near Dancing Rabbit. Missouri 
hosts quite a number of communal groups. Sandhill being another Missouri 
self=sustaining commune that is older and better known. The group these young 
men were from is part of the 12 tribes movement, a shared=goods group sort of 
like the Hutterites. They live communally but different from the Hutterites the 
Tribes live in common dwelling houses. Twelve tribes came out of the Jesus 
movement of the anti-war years of the 70's but is very anti-established 
institutional doctrinaire Christianity. These were real nice idealistic young 
people a lot like we are as bringing a better place to the world. 
Millennialists like us, just a different language. They pray a lot like we 
meditate a lot. 
 

 -Buck, on the Streets of Fairfield
 

 Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage | Building Sustainable Community 
http://www.dancingrabbit.org/
 

 

 At the scholarly meeting were 

[FairfieldLife] Re: Describing Communal (Meditating) Fairfield

[dhamiltony...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

Fairfield Meditating: Living nice, cheap, and spiritual 
 having some style and a good time, like on the Farm. 
 
 
 
http://www.nationofchange.org/remembering-stephen-gaskin-conversation-man-behind-original-grid-farm-1406990309
 
http://www.nationofchange.org/remembering-stephen-gaskin-conversation-man-behind-original-grid-farm-1406990309
 
 
 
 
 Erin McCarley: What would you say were the founding principles of The Farm?
 Stephen Gaskin: We had all been spiritual students of one kind or another. We 
still are. I used to say, “If you took all religions, like on IBM punch cards, 
some of the holes would go clear through the stack.” And that’s what we’re 
interested in. We agreed that if you felt like we were all one, we could live 
collectively in a way in which everybody could have some of what was happening.
 

 For Lurkers looking in, for a perspective on how we live as the Fairfield, 
Iowa meditating community see the recent post/link to the organizational flow 
charts as to how we are as a living community here. The pundit thing is a small 
part of the Fairfield Iowa meditator experience.
 
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/FairfieldLife/conversations/messages/375646 
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/FairfieldLife/conversations/messages/375646
 

 Om well, to anybody who is *new*  to this looking in on Fairfield, Iowa from 
the outside you should know also for relative perspective that the pundit thing 
is an outpost of all that is the TM meditating community in Fairfield, Iowa.   
Most Fairfield meditators don't have anything to do with it and there was never 
a lot of buy in to it for common Fairfield rank and file meditators. The pundit 
program is a pretty exclusive thing that is run by a few super-ru's.
 -Buck
 

 

 “We are a group of people who have come together and created a community for a 
transcendentally important common purpose, which of course is to practice the 
Transcendental Meditation program and the TM-Sidhi program together as a group, 
for the sake of bringing coherence to national and world consciousness based on 
balancing labor and leisure to meditate while working together for the benefit 
of the community. Our Super-Radiance meditating community includes families of 
TM-Meditators and TM-Sidhas in the Fairfield, Vedic City and Jefferson County 
area.”
 

 awoelflebater writes:
 feste37 writes:
 feste37 wrote:
 

 That's a good summary.
 

 Thanks. It is interesting that you responded first to this. I actually was 
thinking of asking you to help me edit this particular paper for this 
particular scholarly audience. I pushed ahead anyway and they seem quite 
pleased with this as an entry in to the subject of TM and Fairfield for 
discussion. -Buck 
 

 But if the scholars didn't know about TM and Fairfield, I'd be interested in 
knowing what were the Utopian/spiritual/intentional/communal groups that they 
did discuss, especially those currently in existence. Where are these groups 
located? Who are they?
 

 Yesterday in Fairfield I met a couple of young people visiting Fairfield from 
a commune in Missouri. They had heard about Fairfield and came up from southern 
Missouri to visit. They had their back-packs with bed-rolls and were on the 
square downtown. I stopped and asked them what they were about. They were from 
a communal group different from Dancing Rabbit located much further south than 
the communes near Dancing Rabbit. Missouri hosts quite a number of communal 
groups. Sandhill being another Missouri self=sustaining commune that is older 
and better known. The group these young men were from is part of the 12 tribes 
movement, a shared=goods group sort of like the Hutterites. They live 
communally but different from the Hutterites the Tribes live in common dwelling 
houses. Twelve tribes came out of the Jesus movement of the anti-war years of 
the 70's but is very anti-established institutional doctrinaire Christianity. 
These were real nice idealistic young people a lot like we are as bringing a 
better place to the world. Millennialists like us, just a different language. 
They pray a lot like we meditate a lot. 
 

 -Buck, on the Streets of Fairfield
 

 Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage | Building Sustainable Community 
http://www.dancingrabbit.org/
 

 

 At the meeting were specialists in different communal groups and aspects of 
different groups. Oneida, Harmonists, Amana, Shakers, Icarians, Mormons, 
Synanon, new religions and contemporary religious and secular communities, 
Camphill, the Twelve Tribes, City of David, Kibitz, and some other particular 
contemporary cloistered groups had papers delivered about them. There was a 
paper given considering quantitative measurement of the notion of 
sustainability in communal groups using a contemporary 'intentional community' 
group that is just to our south over the border in Missouri, the intentional 
community of Dancing Rabbit. The conference had papers on many different 
aspects of utopian community. 

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Describing Communal (Meditating) Fairfield

[dhamiltony2k5]

Xeno, I feel at the least by the science we should all vouch-safe the human 
experience of the transcendent Unified Field for all humankind and that is a 
proper role for all government. In your posting this ingersoll piece to this 
longer FFL thread describing the spirituality experiment implicit of the 
Fairfield, Iowa Meditating Community, is that what you were thinking too?
 -Buck in the Dome
 

 Anartaxius writes:

