Meditation Makes the Campus Scene

REFLECTING a present-day interest of college undergraduates, the Dartmouth Experimental College during the winter term featured a course in Transcendental Meditation taught by Charles Donahue '66. The course was arranged by Sean Fay '70, president of the Dartmouth chapter of the Students' International Meditation Society. Established last year, the Dartmouth group, according to Fay, is part of "a rapidly growing movement," which has its headquarters in Cambridge, Mass. Chapters exist at most Eastern colleges and at all the Ivy League institutions.

The DEC course included lectures as well as personal instruction in the techniques of Transcendental Meditation as taught by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Donahue recently returned from a three-month training course under Maharishi in India, who teaches not a withdrawal from life but a dynamic philosophy of clearer thinking and more efficient action.

Transcendental Meditation, Donahue explains, is a technique of direct experience rather than a system of contemplation or religion, for it involves no belief. Through practice the conscious mind is allowed to experience increasingly more subtle states of thought until the source of thought is reached. By this technique the capacity of the conscious mind is expanded, and eventually a man's full mental potential is available to him for a life of dynamic activity.

Fay reports that students are particularly interested in Transcendental Meditation so that they can expand "the container of knowledge" as a prerequisite to learning. He personally realized increased energy and creative intelligence, which aided him in studying. Practitioners of the technique have also reported the release of nervous tension, and Fay said that had been of particular benefit to him during "the traditionally tense period of final exams." He plans to attend the India training course in 1971 to become a teacher of this technique, perhaps at Dartmouth.

The DEC is repeating the course in Transcendental Meditation this term.

Charles Donahue '66 (top), winter term instructor, with (l to r) Ernest Babcock '70,Greg Karnaze '71, John Louvitakis '71, and Sean Fay '70, president of the Dartmouth chapter of the Students International Meditation Society.