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ugizralrite Registered User (11/18/03 8:20 pm) Reply	Intentional Communities Over in Yellowbeard's thread page 3 Dawnrays wrote in part: -------------------------------------------------------------------"I'm sorry, but there are just worse tragedies than people sitting in their living rooms doing kriya (and maybe wondering if they're getting it right). There is a very ridiculous war going on right now. My husband is in the Navy and is ashamed for the first time in his career. There are actually people starting to move out of this country. Every other week it seems, a helicopter goes down with a dozen or more trapped inside. I think it helps to keep things in perspective." ------------------------------------------------------------------- I have an additional reason in coming to this board, and that is of finding a home, a real physical earthly home. Dawnrays points out the most recent of warning signs of the times. Prophecy seems to be ever unreliable, but common sense about living on the planet, for me anyway, points to a need of a place of community and mutual support. Perhaps something like that could begin to emerge here. Food, shelter, education, health care, these things aren't exactly rocket-surgery ( I love that malapropism, a combination of rocket science and brain surgery). It seems to me that having a common point of departure is probably one of the most helpful things a community requires. Visitors and contributors to the board have to varying extent had the scales removed from their eyes, and are familiar with various pitfalls and abuses of trying to make an occupation out of spirituality. There's a lot of energy here as well. Part of me thinks this is being naive, and part of me thinks this intentional community sort of thing is an impossibility. Utopia and disaster are often stage one and two of castles built in the air. Any advice on this?
bsjones Registered User (11/19/03 10:02 am) Reply ezSupporter	Re: Intentional Communities Yes, I agree that we live in strange times. Do you mean an intentional community like a subdivision, homeowners association?
ugizralrite Registered User (11/19/03 12:42 pm) Reply	Re: Intentional Communities quote: "Do you mean an intentional community like a subdivision, homeowners association? " ------------------------------------------------------------------- You may know about www.ic.org/ which is kind of intentional communities central. I've been aware of them from pre-INTERNET days, probably found them in the Whole Earth Catalog. There are several of the type you refer to, and they are quite well-organized and expensive. Basically I consider myself a resourceful survivor rather than a member of the professional class.
Box Score Jones Registered User (11/19/03 1:39 pm) Reply	Re: Intentional Communities Thanks u.
needthestar Registered User (11/19/03 4:20 pm) Reply	Re: Intentional Communities Ugizralite, A few years ago I found a website who's mission statement was "dedicated to gathering followers of PY's teachings to create a living community"...or something like that. They were trying to get enough people to buy property if I recall correctly. I went back to the site often but it never seemed to get past the mission statement..no updates etc. I don't remember the sites name or if it even exists anymore, but I do recall it clearly since I was interested in it's possibilities. The world must change. I'm tired of those who label people "communist" simply because they want to pull resourses together and SHARE....a very Christian idea I say...but not fit for the so called Christian Nation. Didn't Christ take one mans hard earned fish and bread and share it with 5000? It seems that the world/government/maya wants to keep us busy little bees...working, shopping, dropping....with little time to stop and meditate and ask ourselves...is this REALLY what lifes all about?
etzchaim Registered User (11/19/03 4:34 pm) Reply	Re: Intentional Communities What about Ananda? Most of the reports I hear are very positive. There were some people posting here from there. PigMa, I think. MastersChela is connected in some way.
ugizralrite Registered User (11/19/03 7:58 pm) Reply	Re: Intentional Communities I just finished watching a television program where some students traveled the interstate coast to coast interviewing notable leaders in various fields of work, and they repeatedly were reminded, "to thine own self be true" in so many words. So in my personal definition of community there would be the line, "It's not about the manure. Its about that pony you told me was in there somewhere." In other words, Go Forward, or as Sri Yukteshwar said (to paraphrase) "Forget the past ... what matters is today's spiritual effort." So as needthestar said: "It seems that the world/government/maya wants to keep us busy little bees...working, shopping, dropping....with little time to stop and meditate and ask ourselves...is this REALLY what lifes all about?" Foremost to me would be a community that is focused on the spiritual essentials as represented in the virtual community of the Walrus board. I don't know very much at all about Ananda Church of Self-Realization beyond what I have read, but I am hesitant about replacing one Self-Realization church which I have kind of outgrown with another so similar in roots and literature. This is a personal point of view. I always felt that SRF was pretty good at spiritual kindergarten thru spiritual junior college, but really thought they dropped the ball after that. Prior to Walrus there was never a place where my experience could be shared in common. And I am not much interested in spreading the word or any word for that matter, or even in being some kind of example to the world at large. It would be a place of refuge, healing, sharing, and growth.