 It probably will not be long until the churches will divide as sharply upon 
political, as upon theological questions; and when that day comes, if there are 
not liberals enough to hold the balance of power, this Government will be 
destroyed. The liberty of man is not safe in the hands of any church. Wherever 
the Bible and sword are in partnership, man is a slave. All laws for the 
purpose of making man worship God, are born of the same spirit that kindled the 
fires of the auto da fe, and lovingly built the dungeons of the Inquisition. 
All laws defining and punishing blasphemy — making it a crime to give your 
honest ideas about the Bible, or to laugh at the ignorance of the ancient Jews, 
or to enjoy yourself on the Sabbath, or to give your opinion of Jehovah, were 
passed by impudent bigots, and should be at once repealed by honest men. An 
infinite God ought to be able to protect himself, without going in partnership 
with State Legislatures. Certainly he ought not so to act that laws become 
necessary to keep him from being laughed at. No one thinks of protecting 
Shakespeare from ridicule, by the threat of fine and imprisonment. It strikes 
me that God might write a book that would not necessarily excite the laughter 
of his children. In fact, I think it would be safe to say that a real God could 
produce a work that would excite the admiration of mankind. Surely politicians 
could be better employed than in passing laws to protect the literary 
reputation of the Jewish God.
  --- Robert Ingersoll (1879)  (You can substitute other related concepts for 
Bible, God, and can substitute Christian, or Hindu, or Quaker, Islamist, etc., 
for Jewish. [This quotation is from a work that focuses on Moses]) . 

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Describing Communal (Meditating) Fairfield

[anartaxius]

 It probably will not be long until the churches will divide as sharply upon 
political, as upon theological questions; and when that day comes, if there are 
not liberals enough to hold the balance of power, this Government will be 
destroyed. The liberty of man is not safe in the hands of any church. Wherever 
the Bible and sword are in partnership, man is a slave. All laws for the 
purpose of making man worship God, are born of the same spirit that kindled the 
fires of the auto da fe, and lovingly built the dungeons of the Inquisition. 
All laws defining and punishing blasphemy — making it a crime to give your 
honest ideas about the Bible, or to laugh at the ignorance of the ancient Jews, 
or to enjoy yourself on the Sabbath, or to give your opinion of Jehovah, were 
passed by impudent bigots, and should be at once repealed by honest men. An 
infinite God ought to be able to protect himself, without going in partnership 
with State Legislatures. Certainly he ought not so to act that laws become 
necessary to keep him from being laughed at. No one thinks of protecting 
Shakespeare from ridicule, by the threat of fine and imprisonment. It strikes 
me that God might write a book that would not necessarily excite the laughter 
of his children. In fact, I think it would be safe to say that a real God could 
produce a work that would excite the admiration of mankind. Surely politicians 
could be better employed than in passing laws to protect the literary 
reputation of the Jewish God.  --- Robert Ingersoll (1879)  (You can substitute 
other related concepts for Bible, God, and can substitute Christian, or Hindu, 
or Quaker, Islamist, etc., for Jewish. [This quotation is from a work that 
focuses on Moses])

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Describing Communal (Meditating) Fairfield

[Richard J. Williams]

On 3/21/2014 10:08 PM, dhamiltony...@yahoo.com wrote:
 Way too many triggers that run counter to all our essential 
 transcendent spiritual grain as Americans, the pundit thing has been 
 positioned is so fundamentally wrong as Americans would look at it. 
 The more we learn of it the more it plays fool with all our feelings 
 about “inalienable” rights as human beings as we understand them. Not 
 just that the pundit compound is planted out in the fields looking 
 like a Stalin work camp it all is too much like someone is actually 
 trying to tweak us; it sits right in the middle of so much of what we 
 have been wrangling for and about as Americans.  It is way too loaded 
 as it has been executed. 
 
An R-1 is a foreign national who is coming to the United States 
temporarily to be employed at least part time (average of at least 20 
hours per week) by a non-profit religious organization to work as a 
minister or in a religious vocation or occupation.

The whole idea, Buck, is to promote religious diversity. The United 
State has a long history of supporting religious immigrants and 
non-immigrnt religious workers, teachers and ministers. Maharishi 
himself visited the U.S. on an R-1 visa. Go figure.

Expelled from Massachusetts in the dead of winter in 1636, former 
Puritan leader Roger Williams (1603-1683) issued an impassioned plea for 
freedom of conscience. He wrote:

God requireth not an uniformity of Religion to be inacted and inforced 
in any civill state; which inforced uniformity (sooner or later) is the 
greatest occasion of civill Warre, ravishing of conscience, persecution 
of Christ Jesus in his servants, and of hypocrisy and destruction of 
millions of souls. Williams later founded Rhode Island on the principle 
of religious freedom. He welcomed people of every shade of religious 
belief, even some regarded as dangerously misguided, for nothing could 
change his view that forced worship stinks in God's nostrils.

'The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution, for cause of Conscience, discussed in 
a Conference between Truth and Peace'
by Roger Williams
1644

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Describing Communal (Meditating) Fairfield

[TurquoiseBee]

From: Michael Jackson mjackso...@yahoo.com

To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Thursday, March 13, 2014 7:58 PM
Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Describing Communal (Meditating) Fairfield
 


  
this pundit thing is going to wind up being a lot bigger than you think 
I agree. I suspect that this is the beginning of the end of the pundit 
project in America. I further suspect that if the larger TM organization clings 
to it and tries to support Girish Varma's scam out of misplaced loyalty to 
Maharishi, it will be the beginning of the end of the TM movement as well. 

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Describing Communal (Meditating) Fairfield

[karuna54321]

what is girlish varma's scam.?

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Describing Communal (Meditating) Fairfield

[TurquoiseBee]

Assuming you're trying to ask about my use of the phrase, it is my suspicion 
that he was the one who thought up the whole pundit boy idea and supplying 
them to the TM movement as a way to get more donations from TM practitioners 
that would find their way into his pockets, as I explained in the second part 
of this post:


https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/FairfieldLife/conversations/messages/376220






 From: karuna54...@yahoo.com karuna54...@yahoo.com
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Thursday, March 13, 2014 9:53 PM
Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Describing Communal (Meditating) Fairfield
 


  
what is girlish varma's scam.?

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Describing Communal (Meditating) Fairfield

[Richard J. Williams]

On 3/13/2014 4:14 PM, TurquoiseBee wrote:
it is my suspicion that he was the one who thought up the whole 
pundit boy idea and supplying them to the TM movement as a way to 
get more donations from TM practitioners that would find their way 
into his pockets


Yes, I think that's the idea - to get donations to support the school 
pundit program in India. That's what the director of a school does. Go 
figure.

