Dublin Centre June Roundup

Visiting the temple

On the banks of the beautiful river Neckar in the small university city of Heidelberg, there stands a beautiful white house which, to the casual passer by, might look like any of the platial houses overlooking the river Neckar (if it were not for the bright blue roof, that is). This is Pujaloy, a beautiful meditation temple which was built by Sri Chinmoy’s German students. With Sri Chinmoy’s passing it has taken on an increased inner importance as a place for us all to gather and meditate together in silent oneness. Many of us were lucky to visit Pujaloy when Sri Chinmoy’s German concert tour in autumn 2005 stopped past nearby Mannheim, so this would be our second time to visit.

The temple is traditionally open for two hours on a Sunday morning; on an average Sunday there will be 200 students of Sri Chinmoy, some of whom have driven from places as far away as Czech Republic and Hungary! Recently, the temple is also open on a Saturday night to cater for the demand, which was great for us! The first thing one feels when you enter is a tremendous sense of purity, the floors and are beautifully laid out in white marble and there is an atmosphere of complete silence and tranquility. The Sunday morning meditation takes place in four half-hour segments; a bell rings at the end of each half hour, giving people who want a chance to enter into the meditation room or leave, but aside from that the meditation continues on absolutely undisturbed . As for the meditation experiences: one person very aptly described it as akin to being taken up in an elevator to a very high realm of consciousness....

Aside from that Heidelberg is a pretty amazing place in itself, with lots of old buildings and a doughty old castle on a hill with about four hundred steps leading up to it. On Sunday morning, myself and Ambarish went for a two hour run, passing through idyllic villages that looked as if they came straight out of the seventeenth century. We of course also found time to eat in the Effulgence-Waves restauraunt, an enterprise run by some of Sri Chinmoy’s Heidelberg students which now opens up on Sunday just in time to feed all the hungry meditators returning from Pujaloy. We will most certainly be returning here again in the not too distant future!

The Celebration of Light

Matthias went over to help out at the Celebration of Light, a beautiful midsummer festival organised by Adarsha Kelly, a student of Sri Chinmoy from Glasgow. Here is what he had to say:

The event took place in which what was an abandoned tramway but is not an arts centre run by Glasgow City Council. The event was scheduled for 24 hours over the longest day of the year, central to which was a celebration of Sri Chinmoy’s life. At the back of the building there is also a garden with pathways all around, which we used for our event.

On the background of the stage there was a slideshow of Sri Chinmoy in action in different fields: art, poetry, music, athletics. At first different music groups played selected songs, later on we all joined together and played the whole night through until sunrise at 5 in the morning. We then took a rest, and continued with a puppet show performing written stories of Sri Chinmoy. Sri Chinmoy wrote many tales over the years; this puppet show was based on stories written about the great Moghul emperor Akbar the Great and his adviser Birbal. In one story, Akbar aks Birbal to find 5 fools for him. He came back with 3. Answering the question of the king where the other 2 were, he named the king and himself. Birbal explained only a foolish king is interested in knowing how many fools in the kingdom are, and Birbal himself is a fool for following his order!

We finished the celebration in totally different circumstances on the Glasgow Mela, a musical festival with all different styles of music. So it happened that before our performance there was a rap group playing. The announcer was still in rap mode and invited the audience to raise their hands and clap. After a heavy rainfall the people in the audience had changed so that the music found more response. We were happy just offering something more quiet and different knowing there are people out there that still appreciate spiritual music.

The Paris 100k - Matthias’ experience

Matthias becomes the first person from the Dublin Centre to participate in an ultradistance race! Here is his account:

The event took place in a wide park on a 1 mile loop, which meant there were 62 loops to the finish. We were about 30 starters, including me there were 4 German runners, who took a 8 hours drive from southern Germany.

The weather was luckily not too hot, this was a big advantage as there was nearly no shade to hide from the sun. As it was the first attempt for me my goal was just to finish. I mostly wanted to enjoy the run. After every 3 or 4 laps running I changed to walking. After every lap I took a drink, but did not dare to eat as the stomach is anyway “upset” realizing what a challenge it is facing. Along the track there were also a band playing spiritual music to cheer us up.

When I changed to walking I was overlapped a few times by a French lady cheering me up with the words: Go on, go on, it is all fine. I started to believe her between 50 km and 70km, when I had my fastest laps. I just thought if I do not run now, then I won`t have any more chance to win time and probably I would not reach the finish within the 14 hours limit. I felt surprisingly fresh at this stage. But I saw I was sweating out a lot of salt and said to myself it was better to slow down.

From then on I just walked without forcing myself to finish. At km 86 I decided to call it a day. I definitely want to take this challenge up again even if I didn’t finish this time. It is just a nice feeling to be on the track for such a long time. It gives you the feeling of dynamism and perpetually moving forward, just like in the spiritual life.

In brief.....

Recently we were helping out at the Lotus Yoga stand at the Cultivate ‘ Health and Yoga ’ day. (We happen to share our meditation space with Lotus Yoga) Many of the teachers from Lotus Yoga were giving demonstrations of their craft, and we were also scheduled to give a class called The Inner Journey: Meditation and Self-Discovery. We had about 40 people for our meditation course, and then gave a second course straight after to fill in for a suddenly cancelled course. We all had an incredibly enjoyable day - the place was abuzz with different lecturers, talks and demonstrations and tons of people all eager to fit in as many courses as they could during the day! There were lots of people interested in trying out our yoga space and more thinking of coming to our next set of meditation courses in July. Well done to the people at Cultivate for organising such a great event!