ranger20 Registered User (11/20/03 11:07 am) Reply	Re: Intentional Communities *Quote:* A few years ago I found a website who's mission statement was "dedicated to gathering followers of PY's teachings to create a living community"...or something like that. They were trying to get enough people to buy property if I recall correctly. I have a bad habit of neglecting to note the source of interesting tidbits I pick up online and in print, but I know that I've seen words of PY advocating exactly the same thing. I think it was in one of the online issues of East-West magazine from the mid 30's. Those of the old mags that are available can be referenced from here: www.geocities.com/College...azines.htm Also note that "world brotherhood colonies" were one of the "Aims and Ideals of Self-Realization Fellowship" listed in the AY from edition 1 (1946) through at least edition 8(1959). Regarding the removal of that item from the current editions, my understanding is that SRF has stated that "Master changed his mind at the end of his life." (someone correct this if it's wrong). However, the SRF Publishers note to the AY 7th edition (1956) explicitly states that all the changes PY had intended were, with that edition, complete. Go figure. It's worth visiting Google to look up spiritual communities, or intentional communities. There are quite a few. There have been quite a few, it's as American as apple pie or the Shakers. Edited by: ranger20 at: 11/20/03 11:09 am
ugizralrite Registered User (11/20/03 1:51 pm) Reply	Re: Intentional Communities Ranger20, I have read the same somewhere, perhaps on Walrus, about the controversy surrounding the removal of Yogananda's community aspirations, or perhaps on the Ananda Website. I think he suggested a certain level of capitalization and using the interest for operating expenses, along with sweat equity in the form of growing food and building construction. All very commonsensical. As I said in an earlier post, none of this is rocket-surgery. It's just a matter of synchronicity, the right people in the right place at the right time, and like so many things asking the right questions is the hard part. The East-West link on geocities now seems to require some sort of registration on my browser, but I read through them with enjoyment and interest awhile back. Thanks for your input as others may not have been aware of this, and discussing community is a way to get at the right questions.
soulcircle Registered User (11/22/03 1:17 am) Reply	Re: Intentional Communities i have lived in intentionl communities since '56 when i was eight the phone would be best <heypoet@aol.com>
soulcircle Registered User (11/22/03 1:23 am) Reply	the year before he died it may interest you all, there is a major menu item, three below "I Need Advice," called Meeting Places/ Community/ Colonies... it would be helpful to reconstuct this thread within that major heading YES???? Walrus, or at least a Major Link in there To This, Yes??? some computer savvy person??] in here someone quotes from the Lake Shrine '51 audio (the film from which we see part of at convocation)... two paragraphs Paramhansa spoke strongly envisioning and encouraging community also the audio is available in some fashion from Ananda so in the last year of his life he spoke about community in public at a very very important event......but we had to hear it in here, not from srf, one main reason i will never give a penny to srf now....major question.....where are those two paragraphs among these 10,000 posts on Walrus better yet who has the audio and can accurately transcribe them into here? thanks a million Edited by: soulcircle at: 11/22/03 1:30 am
soulcircle Registered User (11/22/03 1:46 am) Reply	Paramhansa Yogananda on Community....It Has Been Found from the Lake Shrine Video ~~~ yes there is more than srf has shared! "We must build colonies wherein we can shape the youth who are willing -- hundred percent willing -- to have jobs, happiness, freedom, and produce food for their own use.... All our vegetables are grown by our boys which supply close to 200 people. So they are -- we are not charged in the ordinary sense. For one hour, we build a great big edifice, and then we pray for people to come and sit. We don't ask. Whoever comes willingly, fine. Whoever doesn't, we don't coax. We want hearts. I prefer a soul to a crowd, and I love crowds of souls. SO THE GREATEST THING IN THE CHURCH MOVEMENT IS THE BUILDING OF COLONIES to take the surplus of industry and to educate the American youth in character building." ".... This sort of colony, I hope the Governer, with all my humbleness, emphasizes character education in the schools, AND BUILDING OF THESE COLONIES WHERE THEY CAN HAVE THEIR JOBS, HOME, CHARACTER, CHURCH, AND FREEDOM IN THE SAME PLACE. And I have found the greatest results by that way. But I have some people of great educatable ability, we are now starting, we have started already a goat dairy, and another colony is starting in Phoenix. We have quite a few colonies in India. BUT THE COLONY SYSTEM IS SUCCEEDING BECAUSE IT ISN'T A CHURCH FOR ONE HOUR -- BUILD A GREAT BIG EDIFICE. TIE UP SO MUCH MONEY. You see, we have simple construction and beauty.....It is all done by our own people...."
