Rebellion Against Things:The Growing Discovery of Meditation

This article, "Rebellion Against Things: The Growing Discovery of Meditation" was published in The San Francisco Examiner, December 10, 1967, in San Francisco, California.

By LISA HOBBS 

The younger members, casually dressed, sit on the polished floor. Older members of the audience, in neat suits or dresses, sit in chairs. All faces reflect the same quiet intensity. 

Facing the audience, flanked by a marble bust of Sri Aurabindo, is Dr. Haridas Chaudhuri, a former pupil of the learned guru and director of the Cultural Integration Fellowship Ashram at 2650 Fulton St. White-haired, dressed in a conservative dark business suit, Dr. Chaudhuri tells his audience: 

"Transcendental consciousness is not the ultimate goal. The discovery of the spiritual dimension of your being is but the first step. The light and power of this transcendental experience must be brought into the field of action and human relations, harmonizing and integrating physical, emotional and intellectual aspects of personality." 

There is nothing hippie about this audience. The middle-aged among the teachers, businessmen, professionals and secretaries present are part of a steadily increasing number of successful and thoughtful citizens who are quietly rebelling against what many term "the Madison Avenue way of life." 

CREATIVE SIDE 

This rebellion against the tiresome acquisition of "things, consumer goods, trivia that clutters up one's life" has another, more creative, side - the search for a philosophy, a way of life, that will fill the vacuum left by the death of interest in "objects." 

Most of the students in the audience share a characteristic common to many of today's youth - they are not interested in possessions. Caught in an affluent, consumer oriented society, they feel trapped in a dehumanized wasteland - and they want "out" into deeper and more meaningful human and spiritual relationships. The overflow crowd at Dr. Chaudhuri's ashram each Sunday morning and Tuesday evening is part of the scene at the half dozen centers throughout The City where some form of Eastern philosophy is taught. 

Some of those seeking a new way have used drugs, such as LSD, and want to incorporate the psychedelic experience into a more normal, constructive life. The majority, however, have not used drugs. 
 
BASIC CHANGE 

"There seems to be a basic change occurring in this society, particularly in our perception of time and space," says Richard Baker, president and director of the Zen Center at 1881 Bush St., and the Zen Mountain Center in Carmel Valley. 

"This change in perception seems to be becoming stronger with each generation. Out of this change comes the great upsurge of interest in things like Zen, drugs, and Vedanta." 

This upsurge is reflected in the after-office hours meditation between 5:30-6:30 p.m. daily. The serene gathering of young executives and secretaries seated on the rush mat floor makes a delightful contrast with other more libidinous gatherings in the immediate area. 

Many of the young executives are not so much interested in Eastern philosophy as in trying to find a different level and tone in their relationships to other people. 

Says Lois Delattre, who works for one of the most prestigious "ashrams," the Esalen Institute in Monterey: 

"Some of the most successful people in our society now have all the things they wanted, only to find it isn't enough. In some cases their possessions have become a burden." 

"There are others who fear a heart attack, or have experienced one, or have chronic high blood pressure. This puts them in a state where they completely re-evaluate their lives." 

The largest single group seeking greater "realization" through techniques developed in the east is that of the International Meditation Society, a body that has attracted over 5000 followers on California college campuses, over 1000 of whom are at UC in Berkeley. 

If other groups do not take the Meditation Society seriously, putting it down as "a quick way to feel good," their lack of indorsement bothers these quickie transcendental mediator not a whit. 

"To qualify as a meditator, no preparation, training, diet, posture or even philosophy is required." As Gregory Pearson, a coordinator with the Berkeley group puts it: 

"Anyone with a nervous system can practice it."

KEYED TO SOUND 

Key to this technique, devised by Marharishi Mahesh, the Beatles' guru, (and Mia Farrow's and Shirley MacLaine's) is the meditation on "sound and not on feelings." As the Maharishi puts it, this sound (a different sound for each person) "resonated to the pulse of one's thought and, as it resonates, creates an increasingly soothing influence." 

The same technique of sound vibration is the basis of the Krishna Consciousness Society at 518 Frederick St. where the audience, led by Swami A. C. Bhaktivedanta, is definitely hippie and fringe-hippie. 

The need that brings these young people together every morning for two hours of meditation, sitting on the floor, burning incense, dancing spontaneously before the altar gods, is without doubt a real need, a protest, and a most sincere search. But to the observer, the reality of the search is nearly swamped in choreography. 

"We want to establish god consciousness in a godless society," says saffron robed Upendra Das Brahmachari, 19, who has never been out of the States and was known as Wayne Gunderson until he recently left Lowell High School. 

Says Yumma Devi Dasi (25 year old Joan Siegel), who wears a sari and has had her nose pierced to take a jeweled ornamentation: 

"The most important thing is the chant, Hare Krishna. (Hare, energy, Krishna, the Lord). The sound vibrations enter your heart not your mind and the heart is cleaned of all contamination." 

A different technique and an entirely different approach again is that taught by Walt Baptiste at the Church of Liberal Yoga, 419 Sutter St. 

Mr. America in 1953, Baptiste wears loose dark pants, a high-necked jacket closed with "frogs" and cotton slippers. 

To help his students "turn-in and raise the consciousness above our common experience, to liberate the spirit from suffering, misery and loss," Baptiste teaches a Yoga of Fulfillment - correct posture, breathing control, from which springs a "natural and painless" rejection of intoxicants and smoking, an integration of mind, body, spirit. 

Again, Baptiste's pupils come from all walks of life - two local judges, a director of a local television station, two secretaries of former 
governor Edmund G. Brown, local and Washington members of the FBI, screen actor Gregory Peck's mother, and so on. 

As in everything else in society, not everyone agrees with the efficacy of techniques taught at other centers. All appear to be answering some need, however, which "Christian creeds and dogmas do not give." As Alan Watts (whose "Words of Zen" has sold over 300,000 copies) put it: 

"People are tired of the feverish quest for nothing but products. You can't withdraw from the world because there is no place to go. This interest is all at once a protest and a search." 

Photo (Left): YOUNG MEDITATORS AT KRISHNA CONSIOUSNESS SOCIETY. Sound vibrations, chants and choreography on Frederick Street.

Photo (Right): WALT BAPTISTE AT CHURCH OF LIBERAL YOGA. He teaches correct posture, breathing control  - Examiner Photos