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Describing Communal (Meditating) Fairfield

[Richard J. Williams]

On 3/13/2014 2:05 PM, TurquoiseBee wrote:
I suspect that this is the beginning of the end of the pundit 
project in America.


Apparently this TB is not aware of the fact that in many parts of the 
world and in parts of India itself, the word pundit means Hindu: 
Chanter of the Vedic Sacrifice (yajna).


So, I seriously doubt that a single instance of child vandalism up in 
Iowa is going to be the end of Hinduism in America. If anything, it 
might inspire thousands of other poor children in India to get their 
parents to sign them up on the program - it sounds like a pretty good 
job for a young Hindu boy from India.

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Describing Communal (Meditating) Fairfield

[awoelflebater]

 

---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb@... wrote :

 From: Michael Jackson mjackson74@...
 To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
 Sent: Thursday, March 13, 2014 7:58 PM
 Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Describing Communal (Meditating) Fairfield
 
 
   this pundit thing is going to wind up being a lot bigger than you think 
 

I agree. I suspect that this is the beginning of the end of the pundit 
project in America. I further suspect that if the larger TM organization clings 
to it and tries to support Girish Varma's scam out of misplaced loyalty to 
Maharishi, it will be the beginning of the end of the TM movement as well. 

 

 I can't remember when I have seen grown men so excited about anything this 
insignificant. Bawwy is positively beside himself gossiping and postulating all 
over the place. It really is quite comical. I guess he doesn't actually get out 
much, too busy hoping he might end up in some TV series equivalence of real 
life and when some minor blip on FF's radar screen shows itself he wants to be 
part of the show. Man, I'm actually finding this funny. Can he sleep he's so 
excited I wonder. He's probably getting up hourly to check the Fairfield 
Ledger for pandit updates.

[FairfieldLife] Re: Describing Communal (Meditating) Fairfield

[punditster]

Share:
 ...amazing to me that you've been dialoguing for over 10 
 years with Ma and Pa of FFL and have kept your sense of 
 humor about it all. As far as I can go and figure, that's 
 what it's ultimately all about.

What exactly, was Judy's beef with you? I forgot. 

That you're dishonest, a liar, and an idiot? Do 
you see any patterns here? LoL! 


   It's enough if I see how you constantly bug and patronize 
   Share for nothing, and now you want to draw me into this 
   stupid argument you are having with her?
   
 Share Long:
  I think when certain posters don't drink enough water, 
  their pitta gets vitiated and they can't help but argue 
  with lots of people.
 
 It's not complicated - some people just feel better when 
 they have someone to talk to. When you don't have a car 
 and you can't get around, it's only natural to turn to a 
 discussion group to vent their frustrations. 
 
  Kind of ironic.
 
 Yes, I've been dialoging with Judy and Barry for over ten 
 years now and they both seem to just get worse with time. 
 
 At least I've got them to the point that they won't even
 correspond with me anymore. LoL!
 
 I think I got rid of one troll - that guy John Manning - 
 the one that trolled to my place of employ and tried to 
 get me fired from my janitor job at the community college. 
 
 Apparently he only posts to that Mormon religious group 
 anymore. Go figure.
 
 It's been more difficult to get back at that weird Barry 
 character - the guy that tried to publish my real name on 
 the internet a few years ago over on Usenet. 
 
 What's ironic is that Barry won't even admit he's guilty 
 and Judy, who makes claims of being so ethical, never
 even spoke up about any of these incidents. Ironic.

Re: [FairfieldLife] RE: Describing Communal (Meditating) Fairfield

[Share Long]

punditster sir, amazing to me that you've been dialoguing for over 10 years 
with Ma and Pa of FFL and have kept your sense of humor about it all. As far as 
I can go and figure, that's what it's ultimately all about.




 From: punditster no_re...@yahoogroups.com
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Saturday, September 14, 2013 11:40 AM
Subject: [FairfieldLife] RE: Describing Communal (Meditating) Fairfield
 


  


  It's enough if I see how you constantly bug and patronize 
  Share for nothing, and now you want to draw me into this 
  stupid argument you are having with her?
  
Share Long:
 I think when certain posters don't drink enough water, 
 their pitta gets vitiated and they can't help but argue 
 with lots of people.

It's not complicated - some people just feel better when 
they have someone to talk to. When you don't have a car 
and you can't get around, it's only natural to turn to a 
discussion group to vent their frustrations. 

 Kind of ironic.

Yes, I've been dialoging with Judy and Barry for over ten 
years now and they both seem to just get worse with time. 

At least I've got them to the point that they won't even
correspond with me anymore. LoL!

I think I got rid of one troll - that guy John Manning - 
the one that trolled to my place of employ and tried to 
get me fired from my janitor job at the community college. 

Apparently he only posts to that Mormon religious group 
anymore. Go figure.

It's been more difficult to get back at that weird Barry 
character - the guy that tried to publish my real name on 
the internet a few years ago over on Usenet. 

What's ironic is that Barry won't even admit he's guilty 
and Judy, who makes claims of being so ethical, never
even spoke up about any of these incidents. Ironic.


 

[FairfieldLife] RE: Describing Communal (Meditating) Fairfield

[punditster]

Maybe it's time to review some more FFL Protocols 
for posting:

1. Compose the first line of your message so that 
it can be easily read in Message View.

2. Don't copy and paste the quoted text for the 
first line of text of your own message.

3. Try to avoid redundancy in the Message View.

4. Reserve blue text for hyper text links.

5. Indicate quoted text with a  right angle bracket 
or other indicator.

6. Try to format your text for easy reading and 
replying.

Redundancy Example: 

357475  Re: Describing Communal (Meditating) Fairfield

Judy sez: Nothing wrong with iranitea's observations 
and information on their own terms.

357476  Re: Describing Communal (Meditating) Fairfield

Iranitea wrote: Judy sez: Nothing wrong with iranitea's 
observations and information on their own terms. 

Re: [FairfieldLife] RE: Describing Communal (Meditating) Fairfield

[Share Long]

punditster sir, what is, from another of your posts that hasn't yet arrived in 
my inbox, DHMO?