needthestar Registered User (11/22/03 6:03 am) Reply	World Brotherhood of Colonies More proof of Yogananda's desire to have World Brotherhood of Colonies thrive beyond the shadows of SRF? Here is a note I found on a small site dedicated to Yogacharya Black: "For many years Yogananda had been quietly encouraging Mr. Black to withdraw from the active pursuit of business and take on full-time the work of teaching and training yoga students and truth-seekers. By 1951 Mr. Black had conquered the worlds that he had set forth to conquer when he had left Rockford 35 years earlier; his material wealth was firmly established, and now the work of helping to reveal the light of Spirit in truth-seeking souls could begin in earnest. Therefore in May, 1951 his guru wrote to him, saying: 'With your organizational power you can do something much greater, much more lasting, much easier, and much more secure than present-day business organizations in which one works to pay taxes, ruining his health and happiness. Detroit, being in the center of the United States, has a great opportunity to draw true seekers, both from the East and West. I would like nothing better than for you to establish a sub-headquarters there.'" I'm not sure by "sub-headquarters" if Yoganada intended him to start a branch of SRF OR Mr. Black's own colony...maybe someone else knows...BUT I do find it interesting that Yogananda allowed Bob Raymer to spread the Kriya technique within a few short years of just meeting him. Mr. Rayner was one of the last that Yogananda personally initiated AND Mr. Raymer went on later to work closely with Mr. Black in Michigan in a colony called "Song Of The Morning" that gives the Kriya lessons. Coincidence? Edited by: needthestar at: 11/22/03 6:05 am
etzchaim Registered User (11/22/03 6:33 am) Reply	Re: World Brotherhood of Colonies Needthestar, re: your whole post, but especially this: "BUT I do find it interesting that Yogananda allowed Bob Raymer to spread the Kriya technique within a few short years of just meeting him. Mr. Rayner was one of the last that Yogananda personally initiated AND Mr. Raymer went on later to work closely with Mr. Black in Michigan in a colony called "Song Of The Morning" that gives the Kriya lessons." Yey!!!!! That's the Yogananda I learned about. He was not the unkosher SRF version. I'm in Michigan. Today is the biggest College game of the year between University of Michigan and Ohio (State? not sure, but they wear red because red has become the color to hate this week...there are many things I simply do not understand) and I live by the Stadium. It's rather amusing at the moment as long as I stay inside and don't need to drive anywhere, which I will in a couple of hours. Questions: You are in the Midwest? Near Ann Arbor, home of Maize and Blue? Do you know where in Michigan "Song of the Morning" was located? Someday, but so far in my fantasies only, I'm going to have an organic farm/goat ranch (love goats for some reason. Shelley owned goats...weird), but until then, I'll have to be sastisfied with a garden and chanting football fans just outside my window. God love 'em. Hope they don't pee there.
Borg108 Registered User (11/22/03 8:16 am) Reply	Re: World Brotherhood of Colonies Song of the Morning 9607 Sturgeon Valley Road Vanderbilt, MI 49725-9742 Phone OFFICE: (989) 983-4107 FAX (989) 983-4280 � Call First e-mail business@goldenlotus.org website: www.goldenlotus.org Lease sites are available for those wishing to build homes there.
etzchaim Registered User (11/22/03 11:20 am) Reply	Re: World Brotherhood of Colonies Thank you Borg.
