Guest guest Posted November 14, 2006 Report Share Posted November 14, 2006 There is some magic in community or a sangha that is intangible and not easily seen. I experienced that when I was in the spiritual community created by my teacher. In Fairfield, Iowa, the TM group has a special meditation place where a large number of TM meditators come to meditate. When I once visited there, the spiritual vibrations were phenomenal. This can be true in any group of any spiritual tradition. This is why people go to certain holy places. Over the centuries, many great adepts have left their footprints in such places. Sri Ramana used to say that whether one gets to visit such places is according to ones destiny. I think when Paul Brunton wanted to visit Mount Kailash, Sri Ramana said that it is within you (and Paul Brunton never made it there, I believe). Once when Sri Ramana was asked about the benefits of close proximity to the guru or the community or the spiritual environment, he said that it was the mental contact or the mental environment that mattered and not the actual physical presence. Love to all Harsha -- Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted November 14, 2006 Report Share Posted November 14, 2006 Dear Harsha and all, I like your post here about community. In the past months I have been involved in one way or another with the Maitreya Project Heartshrine Relic Tour. In this project, crematory relics of Shakyamuni Buddha, and other buddhist saints and masters, travel around the world. The little pearl-like remains are considered sacred to Buddhists. Being in their presence is likened to being in the presence of the buddha. The purpose of the project is to bring the experience of peace and lovingkindness to many through contact with the relics. All this background was quite unknown to me when I began to organize to bring the relics to the city where I live. I had looked at the Maitreya project website and just really liked the way the relics 'felt'. In organizing hosting the relics here, many wonderful people came together from many spiritual backgrounds and traditions. We showed the relics in the chapel of a large non-denominational church downtown. There was a loving sense of community among the volunteers and the visitors and everyone who came into the space. I felt like I was in love with everyone there. Many of those who came to visit the relics had a difficult time leaving. Some stayed all day, after intending to be there only a few minutes. Some came back the next day, alone or with friends and family; some stayed all weekend and joined the group of volunteers. Many of us who met in this context have become friends and stay in touch. Some of us have formed part of a peace presence that advocates for peace by standing on a downtown corner with and without signs, every Monday at rush hour. The relics brought us all into a kind of loving space that I feel we retouch whenever we are in contact again. After the relics had moved on, I missed them. So a few weeks after they had gone, my partner and I went to see them in Detroit, where they were on display in beautiful, funky downtown Zen center in Hamtramck, in a wonderful space that was formerly a Polish wedding hall. The monks there invited us to stay with them, so we spent the weekend there, sleeping on mats in a little room, sharing meals with the monks and our now old friends, the custodians of the Relics, who drive them from place to place, and guide us all in the rituals of setting up the display, and chanting and praying at the beginning and end of each day. We drove around Detroit late at night with a carload of monks, who took us to a wonderful dinner at a Thai restaurant downtown, and then showed us all kinds of odd folk art sticking up into the sky from Hamtramck alleys. By the time we left, we felt we were leaving old and close friends. We have stayed in touch with them monks and are making plans to help them with some building projects down the road. In the fall, we began to miss the relics some more. So last month, we drove 12 hours to Ottawa, Canada, for the weekend, where some friends (met here on HS) were hosting the Relics, in a big new conference center. We worked there with them as volunteers, setting up the relics, greeting visitors, helping with the rituals. Being in the incredible energy or presence of the Relics again was wonderful. We were so happy and full of love for all our friends, and the relic custodians, and everyone with whom we came into contact. On Sunday, a big group of about two hundred people came from a Vietnamese Buddhist temple in Montreal. I have heard this temple has an incredible feeling to it, and the group has great focus. When they walked into the room and began to sing, the room changed, and many people there began to cry. I could not stop weeping. They began to circle the relics and chant to Amitaba. They circled and chanted the entire day. We were all moved by waves and waves of the intangible something they had brought into the space. When we left Ottawa, it was like leaving Home--going