On every Guru Purnima Day, Maharishi always recalled the greatness of his teacher, Guru Dev. Read that beautiful, profound, inspiring description in Our Guiding Light, quoted in His Holiness Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Thirty Years Around the World—Dawn of the Age of Enlightenment (Vol.1, 1986).
In thisspecial video, recorded July 8, 1971, on a Thursday, the Day of the Guru, also during that special Full Moon of the year, Guru Purnima Day, Maharishi celebrated this special Day of the Master describing how he first met Guru Dev and came to serve him.
In this 1961 audiotape recorded on Guru Purnima, Maharishi spoke about the exceptional life of Guru Dev, Swami Brahmananda Saraswati, as a young boy in the ashram of his master Swami Krishnananda Saraswati.
In this video taped April 9, 1972, Maharishi talks about Guru Dev, and the history of the TM movement, how it innocently started in India, then spread to Europe and America. The first 4.30 minutes includes the silent movie of Guru Dev.
A documentary that aims to define the meaning of “peace” will premiere in Iowa this weekend and the filmmaker will attend the debut. Six years in the making, Greg Reitman says “Rooted in Peace” is the story of his personal quest which took him around the planet, with a few stops in southeast Iowa.
“I go on a journey asking the question, ‘Why are we so violent?’ and why we don’t connect with ourselves and with nature,” Reitman says. “Along the way, I’m guided by some incredible people.” The list includes: Archbishop Desmond Tutu, spiritualist Deepak Chopra, film director David Lynch, media mogul Ted Turner, and music legends Donovan, Pete Seeger and Mike Love.
Reitman first met Love, one of the founders of the Beach Boys, at a 2009 concert in Fairfield. Reitman is a New York native who now lives in southern California and the process of making this film took him to several continents.
The documentary had its beginnings more than two decades ago when he visited Japan and saw the ruins of first city that was wiped out by an atomic bomb. “When I was in Hiroshima and I saw the devastation, I didn’t cry and learned a little about PTSD,” Reitman says. “I came up with this idea when I was 19 in college at UMass-Amherst that I was going to save the world by planting trees. I created this tree-planting initiative called The Giving Tree-Rooted in Peace.”
Now in his 40s, he shows himself in the documentary carrying a tiny potted tree through places like Times Square in New York City. “Essentially, I come back 20 years later with the bonsai tree as a symbol of hope, looking at the tree as a symbol for all of us and our connection with humanity and how we want to connect with nature,” he says. “That really becomes the unfolding story.”
The documentary “Rooted in Peace” will be shown Sunday at 7 P.M. at the Sondheim Center for the Performing Arts in Fairfield. Reitman will do a question-and-answer session afterwards. His 2008 film, “Fuel,” won the Sundance Audience Choice Award.
Audio: Matt Kelley interview with Greg Reitman. 5:06.
Another radio interview coming up is with James Moore on KRUU LP 100.1 FM today at 7:30pm Thursday, to replay on 3:00pm Friday, and 11am Saturday. You can listen if you’re in the Fairfield, Iowa area or online streaming live. James said he may replay Dennis Raimondi’s interview with Prudence Farrow at 2pm before Friday’s 3:00pm interview with Greg. She discusses a book she wrote, Dear Prudence: The Story Behind The Song, which I am enjoying reading. More on that in a future post. Both interviews involve Maharishi and Transcendental Meditation, appropriate to air together tomorrow on Guru Purnima Day!
I enjoyed watching Be You, an impressive little film documenting the life-transforming power of Transcendental Meditation in one of the schools of the APC, a UK educational alternative for socially-challenged students in need of individual support.
The West Sussex Alternative Provision College is one of four hundred pupil referral units in the United Kingdom, which caters specifically for pupils who are not currently in mainstream education for various reasons. This school offers young people with emotional and behavioral issues a new chance to succeed.