 From: punditster no_re...@yahoogroups.com
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Friday, September 13, 2013 6:59 PM
Subject: [FairfieldLife] RE: Describing Communal (Meditating) Fairfield
 


  


Maybe it's time to review some more FFL Protocols 
for posting:

1. Compose the first line of your message so that 
it can be easily read in Message View.

2. Don't copy and paste the quoted text for the 
first line of text of your own message.

3. Try to avoid redundancy in the Message View.

4. Reserve blue text for hyper text links.

5. Indicate quoted text with a  right angle bracket 
or other indicator.

6. Try to format your text for easy reading and 
replying.

Redundancy Example: 

357475  Re: Describing Communal (Meditating) Fairfield

Judy sez: Nothing wrong with iranitea's observations 
and information on their own terms.

357476  Re: Describing Communal (Meditating) Fairfield

Iranitea wrote: Judy sez: Nothing wrong with iranitea's 
observations and information on their own terms. 


 

Re: [FairfieldLife] RE: Describing Communal (Meditating) Fairfield

[Emily Reyn]

FFL Protocols?    



 From: punditster no_re...@yahoogroups.com
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Friday, September 13, 2013 4:59 PM
Subject: [FairfieldLife] RE: Describing Communal (Meditating) Fairfield
 


  


Maybe it's time to review some more FFL Protocols 
for posting:

1. Compose the first line of your message so that 
it can be easily read in Message View.

2. Don't copy and paste the quoted text for the 
first line of text of your own message.

3. Try to avoid redundancy in the Message View.

4. Reserve blue text for hyper text links.

5. Indicate quoted text with a  right angle bracket 
or other indicator.

6. Try to format your text for easy reading and 
replying.

Redundancy Example: 

357475  Re: Describing Communal (Meditating) Fairfield

Judy sez: Nothing wrong with iranitea's observations 
and information on their own terms.

357476  Re: Describing Communal (Meditating) Fairfield

Iranitea wrote: Judy sez: Nothing wrong with iranitea's 
observations and information on their own terms. 


 

[FairfieldLife] RE: Describing Communal (Meditating) Fairfield

[punditster]

  It's enough if I see how you constantly bug and patronize 
  Share for nothing, and now you want to draw me into this 
  stupid argument you are having with her?
  
Share Long:
 I think when certain posters don't drink enough water, 
 their pitta gets vitiated and they can't help but argue 
 with lots of people.

It's not complicated - some people just feel better when 
they have someone to talk to. When you don't have a car 
and you can't get around, it's only natural to turn to a 
discussion group to vent their frustrations. 
 
 Kind of ironic.

Yes, I've been dialoging with Judy and Barry for over ten 
years now and they both seem to just get worse with time. 

At least I've got them to the point that they won't even
correspond with me anymore. LoL!

I think I got rid of one troll - that guy John Manning - 
the one that trolled to my place of employ and tried to 
get me fired from my janitor job at the community college. 

Apparently he only posts to that Mormon religious group 
anymore. Go figure.

It's been more difficult to get back at that weird Barry 
character - the guy that tried to publish my real name on 
the internet a few years ago over on Usenet. 

What's ironic is that Barry won't even admit he's guilty 
and Judy, who makes claims of being so ethical, never
even spoke up about any of these incidents. Ironic.

[FairfieldLife] RE: Describing Communal (Meditating) Fairfield

[punditster]

  If you even attempt to answer the question, then I become
  reasonably confident that I no longer need to pay attention
  to you in this context.
 
s3raphita:
 That's a classic double-bind.

Lawson has posed a riddle, somewhat like a zen koan.

There is no correct answer to a koan - the answer is
in the thinking, not in the description of the question
or in the answer.

There is an old zen saying: Don't mistake the pointing
finger for the moon itself. - Huineng

So, TM is NOT the cause of enlightenment. Go figure.

This was confirmed by SBS who said that the Brahman
was Light and needs no other illumination. According
to MMY, TM is based on thinking - simply thinking
things over.

The riddle in TM is that 'TM' doesn't actually DO
anything - it just allows you to BE without striving. It's
this simple - you are only going to get as much
enlightenment as you are going to get.

The moving finger having writ, moves on. - Omar

So, 'TM' isn't really a 'technique' at all. A technique
is used for activity and for energized enthusiasm.

And by definition, you don't 'use' the mantra during TM
- because it has been transcended. So, when you start
meditating the mantra is present as a thought, but then
drops off.

Everyone meditates and based on this definition,
because we all think - even without a 'technique'!

You don't need a technique to think because it's a
natural tendency of the mind. The mantra just provides
the correct angle for the effortless transcending.

Meditation techniques are like rafts, so we can cross
over to the other side. Once crossed over you will see
that there's no other side and no crossing over. When
you have crossed over, you have no further need for a
raft - you would look silly carrying around a raft on
your head.

The map is not the territory. - Ven Sochu

Buddha's Parable of the Raft:
http://www.thebuddhistsociety.org/
http://www.thebuddhistsociety.org/resources/previous_stories/Map.htm

[FairfieldLife] RE: Describing Communal (Meditating) Fairfield

[Ann Woelfle Bater]

Communism anyone?

[FairfieldLife] RE: Describing Communal (Meditating) Fairfield

[dhamiltony2k5]

[FairfieldLife] Re: Describing Communal (Meditating) Fairfield

[Buck]

..

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Buck  wrote:

 I wrote this piece below and have been e-mailing individually to a number of 
 scholarly folks who I met at an academic meeting studying Utopian and 
 communal groups that I attended recently out in upstate New York.  I came 
 away with about 50 business cards from scholars who I met and talked with at 
 the conference.    I wrote this to be able to send to them something 
 descriptive about (meditating) Fairfield, Iowa as a 'communal' group.  Of 
 course what I set out to write became longer than I intended.  Here is the 
 unabridged version with the links.  I hope you'll like the Shaker comparison 
 and I think you'll appreciate the links. 
 Best Regards from Iowa,  
 :
 
 Communal (Meditating) Fairfield, Iowa
 
 On returning home from the annual meeting I find myself wanting to catch up 
 by sharing some links on 'communal' Fairfield, Iowa with you that might 
 better give insight in to a scale and circumstance of the communal society I 
 come from and have lived in for 40 years.  Starting from the outside looking 
 in on meditating Fairfield it can seem like looking at a monolith.  Evidently 
 it is easy to make assumptions about Fairfield and its meditators as it is 
 also  tough to discern what is going on inside the meditating community.  But 
 it need not be difficult at all once there are handles on it.  The Fairfield 
 meditating community has matured in time and is quite developed with many 
 communal features to find and look at.  I see Fairfield, Iowa in fact can 
 provide a large and living laboratory for communal community scholars to look 
 at. 
 
