The MUM MA in Maharishi Vedic Science students were sitting on the back of the bus as we headed to the Maharishi Vidya Mandir (MVM) in Chennai (Vidya Mandir means literally "Knowledge Temple"--these are equivalent to the Maharishi Schools in the U.S. and Canada). We were asked to prepare a brief presentation in the event that we had the opportunity to present to the MVM students.
Upon leaving the bus we decided to teach students how to sing a favorite Sanskrit song of ours that we had learned on the bus from one of our course leaders, Bob Markowitz. We called it the "Jai Ganesha" song. It appealed to Ganesh to remove obstacles to each day's journey. We were going to perform this song to some of the younger children, using a little pantomime we learned in school where you make an elephant trunk with one arm while the other arm is crooked underneath and pinches the nose. It's hard to describe but easy to do and makes a reasonable imitation of a elephant moving its trunk.
As fate would have it, we did have the opportunity to sing this song with a sixth grade class of students in the school. We sang, "Jai Ganesha, Jai Ganesha, Jai Ganesha Deva. Matta jaki Paravati, Pita Maha Deva." The students watched us make the elephant trunks and then mirrored the same back to us. Many of them also knew the words to the song. We were happy and relieved that they enjoyed our little exercise, and we felt like we connected across cultures.
Before our little singing presentation, we heard from the principal, Mr. Sivayam and the TM-Sidhi administrator for the school, Mr. Perumal. They both embraced us with open hearts. We felt quite at home seeing research charts on Transcendental Meditation on the walls, along with Unified Field Charts and other teaching charts. The classrooms of students seemed endless (they have over 2000 students from grades kindergarten through 12th grade) as we toured the school.
Our spirits became quite uplifted as their students sang some of their songs to us. The principal, Mr. Sivayam, displayed great pride in his school and in the TM organization in Chennai and what it was accomplishing. He told us that his school was among the top schools in 150 schools that make up the Maharishi school system in India, sending high percentages of students on to the best colleges in India. Most impressive, though, was how he smiled on each and every student he encountered as if he or she were his own.
Mr. Perumal also informed us that there was another Maharishi Vidya Mandir recently started by them in Chennai. It was an international school with a world class swiming pool, classes in French and German, and of course Maharishi Vedic Science permeating the curriculum.
Mr. Sivayam said that parents are proud to send their children to Maharishi's school. The school administration prides itself on taking care of 90% of the child's life, so that the parents have only to do 10%. When asked what the main achievement of his school was he said, "balance," the children come out balanced. In addition, their manners are quite respectful, delightful, and blissfully calm.
We were told that 80% of the students go on to pursue higher education after graduation. The teachers all seemed to wear a smile of great pride on their faces as they said to us the one common phrase we all shared, "Jai Guru Dev."
It was so clear during our time at the Maharishi Vidya Mandir that the Transcendental Meditation organization is real and alive outside the U.S. It is having a practical impact on the lives of many students from many different classes and religions in India--Hindu, Christian, and Islamic. If you ever wondered that you were being too ambitious or not ambitious enough, Maharishi had clearly set a high bar for everyone through his own example. His goal to resurrect Vedic Knowledge and end the world's suffering seems to be happening now, before our eyes, in India. The unfolding of Maharishi's beautiful dream is occurring now and on a grand scale. Yet I can't help but think this is only the beginning.
Jai Guru Dev
Krystle Liggins
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Kanniyakumari by Chris Jones
Day Five
After two restful days in Kovalam Beach, where we set the rhythm of study, travel, and group program, we left our beautiful resort for Kanniyakumari at the very southern extreme of India. Kanniyakumari is the home to one of the great temples of India, a temple to Mother Divine. It was in Kanniyakumari, after his evening bath in the ocean, that Maharishi first had the inspiration to bring the blessings of the Himalayas to the people of Southern India. It also sits at the confluence of three oceans--the Indian Ocean, the Bay of Bengal, and the Arabian Sea--and is considered for this reason alone to be an auspicious site.
We were in essence retracing Maharishi's steps in reverse order. Maharishi began with Rameshwaram, traveled to Kanniyakumari, and then to Thiruvanandapuram (Trivandrum); whereas we began in Thiruvanandapuram and traveled in the reverse direction. Maharishi had said that it took him three weeks to fathom the silence of Kanniyakumari. We were to be there two days.