away from those we felt so good with--it was such a loving atmosphere. Being close to the Relics and with others in close communion with them felt like the most blissful place. Again we made friends with people with whom we feel the closest connection. We remain in touch with some of the people we met, but also what remains is a feeling of closeness and love for people we will never see again, like the two and three year old sisters who helped me fill the bowls of water for the altar that Sunday morning, or the shaman from British Columbia who chanted and sang in his beautiful unfamiliar language at the opening prayers on Saturday. Somehow I thought I was going to be able to write this in a couple of succinct sentences. Now it has become too long for the email patience of most. But it has been filling me, these past months, this sense of sangha and the wide field of loving peace the community around the relics has shared. I thought of it for a while as the 'power' of the relics, but then I began to regard that blissful loving space as the sense of shared mind, shared feeling, that we access when we are together in sangha. Jill On Nov 14, 2006, at 10:22 AM, Harsha wrote: > There is some magic in community or a sangha that is intangible and > not easily seen. I experienced that when I was in the spiritual > community created by my teacher. > >  In Fairfield, Iowa, the TM group has a special meditation place > where a large number of TM meditators come to meditate. When I once > visited there, the spiritual vibrations were phenomenal. This can be > true in any group of any spiritual tradition. This is why people go > to certain holy places. Over the centuries, many great adepts have > left their footprints in such places. > > Sri Ramana used to say that whether one gets to visit such places is > according to ones destiny. I think when Paul Brunton wanted to visit > Mount Kailash, Sri Ramana said that it is within you (and Paul Brunton > never made it there, I believe). > > Once when Sri Ramana was asked about the benefits of close proximity > to the guru or the community or the spiritual environment, he said > that it was the mental contact or the mental environment that mattered > and not the actual physical presence. > > Love to all > Harsha > > > > -- > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted November 14, 2006 Report Share Posted November 14, 2006 Hi Harsha, just a note re Paul Brunton: He could not go to Kailash, but he made it to the Himalayas to spend a time of solitude there. He reports on the journey in his book: "Hermit in the Himalayas". It is a nice book and his last spiritual travel-report. I have this sanga-feeling most of all when I go to mass in a Christian church love Gabriele > > Sri Ramana used to say that whether one gets to visit such places is > according to ones destiny. I think when Paul Brunton wanted to visit > Mount Kailash, Sri Ramana said that it is within you (and Paul Brunton > never made it there, I believe). > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted November 15, 2006 Report Share Posted November 15, 2006 Apropos of your letter below. I worked as a psychotherapist for a number of years. One of the people I worked with was very nervous and very non-stop talkative. In one session I suggested that we just sit quietly together. The hour flew by and the person left feeling much clamer. The next person immediately on entering the room said: 'Has someone been meditating in this room?' Sam - Harsha Tuesday, November 14, 2006 7:22 AM Sangha - Community There is some magic in community or a sangha that is intangible and not easily seen. I experienced that when I was in the spiritual community created by my teacher. In Fairfield, Iowa, the TM group has a special meditation place where a large number of TM meditators come to meditate. When I once visited there, the spiritual vibrations were phenomenal. This can be true in any group of any spiritual tradition. This is why people go to certain holy places. Over the centuries, many great adepts have left their footprints in such places. Sri Ramana used to say that whether one gets to visit such places is according to ones destiny. I think when Paul Brunton wanted to visit Mount Kailash, Sri Ramana said that it is within you (and Paul Brunton never made it there, I believe). Once when Sri Ramana was asked about the benefits of close proximity to the guru or the community or the spiritual environment, he said that it was the mental contact or the mental environment that mattered and not the actual physical presence. Love to all Harsha -- Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted November 15, 2006 Report Share Posted November 15, 2006 Dear Harsha, Your post regarding your Fairfield Iowa MIU visit reminded me of my first experience of 'shakti' in the air back in the mid 70's. I was a beginner TM meditator sharing a home with two TM 'sidhas', which was the 'flying centre' for our city, with an entire floor covered in wall to wall dense foam mattress for the 15-20 sidha 'happy hoppers' practicing