Shaker Meditative Practice

[Doug Hamilton]

/publication
Shaker Meditative Practice
by Doug Hamilton


In the beginning it started with, Mother Ann.

"Ann was the first individual to experience the parousia and so they
recognized
her to be the unique person to inaugurate the awareness of the
parousia. It was
not "seeing" in the external sense at all but rather a transforming
consciousness of unitive presence. The phrase "she saw in open vision"
is often
used, open vision is a knowing not by mind or a seeing not by the eyes
but by a
perception at depth from with in; if reflects the "knowing which is
beyond
knowledge". The "vision" is "open" in the sense that one who now
really sees
has been opened within.

In meeting as she began to speak of her experience, all those at the
meeting
began to experience themselves. They did not merely accept Ann's word
for what
she had experienced. Rather, as she spoke of her experience, those who
listened
experienced the same reality for themselves.

Ann inaugurated the consciousness of parousia as the first one among
many to be
drawn into the unifying experience of alive and fully present in-
through-with us
all. She is the first to awaken in experience to what ultimately all
experience. In experiential history she ministers this experience to
them by
bearing witness to what had happened to her, thereby being the
instrument of
that same happening to them.

Ann ministered life to them by the living witness of her experience;
they now
experience for themselves and so in turn enter an ever-expanding
ministry of
living witness to others. This begins the essential process of
revelation
spoken of as progressive unfoldment." -Whitson, The Shakers


Of 'Parousia', the excerpt above about Mother Ann is from an
introduction examining a case of spirituality as something
experiential. So from example of Ann parousia is being used in the
sense of an experiential Presence as opposed to some things learned
intellectually or having as a belief or faith. The usage is running
towards the Greek root as opposed to a more narrow Christian doctrinal
usage. The excerpt is taking the distinction: A spiritual knowing
that is experiential.

This parousia quote comes from an academic book surveying Shaker
writing. It's a book on Shakers that edits things the way
Transcendental Meditation™ meditators would today, spiritually. As an
academic book it is kind of unique this way. I found it recently on a
visit (December 2010) to the Shaker museum village of Pleasant Hill,
Ky. The Pleasant Hill Shaker Village is a fabulous resource for
books, diaries, and journals to use for researching transcendentalist
utopian America.  http://www.shakervillageky.org/ . In searching out
comparisons I have also visited a number of other of historical sites
looking at other American Utopian groups similar to TM in Fairfield,
Ia. to see how it also went for them in time.




In the year (2007) before Maharishi Mahesh Yogi died (2008) I went
down to Pleasant Hill, Ky. and lived for a week to research
particularly the transition between spiritual founders and following
generations. I spent a lot of time looking at their founder Mother Ann
in particular and then the spiritual experience of the group
following after her in succession. Mother Ann evidently was a saint in
the way we know them. She would give shaktipat (spiritual
transmission), taught a meditation (dhyana) as a spiritual practice
and sat with folks giving a darshan (parosousia). They gathered into
groups (villages) to facilitate this spiritual practice and became
known as Shakers. We popularly know them for other things but
essentially they were a mediating group in practice. After some
generations of succession in busy competition with the outside world
for subsistence to hold their own they lost their moorings, reduced or
dropped their structured meditational time from their daily life,
became more about promulgating doctrine, as the group's spiritual
shakti dwindled out. They ran a spiritual life-cycle not uncommon in
spiritual groups.

Of course, long before Mother Ann there was Plato too.

“I. Mysticism
The history of mysticism is as old as the world. It grew in to notice
in Europe in the fourth century, when the followers of Plato took for
their foundation-stone his famous doctrine: “ That Divine Nature was
diffuse through all human souls; that the faculty of reason from which
proceeds the health and vigor of the mind was an emanation from God in
to the human soul, and comprehended in to it the principles and
elements of all truth”. These mystics maintained that silence was the
only method by which the hidden word was excited to produce an inward
feeling of joy when the knowledge of hidden things was shown to man.”
Perkins, William Rufus, and Barthinius Larson Wick. History of the
Amana Society, or Community of True Inspiration. Iowa City: State
University of Iowa Publications, 1891, p. 2.
'Method' in this quote reads a lot like 'meditation' or even the
practice of Shaker 'retiring'.

