Tag: centers

Michael Smith has written:

“Namaste Everyone! This is the 2^nd 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 30^th 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.

(This is the first article in a series of writings on the 50-Year History of The Meditation Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota USA.)

THE 50-YEAR HISTORY of THE MEDITATION CENTER
in Minneapolis, Minnesota USA

#1 The Meditation Center as a Sacred Site

The Meditation Center (TMC) was founded by Swami Rama and Swami Veda (then Dr. Usharbudh Arya) in 1972. TMC is located at 631 University Avenue, Minneapolis Minnesota 55070, and it was the first center of the Himalayan Yoga Tradition in the Western Hemisphere. There is a rich history of TMC going back over half a century which will take several articles to summarize. This is first article, describing TMC as a Sacred Site.

What is a sacred site? Briefly, it is a place where one can go to experience sacred space. It is a place where time stops, and you can connect to the totality of your being and know that it is the same as the fullness (purna) of the Whole.

“Sacred space is ‘the time of Eternity —the doorway through which the ‘other world’ of gods can contact us and we can contact them. Sacred space is associated with the center of the entire universe, where power and holiness are strongest and where we can go to renew our own strength.”¹

“In truth…the great siddhas on this very planet have charged certain areas. You can go there (such as with the Kumbha Melas at the confluence of the rivers), and you can feel the charge.”²

It is interesting to contemplate what factors are involved for a particular site to be considered sacred. It is said that there are certain natural geographical features that can give a location a certain energy. It could be a well, a spring, a fountain or a waterfall, a cave, a rock formation, or a mountain. It could be a great tree or grove of trees. Some people believe that there are energy channels, called ley lines, flowing like nadis from one geographic area to another.³ And there are the ancient sciences Vastu and Feng Sui, whose goal is to find the best placement of buildings relating to the earth, water and sunlight as well as most propitious architectural configurations.

“To meditate by a river,” Swami Veda said, “is especially beneficial,” but even more beneficial are places where there is a confluence (prayag) of rivers, such as at Allahabad, where the Ganges and Yamuna Rivers join; or at the five (panch) pragags (Devprayag, Karnapayag, Nandprayag, Rudraprayag and Vishnuprayag) in the Garhwal Himalayas in Uttarakhand, India. Both Swami Rama and Swami Veda did special practices in Swami Rama’s cave at Gangotri, which is situated at the confluence of the Ganges and Bhagirathi rivers.

When Dr. Arya came to the Twin Cities (Minneapolis & St. Paul) in 1967 he probably did not know that the area was sacred to the Native Americans for centuries. Minnesota means “Land of Sky-tinted Waters” and Minneapolis means “City of Waters,” because of the many lakes in the area and the fact that the Mississippi River (the largest river in North American) flows through the city. Many areas around the Mississippi were (and are still) sacred to the Dakotas. Very close to TMC is Nicollet Island. The first inhabitants of Nicollet Island were Ojibwe and Dakota, who considered it a sacred nexus to the spiritual world. It was known as a birthing place for the Dakota and a site for their vision quest ceremonies. Also, close to TMC was Owamniyomni (St. Anthony Falls)⁴ and Spirit Island⁵, and a little southeast are sacred burial mounds in St. Paul. At the confluence of the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers is Bdote⁶ (near where Fort Snelling was built), which is, one of most sacred places for Native Americans in Minnesota.

Swami Veda, however, emphasized that a site is made sacred through the concentrated efforts of human beings:

“For uncountable millennia certain places have been dedicated only to prayer, to worship, to meditation. More such places also come into being with each new divine incarnation, each sage, each person who becomes a Master. These are places where there is a particular concentration, a vortex, of an unnamed spiritual energy, a special force that is still palpable, and one sitting there in worship or in silent meditation may even be granted a dream, a vision, a promise, or even a higher initiatory experience. I have felt this touch of a vortex of an actual electric current when taking a dip with my Gurudeva in the Ganga at the Kumbha Mela in Haridwar; while circumambulating the Rameshwaram Temple in South India; at the samadhi (holy mausoleum) of St. Francis of Assisi; in the chapel in Avila, Spain, where St. Teresa was born; while doing special practices in a meditation cave in Gangotri; at Borobudur in Java; in the sage Agastya’s cave in Bali; at a very little known cave in Delhi where, in the 13th century, a Sufi saint performed his chilla, the forty days of intensive prayer while hanging upside down in a water well.”⁷

When some people enter The Meditation Center, they notice “a certain presence.” In 1979, when Doug Boyd⁸ set foot in the main hall, he paused at the doorway, took a deep breath, showed a big smile, and said, “Wow!” Then he closed his eyes and went into silence. When Shree Ma and Swami Satyananda Saraswati came to The Meditation Center, she said that she would like to remain there for the night rather than stay at a hotel.