On the way to Kanniyakumari we broke up our trip with a visit to a relatively small temple dedicated to Hanuman in Suchindram. This was our first introduction to temples in South India, and it was a moderately simple and open temple compared to others that were larger, more complex, and less open to westerners. This temple had twofold significance to us--first, because we were reading the Ramayana during class time; and second because we had begun studying the Vedic Devatas in physiology and we had already been introduced to the concept of Hanuman as the biochemical messengers, including neurohormones, neurotransmitters, etc. As Hanuman was Ram's messenger, so the biochemical messengers are carrying out the brain's messages all over the physiology, even sometimes into very remote corners of the physiology. As Raja Ram notes in his book, "Hanuman embodies the holistic value of Natural Law--the field of all possibilities, always ensuring that every specific value is supported by the total potential of Natural Law." (p. 367)
There were too many interesting and beautiful feature of this temple to even try to capture in this blog, but suffice it to say that it was a good introduction to a world that sits apart from the rest of India; a world that has remained unchanged for hundreds, if not thousands, of years; where Indians young and old, of all colors, come to pay respects to personal and impersonal forces of Nature which run through their culture like threads through a cloth.
After an hour and a half in Suchindram, we got back in the bus and drove another hour to Kanniyakumari, where we checked in, did our meditation program in groups, and had a brief dinner.
That night we went briefly to the Mother Divine temple where we ran into one of the managers of the temple by the name of Shankamnarayana who knew of Maharishi and his movement and who was a good friend of a Purusha by the name of David Hooper. He immediately whisked us into the inner sanctum of the temple and invited us to sit down and do a brief meditation. There sitting a little ahead of us was another westerner, who turned out later to be the national leader of the TM organization in France--small world. After a short time in the temple, we left the temple. At the exit our manager and guide said, "Please give my regards to Mr. David Hooper. Give him the blessings of Mother Divine." We assured that we would and returned to our hotel and to bed after a long but satisfying day.
Day Six
This day began with a dip in the "sangam," the confluence of the three oceans mentioned above. The women in sarees and the men in kurta pajamas walked down to the ocean from our hotel and, holding on in a long line, walked into the water. The water was warm and at the same time refreshing on this hot day. Following local custom, we dipped three times into the water, and then came back to our hotel to dry off, have lunch, and go to the temple for the afternoon.
The Mother Divine temple is dedicated to Parvati. Parvati, as we learned early in the course, is the fundamental aspect of Mother Divine. "She is the source of all that there is in creation. Nothing takes shape without her. In the physiology, Parvati represents all that gives structure and form, either on the level of the cell, organ, or the body as a whole. " (Nader, p. 375) The three traditional forms of Mother Divine are Lakshmi, the nourishing or wealth-giving aspect; Saraswati the knowledge value; and Durga the energy and power value.
According to Raja Ram, Saraswati, representing knowledge, can be seen residing in the head or brain and her four arms represent the four lobes of the brain. She is the consort of Brahma, who also has four heads, and it also represented by the four lobes of the brain.
Lakshmi, representing the wealth, health and nourishing aspect of Mother Divine, resides in the chest, with the heart as her seat. Her four hands represent the four chambers of the heart, and on the molecular level, the four chains of the haemoglobin molecule.
Durga, the third aspect of Mother Divine, represents power, or Shakti. In the Vedic Literature the lower tip of the spinal cord is seen as the source of energy or Shakti. In the physiology the sacral bone in the vertebral column is the base and support for entire vertebral column, and by implication, the whole nervous system. In the sacral bone there are eight holes corresponding to the eight arms of Durga.
While this is only a brief taste of the kind of background we gained in the day we spent in Fairfield on the Devatas in the physiology, it gives you the idea of the approach we were taking. We went into the temple innocent people who had been for years enlivening the silence of the Transcendent in their physiologies--the home of all the impulses of creative intelligence, the devas, responsible for the whole manifest universe. We went simply with the idea that at this site we would be open to the further enlivenment of the impulses that were functioning in our own physiology. Every aspect of Mother Divine, in the case of this temple, or Shiva, in the case of another, is one of the structuring dynamics of Natural Law contributing to that wholeness that we experience as the Transcendent. Strengthening any of these aspects, therefore, through our attention to it, further strengthens the wholeness that makes up our inner and outer worlds. This is at least the approach that we were taking.
