The Movement is in good hands.
That was my unequivocal conclusion about Tony Nader after spending the afternoon at a seminar he gave in NY yesterday. This was a seminar briefly describing his discovery of the Ramayana in human anatomy. He wanted to actually start on time (!) but was caught in traffic coming in from NJ - so he got on a cell phone and just started talking to us from the car rather than keeping us waiting or listening to Haglen kill time. When he arrived he spoke for about an hour and I found the talk mildly interesting - which was personally significant as I was anticipating a boring afternoon of gobbly gook followed by a commercial for money. Then he just stopped and said that what he really wanted to do was to connect with the audience (mostly governors and meditators). It was during the Q & A that I really woke up. I found him to be refreshingly sweet and humble. Of course he was well versed in the topic but what was most inviting was his style. He honored everyone's questions, gave an interesting answer, then would say something like: "was that a good answer?" in a very sweet and honest manner. Some of the most memorable questions were about how his mind was able to cognize these correlations. He explained that he would think about the subject over and over again and then ask Maharishi about the details of some Vedic literature. While Maharisihi was explaining say how Nyaya works Tony would perceive himself as if back in medical school and just hear the vedic terminology as Maharishi was speaking as if it were physiologic terminology. Then when he wanted to go deeper Maharishi told him to stay in the room underneath his bedroom and hole up there in silence for 6 months. After the general audience left he held a business meeting with the local governors to go over their teaching issues etc. This too was conducted in a refreshing style of openness. Tony would speak to them as equals - fellow teachers - invite solutions and then make a decision that usually pleased the group. He would remember Maharishi's reasoning about an issue but if that did not apply he would break with the old dogma and say "let's try this". I was surprised with his flexibility and the lack of rigidity that used to be a real turn off for me in dealing with movement administrators. My experience was that he was coming more from the heart and less from the head. If you've attended meetings with him before you probably have come to the same conclusions. We're having lunch with him tomorrow and then he'll be addressing a few hundred Indo-American doctors in Long Island - included are some of our dentists. I'll let you know how that goes. For now I have renewed hope and faith that the movement will endure under the kinder more flexible leadership of Tony Nader.
