A Little Tour

 


It's been awhile since I've been to Maharishiville. Maharishiville is a name given to a place near where I used to live where John Lennon's yogi from India claimed it was the center of the universe and bought up a local community college. The college is still a college but teaches mandatory transcendental meditation (TM) along with any curriculum. Many of the followers of TM got fed up with living in a town with us heathen non-TM followers so started their own town, the first in nearly 100 years in our state, and I refer to it lovingly as Maharishiville after their founder.


Whenever we have guests who are looking for a little bit of flavor from our part of the land, we often take them a tour of Maharishiville to see such sights as the "Tower of Invincibility" and the "Twin World Peace Capital" buildings. Since my last visit, the latter seems to have been converted into office space but the Tower of Invincibility still stands strong near the his and her meditation domes. Another site we go to is the World Global Observatory though since my last visit it has been downgraded by name to the Maharishi Vedic Observatory. Though downgraded in name, it has increased dramatically in stature as there were a lot more concrete "instruments" that I didn't remember from my last visit.


I'm not sure how the massive center peace relates to the "total expression of Natural Law" but many of the smaller periphery ones I could decipher their use in determining the azimuth, meridian, time or other more common cosmic things. The center one with it's Indian words though is a mystery to me anyway.


Along with stops at the farm garden and the American Gothic House, we took our guests to last Symphony Orchestra performance of the 2020/2021 season which is always the Big Band portion of the symphony called No Strings Attached. It was a Latin music theme and we were all able to socially distance ourselves on a nice grassy hillside and enjoy beverages and a picnic supper while listening. It was a great evening and a nice cap to a relaxing day. The next day we got our guests back onto the road for their journeys home and are now resting up for the start of the 2021/2022 symphony orchestra season which begins in about four short weeks.

Comments

  1. What a unique site to visit. You capped off the visit well.

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    1. There is nothing else like it in the world!

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  2. How interesting Ed. It always fascinates me what is tucked away in nooks and crannies that I had no idea existed. Thanks for sharing.

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    1. I used to have lots of stories written down about the TM movement and Maharishiville. But they have weathered over time and are not as good anymore.

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  3. I gotta say, this was a pretty interesting surprise... I thought all things Maharishi (in America) faded off into the distance after the Beatles split up. Ed I never would've dreamt in your neck of the woods... I can't get over 'mandatory transcendental meditation'!

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    1. Living among them, I really don't hear much about TM other than I meet people who practice it from time to time. In my youth, it was a HUGE deal and the divisions were deep, much like today's political landscape, but as time has gone by, we've just learned to accept the differences and continue on.

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  4. Extremely interesting spot to visit. Who knew that the center of the universe was in Iowa?!!! I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised, considering Iowa is where we can find the field of dreams.

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    1. I think the center of the universe was fated to be where ever an entire college could be bought at an affordable price!

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  5. I would never have imagined a place like that. I'll have to ask Ryan's parents about it! On my next Iowa visit though, I would prefer to visit Pella or one of the small towns where my Grieve relatives settled.

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    1. Pella is a nice town though not without its idiosyncrasies too. In order to open a business there, you have to meet some fairly stringent guidelines. But it is a very nice town and I have yet to find any run down areas like I find in many towns of similar size. We stop there for the tulip festival once a year and visit the dutch bakery more often.

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  6. Your earlier stories must have been long ago, since I don't remember any. I do remember when TM was all the rage back in the 60s. Fascinating! The picnic with entertainment looks nice, too.

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    1. I'm guessing the last one I posted was probably more than 12 years ago so yeah, it has been awhile.

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  7. So Iowa is the center of the universe as well as being heaven. Very impressive!

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  8. I never thought of Iowa as this big cosmic center of all things transcendental. I must say, I am impressed.

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    1. I don't think anyone did until Mr. Yogi found a university priced to sell here.

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  9. I note that the population of that weird town has shrunk by almost 80% in ten years. Strange that it was developed in the middle of Iowan farmland and not in The Himalayas.

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    1. I'm not sure where your information comes from but it has grown by about 400% in the last ten years. The nearby town where I used to live and their university is located has also grown about 12% in the last ten years. Both are rare anomalies for this part of the state which has seen steady declines in population for the last century. The only reason either have grown is due to the university which attracts TM practitioners from around the world and then many stay on to be around like minded folk.

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    2. I got my population information from Wikipedia which is normally pretty accurate though I guess that there might be occasional blunders.
      See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maharishi_Vedic_City,_Iowa

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    3. I see where you got your 80% decline in population. According to the Wiki, the population is 277 in 2020, up from 259 also written in the wiki. But the site where I saw the 400% says there is currently 1289 people living there. I can tell you that 277 is probably much closer to the truth. The Maharishi are known to try and skew things in their favor so I think probably what we are seeing is creative editing though I don't know which way, up or down. For comparison, there are only around 1300 students enrolled in the University.

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  10. Wow, that appears to be an interesting place. But I think I'll continue to prefer my visit to such sites in SE Asia. Concrete seems so American.

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    1. It was kind of interesting trying to grasp the meaning of all those things by looking at cast shadows onto the lines etched in the concrete. It really makes me away at how much our ancestors were able to figure out that we now take for granted with our GPS units in our cars and on our phones.

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  11. I didn't know Iowa had such an interesting place. We've been to a lot of states, but we've never made it to Iowa. Now you have me curious.

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