The Meditation Center was a charged site at that time, and it is a charged site now. It was also a charged site over 60 years before the building was purchased in 1972 because it was a convent for the nuns of St. Boniface Church, and they used to pray continually at the altar in the Chapel Area. Behind the altar area were two beautiful stained-glass windows that can still be seen today because they were restored during the Center renovations which began in 2015.

In the dining room the nuns had a picture of the Virgin Mary, and Under Mary’s picture were the words “Tota Pulchra es Maria, et macula originales non est in te!” The Latin translates as “Totally Beautiful is Mary and Original Sin is not in Her.”

Originally, the Meditation Center legal name was Dhyana Mandiram, and a triangular altar with a statue of Vishnu was installed in the chapel area. That was the focal point for the general meditations, and also for the pujas and special practices done by Swami Rama, Swami Veda, Swami Ritavan, Pandit Dabral, Pandit Rajmani, Swami Jnaneswara, Mary Gail & Rolf Sovik (Pandit Upadesh) and many others. The ceiling in the chapel area turned black from a perpetual altar flame and the burning of incense.

About 1980, the leaky roof needed to be replaced. All the original slate tiles were scraped off. There were heaps of broken tiles on the ground, and it took a crew of students to clean them up. All the tiles smelled strongly of incense from decades of worship at the altar. Several students took some slate tiles home and put them near their meditation seats.

The last time that Swami Veda was in the United States was on Guru Purnima, 2012. Because of the need for a large space, the Center community gathered across the street at St. Maron’s Church. Swami Veda gave a talk about the relationship between Gāyatrī and Mahā-mṛtyuñjaya mantras, and afterwards, as everyone was preparing to sit for the Full Moon Meditation, he said:

“People ask why we don’t meditate here in this building [St. Maron’s]. The reason is ‘because the space at The Meditation Center is sacred. ‘Sacred’ means that there is a Guru presence. And our Gurudeva, Swami Rama of the Himalayas, consecrated that place. I am hoping that in eight years’ time, when you celebrate 50 years of The Meditation Center – I will be 88 – that maybe I will come and join you. And you will decide for that space to remain sacred and devoted to the teaching and practicing of meditation for another 50 years after that. And that is for you to decide, to determine, to make possible.”

It is not just TMC, however, which is a sacred site. All of the centers in the Himalayan Yoga Tradition around the world are sacred sites. They have been made sacred by the students who have maintained those centers and the meditations they have done there on the Full Moon Days and throughout the year.⁹

And for students who are not close to any these centers, Swami Rama’s words were “Remember that you are a walking shrine.”

“There is a space within and space without. At this time, listen to the silence in the space that surrounds you. Listen to the silence in the space that is within you. Let the space within and space without be one and the same space. Let the silence within and silence without be the same one silence. Let your mind be a space of silence with no sentiments arising. No extraneous thoughts only a presence, an awareness of being without qualifications, an awareness of consciousness without conditions and conditioning processes. Be conscious only of the principle of consciousness. Be aware only of the principle of awareness without any special objects to be aware of.”¹⁰

Footnotes:

¹ Experiencing the World’s Religions by Michael Molloy, p. 36.

² Kundalini Stilled or Stirred? by Swami Veda, p. 114

³ Ley Lines — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ley_line There is a line of Tibetan Stupas going from Santa Fe, New Mexico to Crestone, Denver and Fort Collins, Colorado. See Twelve Tribe Nations And the Science of Enchanting the Landscape by John Mitchell & Christine Rhone.

⁴ St. Anthony Falls — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Anthony_Falls

⁵ Spirit Island — https://editions.lib.umn.edu/openrivers/article/on-the-uncompromising-hand-remembering-spirit-island/

⁶ Bdote means “where two waters come together” and according to the stories of Bdewakantunwan Dakota, the point where two waters come together is the center of the earth. —  https://www.mnhs.org/fortsnelling/learn/bdote    https://www.tpt.org/sacred-minnesota/video/bdote-is-dakota-sacred-landscape-38456/

⁷ “What is a Pilgrim?” by Swami Veda Bharati.

⁸ Doug Boyd was the son of Dr. Elmer & Alyce Green of the Voluntary Controls Program at the Menninger Institute in Topeka, Kansas. All three were with Swami Rama in 1970 when did his extraordinary experiments of psychokinesis, clairvoyance and control of the autonomic nervous system. See Beyond Biofeedback (1977) by the Greens, and Swami (1976) by Doug Boyd.

⁹ “When two or three are gathered in my name, I am in the midst of them (Matthew 18:12) “When you pray, enter into your closet, and when you shut your door, pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father will reward you openly.” (Matthew 6:6).

¹⁰ From a Meditation at the Rishikesh Silence Retreat (2003) by Swami Veda Bharati.