 Beginning with Tim Miller's Communal Societies Vol. 30 No.1, 2010 paper in 
 mind I'll give you some things further below to look at for yourselves,
 
  A Matter of Definition: Just What Is an Intentional Community?
 
 -A sense of purpose and distinctiveness, with deliberate intent to be a 
 community
 -Some kind of shared living space
 -Some shared resources
 -Critical mass
 
 For communal studies scholars looking in I believe one of the best ways to 
 understand the scale of the Fairfield Meditating community is to relate to it 
 in a form like the old Shaker villages as organizational structure back while 
 the Shakers were up and running.  In the middle of  TM is the equivalent of a 
 Shaker 'Ministry Family' of upper administration and then elements of 
 communal families of meditators that are in concentric circles around the 
 middle including meditators who live well outside the middle in town but come 
 inside to meditate also as members.  The upper level is a more exclusive 
 level (only for sake of an analogy though, they do not use that term 
 'ministry' to describe themselves) which currently now tends to live more 
 exclusively out in an adjacent new town area called Maharishi Vedic City to 
 the northwest of Fairfield proper.  The university community lives more on 
 their campus in Fairfield.  The larger meditating community lives through out 
 Fairfield and the County area either disperse singly or in meditator 
 households in neighborhoods.  Maharishi Vedic City and the university 
 community each function with obvious communal aspect with people living 
 together, working for their community together, housing close together, 
 educating their kids together, socializing together, sharing resources etc.  
 The larger surrounding meditating community also functions that way.  The 
 common thing to these Shaker-like  'families' of meditators in the Fairfield 
 area like the Shakers is that they moved to Fairfield as meditators to be 
 practicing meditators in something larger.   
 
 In starting, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi was a proponent of Transcendental 
 Meditation for 60 years in the West and there has been a meditating community 
 in Fairfield, Iowa for about 40 years.
 
 The Transcendental Meditation (TM) movement purchased a bankrupt college 
 campus in Fairfield, Iowa and moved a university there in 1974.  The 
 university was teaching a wide liberal arts curricula where the students and 
 faculty were also practicing meditators.  That functioned as a unit in 
 Fairfield for about a half decade when at a large gathering of meditators 
 meeting with Maharishi it was suggested that folks as meditators move to the 
 Fairfield community to be able to meditate regularly in large group 
 meditations.  That was the start of the Fairfield meditating community where 
 meditators moved to Fairfield, Iowa generally.  Through the later 1970's, 
 1980's, 1990's and even up to present time thousands of meditators have lived 
 in Fairfield.
 
 Like happened with the Shakers there are now lots of projects that go along 
 with meditating that start to be defining otherwise but still the formative 
 communal reason here is more essentially about the spiritual practice of 
 meditating.  Hopefully this is useful as a way of looking at it.  I am 
 providing here below some source links to 

[FairfieldLife] Re: Describing Communal (Meditating) Fairfield

[feste37]

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Buck dhamiltony2k5@... wrote:

 
 
 --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Buck  wrote:
 
  
  
  --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, feste37 feste37@ wrote:
  
   That's a good summary.
  
  Thanks.  It is interesting that you responded first to this.  I actually 
  was thinking of asking you to help me edit this particular paper for this 
  particular scholarly audience.  I pushed ahead anyway and they seem quite 
  pleased with this as an entry in to the subject of TM and Fairfield for 
  discussion. -Buck  
  
   But if the scholars didn't know about TM and Fairfield, I'd be interested 
   in knowing what were the Utopian/spiritual/intentional/communal groups 
   that they did discuss, especially those currently in existence. Where are 
   these groups located? Who are they?
  
 
 At the meeting were specialists in different communal groups and aspects of 
 different groups.  Oneida, Harmonists, Amana, Shakers, Icarians, Mormons, 
 Synanon, new religions and contemporary religious and secular communities, 
 Camphill, the Twelve Tribes, City of David, Kibitz, and some other particular 
 contemporary cloistered groups had papers delivered about them. There was a 
 paper given considering quantitative measurement of the notion of  
 sustainability in communal groups using a contemporary 'intentional 
 community' group that is just to our south over the border in Missouri, the 
 intentional community of Dancing Rabbit.  The conference had papers on many 
 different aspects of utopian community.  Sociologists, anthropologists, 
 ethno-musicologists, economists, religious studies, and historians.  The 
 meeting was all extremely interesting as a communal comparison for our own 
 group.  It's a meeting of an old scholarly association and the meeting was 
 very professionally and well done.  This was the second year I've attended as 
 someone coming from (meditating) Fairfield. 
 -Buck

Thanks. I'm very curious about Dancing Rabbit. Who are they?

 
   --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Buck  wrote:
   
I wrote this piece below and have been e-mailing individually to a 
number of scholarly folks who I met at an academic meeting studying 
Utopian and communal groups that I attended recently out in upstate New 
York.  I came away with about 50 business cards from scholars who I met 
and talked with at the conference.    I wrote this to be able to send 
to them something descriptive about (meditating) Fairfield, Iowa as a 
'communal' group.  Of course what I set out to write became longer than 
I intended.  Here is the unabridged version with the links.  I hope 
you'll like the Shaker comparison and I think you'll appreciate the 
links. 
Best Regards from Iowa,  
paste:

Communal (Meditating) Fairfield, Iowa

On returning home from the annual meeting I find myself wanting to 
catch up by sharing some links on 'communal' Fairfield, Iowa with you 
that might better give insight in to a scale and circumstance of the 
communal society I come from and have lived in for 40 years.  Starting 
from the outside looking in on meditating Fairfield it can seem like 
looking at a monolith.  Evidently it is easy to make assumptions about 
Fairfield and its meditators as it is also  tough to discern what is 
going on inside the meditating community.  But it need not be difficult 
at all once there are handles on it.  The Fairfield meditating 
community has matured in time and is quite developed with many communal 
features to find and look at.  I see Fairfield, Iowa in fact can 
provide a large and living laboratory for communal community scholars 
to look at. 

