eyes closed, nothing stirs

eyes closed, nothing stirs,

a well of silence fills the dome,

cameras forgotten

We're not allowed to take photos inside the Golden Dome, but during our evening program there are plenty of cameras, blue and gold lights and sound booms, filming Oprah Winfrey meditating with 478 ladies. It's October 2011 and we haven't had such a happening in 30 years, when Doug Henning and Debbie Douillard got married in December 1981 in the Bagambhrini Dome, which was still under construction. Oprah, along with 250 of her staff, learned Transcendental Meditation two months ago, and right away she decided to visit Fairfield and Vedic City, a community of several thousand TM meditators. This past week her staff came to town to prepare for her visit. Rumors had leaked the name of our special guest, so we spent the week beautifying our 25,000 square foot (round) meditation hall and entrance.
          On the first day of their visit, the group flies in from Chicago on her private jet, the largest airplane ever to land in our small airport. When Oprah visits the Maharishi School of the Age of Enlightenment, she says, "The age of enlightenment is what I have been wanting all my life." She is also invited to visit the campus of the Maharishi Vedic Pandits, where over 900 pandits from India practice TM and the TM-Sidhis program and perform their traditional yagyas. She listens to them chant and afterwards some of the pandits tell her how happy they are to be here, creating peace for the world.
          The day of Oprah's visit to the Ladies' Dome, we are told to wear makeup and there is a big sign in the entrance announcing that if we enter the building we agree to allow our photo to be used for publicity. No problem, since many ladies are eager to sit in the vicinity of the famous media mogul and be interviewed outside the dome. 
          Oprah and the video crew come early to see the dome empty. She loves the framed quotes on the walls, especially the one by Maharishi: "The search for total knowledge starts from the Self and finds fulfillment in coming back to the Self, finding that everything is the expression of the Self -- everything is the extension of my own Self." She stops in front of one by Marcus Aurelius: "Nowhere can a man withdraw to a more untroubled quietude than in his own soul. Grant yourself this withdrawal continually, and refresh yourself." Oprah turns to her video crew and says, "Do you get that? That's what TM is all about."
          The Golden Dome is restricted to ladies who practice TM and the TM-Sidhis, and you have to have a valid badge to enter, but that is waived for our celebrity. Oprah pauses at the entrance to the meditation area, surprised by the number of ladies streaming in or already seated on the foam that covers the floor. "Are they coming from work or home?" she asks. Candace, her hostess, replies, "From everywhere. At work they stop their project and leave for the dome. At home, they put dinner on the stove and come to the dome. Doing group program together twice a day is their top priority." 
          Oprah meditates for about half and hour before leaving us to continue the siddhis portion of the program. The presence of the cameras and lights and a famous guest do not disturb the profound silence of 478 women meditating together. Nothing stirs. As Oprah is leaving, Candace says, "You get it." Oprah throws her arms around Candace. "I get it!" Then she turns to her video crew, "That is amazing." She takes a few more steps, turns back, looks directly at the camera and says, "That is truly amazing."

in a packed theater

in a packed theater

we watch a spiritual man 
living in the material world

Sunday night, 3 October 2011, we are attending the world premier of Martin Scorcese's film "Living in the Material World," a documentary on the life of George Harrison. No, we weren't in Hollywood or New York or London. We were in the Sondheim Theater in Fairfield, Iowa, where every one of the 520 seats in the theater are sold out, including chairs along the wall. The event is a fund raiser for the David Lynch Foundation, which sponsors stress-relief programs for groups such as veterans with PTS, Native Americans, homeless men and women, and children in impoverished areas around the world.
          The film runs almost four hours, but we are riveted the entire time. I knew a fair amount about the Beatles and how they all became practitioners of Transcendental Meditation through the teachings of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. But I didn't know much about George's later life after he left the Beatles. I came away with the impression of the "Quiet Beatle" as a shy but complex man with great musical creativity, a wonderful sense of humor, a deep love for his friends and a passion for spirituality. Because of the Beatles' immense fame and fortune, George learned early how to live in the material world, and also that there was something beyond and more important than the surface level of life. 
          George stumbled onto the spiritual path in a way that was not uncommon in the 1960s. During his first experience with LSD, a thought came to him: "the yogis of the Himalayas." Not long after, he discovered Maharishi, "the giggling guru." George really took to meditation and it became a lifelong practice. However, he did not always stay away from drugs and at one time he became a "closet Hari Krishna" who didn't shave his head or wear ashes on his face.  
          George's greatest concern when John Lennon was murdered was that John did not have time to prepare for his death. And when George was in the midst of being attacked by a man trying to murder him, he thought, "If I'm going to die, what would hold me back? I have a 15-year-old son who needs his father, but other than that, not much." He had prepared spiritually for that moment for a long time. Ringo tells the story about visiting George in Switzerland, where he was bedridden in the final weeks of his bout with cancer. Ringo told his friend that he had to go back to New York because his daughter had a brain tumor, and George said, "Do you want me to go with you?" When George did die, his wife Olivia says, "He lit up the room."
          This part is not in the film. A friend told me that a few months before George died, he went to see Maharishi again to ask for forgiveness and Maharishi said, "There's nothing to forgive."

temple of the sun

 
temple of the sun

resonates with the golden

flute of the traveler

Paul Horn, known as the Traveler, played his flute in the Temple of the Sun at Machu Picchu. He has also played in many sacred spaces around the world, including the Taj Mahal, the Grand Canyon, the Potala and Mt. Kailash in Tibet, the Great Pyramid at Giza, and with orca whales. It was "Inside" his recording in the Taj Mahal in 1968 that launched the genre of New Age music. Paul was with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in Rishikesh, India, in 1967, at the same time as the Beatles and Donovan, and he became one of Maharishi's first teachers of Transcendental Meditation. This year Paul played in the Golden Dome on the campus of Maharishi University in Fairfield, Iowa. His soulful melodies on a golden flute reverberated in the atmosphere of deep, lively silence that permeates the Golden Dome.