Patanjalis Yoga Sutra 'lighter than a cotton fibre' sutra ... and skittering about the room every other evening. I would sit upstairs two levels and 'surf' the shakti waves. There was most definitely 'strength' in proximity to their physical numbers ... although since experiencing energetic k-awakening several years ago, just sitting in the presence of only one other k-wide awake friend now makes that decades old experience seem like a merely struck match versus being next to, or one with, a roman candle. One wonders what being in the presence of a temple or shrine room full of roman candles would be like, versus flaming matches. Here's hopefully, to our destiny! Metta. Alex Sponsored Link Mortgage rates near historic lows - Refi $200k loan for only $660/ month - Click now for info Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted November 15, 2006 Report Share Posted November 15, 2006 Hi Jill, Yes, hanging out with you guys and the Buddhas Relics sure is/was a good time. Having them under our roof for four nights was quite something too - should raise the re-sale value of our house by at least a few 'K' (pun intended . If Harsha's list allows it, Luc took a few shots when the Vietnamese congregation arrived that really conveys the vibe, that I could upload. Peace and Metta. Alex Sponsored Link $420,000 Mortgage for $1,399/month - Think You Pay Too Much For Your Mortgage? Find Out! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted November 16, 2006 Report Share Posted November 16, 2006 Sorry ... begging your indulgence all ... I read and responded last, to Jill's post regarding 'Community' while I was at work ... in 'fast' mode, somewhat light-heartedly, as I have to 'walk the line' in my work (Jill knows what I mean) ... and to open myself too much to reflection/absorption can incapacitate me at a 'functional' level in a place/space/professional milieu where I have to 'keep it together'. What I really wanted to say, was 'thank you Jill' .. for witnessing to others on this list, the potent presence of past masters whose vibration is carried in their holy relics ... that are available to any in their path ... it is a great blessing and empowerment to any and all who may avail themselves of the opportunity to be in the presence of the energetically imbued remains of Shakymuni, his Disciples, and more 'contemporary' Masters. A personal remembrance of the first of three times I was in their Presence, was simply 'sitting' in their proximity, in meditation for hours, while tears fell continuously drop by drop down my cheeks, whilst in profound state of spontaneous deep absorption. Deeper personal 'remembrances' arose subsequently of connection to 'the Holy Dharma'... and it's progenitors in the Buddhist tradition ... Love and Blessings ... Loving Kindness to All Beings ... May Bodhichitta (the seed of enlightenment) be nourished, cultivated and cherished in the hearts of all beings. Metta. Alex Sponsored Link Mortgage rates near 39yr lows. $420,000 Mortgage for $1,399/mo - Calculate new house payment Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted November 16, 2006 Report Share Posted November 16, 2006 _____ [] On Behalf Of Harsha Tuesday, November 14, 2006 8:22 AM Sangha - Community There is some magic in community or a sangha that is intangible and not easily seen. I experienced that when I was in the spiritual community created by my teacher. In Fairfield, Iowa, the TM group has a special meditation place where a large number of TM meditators come to meditate. When I once visited there, the spiritual vibrations were phenomenal. This can be true in any group of any spiritual tradition. This is why people go to certain holy places. Over the centuries, many great adepts have left their footprints in such places. Sri Ramana used to say that whether one gets to visit such places is according to ones destiny. I think when Paul Brunton wanted to visit Mount Kailash, Sri Ramana said that it is within you (and Paul Brunton never made it there, I believe). Once when Sri Ramana was asked about the benefits of close proximity to the guru or the community or the spiritual environment, he said that it was the mental contact or the mental environment that mattered and not the actual physical presence. Love to all Harsha In the world of Thy creation, my Lord, All seek the dust of Thy devoted Sadhus. O Nanak! He who is so destined Gets the dust of the Sadhu (sangha) and is safely carried across. 106 <http://www.ruhanisatsangusa.org/naam/ref.htm#Book10> GURU RAM DAS Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted November 16, 2006 Report Share Posted November 16, 2006 Hey, i think there is an old english term for this.