Not all aspects of every temple turn out to be in accord with this approach. There are aspects of the Mother Divine temple which are not fully nourishing; aspect of the Shiva temple which seem a far cry from the lively silence of the Absolute; but on the whole there was something special about each of the holy places we have visited so far and we feel much enriched and purified by each of these experiences.
In the afternoon of Day Six some of our group went out to visit the Vivekenanda Memorial, accessible by a short boat ride from the temple. Vivekananda was the first of India's great exponents of Vedanta to try to bring the Vedic knowledge to the west--to America and Europe. Like Maharishi, he traveled around India teaching and then took off for the west, arriving in U.S. in 1893, in time to represent India at the World Parliament of Religions at the World Fair in Chicago. Vivekanda would go on to form Vedanta societies throughout the U.S. Maharishi later credited him with warming the air for his (Maharishi's) own teachings nearly 80 years later.
On the evening of the sixth day we retired early to prepare for a long bus ride the next day. Rameshwaram was calling.
After two restful days in Kovalam Beach, where we set the rhythm of study, travel, and group program, we left our beautiful resort for Kanniyakumari at the very southern extreme of India. Kanniyakumari is the home to one of the great temples of India, a temple to Mother Divine. It was in Kanniyakumari, after his evening bath in the ocean, that Maharishi first had the inspiration to bring the blessings of the Himalayas to the people of Southern India. It also sits at the confluence of three oceans--the Indian Ocean, the Bay of Bengal, and the Arabian Sea--and is considered for this reason alone to be an auspicious site.
We were in essence retracing Maharishi's steps in reverse order. Maharishi began with Rameshwaram, traveled to Kanniyakumari, and then to Thiruvanandapuram (Trivandrum); whereas we began in Thiruvanandapuram and traveled in the reverse direction. Maharishi had said that it took him three weeks to fathom the silence of Kanniyakumari. We were to be there two days.
On the way to Kanniyakumari we broke up our trip with a visit to a relatively small temple dedicated to Hanuman in Suchindram. This was our first introduction to temples in South India, and it was a moderately simple and open temple compared to others that were larger, more complex, and less open to westerners. This temple had twofold significance to us--first, because we were reading the Ramayana during class time; and second because we had begun studying the Vedic Devatas in physiology and we had already been introduced to the concept of Hanuman as the biochemical messengers, including neurohormones, neurotransmitters, etc. As Hanuman was Ram's messenger, so the biochemical messengers are carrying out the brain's messages all over the physiology, even sometimes into very remote corners of the physiology. As Raja Ram notes in his book, "Hanuman embodies the holistic value of Natural Law--the field of all possibilities, always ensuring that every specific value is supported by the total potential of Natural Law." (p. 367)
There were too many interesting and beautiful feature of this temple to even try to capture in this blog, but suffice it to say that it was a good introduction to a world that sits apart from the rest of India; a world that has remained unchanged for hundreds, if not thousands, of years; where Indians young and old, of all colors, come to pay respects to personal and impersonal forces of Nature which run through their culture like threads through a cloth.
After an hour and a half in Suchindram, we got back in the bus and drove another hour to Kanniyakumari, where we checked in, did our meditation program in groups, and had a brief dinner.
That night we went briefly to the Mother Divine temple where we ran into one of the managers of the temple by the name of Shankamnarayana who knew of Maharishi and his movement and who was a good friend of a Purusha by the name of David Hooper. He immediately whisked us into the inner sanctum of the temple and invited us to sit down and do a brief meditation. There sitting a little ahead of us was another westerner, who turned out later to be the national leader of the TM organization in France--small world. After a short time in the temple, we left the temple. At the exit our manager and guide said, "Please give my regards to Mr. David Hooper. Give him the blessings of Mother Divine." We assured that we would and returned to our hotel and to bed after a long but satisfying day.
Day Six
This day began with a dip in the "sangam," the confluence of the three oceans mentioned above. The women in sarees and the men in kurta pajamas walked down to the ocean from our hotel and, holding on in a long line, walked into the water. The water was warm and at the same time refreshing on this hot day. Following local custom, we dipped three times into the water, and then came back to our hotel to dry off, have lunch, and go to the temple for the afternoon.
The Mother Divine temple is dedicated to Parvati. Parvati, as we learned early in the course, is the fundamental aspect of Mother Divine. "She is the source of all that there is in creation. Nothing takes shape without her. In the physiology, Parvati represents all that gives structure and form, either on the level of the cell, organ, or the body as a whole. " (Nader, p. 375) The three traditional forms of Mother Divine are Lakshmi, the nourishing or wealth-giving aspect; Saraswati the knowledge value; and Durga the energy and power value.