"Retirement" was the Shaker word they used for 'meditation' like we
would know it. Regular 'retiring' was specifically allowed for and
structured within their work days. 'Retirement' was foundational to
their spiritual practice.

That nice furniture we think of as being being trademark of 'Shaker'
came about secondarily to furnish their bedrooms, meetings, and
villages for "retirement". Their 'gathering' together in to villages
was to provide and facilitate their common resources and their time to
have regular "retirement" and group worship meetings. Their daily
'group meditations', as we might see them, they referred to as "Union
Meetings".  'Retirement' was the essential salt and flour of their
spiritual practice.

",,,attend to your retirements, meetings and meals, and not let
trifles hinder
you; and when the signal is given, either for retiring time or for
meals, drop
your work, go into the house and sit down and retire, and have no loud
or
unnecessary conversation." [1845]

Sounds a lot like Transcendental Meditation in Fairfield, Ia. in
earlier days through the 1980's and the mid-1990's. People's lives and
work was set up to attend the meditations and folks could drop what
they were doing to go as an additional call was made.

1845 Millenial Laws: Section II Orders concerning the Spiritual
Worship of God,
etc:

"Believers are required by the orders of God, to retire to their rooms
in
silence, for the space of half an hour, and labor for a sense of the
gospel,
before attending meeting.
2. All should sit erect in straight ranks in retiring time, ... ; and
none
should have any conversation upon anything whatever, neither should
they sleep
nor idly lounge away the time, or leave the room except it be very
necessary."


'Half an hour'. These half hour retirements as spiritual practice
catch my eye.  That is serious spiritual practice. In further
reading, the 'retirings' were very much part of the Shaker day from
early on as a discipline. With extra ones thrown in or called for too
at different times before specially called union meetings.

Retirement was particularly practiced for many years of a generation
or so.  Evidently that discipline of practice dwindled out at some
time as the Union Meetings became less and became more supplanted by
the work of their subsistence.


Viewing these practices as experiential spiritual practices as opposed
to viewing them only as 'static' comparative doctrine practices, as a
communal group the Shaker experience stands a good parallel to things
TM for instance. I would wonder that some things possibly could even
be learned for the TM group from the Shaker experience if one has eyes
to see them. Learned about the Shaker experience as well as TM enters
its 'post-founder' TM-Raja administrative phase.

I.

For instance, the Shaker version of policy guidelines were called the
Millennial Law. There was a sequence to the evolution of their
millennial laws over the decades after their foundation era. From
short organizational mission of facilitating spiritual experience
initially then towards detail specific longer institutional doctrine
policy guidelines as the group got further away from the founder and
the foundation era. Moving from simpler facilitating of shakti to long
elaboration of doctrine and guideline.  From shorter statement of
spiritual mission to a long detailed 'contract' of doctrinal
guidelines. From facilitating experience to mostly preservation
institution by guideline. Essentially the guidelines became more to be
their teaching doctrine. In effect their experience became so burdened
with the work of subsistence, the doctrine of 'how it was' and a
rigidity of personality within some that the experiential shakti got
squeezed out of it generally; folks dried up and left the group
leaving behind only doctrinal tru-believers as preservationists. It's
a good lesson. Evidently the Shakers are not the only group to have
this happen to. A similar arc of life-cycle happened at Amana
Colony.