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egregore Peace Martin , "Michael Bowes" <aumshanti wrote: > > _____ > > [] > On Behalf Of Harsha > Tuesday, November 14, 2006 8:22 AM > > Sangha - Community > > > > There is some magic in community or a sangha that is intangible and not > easily seen. I experienced that when I was in the spiritual community > created by my teacher. > > In Fairfield, Iowa, the TM group has a special meditation place where a > large number of TM meditators come to meditate. When I once visited there, > the spiritual vibrations were phenomenal. This can be true in any group of > any spiritual tradition. This is why people go to certain holy places. Over > the centuries, many great adepts have left their footprints in such places. > > Sri Ramana used to say that whether one gets to visit such places is > according to ones destiny. I think when Paul Brunton wanted to visit Mount > Kailash, Sri Ramana said that it is within you (and Paul Brunton never made > it there, I believe). > > Once when Sri Ramana was asked about the benefits of close proximity to the > guru or the community or the spiritual environment, he said that it was the > mental contact or the mental environment that mattered and not the actual > physical presence. > > Love to all > Harsha > > > > > > In the world of Thy creation, my Lord, > All seek the dust of Thy devoted Sadhus. > O Nanak! He who is so destined > Gets the dust of the Sadhu (sangha) > and is safely carried across. 106 > <http://www.ruhanisatsangusa.org/naam/ref.htm#Book10> > GURU RAM DAS > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted November 16, 2006 Report Share Posted November 16, 2006 Dear Jill, Alex, Richard, Michael, Sam, Joyce, Anna, Richard-2, Yosy, Phil, Marifa, David, Alan, Gerda, Gabriele, Peter, Tony, Jeo, Joson, John, Era, Raghava, Mango Tree, Marifa, Phillip, Jan, and Maharishi Bingo, and others: Thanks for much wonderful sharing and thank you Jill for a moving description of the feelings one gets in spiritual community of like minded people. It brought back some warm memories of the time spent in my Gurudev's community and company. I remember people crying often in chanting or just sitting looking at each other so tenderly. Many blissful smiles and tears. I was 21 and too young to really understand it all. Tears never came to me in public. Sometimes, I used to think that ----these people in our sangha are so emotional and stuff. Too bad they don't spend their time in long meditations like me! Poor poor novices and beginners! Crying at the drop of a hat----- That's how I used to think. Now I am older and understand better different aspects of being human. One time, in the late 1970s, I was sitting in satsang at my teacher's meditation center with an advanced American yogi who was telling us about how he felt affinity with the American Indian tradition because he had been an American Indian in his past life. So, instead of chanting Ommmmmmmmmmm, he started chanting eeeeeeeeeeyaaaaaaaaaa, eeeeeeeeeeeeeeyaaaaaaaaaa. It was very high pitch, almost like noise of a bird or a whale under the sea. Instead of appreciating it, I and my friend somehow started laughing and tried to muffle our laughter. In order to avoid embarrassment, we had to quickly leave the satsang hall and really laughed hard outside. Looking back, I was somewhat immature and could not help myself. When things struck me as funny, I could not control my self. Once, I saw the Mary Tyler Moore show where in one of the shows, Mary started laughing really hard during the funeral of friend who was a clown on her T.V. station. She could not help it. That was at times my situation. I laughed during inappropriate times. I don't know how many people experience that. I experienced it more when I was young....laughing so hard that I could cry. Although others pointed out my immature behavior and the size of my ego (I claimed full enlightenment even then!), Chitrabhanuji never seemed to notice. Most he ever said when someone complained was, "Harshdev likes to crack jokes and have a good laugh.". Harsha Jill Eggers wrote: > Dear Harsha and all, > > I like your post here about community. > > In the past months I have been involved in one way or another with the > Maitreya Project Heartshrine Relic Tour. In this project, crematory > relics of Shakyamuni Buddha, and other buddhist saints and masters, > travel around the world. The little pearl-like remains are considered > sacred to Buddhists. Being in their presence is likened to being in > the presence of the buddha. The purpose of the project is to bring the > experience of peace and lovingkindness to many through contact with > the relics. > > All this background was quite unknown to me when I began to organize > to bring the relics to the city where I live. I had looked at the > Maitreya project website and just really liked the way the relics > 'felt'. In organizing hosting the relics here, many wonderful people > came together from many spiritual backgrounds and traditions. We > showed the relics in the chapel of a large non-denominational church > downtown. There was a loving sense of community among the volunteers > and the visitors and everyone who came into the space. I felt like I > was in love with everyone there. Many of those who came to visit the > relics had a difficult time leaving. Some stayed all day, after > intending to be there only a few minutes. Some came back the