14.sept.2001, FairfieldLife: An opportunity... A Meditating Community
I meditate. I am an old style field TM Initiator and I am an old style movement Governor. Like so many here I am a meditator, fundamentally. In coming to Fairfield, most of us have come here as TM meditators. Some of us came as TM initiators. Some of us came here as TM-Sidhas or some as TM Governors. We have come from many places and points. From many points though, the common point of the meditating community has been that we are here as practicing meditators. We share a lot of history together. Some of us have been meditators of 30 and 40 years. Many of us here are mediators of 20 or more years. Many of 5, 10 or 15 years. There are a few new meditators today but the core of the movement community here is a veteran group. As a community we are in common as mediators. In common we have had much to draw on as meditators and then also as initiators and Governors. In numbers we have been a powerful resource to draw on because of a strength of diversity we have brought as meditators in community. There is a huge diversity in our group. We have a great community here. Many of us have watched it grow. Many of us have worked to make it grow. It has been vibrant and a lot of fun to be in. Today, in recent years and times, it is apparent to witness that there are many many meditators living in Fairfield who are without place in the TM movement. There are lots of people who are old time long term meditators living here and also around the country without place in the current movement. It is a curious thing that there can be hundreds and hundreds of meditators living here in the town community who have little or no contact or relationship to what today has become a small and shrinking enclave of the movement community. We see these many people here when we do come together to marry or bury our community. We see each other up town everywhere. We do not see each other so much on campus or in the movement anymore. As an event, probably the last truly inclusive community group meditation was held last fall at the memorial for Alex Grace held in the chapel. It was a significant last moment in the meditating community here. In effect, as we are meditators in practice and in heart we are without an organ of a movement. In looking, there is a huge opportunity, if the movement elite could see it, in the base of the people who are here as meditators doing their meditation and doing their TM-Sidhis as meditators. The speculation for all of us watching is whether there may be too much pride or too much arrogance inside the movement now to see what is here at hand. Possibly it is beyond the nature of character of too many in the middle to recoup. There is always hope. Of Support and facility... In general, as a meditator, to the extent that I may look to the movement, I look to it to support my practice as a meditator. As an initiator, I look to the movement to support us in the teaching of TM. As a governor I look to the movement to facilitate. Supporting and facilitating, our needs as a meditating community are about that simple. Beyond what could be done directly to administratively support and facilitate practicing meditators, as practicing meditators, meditators may or may not be interested at all in anything further coming from the movement as new knowledge. Meditators may do their practice. However, as meditators we may or we may not necessarily be interested in vedic architecture or astrology or education or service or political rantings or anything else that the movement may franchise. Beyond a quiet practice which itself is self-evident, any of the new knowledge may or may not be interesting or compelling. As a group, the essential relationship for practicing meditators with the movement has always been experiential and practical, and has not been until recently now, faith-based otherwise. Of course, in reflecting, in the culture of the TM movement there is no place to rate ourselves on how we might be doing as a movement organized. No place even to ask or reflect how we might be doing supporting meditators or supporting teachers or sidhas. Versus our ideal administration, reflecting on our own administration in any way practical would of course be too negative. Would it be too practical? There is a huge opportunity, if the movement enclave could see it, in the base of the people who are here as meditators doing their meditation and doing their TM-Sidhis as meditators. The speculation for all of us watching is whether there may be too much rigid pride or too much arrogance inside the movement now to see what is here at hand. Possibly it is beyond the nature of character of too many in the middle to recoup. There is always hope. With Best Regards, -Doug Hamilton