needthestar Registered User (11/22/03 2:49 pm) Reply	Re: World Brotherhood of Colonies Borg's all over it...as usual. Thanks Borg! I thought pretty hard about that community and the housing development. I live in Northern Illinois Etz. Nothing...and I mean NOTHING like that in this area. As I recall any dark corner was a free invitation to urinate for drinkers of the college persuasion. Not that I'd know or anything. But hey, at least they're chanting......"Go Big Blue" or something...it may not be Mickey Mouse or Hong Sau, but that's all the same anyway right? I don't think it's weird Shelly owned goats...unless he live in an apartment or something....then it's stinky and weird. With all that said, I just thought it was pretty common knowledge that YP had given the green light to Norman Paulson, Margaret Brown Dietz, Donald Walters, Yogacharya M. Hamilton, Oliver Black, and Bob Raymer...maybe not. AND he's the one that gave Kamala the green light to get married....maybe (if I read correctly) even "picked" her groom in some manner, but I'm not sure. Anyway it shoots a bullet in the foot of the whole monk/nun idea being of purer spirituality. He also told Norman Paulson in a vision that he would marry and have a child...but Norman gets hacked a lot since he believes in UFO's.
ugizralrite Registered User (11/22/03 3:52 pm) Reply	Re: World Brotherhood of Colonies Wow, soulcircle in intentional communities since 1956. Tell us more if you feel like it. Funny how people have preferred ways of expression. I note that soulcircle likes the string of poetic one liners. And for me a telephone conversation is something I do about six times a year, usually with my brother or sister. I kind of prefer the written word, but can gab too when necessary. And goats, etz, yeah goats are good, a goat dairy. Easier to feed than cows probably, and none of us are getting any younger (unless someone has that Babaji thing going). How about that Yogachyra Oliver Black. I always read that name and thought, "Maybe there's hope for me somewhere outside monastic life, Yogachyra Ugizralrite, whatever that would mean."
soulcircle Registered User (11/22/03 10:23 pm) Reply	the magic of life.....community I don't know how many are available to buy or share but there are video tapes of Black giving satsangas that stand among the very best videos I have ever seen his chuckles that filled the moments between questions fill me with joy to this date......he's like a friend the contrast between his and Faye's videos are amazing i don't have copies of Black's videos but in the past Jason Becker and I have tried to obtain them. how might we pass them around among each other? to introduce my lifetime in community it began when i was 8, in 1956 in the Vale commuity in the country outside of Yellow Springs Ohio. That tiny strong community of independents, gardeners, pacifists, revolutionary activists, lovers, an ALS sufferer, musicians and Quakers and non-Quakers, Buddhists and non-Buddhists, home schooled children, free schools (my class and the class before mime had our valedictorians from the home schooled) continues to this day on land that is not available to be bought and sold ever. Yellow Springs Ohio ( I lved there20 years) itself has vast easements and green space and intentional features, I visit there and have friendships of 47 years very much alive. The 33 years of working during brief visits with the Mennonite/Amish family of Martins in Snyder County Pennsylvania has won Aaron and Barbara and their 16 grown children and grand children a foreva bright and jovial place in my heart. I was taken into these families homes (they purposely isolate themselves from the world of the "English") after befriending Luke Martin in 1970 at Allenwood Honor Camp Pennsylvania. Allenwood is the honor prison attached to Lewisburg Penitentiary. I was among "community," in the federal prison system for being a pacifist. I served 10 weeks of a six month sentence as a pacifist. Luke nd his brothers didn't register wih the Draft Board and faced the full weight of the law. AAron had been jailed for taking older children out of school. In 1973-75, I spent 16 months in two communities in the rural Andes in Patagonian Chile. A book could be written about family and community in Latin America, and the warmth it opened up permanently in my heart. In those years there may have been one (or none) nursing home in all of South America it seemed. People lived their last years in their homes with the younger two generations. Of course all this was preceded by the sixties and being a flower child and ending up with the experience propelling me more romantically and practically along paths of back to the land" and community. My wife has gardened and canned every year we have been together since 1975, a "farmer" in my mind. We were in Washington State in October 1975 and met in an apple tree, as we both briefly found ourselves with other flower children among the migrant community. We attended 18 convocations, my wife more, including each one during the first ten years of my daughter's life. We have hosted and reached out and delight in the friendships. In the "community of authors and books," I have lived with great appreciation. My love of the author of India Unveiled... www.india-unveiled.com and my major effort to assist his self-marketing of this self-published gem are a treasure of my life. Learned