So I decided I would tell the story of my strange hometown. @missy @rambo This is my experience with growing in a town full meditation from a young age, i went to a high school where we meditated twice a day!! mandatory! lol, we actually got graded on our meditation!
Opra winfree, Jim Carey, and many other famous actresses and actors have learned TM (transcendental meditation ) from Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Opra did a documentary on my hometown, because of the unusual amount of foreigners and talk about this "medition town" in the middle of Iowa
Did you know there is a small town in Iowa that is home base for many of these meditators who once followed the Beatles when they learned from Maharishi in the hippie era ? people were looking for a more permanent state of bliss that ACID or mushrooms could not give them. So maharishi came in and began the TM movement. many were intereseted....including my mom and dad... so tehy learned and became TM teachers. They taught meditation to hundres of people in California (before they moved to fairfield iowa and stuck me here in the middle of these boring corn fields!!! haha)
and did you know there is a school for K through 12th grade that incorporates meditation and indian philosophy into the education program? yes, it is a bit random, but for some reason, the Beatle's Guru, Maharishi, chose Fairfield , Iowa to create his college, highschool, health facilities, and even its own town now called "Vedic City" that lives totally off the grid, with solar powered houses with windmills !!!
Fairfield Iowa, home of Maharishi University of Management and you will find these " two golden meditation domes" that hold thousands of cross legged maditating, yoga doing, ex hippie, vegans.:)
My parents were totally awesome hippies in the time of the late 60's and 70's of course doing mushrooms and acid and looking totally bad ass in their bell bottoms. They had a dog named Grover and a yellow hippy van (Volkswagen of course.)
So after a few years of partying a lot my parents and other people were looking for something else. "more permanent" in the area of spirituality. Then the Beatles found Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. And thousands of hippies and just people in general began following Maharishi after the Beatles began meditating and came out with their song "jai Guru Deva"
My parents learned Transcendental Meditation and stopped partying, along with Andy Kaufman ( My mom was in a mediation course with Andy Kaufman) and thousands of others. And so began one of the worlds largest cult movements ever.
There are many great things about meditation, and Maharishi. He got a lot of people to stop using drugs and try to find other ways to find inner peace. But here is my story.
I was born in Fairfield Iowa, a town about 15,000 people in FAIRFIELD IOWA WHY??!!! lol, the middle of no where right? well i have heard the reason was so people focused on their inner journey of life, rather then the outer, like beautiful things would keep us from searching for inner peace or something (total bullshit if you ask me!!! haha)
Well one of the shitty things is my family lived in San Diego California before Maharishi decided to start a college in Fairfield Iowa and create a "home base " for the TM (meditation movement, we just call it the "movement" here in FAirfield so thats what ill refer it as)
So anyway i missed out on California and was born in Iowa in a small CULT town, that would later be visited by OPRA and thousands from all over the world because of the Maharishi movement. But to me, it was just normal life, it was normal to have my parents meditae for an hour from 5 to 6 pm every day. it was normal to have them take turns meditating on long trips like to florida for christmas... it was normal to meditate in 4th grade on the floor in my classroom and try to flirt with a boy next to me by opening my eyes and smirking...
it was normal to gather on indian holidays in silk robes and all march opver the the "Golden domes" (which can fit 20,000 people in them by the way ..to meditate) to celebrate RAM RAj and KRISHNA ancient indian shit....i remember RAM RAJ day like it was yesterday....
I went to highschool at Maharishi School of the AGe of Enlightenment (look it up, google that shit, and Opra visiting fairfield iowa, its pretty crazy shit. Opra was trying to interview people who were into it, and also people who thought it was crazy, so she got both angles...which i think is great...she made a great documentary on Fairfield and the TM movement)
So we learned to meditate in kindergarten. It was called "word of wisdom", we didnt have to sit down yet just play and be wuiet, because we were so little. but we were given our "mantra" in kindergarten and we would have quiet time and think this sound every once in a while.... to prepare us for the next stage "sit down meditation", which cam e a year or two later. then by 4th grade we learned the full 20 minute meditation with Asanas. which we did twice a day in school all together in what was called the "Hall of Bliss" on the 4th floor of the lower grade school...It was a nice big room with cream wool carpet and backrests for all the kids to meditate on.....I remember always trying to fart during yoga time , it was dead silent then out come BLLLLHSODHFKASDHKSD FART BOMB!!!! lol everyone would look at me and say!!!!it was you!!!! haha and usually they were right. i thought it was hilarious
. So we learned everything you do in normal schools, math, english, etc. But we also learned Sanskrit. And vedic Indian Philosophy from kindergarten all the way up to 12th grade. They would try to incorporate the philosophies into daily studies and life. Like i remember "the world is my family" was always told to us over and over. A lot of very sweet things.