According to Raja Ram, Saraswati, representing knowledge, can be seen residing in the head or brain and her four arms represent the four lobes of the brain. She is the consort of Brahma, who also has four heads, and it also represented by the four lobes of the brain.
Lakshmi, representing the wealth, health and nourishing aspect of Mother Divine, resides in the chest, with the heart as her seat. Her four hands represent the four chambers of the heart, and on the molecular level, the four chains of the haemoglobin molecule.
Durga, the third aspect of Mother Divine, represents power, or Shakti. In the Vedic Literature the lower tip of the spinal cord is seen as the source of energy or Shakti. In the physiology the sacral bone in the vertebral column is the base and support for entire vertebral column, and by implication, the whole nervous system. In the sacral bone there are eight holes corresponding to the eight arms of Durga.
While this is only a brief taste of the kind of background we gained in the day we spent in Fairfield on the Devatas in the physiology, it gives you the idea of the approach we were taking. We went into the temple innocent people who had been for years enlivening the silence of the Transcendent in their physiologies--the home of all the impulses of creative intelligence, the devas, responsible for the whole manifest universe. We went simply with the idea that at this site we would be open to the further enlivenment of the impulses that were functioning in our own physiology. Every aspect of Mother Divine, in the case of this temple, or Shiva, in the case of another, is one of the structuring dynamics of Natural Law contributing to that wholeness that we experience as the Transcendent. Strengthening any of these aspects, therefore, through our attention to it, further strengthens the wholeness that makes up our inner and outer worlds. This is at least the approach that we were taking.
Not all aspects of every temple turn out to be in accord with this approach. There are aspects of the Mother Divine temple which are not fully nourishing; aspect of the Shiva temple which seem a far cry from the lively silence of the Absolute; but on the whole there was something special about each of the holy places we have visited so far and we feel much enriched and purified by each of these experiences.
In the afternoon of Day Six some of our group went out to visit the Vivekenanda Memorial, accessible by a short boat ride from the temple. Vivekananda was the first of India's great exponents of Vedanta to try to bring the Vedic knowledge to the west--to America and Europe. Like Maharishi, he traveled around India teaching and then took off for the west, arriving in U.S. in 1893, in time to represent India at the World Parliament of Religions at the World Fair in Chicago. Vivekanda would go on to form Vedanta societies throughout the U.S. Maharishi later credited him with warming the air for his (Maharishi's) own teachings nearly 80 years later.
On the evening of the sixth day we retired early to prepare for a long bus ride the next day. Rameshwaram was calling.
Still in the Southern Part of India by Paul Cragg
A week into our trip and the personal chemistry of the group is gelling. The theme of the first week has been Maharishi's very early days on leaving the Himalayas; his first public speech; and his inauguration of the Spiritual Regeneration Movement in Madras (now Chennai). And so it was that we arrived in Rameshwaram, the town whose name kept arising in Maharishi's mind as he sat on the banks of the Ganges.
It is a town of approximately 40,000 indelibly imprinted on the collective Indian mind as the place from which Rama, incarnation of Vishnu, and hero of the Ramayana, led an army of monkeys and bears over the bridge built by Hanuman into the kingdom of Shri Lanka. According to the story of the Ramayana, it was in Lanka that Ram defeated the demon Ravana and his armies and rescued his wife Sita. After this victory Rama and Sita returned across the bridge to Rameshwaram and there asked forgiveness of Shiva for killing Ravana, who though evil was still a Brahmin.
For our party, however, the highlight was not reliving this ancient history and its monuments, but more the witnessing of history in the making as we visited a small group of Maharishi Pundit who chanted Rudra Abishek for us in two sessions lasting almost three hours.
We sat directly behind a group of eleven pundit boys in a room no bigger than 4 x 3 yards. The men sat in the back of this small room and the ladies sat nearby in the corridor. It was so personal! The intonations of the chanting was sweet on the ears and resonated into the physiology in a way that only Maharishi Vedic recitation can. We were left with the feeling that we had experienced something very special.
In this we experienced a victory of another kind, and another step in the creation of Maharishi's legacy for the future.