a bit about SRF's misuse of power as only eventually did they sell it at some of their locations, a book independently authored and published. Judith Cornell, author of Mandala and author of Ammachi, Healing the Heart of the World: www.mandala-universe.com She and I went through our disenchantment with SRF together. We spent a couple Christmas Eves together and found mutual interests Since 1980 I have been and remain perhaps the most community minded person in the chapel at richmond "community," and.......... now we see a cyber community aspect on Walrus. gardendiva and nisarga have sat at the same computer together with me, and made posts in fellowship and community OneTaste and I have spent days together. Guests, any of you are welcome to call me 510-237-3206 IN all about 15 Walri have visited with me on the phone. srflongago and I remain in touch, I hope to encourage him til his fathers 3,000 pages of typed manuscript find their published form. By the way, schools are related to this topic and three of us who met at the chapel in Richmond are having a look at the curriculum Yogananda first penned in 1935, republished in Self-Realizaton July 1953. I have handed out copies of this curriculum for 20 years. Prior to coming to California I have been in Lichen an intentional naturalist community on 160 acres more than an hour north of Ashland Oregon. This community has been permanently established as a land trust an ecological endeavor and center. There is a community of impaired and able-bodied people forming around Jason and his caregivers. And this is the tip of the iceberg. When Chela2020 first contacted me she said that she had a friend going back 30 some years (going back to their years before SRF) who attended the chapel at Richmond a bit, commenting that her friend found only one friendly person at the chapel.....me When I met two SRF devotees from the Sacromento SRF center two years ago .....we met at Ammachi's center here......the wife said and these are her words........."You are the first person in five years among SRF people to ask us how we are and to talk and listen to us." Community is the magic of life.....thank you for this thread Yogacharya Ugizralrite Edited by: soulcircle at: 11/22/03 11:31 pm
soulcircle Registered User (11/22/03 10:44 pm) Reply	friendship and community...the magic of life nisarga introduces himself in the second post below (both quoted in their entireity) he remains in touch with about 20 former monks and nuns About the two posts copied below......both posts are from Treatment of Members/Monastics, the "Why We Must Think For Ourselves Thread" nisarga and I wrote them during a visit I had with him and his wife in which we forgot the hours as the whole Saturday passed ~~~ Re: Colonies, etc. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You have asked for ideas, right? __________________________________ Yes, not only ideas, a whole book!!! LAST HOURS of ANCIENT SUNLIGHT by Thom Hartmann Insight and ideas, probably what PY and others have foreseen. One answer to what is already occurring and what will be occurring, to some extent is this book. The author admits first half of book is depressing, and then posits community/colonies as the prescription. They are now embryonic/hatching in thousands of places in the USA alone. My copy is available for loan...what is the protocol for leaving an email addy in a post like this...foolishness vs. bravery? LOL. Others hopefully join me in formally requesting that the operators of EZboard make a thread for colonies/community for this heartcircle of Walruses! ~~~ the post above I wrote in May 2002, on the same day we visited, nisarga wrote the post below: Re: Colonies, etc. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Great idea to make a thread for community/colonies. The walrus has brought us together in a ciber community of sorts. We need to go further. This is just the beginning. We need to empower ourselves and each other. Remember, Master came for us, he created the organization for us, to serve our needs and for our own individual Self-Realization. Somehow the " cart has been put before the horse." Meaning???? The false concept has been created that we are here to serve and build the organization. That people are to be sacrificed and used for the good of the organization and that a world mission is more valuable, more important than an individual soul. That we are made for the organization, not as it should be, that the organization is made for us. It is here to serve us and our needs. Colonies/communities have always been one of my loves. I was at Ananda in the late "60's and a monk in SRF for almost 20 years. So I have first hand experience living in communities and am aware of their dark side also. Most communities are pseudo-communities because like the ashram there is no individual choise or expression. There is no democratic process. There is a leader that dictates. There is no room for independent thought and individual expression is limited. One has to fit into a certain mould and to conform. I would like to be in contact with individuals that are interested in creating open, HEALTHY, communities. My e-mail is enabled. Edited by: soulcircle at: 11/22/03 11:34 pm
etzchaim Registered User (11/23/03 9:07 am) Reply	Re: the magic of life.....community Circle, your life just healed something big-time in my heart chakra. Peace babe, Etz