Beginning with Tim Miller's Communal Societies Vol. 30 No.1, 2010 paper 
in mind I'll give you some things further below to look at for 
yourselves,

 A Matter of Definition: Just What Is an Intentional Community?

-A sense of purpose and distinctiveness, with deliberate intent to be a 
community
-Some kind of shared living space
-Some shared resources
-Critical mass

For communal studies scholars looking in I believe one of the best ways 
to understand the scale of the Fairfield Meditating community is to 
relate to it in a form like the old Shaker villages as organizational 
structure back while the Shakers were up and running.  In the middle of 
 TM is the equivalent of a Shaker 'Ministry Family' of upper 
administration and then elements of communal families of meditators 
that are in concentric circles around the middle including meditators 
who live well outside the middle in town but come inside to meditate 
also as members.  The upper level is a more exclusive level (only for 
sake of an analogy though, they do not use that term 'ministry' to 
describe themselves) which currently now tends to live more 

[FairfieldLife] Re: Describing Communal (Meditating) Fairfield

[awoelflebater]

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, feste37 feste37@... wrote:

 
 
 --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Buck dhamiltony2k5@ wrote:
 
  
  
  --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Buck  wrote:
  
   
   
   --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, feste37 feste37@ wrote:
   
That's a good summary.
   
   Thanks.  It is interesting that you responded first to this.  I actually 
   was thinking of asking you to help me edit this particular paper for this 
   particular scholarly audience.  I pushed ahead anyway and they seem quite 
   pleased with this as an entry in to the subject of TM and Fairfield for 
   discussion. -Buck  
   
But if the scholars didn't know about TM and Fairfield, I'd be 
interested in knowing what were the 
Utopian/spiritual/intentional/communal groups that they did discuss, 
especially those currently in existence. Where are these groups 
located? Who are they?
http://www.dancingrabbit.org/


   
  
  At the meeting were specialists in different communal groups and aspects of 
  different groups.  Oneida, Harmonists, Amana, Shakers, Icarians, Mormons, 
  Synanon, new religions and contemporary religious and secular communities, 
  Camphill, the Twelve Tribes, City of David, Kibitz, and some other 
  particular contemporary cloistered groups had papers delivered about them. 
  There was a paper given considering quantitative measurement of the notion 
  of  sustainability in communal groups using a contemporary 'intentional 
  community' group that is just to our south over the border in Missouri, the 
  intentional community of Dancing Rabbit.  The conference had papers on many 
  different aspects of utopian community.  Sociologists, anthropologists, 
  ethno-musicologists, economists, religious studies, and historians.  The 
  meeting was all extremely interesting as a communal comparison for our own 
  group.  It's a meeting of an old scholarly association and the meeting was 
  very professionally and well done.  This was the second year I've attended 
  as someone coming from (meditating) Fairfield. 
  -Buck
 
 Thanks. I'm very curious about Dancing Rabbit. Who are they?
 
  
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Buck  wrote:

 I wrote this piece below and have been e-mailing individually to a 
 number of scholarly folks who I met at an academic meeting studying 
 Utopian and communal groups that I attended recently out in upstate 
 New York.  I came away with about 50 business cards from scholars who 
 I met and talked with at the conference.    I wrote this to be able 
 to send to them something descriptive about (meditating) Fairfield, 
 Iowa as a 'communal' group.  Of course what I set out to write became 
 longer than I intended.  Here is the unabridged version with the 
 links.  I hope you'll like the Shaker comparison and I think you'll 
 appreciate the links. 
 Best Regards from Iowa,  
 paste:
 
 Communal (Meditating) Fairfield, Iowa
 
 On returning home from the annual meeting I find myself wanting to 
 catch up by sharing some links on 'communal' Fairfield, Iowa with you 
 that might better give insight in to a scale and circumstance of the 
 communal society I come from and have lived in for 40 years.  
 Starting from the outside looking in on meditating Fairfield it can 
 seem like looking at a monolith.  Evidently it is easy to make 
 assumptions about Fairfield and its meditators as it is also  tough 
 to discern what is going on inside the meditating community.  But it 
 need not be difficult at all once there are handles on it.  The 
 Fairfield meditating community has matured in time and is quite 
 developed with many communal features to find and look at.  I see 
 Fairfield, Iowa in fact can provide a large and living laboratory for 
 communal community scholars to look at. 
 
 Beginning with Tim Miller's Communal Societies Vol. 30 No.1, 2010 
 paper in mind I'll give you some things further below to look at for 
 yourselves,
 
  A Matter of Definition: Just What Is an Intentional Community?
 
 -A sense of purpose and distinctiveness, with deliberate intent to be 
 a community
 -Some kind of shared living space
 -Some shared resources
 -Critical mass
 
 For communal studies scholars looking in I believe one of the best 
 ways to understand the scale of the Fairfield Meditating community is 
 to relate to it in a form like the old Shaker villages as 
 organizational structure back while the Shakers were up and running.  
 In the middle of  TM is the equivalent of a Shaker 'Ministry Family' 
 of upper administration and then elements of communal families of 
 meditators that are in concentric circles around the middle including 
 meditators who live well outside the middle in town but come inside 
 to meditate also as 

[FairfieldLife] Re: Describing Communal (Meditating) Fairfield

[feste37]

That's a good summary. But if the scholars didn't know about TM and Fairfield, 
I'd be interested in knowing what were the 
Utopian/spiritual/intentional/communal groups that they did discuss, especially 
those currently in existence. Where are these groups located? Who are they?