Be You is a start-up, grass-roots, not-for-profit organization founded by Ricky Reemer and Kitty de la Beche. It sets out to transform the lives and prospects of young people who struggle to fulfill their potential within the school system by teaching them valuable life skills and techniques.
The Be You project opened the way for the introduction of Transcendental Meditation to the teachers and pupils in this specialized Unit. With the support of the Be You, the pupils were encouraged to continue their daily practice of TM over a full school year.
Valerie is a great writer. She’s colorful, direct, and pulls no punches. Her effervescent personality shines through the amazing stories she shares with her readers, awakening them to their own inherent greatness.
The book is divided into short easy-to-read chapters packed with practical insightful wisdom. It’s also an inspirational testimony to the transformational power of TM, and I am enjoying reading every word of it!
Valerie sent us this intro to her story.
Awakening to Me
In 2011, I woke up and realized everything I thought I knew was wrong.
~ Valerie Gangas
For as long as I can remember, I have been running. Waking up in the morning and running to the gym. Running to the hospital to support my mother, who battled cancer for 13 years. Running to my job, managing an extremely busy Chicago restaurant/bar. Running from boyfriend to boyfriend. Running from one social event to another. Running to deal with the pressures modern women face to be perfect, to get the job done right, to be a caretaker, to look good—let’s face it: to be Wonder Woman.
Then one day, I was forced to stop running.
In late 2010, the restaurant I’d managed for 15 years was sold . . . but it turned out to be a weird sort of blessing, in that I got to spend day and night with my beautiful mother who, by Thanksgiving that year only had a couple of months left on the planet.
All of this time, I had been on a steady diet of double espressos, bottles of Cabernet and late nights eating steaks, cooked rare. (Did I mention I don’t eat meat?)
I was losing my mind as I watched her slowly slip away. I’d had a bad case of insomnia for years, my depression was deepening, and the distractions I’d held up like masks were no longer working well . . . make that, at all.
My mom passed away on January 25, 2011. And my world went black.
After she died, I felt like I’d died right along with her. I was out of a job, suicidal and completely unhealthy. My “diet”—mainly fueled by booze and caffeine—had caught up with me. I was the thinnest I’d been since high school, and my nerves were on fire. And it was like Groundhog’s Day—every night was the same scene. Go to bed, wake up at 3 a.m., stare at the ceiling, my thoughts reeling, feeling like complete crap, until I had to get up a couple hours later. Then my “day cycle” would start again. Down some caffeine, make myself workout (I had to fit in my cocktail dresses, duh!) and then never stop throughout the workday, ‘til I collapsed later that night.
Reflecting back, thoughts of suicide regularly arose in my mind. I didn’t feel like I could go on without my mom, who’d been my best friend. Clearly, I was a broken woman. Yes, I had been seeing a therapist and was trying to get my head above water. But nothing seemed to be working. My suicidal thoughts were getting stronger and stronger. I had gone so far as to ask my aunt and uncle to take my dog (I couldn’t bear messing up her little life), and I didn’t get a new car when my lease was up . . . because people who are going to kill themselves don’t need a car. I also wrote out my will.
Yep, I was gearing up to end my life.
One particularly horrible day I was on my knees in the shower, when I just collapsed and screamed out, “God, Mom, anyone, please help me kill myself or please save me!” In that moment, I completely surrendered. I was nothing. I was no one. And I completely gave myself and my fate over to God.
A week later, a friend suggested I learn Transcendental Meditation (TM). My only hope, at the time, was that I would be able to get some sleep. I hadn’t read anything about meditation, hadn’t thought about it or even wondered about it. But I was in such a dark place, one morning I made the call.
Within days, I borrowed that same friend’s car and drove to a Transcendental Meditation center in Chicago. The home which doubled as a TM center had a feeling of calm I couldn’t quite put my finger on—the air seemed lighter, somehow, and the view was all lake. Even upon entering the center’s lobby, I felt a bit calmer. Huh, I thought, these people who work here are super different. They were so chilled and completely filled with love . . . it was immediately clear to me they were there to help me. My next thought was, I’m here, so I might as well learn how to do this.