next day, > alone or with friends and family; some stayed all weekend and joined > the group of volunteers. Many of us who met in this context have > become friends and stay in touch. Some of us have formed part of a > peace presence that advocates for peace by standing on a downtown > corner with and without signs, every Monday at rush hour. The relics > brought us all into a kind of loving space that I feel we retouch > whenever we are in contact again. > > After the relics had moved on, I missed them. So a few weeks after > they had gone, my partner and I went to see them in Detroit, where > they were on display in beautiful, funky downtown Zen center in > Hamtramck, in a wonderful space that was formerly a Polish wedding > hall. The monks there invited us to stay with them, so we spent the > weekend there, sleeping on mats in a little room, sharing meals with > the monks and our now old friends, the custodians of the Relics, who > drive them from place to place, and guide us all in the rituals of > setting up the display, and chanting and praying at the beginning and > end of each day. We drove around Detroit late at night with a carload > of monks, who took us to a wonderful dinner at a Thai restaurant > downtown, and then showed us all kinds of odd folk art sticking up > into the sky from Hamtramck alleys. By the time we left, we felt we > were leaving old and close friends. We have stayed in touch with them > monks and are making plans to help them with some building projects > down the road. > > In the fall, we began to miss the relics some more. So last month, we > drove 12 hours to Ottawa, Canada, for the weekend, where some friends > (met here on HS) were hosting the Relics, in a big new conference > center. We worked there with them as volunteers, setting up the > relics, greeting visitors, helping with the rituals. Being in the > incredible energy or presence of the Relics again was wonderful. We > were so happy and full of love for all our friends, and the relic > custodians, and everyone with whom we came into contact. On Sunday, a > big group of about two hundred people came from a Vietnamese Buddhist > temple in Montreal. I have heard this temple has an incredible feeling > to it, and the group has great focus. When they walked into the room > and began to sing, the room changed, and many people there began to > cry. I could not stop weeping. They began to circle the relics and > chant to Amitaba. They circled and chanted the entire day. We were all > moved by waves and waves of the intangible something they had brought > into the space. > > When we left Ottawa, it was like leaving Home--going away from those > we felt so good with--it was such a loving atmosphere. Being close to > the Relics and with others in close communion with them felt like the > most blissful place. Again we made friends with people with whom we > feel the closest connection. We remain in touch with some of the > people we met, but also what remains is a feeling of closeness and > love for people we will never see again, like the two and three year > old sisters who helped me fill the bowls of water for the altar that > Sunday morning, or the shaman from British Columbia who chanted and > sang in his beautiful unfamiliar language at the opening prayers on > Saturday. > > Somehow I thought I was going to be able to write this in a couple of > succinct sentences. Now it has become too long for the email patience > of most. But it has been filling me, these past months, this sense of > sangha and the wide field of loving peace the community around the > relics has shared. I thought of it for a while as the 'power' of the > relics, but then I began to regard that blissful loving space as the > sense of shared mind, shared feeling, that we access when we are > together in sangha. > > Jill > > > > On Nov 14, 2006, at 10:22 AM, Harsha wrote: > > There is some magic in community or a sangha that is intangible > and not easily seen. I experienced that when I was in the > spiritual community created by my teacher. > > In Fairfield, Iowa, the TM group has a special meditation place > where a large number of TM meditators come to meditate. When I > once visited there, the spiritual vibrations were phenomenal. This > can be true in any group of any spiritual tradition. This is why > people go to certain holy places. Over the centuries, many great > adepts have left their footprints in such places. > > Sri Ramana used to say that whether one gets to visit such places > is according to ones destiny. I think when Paul Brunton wanted to > visit Mount Kailash, Sri Ramana said that it is within you (and > Paul Brunton never made it there, I believe). > > Once when Sri Ramana was asked about the benefits of close > proximity to the guru or the community or the spiritual > environment, he said that it was the mental contact or the mental > environment that mattered and not the actual physical presence. > > Love to all > Harsha > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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