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Buck dhamiltony2k5@... wrote:

 I wrote this piece below and have been e-mailing individually to a number of 
 scholarly folks who I met at an academic meeting studying Utopian and 
 communal groups that I attended recently out in upstate New York.  I came 
 away with about 50 business cards from scholars who I met and talked with at 
 the conference.    I wrote this to be able to send to them something 
 descriptive about (meditating) Fairfield, Iowa as a 'communal' group.  Of 
 course what I set out to write became longer than I intended.  Here is the 
 unabridged version with the links.  I hope you'll like the Shaker comparison 
 and I think you'll appreciate the links. 
 Best Regards from Iowa,  
 paste:
 
 Communal (Meditating) Fairfield, Iowa
 
 On returning home from the annual meeting I find myself wanting to catch up 
 by sharing some links on 'communal' Fairfield, Iowa with you that might 
 better give insight in to a scale and circumstance of the communal society I 
 come from and have lived in for 40 years.  Starting from the outside looking 
 in on meditating Fairfield it can seem like looking at a monolith.  Evidently 
 it is easy to make assumptions about Fairfield and its meditators as it is 
 also  tough to discern what is going on inside the meditating community.  But 
 it need not be difficult at all once there are handles on it.  The Fairfield 
 meditating community has matured in time and is quite developed with many 
 communal features to find and look at.  I see Fairfield, Iowa in fact can 
 provide a large and living laboratory for communal community scholars to look 
 at. 
 
 Beginning with Tim Miller's Communal Societies Vol. 30 No.1, 2010 paper in 
 mind I'll give you some things further below to look at for yourselves,
 
  A Matter of Definition: Just What Is an Intentional Community?
 
 -A sense of purpose and distinctiveness, with deliberate intent to be a 
 community
 -Some kind of shared living space
 -Some shared resources
 -Critical mass
 
 For communal studies scholars looking in I believe one of the best ways to 
 understand the scale of the Fairfield Meditating community is to relate to it 
 in a form like the old Shaker villages as organizational structure back while 
 the Shakers were up and running.  In the middle of  TM is the equivalent of a 
 Shaker 'Ministry Family' of upper administration and then elements of 
 communal families of meditators that are in concentric circles around the 
 middle including meditators who live well outside the middle in town but come 
 inside to meditate also as members.  The upper level is a more exclusive 
 level (only for sake of an analogy though, they do not use that term 
 'ministry' to describe themselves) which currently now tends to live more 
 exclusively out in an adjacent new town area called Maharishi Vedic City to 
 the northwest of Fairfield proper.  The university community lives more on 
 their campus in Fairfield.  The larger meditating community lives through out 
 Fairfield and the County area either disperse singly or in meditator 
 households in neighborhoods.  Maharishi Vedic City and the university 
 community each function with obvious communal aspect with people living 
 together, working for their community together, housing close together, 
 educating their kids together, socializing together, sharing resources etc.  
 The larger surrounding meditating community also functions that way.  The 
 common thing to these Shaker-like  'families' of meditators in the Fairfield 
 area like the Shakers is that they moved to Fairfield as meditators to be 
 practicing meditators in something larger.   
 
 In starting, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi was a proponent of Transcendental 
 Meditation for 60 years in the West and there has been a meditating community 
 in Fairfield, Iowa for about 40 years.
 
 The Transcendental Meditation (TM) movement purchased a bankrupt college 
 campus in Fairfield, Iowa and moved a university there in 1974.  The 
 university was teaching a wide liberal arts curricula where the students and 
 faculty were also practicing meditators.  That functioned as a unit in 
 Fairfield for about a half decade when at a large gathering of meditators 
 meeting with Maharishi it was suggested that folks as meditators move to the 
 Fairfield community to be able to meditate regularly in large group 
 meditations.  That was the start of the Fairfield meditating community where 
 meditators moved to Fairfield, Iowa generally.  Through the later 1970's, 
 1980's, 1990's and even up to present time thousands of meditators have lived 
 in Fairfield.
 
 Like happened with the Shakers there are now lots 

[FairfieldLife] Re: Describing Communal (Meditating) Fairfield

[Buck]

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, feste37 feste37@... wrote:

 That's a good summary.

Thanks.  It is interesting that you responded first to this.  I actually was 
thinking of asking you to help me edit this particular paper for this 
particular scholarly audience.  I pushed ahead anyway and they seem quite 
pleased with this as an entry in to the subject of TM and Fairfield for 
discussion. -Buck  

 But if the scholars didn't know about TM and Fairfield, I'd be interested in 
 knowing what were the Utopian/spiritual/intentional/communal groups that they 
 did discuss, especially those currently in existence. Where are these groups 
 located? Who are they?
 
 --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Buck  wrote:
 
  I wrote this piece below and have been e-mailing individually to a number 
  of scholarly folks who I met at an academic meeting studying Utopian and 
  communal groups that I attended recently out in upstate New York.  I came 
  away with about 50 business cards from scholars who I met and talked with 
  at the conference.    I wrote this to be able to send to them something 
  descriptive about (meditating) Fairfield, Iowa as a 'communal' group.  Of 
  course what I set out to write became longer than I intended.  Here is the 
  unabridged version with the links.  I hope you'll like the Shaker 
  comparison and I think you'll appreciate the links. 
  Best Regards from Iowa,  
  paste:
  
  Communal (Meditating) Fairfield, Iowa
  
  On returning home from the annual meeting I find myself wanting to catch up 
  by sharing some links on 'communal' Fairfield, Iowa with you that might 
  better give insight in to a scale and circumstance of the communal society 
  I come from and have lived in for 40 years.  Starting from the outside 
  looking in on meditating Fairfield it can seem like looking at a monolith.  
  Evidently it is easy to make assumptions about Fairfield and its meditators 
  as it is also  tough to discern what is going on inside the meditating 
  community.  But it need not be difficult at all once there are handles on 
  it.  The Fairfield meditating community has matured in time and is quite 
  developed with many communal features to find and look at.  I see 
  Fairfield, Iowa in fact can provide a large and living laboratory for 
  communal community scholars to look at. 
  
  Beginning with Tim Miller's Communal Societies Vol. 30 No.1, 2010 paper in 
  mind I'll give you some things further below to look at for yourselves,
  
   A Matter of Definition: Just What Is an Intentional Community?
  