I sat down with my teacher and after a short, but beautiful ceremony, I was given my “mantra”—a sound she said my awareness would naturally follow, as it subsided into the depths of silence in my mind. When we both closed our eyes, I easily and effortlessly said the mantra to myself less than five times . . . and just like that, I was gone. I dove into a part of my body and mind I never knew existed—boundless, limitless and totally awesome. Yes-sir, something major had just happened . . . but soon I was discovering I’d only glimpsed the tip of the iceberg.
Driving home down Lake Shore Drive, I immediately began noticing how the world seemed so much different to me than it had on my way to the center. The colors all around me were more vivid, the sounds of the birds felt like sweet music to my ears, I seemed to be connected to all of the trees I saw . . . and above all, I felt happy. But, my mind called out to me, Is this really happening?! Do I really feel happy? How? Why?What the hell?
Fortunately, the essence of that experience stuck and stayed, and I came to find it was in fact “real”—that in twenty minutes, my whole life had changed. I woke up and realized everything I thought I knew was wrong. My life was no longer defined by outer circumstances. I was having a direct experience of what I have come to know as my true Self.
I cannot explain what followed . . . you know, the why of it. Within weeks of learning to meditate, I was standing in front of Oprah Winfrey, explaining how her newfound TM practice was going to make her limitless and boundless. Now, one would think standing in front of one of the most powerful women in the world would cause some serious butterflies in the stomach. But this wasn’t my experience. In that moment, when I stood at the front of the room and described my journey to her, I could only “see” her. The fame and the power didn’t exist. I was only concerned with helping the beautiful human in front of me the only way I knew how . . . with honesty, passion and a dash of humor.
I walked out of Harpo Studios that Friday morning and knew I was about to head down a very different life path. My soul and heart were breaking open and I was watching the right words leave my lips before my mind could even think them. I felt the power of the whole universe in my little body. That day, I decided to give everything I had to try to bring peace and goodness to the world. To do my part.
It has actually taken me the past few years to really understand this new way of living: that is, from the inside out. I felt compelled to write in my journal every night. I mean, the realizations I was having were just too profound not to write them down. I turned what I wrote about into a manuscript . . . and today I am proud to say I have just published my first book, Enlightenment Is Sexy: Every Woman’s Guide To A Magical Life. I’ve also started a brand I love and have continued to speak about consciousness, happiness, freedom, and above all, Transcendental Meditation.
Learning to meditate saved my life . . . but it also gave me more than I could have ever dreamt of: awakening to the real me.
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George Foster of Foster Covers, with help from wife Mary, designed the colorful cover! Order the book on Amazon and read the nice comments.
Here’s a photo of the three of them during Valerie’s book-signing at Health & Wholeness on a 1st Friday’s Art Walk in Fairfield, Iowa.
More screenings are coming up this summer for Hollywood director Greg Reitman’s documentary feature film.
Martha’s Vineyard Film Society
This month, Martha’s Vineyard Film Societywill present ROOTED in PEACE on Wednesday, July 15, 2015, at 7:30pm. There will be a special post-screening Q&A with director Greg Reitman.
In early August the film will premiere in Fairfield, Iowa. Read how this Hollywood filmmaker came to Fairfield for a Beach Boys concert, returned for a David Lynch Weekend at MUM, learned TM and more, in the July issue of the Iowa Source in their All About FAIRFIELD section: Getting Rooted In Peace: Green Producer Greg Reitman Brings New Documentary to Sondheim for Iowa Premiere. Here is a PDFof the print version.
Included in the film are interviews from those visits with filmmaker David Lynch; musicians Donovan and Mike Love; Bob Roth, executive director of the David Lynch Foundation; and Fred Travis, director of Maharishi University’s Center for Brain, Consciousness, and Cognition; as well as historical footage of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, founder of the Transcendental Meditation®technique, and Maharishi University of Management.
