Michael Smith has written:
“Namaste Everyone! This is the 2nd article in a series of articles dealing with The History of The Meditation Center (TMC). The time period is from 1967, when the Arya family came to Minneapolis, until the early 1970s. This article has contributions from Stoma Parker, John Wilson and Emilio & Lois Bettaglio. However, there are several more “Early Birds” who have their stories to share, too, so we are calling this article “The Early Days of the Meditation Center (Part One).”
The Early Days of the Meditation Center, Minneapolis, MN
~ Stephen Parker (Stoma)
The Meditation Center was founded by Swami Rama of the Himalayas and by his disciple Swami Veda Bharati, then Dr. Usharbudh Arya, after giving Swami Veda his yoga initiation in 1969. They were introduced by a Minneapolis businessman, Howard Judt. It began in the Fall of 1970 in the attic of Dr. Arya’s residence, a tall yellow duplex on 30th Avenue South in Minneapolis’ Seward Neighborhood. Dr. Arya began offering classes in “Deep Meditation Yoga” there in the Fall of 1970. In the early days these classes followed a course of about six months that led to initiation into a personal mantra for those that chose to do so. As the community grew, it attracted many young people, students, academics, professionals. Among them were physicians, physicists, architects, lawyers, psychologists, and many others. The evolving need for continuing learning created a need for topical workshops and retreats, and this precipitated the effort to found a physical center with a dedicated building. After a long search, the leadership settled on the purchase in 1972 of a former convent at 631 University NE in Minneapolis and purchased the building from St. Boniface Catholic Church with whom they share a parking lot to this day. For the first several months, the building was occupied by Dan Richey, now Swami Ritavan Bharati, and Robert Kacheroski who began the process of renovation into the Meditation Center.
The following Spring, 1973, sixteen young adults, men and women, moved into the building to form a residential ashram community under Dr. Arya’s guidance. Their time was occupied with the on-going renovation work and with the tasks involved in administering the Center’s teaching as well as receiving instruction from Dr. Arya on the path of meditation. In those days, our beginning meditation classes would have hundreds of students and rooms on all three floors would be packed. It was also almost the only place in town to learn physical yoga and shared the teaching of meditation with the Minnesota Zen Center, located near Lake Bde Mka Ska, founded by Katagiri Roshi (1928-1990) around the same time.
In addition to its program of classes in the city, there would be guest speakers at the Thursday evening public programs. Speakers included Ram Dass, Chogyam Trungpa, and the lineage holder of the Sakya tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, Sakya Trizin, who decided to establish his largest center outside of India in Minneapolis not far from the Center. Swami Rama did programs there when he was in town and many of his leading disciples were teaching through the Center as well: Charles Bates, Phil Nuernberger, Lad Koresch, Justin O’Brien, Theresa King. Each year, the Center would also sponsor a residential retreat somewhere in greater Minnesota.
After a couple of years, Swami Rama decided to open his own center near Chicago, Illinois, teaching first in a two-story farmhouse in Barrington, Illinois, then a house in Prospect Heights and at the Flamingo Motel in Palatine. Finally, the beautiful center in Glenview, Illinois was founded, and several students left Minneapolis to assist Swami Rama’s work there and in Chicago.
The Meditation Center’s Early History
~ John David Wilson
At the end of summer 1967, Dr. Usharbudh Arya came to Minneapolis to teach at the University of Minnesota. When he arrived, my friend James Ebin and I invited him to teach the Free University of MN meditation class which had started a year before. He rapidly assented and became friend and teacher to many students.
In March of 1968, he performed a Hindu wedding for Joan and myself. The meditation group met in various campus spots and members’ parents’ homes until it gravitated to the home that Dr. Arya bought west of the Mississippi River, south of Franklin Avenue. Peter Wilson remodeled the attic of that home, making it into a long meditation hall.
Dr. Arya taught us Sanskrit, the Bhagavad Gita, and had us read widely from books like Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi and Gandhi’s autobiography. We practiced breathing exercises, chanting and meditation together. Various speakers came to speak to us, including Hari Krishna devotees. We also came to love Indian food.
In the fall of 1969, Swami Rama came to the Twin Cities and returned again between his famous experiments at the Menninger Institute in Kansas with Elmer & Alyce Green, where he attempted to show scientists how Consciousness can control the body and the mind.
On April 1, 1970 Dr. Arya invited me over to be initiated by Swami Rama. I assume that many others also were initiated also. His classes had grown to 30-40 students packed into his attic.
In the spring of 1972, several members of the meditation group began making teepees and preparing to move to a piece of land near Willow River, MN to work on building facilities for an ashram and summer retreat there. We lived in a large cabin nearby and attempted to integrate our work and meditation in daily life, building a geodesic dome and kitchen facilities.
The retreat we had there was successful; however, Swami Rama foresaw problems with the large mosquito population, and he directed Dr. Arya and the Dhyana Mandiram Board of Directors to sell the property and look for a permanent place in Minneapolis. Thus, The Meditation Center became located in the former convent of the nuns of St. Boniface Church, which today is still across the street from 631 University Avenue NE.
Memories of The Meditation Center’s Early Years
~ Emilio and Lois Bettaglio
At the Willow River Retreat, we did Surya Namaskar in the clearing by the banks of the river. A big tent was set up for the lectures and practices. And a big kettle with a big wooden spoon were used to make huge quantities of oatmeal for breakfast. (See Photo of the Kettle & Spoon today!)
Lois was a nanny for the Arya girls in the early ‘70s, and she remembers a banner that hung at the top of the stairs in the attic. She saw it several times daily and had memorized some of the lines. Well, she did some searching and found that it’s from a long poem about the Buddha’s life by Edwin Arnold, titled The Light of Asia (1879). Pandit Arya had these verses made into a banner that hung in the attic:
Ye are not bound! The Soul of Things is sweet,
The Heart of Being is celestial rest;
Stronger than woe is will: that which was Good
Doth pass to Better—Best.
Ye suffer from yourselves. None else compels
None other holds you that ye live and die,
And whirl upon the wheel, and hug and kiss
Its spokes of agony.
