> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Fairfield Ledger, Front page bottom fold: > > > > > > > > > > > > > > "According to a 2007 U.S. Census Bureau Survey, nearly 10 percent > > > > > > > of the population over 18 practices some form of meditation, up > > > > > > > from about 8 percent in 2002. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Locally, both transcendental and Buddhist meditation techniques > > > > > > > are growing in popularity, Iowa City instructors said." > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > * 10 percent! * > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Like, even some local main-street churches have offered folks > > > > > "centering" prayer now. Times change. Even our local Methodists are > > > > > offering classes. Rocks are melting? There's been a local bastion > > > > > falling. The Lutherans next? > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > "Keating defines centering prayer as "a very simple method in which one > > > > opens one's self to God and consents to his presence in us and to his > > > > actions within ..." > > > > > > > > > > To God, the 'Unified Field'. > > > > > > It's interesting how it has gone, Catholic Father Keating took the ball > > > and ran with it back in the 1970's and now it has crossed over gone viral > > > even amongst some Protestants. It's like basic meditational spirituality > > > going mainstream in current. > > > > > > > > > Trending even now by evidence of science, meditation in practice is rising > > to being taught in Doctor's offices as secular public health policy. > > > > A lot has happened since Yogananda came to the West in the first half of the > 20th Century and urged then that the scientific process of research on > meditation get going from then to show that something real is there in the > discipline of meditational spirituality. >
Yogananda of course had a huge influence from his time in the 20th Century. The Western transcendentalists were before him in the 19th Century, then Vivikananda comes, and Yogananda's was the time of the 1920's, 30's and 40's. Yogananda passing in the 1950's though his 'Autobiography of a Yogi' being essential spirituality to the 20th Century as a best seller in spiritual books for the next 50 years even to the present. Then from the 1950's came Maharishi and some others, and especially the Dali Lama. TM being taught to about one-in-300 Americans during the 1970's and 80's. About 'a third of a percent' of Americans then just learning TM meditation. They and Keating (and Merton) have all been players in this '10 percent of Americans meditating' number in the making.