Blue Water Entertainment and the David Lynch Foundation are presenting the Iowa premiere of this inspirational documentary feature film, Sunday, August 2nd at 7pm in the Sondheim Center for the Performing Arts. There will be a Q&A following the showing with Sundance award-winning Director Greg Reitman and Executive Producer Joanna Plafsky. Joanna is an established international film producer and distributor, and member of the DLF Board of Directors.
Visit the Fairfield Arts and Convention Center websiteto find out more about Greg and his film, including production stills and the movie trailer, and if you’ll be in town at that time, to purchase tickets. Here is a PDF of the ROOTED in PEACE poster for Fairfield with affordable ticket prices.
The Fairfield Weekly Reader will publish an article on the event July 23rd.
I received an email this morning from a member of the TMhomeTeam, an international Transcendental Meditation news website. I’ve admired their wonderful work over the years representing TM internationally, especially their interesting interviews with famous, and not so famous people who have benefited from this unique meditation practice.
They wrote to say the article they had been putting together about me was now up. As a publicist who is always concerned with properly promoting other people and their work, this was a complete turnaround for me. I very much enjoyed sharing stories with Liisa of how I started TM, my work as a publicist, and the wonders of the creative process writing poetry. So when I read her article I was very moved; she did an excellent job representing me!
The article is currently featured on their home page and under the People section. I invite you to visit their website and enjoy reading it. They also did a lovely job laying it out with personal photos and two of my poems.
I am thrilled to share this milestone with you! Click on the title of the article to take you there.
In 1967, Ken Chawkin walked into the local TM centre without any intention of learning Transcendental Meditation. He simply wanted to buy a copy of The Science of BeingandArt of Living written by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
I just ordered a print of a new painting of Guru Dev, Maharishi’s master, by Frances Knight. She is in Fairfield, Iowa with her paintings at ArtFiftyTwo in Fairfield, Iowa. The show: Vedic Masters, Vedic Dieties — Paintings and Pastels of Guru Dev, Maharishi, and Vedic Deities — started this weekend, Saturday, June 27, and will continue to Wednesday, July 1. Hours are 1:00 – 4:00 and 7:00 – 9:00.
Vedic portrait artist Frances Knight stands by her latest painting of Guru Dev, Maharishi’s master, at a show of her work in ArtFiftyTwo, Fairfield, Iowa.Photo by Ken Chawkin (June 28, 2015)
FRANCES KNIGHT spent over 35 years creating paintings of Guru Dev under the direction, guidance, and inspiration of His Holiness Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. She started work on the painting of The Holy Tradition in 1972 and continued to work on it and many other paintings for Maharishi over many years. Her paintings benefit from years of working directly with Maharishi, absorbing the knowledge of how exactly he wanted Guru Dev to be depicted and how Vedic Knowledge can be expressed in visual form. Her deep experience and unique knowledge of Maharishi’s vision for how Guru Dev should be portrayed, gives her paintings a profoundly devotional depth of feeling and lively consciousness. Her original paintings express a powerful darshan that people find deeply moving and inspiring.
Guru Dev represents the Vedic tradition in this age and in making these prints available Frances is inspired to contribute 20% of the net proceeds to support the Maharishi Vedic Pandits in India, who are creating world peace through Maharishi Yagya and Yoga. Visit the Maharishi Vedic Pandits website for more information.
ArtFiftyTwo specializes in creating and marketing archival quality fine art reproductions for artists. Frances has worked closely with ArtFiftyTwo to insure that her reproductions accurately represent the feeling and color balance of the originals. Reproductions are accompanied by a certificate of authenticity signed by the artist. All of the pieces on display, and more of Frances’ work are available in various sizes and media at her website VEDICART108.com.
Frances is also a highly accomplished landscape painter. She studied in Painting at Camberwell School of Art in London, and won a Commonwealth scholarship for an MFA in India, graduating with a 1st Class First. See her landscape paintings at FRANCES KNIGHT FINE ART.
