I have just spent several hours exploring word based palindromes and numeric palindromes starting from links on your blog website, bless you… Part of which was a prolonged Skype chat with a German friend where we were talking (voice) and ‘chatting’ (text) at the same time, passing palindromes, web links and files back and forth. I should really go to bed earlier.

But this reminds me of earlier talk about language emerging from silence, and hours spent listening to Maharishi explaining how all the Vedic literature is a sequential unfolding of expressions of the laws of nature, as each word, syllable, verse, richa collapsed into silence and then the next emerges spontaneously. Most recently he was explaining how the 192 slokas of the tenth (last) mandala of Rig Veda, the foundation stone of Vedic Literature, weave right back into the 192 slokas of the first Mandala, (like the tail of a snake curving back on itself) and that the words of each fits into the gaps between the others’ words. It was wonderful, magical, inspiring to hear his joy at this symmetry, and — I’m afraid — somewhat beyond my current level of consciousness to appreciate it all fully.

But it was I who mentioned Vastu, and Vedic architecture being built around a silence at the core of a building, and the idea that the form of a building can influence our consciousness. And vice versa… I remember hearing a story when I lived in Fairfield Iowa and attended Liberal Catholic services at the chapel on the campus at Maharishi International University. It was something like this (and if anyone can trace its origin I’d be grateful - I’ve not found it via Google). A founder of this church was a medical orderly in war, and after a firefight, found everyone else dead, and himself only able to see pure light. After this mystical near-death experience he found he saw auras and shapes in light. And when the Eucharyst, the Mass is performed, he saw the shape of a cathedral created in light…

I heard this story twenty years ago and it has stayed with me as an enduring image. And if it’s not true I feel it ought to be true. Because it just feels so right that the ritual left behind by Jesus, a master, for his followers creates the actual templates for churches - that The Mass, a ritual performance in consciousness like a Vedic Yagya - creates a subtle structure in light that the masons and temple master builders simply placed stones round in order to build cathedrals. It seems this would be one of the central mysteries of the masonic order, that a cathedral mirrors a structure in nature. Similarly Vedic science says that Buddha and all the Vedic ‘gods’ and devattas, are actually structures in the human nervous system.

OK, so you did ask for thoughts sparked from your post, didn’t you?

To bring this down to present time and practice, Maharishi has been pounding the table with his flower, saying how important it is that children learning lessons in schools should be facing East. This follows research that shows how differently the thalamus and other areas of the brain function when facing in different directions. I tell you, I have moved the desk in my new flat and it now faces due east, and the quality and quantity of my work has shifted. Has this got anyone else wondering?

I am now considering moving house, to one with a more auspicious Vastu, to raise thinking to another level. And my project work now is 100% about working to create Vedic architecture houses, workspaces and a university. Google on vastu, stapathya veda or vedic architecture for more. The TM movement’s latest project is at http://www.globalreconstruction.org, and there’s a very relaxed and enjoyable introduction on Ganapati Stapathi’s website at http://www.vastu-design.com/lesson1.htm

What if we could transform the entire world to deeper silence, higher consciousness and greater attunement to inner and outer nature, through the buying power that we all have as individuals, in our own homes? I’m fascinated to see that Maharishi has announced a strategy for loosening the noose of capitalism, with what’s mostly the biggest piece of capital that we own. And that some builders and developers are already getting on board. I’m trying to be part of a plan that seems to me like our best shot at shifting to spirituality and true sustainability before we destroy ourselves with our out-of-control technologies, corporations, governments and militaries. Fingers crossed, huh?

So thanks to Diana Whitney, thank you for starting this thread on silence and spirituality in the AI list server that I’m now well out on a branch of. (Not a well constructed sentence, but it makes the point). Long time since I saw you and Amanda in Taos, and thanks for my AI training in 2001. And Natalie, I’m going to see if I can post this on your blog as well. There’s a first time for everything.

Love,

David

I really like Peter Block’s concept of the Social Architect in his book “The Answer to How is Yes”. A social architect blends the best of architecture (form and function) with artistry (creating beauty) to make beautiful spaces in which people can be both productive and expressive.

Last year I spent 5 months working on a merger project using Appreciative Inquiry here in New Zealand. At the final 3 day Summit, during the time we were working on the social architecture to support the internal vision we had just created (with a group of 204), one of the teams came up with an architectural concept I just loved.

One of the guys in the team is an architecture buff and had been reading about the “street” concept that British Airways used in its latest headquarters in the UK. This headquarters is modelled on an actual street, with divisions housed in their own buildings, which sit on a street full of amenities covered over with a roof. You meet on the “street” to engage with others. Well the team thought about the idea and wondered how it could be made to happen in each of 7 offices throughout New Zealand and Australia. How could you make it feel like you were always on “Gen-i Street”, no matter what office you happened into? They brainstormed about a cafe bar area where you could come in, plug in your laptop, get a coffee and catch up on the gossip, so you’d feel at home everywhere.

I think you are right — the built environment reflects the values of the organisation. What values are you actually seeing in action?

Thanks for your thoughts.

Mary-Alice Arthur, SOAR, New Zealand