Paul Cragg,
Great Britain
It is a town of approximately 40,000 indelibly imprinted on the collective Indian mind as the place from which Rama, incarnation of Vishnu, and hero of the Ramayana, led an army of monkeys and bears over the bridge built by Hanuman into the kingdom of Shri Lanka. According to the story of the Ramayana, it was in Lanka that Ram defeated the demon Ravana and his armies and rescued his wife Sita. After this victory Rama and Sita returned across the bridge to Rameshwaram and there asked forgiveness of Shiva for killing Ravana, who though evil was still a Brahmin.
For our party, however, the highlight was not reliving this ancient history and its monuments, but more the witnessing of history in the making as we visited a small group of Maharishi Pundit who chanted Rudra Abishek for us in two sessions lasting almost three hours.
We sat directly behind a group of eleven pundit boys in a room no bigger than 4 x 3 yards. The men sat in the back of this small room and the ladies sat nearby in the corridor. It was so personal! The intonations of the chanting was sweet on the ears and resonated into the physiology in a way that only Maharishi Vedic recitation can. We were left with the feeling that we had experienced something very special.
In this we experienced a victory of another kind, and another step in the creation of Maharishi's legacy for the future.
Paul Cragg,
Great Britain
Poem by Karim Nahabet
Travelling the land of the Ved, Veda Bhumi Bharat,
Senses open wide while we fly drive and wade;
Through New Delhi, Trivandrum, and KanyaKumari,
following in the fotsteps of our great Maharishi,
without letting our feelings fade.
First there was a city, full in glory with tremendous beauty,
shopping the streets with sounds and smells alike,
depicting the beginning of our adventure,
don't forget your buddy so you can keep going without fright.
Punjabi, Kurta, Dhoti and Saree,
to name a few of our new delights,
New Delhi certainly is a city full of light, even at night.
Down to the south, the beach Ayurvedic Resort,
How lively it was to have a rejuvination massage, done with hands and foot.
Blissful beings coming and going we are,
a back water boat ride that wasn't so far.
We saw a jungle, a fishing village too, a blue heron and other birds,
big and small, like me and you.
A bus ride through the south, takes us to Maharishi's first library lecture location.
meeting the man's son whom invited him--oh what an invocation.
Do you feel the energy? Its surplus here creating such synergy.
group programs are marvelous, sharing this voyage with you.
Arriving at Kanniyakumari, it certainly is an inspiration too.
A temple ceremony that may surprise likes of many,
but not the MUM group, for we are many going strong.
Transcending and carrying the likeness of our Guru,
representing and respecting the truth he brought me and you.
And now we continue to discover,
following footsteps of years past.
and sharing the love in this blog--well it won't be the last.
Yours Truly,
Karim Nahabet, MA Student
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Preparations and First Few Days in India
We have been in India now for four days and tomorrow we leave early for Kanyakumari, at the southernmost tip of India. We are a coherent group of 28 MUM students, alumni, and continuing education students from all over the globe, moving together to recount the early history of Maharishi's movement in India, visit the modern day achievements of Maharishi in India, and study many aspects of Vedic Science along the way. The first few days illustrate the variety and range of our course.
Orientation in Fairfield.
We had learned from past courses that the best start of a Rotating University course is to have knowledge at the start that prepares people for the culture into which they are moving. So in the first two days on campus, we heard an introduction by President Bevan Morris on the culture and etiquette of India, an introduction and summary of a new retelling of the Ramayana by Linda and Tom Egenes (that we will be reading while in India), a 3-hour presentation by Dr. Paul Morehead summarizing the Vedic Devatas in the human physiology, and a presentation by Shankari Wegman, specifically on temple etiquette (potentially one of the most confusing experiences in India). Each presentation prepared us for an aspect of the course that we will be pursuing while in India.
Travel to India.
The first day of the trip reminded me of many rivers converging as they flow toward the sea. We started in Cedar Rapids on Thursday around noon with thirteen of us: six full-time MA in Vedic Science students, three continuing education students, and four course leaders. We were joined at the airport by Stephen and Dori Rector, to make fifteen traveling by plane to Chicago. In Chicago we were joined by two others, one from Seattle and one from the LA area, making us 17. In Delhi, after a 16 hour plane ride from Chicago, we met by eleven more to make 28 total. The Delhi Airport is much improved from what I remember in previous years, more modern, clean, efficient.