There were a lot of great things about growing up in Fairfield. The focus was to be positive, find meaning in life, be healthy. But as I grew older, I noticed cracks in the movement. high rates of suicide for our small town and strange things that made a lot of us kids wonder, were we in a cult? is this complete bullshit?
Some of the teachings are pure, and ancient Indian teachings, and thats great, we also learned to look at ourselves, and life in different ways then most high schools, grade school etc. But they always told us "if you just meditate everything will be great, you will be perfect" so everyone thought they had to be perfect. I noticed after graduating, that there were some seriously damaging things about growing up in the movement and that it was indeed a cult. like trying to be perect, or enlightened , is not the purpose of life, its messy, life is messy and there is no right or wrong way to live. ITs about not judging otehrs, spirituality is different to everyone, but they told us "TM is the only and best way to achieve enlightenment" so you see, why I must be real, and point out the good and the bad here. because its cool to learn to meditate, but people should know, TM is a business, Maharishi was one of the richest mother fuckers out there lol now his family, and friends, and the people running the TM movement are filthy fucking rich. and basically selling "enlightenment" and indian health philosophies and telling stupid americans that its going to save their lives and it just costs $10,000 !!!! its a stupid sound that you say in your head and you sit quietly for like 20 minutes....that costs $10,000???? the thing is though is meditation is really good for some people. Like if you have anger issues, it can help calm your nerves....it can relieve stress, give you time to yourself, im not hating on meditation, its just the rules they would throw in that made it more of a cult in fairfield. like "if your house does not face East you will not be as enlighten ed as your neighbor" weird things like that....I even lived in a super expensive
Stapatya Veda" house (indian mathematic spiritually aligned houses) ...that almost cauze my parents to lose all their money and get a divorce lol... (it was supposed to do the opposite....people would go bankrupt to send their kids to my school, or to learn to meditate , but what they didnt realize, is you can learn to meditate on the internet, or from a cassette tape, but TM was a business that was saying THEIR MEDITATION WAS THE ONLY AND BEST ONE so thats the problem with the movement.....
yea its pretty wild..
But on the greener side, i learned yoga when I was 10 years old. I grew up in a very safe and positive environment. I traveled a lot. My father always made it seem like we had money even though later i found out he was bankrupt. He was so amazing, he made sure we all had what we needed. They were always still super cool, and werent too INTO the meditation stuff. There were some people who were like obsessed, and followed every single thing Maharishi said amd thought if they didnt that they would never be enlightned. But my parents were kinda normal, but meditated.... so i guess there were different levels of how into the cult people were, among us Fairfieldians. But i truly have left the movement now..For various reasons...
but I still love yoga, the friends the positive outlook on life that is contagious here.
and the cool thing is, is the MUM "MAharishi University of Management" college here in Fairfield has brought students from all over the world here. ITs amazing, you drive through iowa, throught these red neck, hillbilly towns that flash by in 3 seconds when you are driving on the two lane highway, then you come to fairfield. Then you are in a whole different world.
You will see Indians, Asians, Europeans, people from Africa, Canada, South AMerica, germany, France, hindus, hippies, I mean all sorts from everywhere. PEople have heard of the meditation community that is into eco friendly life, organic food, yoga, and meditation from all over and actually move to Iowa because of the movement!
even if there are some cracks in the movement, Fairifeld is still a one of a kind town, full of such amazing people from all over the world seeking spirituality and happiness.
anyway, Ive been to northern california, India, hong kong, thai land, costa rica, hawaii, canada, Bali, Cambodia, and I still LOVE this town. Mostly because of the people.
So there it is in a nutshell....I have tons more stories about growing up here, if interested ask me! Id love to hear if any of you have learned TM? or grew up in cults then left? Or have mixed feelings about wether you are in a cult? Because I wasn't sure for many years, but after some research I definitely call the movement a cult...And I want to be my own person!