  -A sense of purpose and distinctiveness, with deliberate intent to be a 
  community
  -Some kind of shared living space
  -Some shared resources
  -Critical mass
  
  For communal studies scholars looking in I believe one of the best ways to 
  understand the scale of the Fairfield Meditating community is to relate to 
  it in a form like the old Shaker villages as organizational structure back 
  while the Shakers were up and running.  In the middle of  TM is the 
  equivalent of a Shaker 'Ministry Family' of upper administration and then 
  elements of communal families of meditators that are in concentric circles 
  around the middle including meditators who live well outside the middle in 
  town but come inside to meditate also as members.  The upper level is a 
  more exclusive level (only for sake of an analogy though, they do not use 
  that term 'ministry' to describe themselves) which currently now tends to 
  live more exclusively out in an adjacent new town area called Maharishi 
  Vedic City to the northwest of Fairfield proper.  The university community 
  lives more on their campus in Fairfield.  The larger meditating community 
  lives through out Fairfield and the County area either disperse singly or 
  in meditator households in neighborhoods.  Maharishi Vedic City and the 
  university community each function with obvious communal aspect with people 
  living together, working for their community together, housing close 
  together, educating their kids together, socializing together, sharing 
  resources etc.  The larger surrounding meditating community also functions 
  that way.  The common thing to these Shaker-like  'families' of meditators 
  in the Fairfield area like the Shakers is that they moved to Fairfield as 
  meditators to be practicing meditators in something larger.   
  
  In starting, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi was a proponent of Transcendental 
  Meditation for 60 years in the West and there has been a meditating 
  community in Fairfield, Iowa for about 40 years.
  
  The Transcendental Meditation (TM) movement purchased a bankrupt college 
  campus in Fairfield, Iowa and moved a university there in 1974.  The 
  university was teaching a wide liberal arts curricula where the students 
  and faculty were also practicing meditators.  That functioned as a unit in 
  Fairfield for about a half decade when at a large gathering of meditators 
  

[FairfieldLife] Re: Describing Communal (Meditating) Fairfield

[Buck]

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Buck  wrote:

 
 
 --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, feste37 feste37@ wrote:
 
  That's a good summary.
 
 Thanks.  It is interesting that you responded first to this.  I actually was 
 thinking of asking you to help me edit this particular paper for this 
 particular scholarly audience.  I pushed ahead anyway and they seem quite 
 pleased with this as an entry in to the subject of TM and Fairfield for 
 discussion. -Buck  
 
  But if the scholars didn't know about TM and Fairfield, I'd be interested 
  in knowing what were the Utopian/spiritual/intentional/communal groups that 
  they did discuss, especially those currently in existence. Where are these 
  groups located? Who are they?
 

At the meeting were specialists in different communal groups and aspects of 
different groups.  Oneida, Harmonists, Amana, Shakers, Icarians, Mormons, 
Synanon, new religions and contemporary religious and secular communities, 
Camphill, the Twelve Tribes, City of David, Kibitz, and some other particular 
contemporary cloistered groups had papers delivered about them. There was a 
paper given considering quantitative measurement of the notion of  
sustainability in communal groups using a contemporary 'intentional community' 
group that is just to our south over the border in Missouri, the intentional 
community of Dancing Rabbit.  The conference had papers on many different 
aspects of utopian community.  Sociologists, anthropologists, 
ethno-musicologists, economists, religious studies, and historians.  The 
meeting was all extremely interesting as a communal comparison for our own 
group.  It's a meeting of an old scholarly association and the meeting was very 
professionally and well done.  This was the second year I've attended as 
someone coming from (meditating) Fairfield. 
-Buck

  --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Buck  wrote:
  
   I wrote this piece below and have been e-mailing individually to a number 
   of scholarly folks who I met at an academic meeting studying Utopian and 
   communal groups that I attended recently out in upstate New York.  I came 
   away with about 50 business cards from scholars who I met and talked with 
   at the conference.    I wrote this to be able to send to them something 
   descriptive about (meditating) Fairfield, Iowa as a 'communal' group.  Of 
   course what I set out to write became longer than I intended.  Here is 
   the unabridged version with the links.  I hope you'll like the Shaker 
   comparison and I think you'll appreciate the links. 
   Best Regards from Iowa,  
   paste:
   
   Communal (Meditating) Fairfield, Iowa
   
   On returning home from the annual meeting I find myself wanting to catch 
   up by sharing some links on 'communal' Fairfield, Iowa with you that 
   might better give insight in to a scale and circumstance of the communal 
   society I come from and have lived in for 40 years.  Starting from the 
   outside looking in on meditating Fairfield it can seem like looking at a 
   monolith.  Evidently it is easy to make assumptions about Fairfield and 
   its meditators as it is also  tough to discern what is going on inside 
   the meditating community.  But it need not be difficult at all once there 
   are handles on it.  The Fairfield meditating community has matured in 
   time and is quite developed with many communal features to find and look 
   at.  I see Fairfield, Iowa in fact can provide a large and living 
   laboratory for communal community scholars to look at. 
   
   Beginning with Tim Miller's Communal Societies Vol. 30 No.1, 2010 paper 
   in mind I'll give you some things further below to look at for yourselves,
   
A Matter of Definition: Just What Is an Intentional Community?
   
   -A sense of purpose and distinctiveness, with deliberate intent to be a 
   community
   -Some kind of shared living space
   -Some shared resources
   -Critical mass
   
   For communal studies scholars looking in I believe one of the best ways 
   to understand the scale of the Fairfield Meditating community is to 
   relate to it in a form like the old Shaker villages as organizational 
   structure back while the Shakers were up and running.  In the middle of  
   TM is the equivalent of a Shaker 'Ministry Family' of upper 
   administration and then elements of communal families of meditators that 
   are in concentric circles around the middle including meditators who live 
   well outside the middle in town but come inside to meditate also as 
   members.  The upper level is a more exclusive level (only for sake of an 
   analogy though, they do not use that term 'ministry' to describe 
   themselves) which currently now tends to live more exclusively out in an 
   adjacent new town area called Maharishi Vedic City to the northwest of 
   Fairfield proper.  The university community lives more on their campus in 
   Fairfield.  The larger meditating community lives through out