If you've ever run a marathon, or a major road race, odds are a week or two after the event you've gotten a picture swatch in the mail from the event--with the return address of Fairfied, Iowa. That's where Marathon Foto is based, the company was founded by three transcental meditation followers. TM was founded by Maharishi Yahesh Yogi--he's the same guy who The Beatles for a while viewed as their spiritual advisor.
My opinion of Mr. Yogi is that he's a con artist, and I view his followers with suspicion. Although I've ordered pictures from Marathon Foto and I've been very satisfied with their service.
In 1967 the Fabs had their first getaway, in Wales, with the Maharishi. The Beatles, and a select few including Mick Jaggar, attended a TM seminar at University College.
From Bob Spitz' fabulous book, The Beatles--The Biography:
After a brief Hindu prayer was intoned, the Maharishi whispered a handpicked mantra in the disciples ear, along with advice that he or she was never to share it with anyone. "It was especially chosen to harmonize with your personal vibration," he said. Weeks later, after the novelty had worn off, (Beatles personal assistant) Mal Evans divulged that his mantra was I-ing, at which point everyone discovered they had been given the same word.
The Maharishi for a while was in charge of Heaven on Earth Inns, which once owned Chicago's historic Blackstone Hotel. City of Chicago building inspectors closed down the tired property in 2000.
Instead of I-ing, it was I-ick.
From Chicago's Blackstone Hotel we now move on to Chicago's Barack Obama. Tuesday evening, Illinois' junior senator visited the enlightened town of Fairfield.
From the Politico Blog:
To the frustration of the cameramen in the Fairfield town square, Obama delivered his remarks facing east, with the setting sun behind him blotting out their shots.
But here, there's a power even higher than the television networks: Obama had positioned himself in alignment with the rotation of the earth, in accordance with the teachings of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, whose followers moved en masse to this small Iowa city more than 30 years ago.
The Maharishi's transcendental meditators, along with vacationing pilgrims from the East Coast, turned out in large numbers in the town's traditional green square to hear the Illinois senator deliver his stump speech on the night of July 3 — more people, Fairfield's sheriff said, than had come out to greet a sitting president.
"I saw him and I thought, 'Oh my god, this is somebody who could lead us into a new era,'" said Nancy Watkins, an international student adviser at the Maharishi University of Management.
Well, if he doesn't win the presidency, at least Obama can say for a time at least, he was in alignment with the rotation of the earth.
I-ing, Om-bama!
Hat tip to Jake Jacobsen of The Freedom Folks.
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