Through observation, TM is on track with this life-cycle arc of
spiritual groups. In its time
Fairfield might well become a tourist destination like Amana or
Shakertown or Brook Farm.
One can imagine hearing the tour guides in about 90 years describing
the meaning of the TM
architecture, interpreting the displays of artifacts like bottles of
labeled AyurVedic herbs,
Maharishi honey and other products produced and sold by the group for
their
sustenance, Sidha dresses, the crowns the TM-Rajas wore, the
Heidelberg press room, see
gold embossed publications, view banners from the group, and then hear
the
interpretation describing what 'went' on in Fairfield. Then take the
walking tours of meditator homes, schools, and buildings including the
Golden Domes given by tour dos-ant interpreters dressed in meditator
garb.


II.

Another evident comparison here entering the 'post-founder' stage is
seeing where facilitating 'policies and guidelines' become the group
doctrine.

(codified rigid and stale):

"Some of the leading instruments, however, tended to be preoccupied
with a drive toward an unrealistic perfectionism, insisting that all
life and activity be structured in minute detail to guarantee its
sacred character. This reached its most marked expression in the 1845
Millennial Laws. This new code, formulated under the inspiration of
Elder Philemon Stewart of the Church Family at Mt. Lebanon, represents
a total departure from the attitude embodied in Father Joseph's very
flexible "Way-marks," or even the more formal Millennial Laws of 1821.
In Stewart's code everything imaginable is regulated, and in the
greatest detail.  Communal life is made as uniformistic as possible ()
and all activities are prescribed in such a way as to guarantee
identical practice from one community
to the next." (-Whitson)

"The intent was to create a perfect reflection of the heavenly in the
earthly. The effect was to constrain the experience of freedom of
response to ever new and diverse light in the Spirit. Happily the
formative experience of the first hundred years proved to have taken
deep root, and the new Millennial Laws were simply not followed as
enjoined, the various ministries and family elderships realizing the
impossibility of relating the inflexible uniformity to the ultimate
norm of authenticity... The 1845 Millennial Laws were officially short-
lived, being withdrawn by the Central Ministry of Mt. Lebanon after
five years." (-Whitson, )

Shaker Philemon Stewart. His personality is a useful aspect to
examine as part of spiritual decline in groups. In his time he was
probably quite earnest and doing the best he could. Interestingly,
there are rigid conservative preservationist personalities like this
now as elements within the members of TM leadership. In the few years
since Maharishi has passed away the discovery in administration has
been the positions between those who would keep it as it was and
progressive elements who would like to see things progress and work
out. The conservative element seems now to have the stronger hand.
The indicating numbers now within TM are modest at best compared to an
earlier time.

III.

I have run across this quote below recently and I like it in a
framework for charting groups or teachers. It works probably for
individual people or groups. I have not taken the time but it would
be fun to plot historical groups along their life cycle in time. Or
just do a scatter graph of various denominations or sects or teachers.
Movements. x-y axis of things like book-knowledge against spiritual
experience. Hi-lo scales. Doctrinal (rules) against experiential.
Shaktic force of experience against ritualism. Sophist (in the head)
speculation against spiritual experience. Mood-making emotionalism
etc. against spiritual experience.

Either as snapshot or plot a calculus through time for a person or
group. At any rate. I like this particular quote below for discerning
essentially where spiritual things are. In my studies looking and my
own experience I had come to similar observations about historical
spiritual groups.

I hope you'll like this too. For instance I bet it explains a lot of
what the cycle was at Cain Ridge or Gasper River and after. The
Shakers reflected on the stagnation in force of experience after the
period of awakenings by contrast and then also after their own era of
manifestations. These were times evidently.

I think this quote below can serve as a Rosetta stone for the whole
subject. I liked it when I read it. I hope you like it too and might
get some use out of it as you are looking at these things. So I share
it here in conclusion:

“When religion grows in age,
faith turns into dogma, and
experience is replaced by book-
knowledge, virtue by adherence
to rules, devotion by ritual,
meditation by metaphysical
speculation. The time is then
ripe for a rediscovery of truth
and a fresh attempt to give it
expression in life.” -Lama Govinda


With Kind Regards,
-Doug Hamilton
Fairfield, Ia.