We were greeted at the airport by our travel agent, Rajen Singla, and a comfortable 35-seater bus, to get us to our two hotels. After a couple of miscommunications between traveling couples, we got everyone into the hotel by 2 AM Friday morning.Delhi. The first night in Delhi brought back all of the memories of India from courses and celebrations past, the smell of wood burning mixed with truck and bus fumes; the cacophony of horns, barking dogs, and mechanical generators; the stream of travel at all times of day--mostly motor rikshaws in the day, and trucks at night. One group stayed in the Connaught Palace (the more upscale group), the other in the Swati Deluxe (comfortable student accommodations).
Everyone slept soundly the first night, relieved to be able to sleep lying down. On the first day in Delhi we had a brief orientation to India for those who had not started with us in Fairfield and then broke for an afternoon of shopping: women buying punjabis and sarees, the men kurta pajamas and dhotis. (We were determined not to look like a cultural invasion American dress.)
We happened on the first day to run into Joey Del Ray, Jamie Fritsch, David Averbach, Miriam Daudi, and Clayton ??, MUM graduates who happened to be in Delhi at the same time. We would see David and Miriam again in Thiruvanandapuram. Most everyone came away satisfied from their shopping and feeling well equipped with beautiful, traditional Indian dress, one of the great pleasures of being and traveling in India. The next morning we boarded a flight of Kingfisher airlines for a four-hour flight down to the south-eastern state of Kerala, where Maharishi first began teaching Transcendental Meditation in 1955. The four-hour flight seemed a mere blink of the eye after our 16 hour trip two days before.
Thiruvanandapuram (Trivandrum)
In Thiruvanandapuram we boarded another big blue bus with full AC to travel an hour to the Kovalam Beach, to a resort called Isola Di Coco on the Arabian Sea. We were quite happy to be leaving the big city of Delhi and to be in the fresh air breezes of the southeastern coastal area. This area of Kerala boasts a network of freshwater canals which are world-famous for their unique ecology. At this time of year the area is aflame with beautiful, sweet-smelling flowers, bathed in a constant warm breeze off the ocean. The resort sits on a little lagoon a brief boat-ride from the ocean.
The first morning we relaxed, slept in, and enjoyed the fresh air, beautiful pool, and ocean.That afternoon we held our first class in which we provided an orientation and presentation for those who had not been able to be present for the initial orientation in Fairfield. The Maharishi Vedic Science MA students gave a beautiful recap of the Vedic Devatas in the human physiology from Raja Ram's book, establishing themselves as budding teachers in their own right.
That afternoon we also took a ride in the beautiful backwater area of Kerala. In the evening we heard a beautiful tape by Maharishi on the life of Guru Dev and the early history of the Movement, introducing the next day's travel to the city in which Maharishi first lectured, Thiruvandandapuram. Today, our second day at the resort and fourth day in India, we took a bus into the city of Thiruvanandapuram (literally, the "place of the glorious infinite," ananda being the name of the snake on which Lord Vishnu reclines, symbolic of Vishnu himself).
We were met by a TM-Sidhi administrator by the name of A. K. Rajesh, who explained to us that Thriuvandapuram has always been a city dedicated to Lord Vishnu. It is the political center of the state of Kerala, but it is city governed by Lord Vishnu, as its name indicates. Even the Raja of the city rules in his name. Rajesh showed us the Padmanabaswami Temple that Maharishi used to visit regularly when first in Thiruvanandapuram, the temple to which he was walking when he was first asked "Do you speak?" As westerners we were not allowed into the temple, though we tried to get permission through numerous means, but we took the time instead to visit the library where Maharishi first spoke.
The old library is still there, not as a functional library, but as a small room with bookcases filled with books. The stage on which Maharishi sat to lecture is still there. Where the audience would have sat is a bazaar of dishware for sale. Bizarre but sweet at the same time. After a sumptuous lunch we returned to the beach for more R&R and class in the evening. For this class we began reading the new Egenes' retelling of the Ramyana: a beautiful edition that makes it far easier to connect to Maharishi's knowledge. We had a lively discussion and then turned in early, as tomorrow we board the bus again bound to visit Mr. Nyak, the son of the librarian who first encountered Maharishi on his way to the temple and invited him to speak at the library. Rajesh will be there again, but we are looking forward to the stories of this man who remembers walking with his father behind Maharishi. We will post again in a couple of days...so much in every day to report. We're going to give many people on the course an opportunity to post for you, so that you get many perspectives on what is happening. This will start us off.
Sincerely,
Chris Jones
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)