In one of the June 2015 issues of New York Magazine, an article appeared in the New York Guides section as The Everything Guide to Doing Nothing; Wake up late, go out never, have someone hand-feed you a banana. Here is the introduction to the collection of articles on how to do nothing in New York, followed by one from the collection of short essays that caught my attention.
It’s not that New York has become any less chaotic, but amid the relentless hustle is a recent move to nada-hood: In the past year, dozens of apps have popped up that make social interaction and trips to Duane Reade less and less necessary. Need toilet paper delivered in an hour? Press a button. Too tired to mop your floors? Enlist the latest iRobot. But why stop there? For when TV plots seem too complicated, Candy Crush too physically taxing, and the newspaper just too damn wordy, there’s now an ever-more-passive alternative. So whether you want to avoid dirty dishes, the treadmill, or your friends, here’s a guide for living your laziest life.
How to Not Think Transcendental Meditation on the C train. By David Marchese
A great many extremely successful and presumably fully actualized people, from billionaire hedge-funder Ray Dalio to pop goddess Katy Perry, are advocating these days for the life-changing benefits of Transcendental Meditation. TM, they say, will sharpen your decision-making, unlock your creativity, amplify your you. Science is also onboard. Studies suggest that TM practitioners are at reduced risk for heart attack and stroke. All this from just sitting there and focusing on your secret mantra. When I mention this sort of stuff to people—I’ve been doing TM for six or so years—I normally get an interested nod in return. When I say it involves meditating twice a day for 20 minutes a pop, the nod turns into something more skeptical. Where am I supposed to find the time?
I find it on the C train. As long as your commute is long enough, the subway offers a great opportunity for achieving profound inner stillness. First off, you need to find a seat, which is why I opt for the less crowded local, rather than express, train. Then, with your back straight, head tilted slightly down, and eyes closed, do about 30 seconds of deep breathing before you begin silently repeating your mantra—the secret word, supposedly custom-chosen, that your TM instructor (find a nearby class and instructor at tm.org) will have given you. Don’t try to clear your mind, just favor the mantra. Repeat it. Keep repeating it. Favor it above all other thoughts and sensations. If other thoughts do bubble up—and they will—just come back to the mantra. You’ll be amazed how quickly the ambient MTA blare fades away as you transcend toward pure consciousness. A sort of whole-body inner joy takes over, as if your heart were gently laughing. Hard-core TMers say 20 minutes is mandatory—I use the timer on my iPhone—but if you’re diligent about the mantra, you can transcend after a few minutes, so it’s okay if the train starts running express. Even ten minutes of TM is a nice psychic boon, and, I promise, infinitely more satisfying than another level of Candy Crush.
I was in NY recently for my nephew’s film, The Driftless Area, which was being spotlighted at the Tribeca International Film Festival, and wrote this haiku about the city: A NEW YORK HAIKU by Ken Chawkin.
The job of a poet is translating what he or she is experiencing into words. If it resonates with other people’s experience, allows them to identify with what’s in the poem in a way they could not have expressed as well with words, and gives them pleasure, then it’s a good poem.
While in NYC recently, my son commented on my m.o. as a poet, how I notice things, name and say what I’m experiencing at the time. So I wrote this simple haiku for him, a sort of job description.
Experiencing
Noticing … Naming … Saying
Job of a Poet
Case in point, when I was returning from Iowa City last week, I dropped in to see Sali. She was still in her bed; they hadn’t gotten her up yet for dinner. I held her hand and spoke to her, telling her how much I loved her. A part of me was noticing how I was feeling, what was happening within and between us. From that experience, I wrote this haiku for her.
The thrill of the heart
Holding hands and loving you
The peace that follows
See this remembrance of Mary Oliver (1935-2019) and her astonishing poetry, with links to articles, interviews, and readings, as well as more of her favorite poems I’ve loved and posted over the years.
— Written and compiled (citing sources) by Ken Chawkin for The Uncarved Blog.
The Uncarved Blog 