The Washington Times
By Jen Haberkorn
October 6, 2007
A local developer announced plans yesterday for a 12-story monument to peace that he hopes to build in the Washington area.
Jeffrey S. Abramson, a partner with the Tower Companies, a North Bethesda development group, is asking area residents to suggest potential sites for his "Tower of Invincibility."
The tower will be a monument to peace, he said, and is derived from the principles of the International Center for Invincible Defense, a New York organization. It calls for groups of people to practice advanced meditation techniques and says that transcendental meditation can calm hostilities in the world and prevent violence and war.
The proposal doesn't fall in line with the District's other, traditional monuments, such as the Washington Monument or the Memorial Peace Cross in Bladensburg, but the Tower Cos. has a long history of constructing buildings in the Washington area.
The Tower Cos. has built office, residential, hotel and retail complexes, largely concentrated in Farragut North and Bethesda. The company also developed White Flint Mall. Lately, it has championed eco-friendly green construction.
Mr. Abramson said the tower represents "scientific principles and a universal knowledge of how to create peace. It's not an empty wish or a philosophy of peace. It's as concrete and real as the science and technology of electricity."
The proposed building would be 12 stories high, or 166 feet tall, and encompass 20,00 square feet of space. The exterior would be marble and feature an observatory to provide 360-degree views from the top. The tower would house multimedia exhibitions on world peace.
Ideally, the project would require up to an acre of land, Mr. Abramson said.
"There is no greater way to represent a fulfillment of those values — of peace and prevention of war — than in a structural building and icon," he said.
He plans to raise donations to fund the cost of land and construction, which he is estimating at $5 million to $10 million.
He declined to say how much has been raised so far.
Mr. Abramson said that he has been working on the project for about three months and that other Towers of Invincibility are being planned throughout the world, including in England and Germany.
The first step, he said, is finding land for construction. Mr. Abramson said he is soliciting suggestions from people because the monument will eventually be "for all people."
He expects the building to open about a year after the land is purchased.
Sunday, Jan. 08, 2006
By LISA TAKEUCHI CULLEN
At 4:30, when most of Wall Street is winding down, Walter Zimmermann begins a high-stakes, high-wire act conducted live before a paying audience. About 200 institutional investors — including airlines and oil companies — shell out up to $3,000 a month to catch his daily webcast on the volatile energy markets, a performance that can move hundreds of millions of dollars. "I'm not paid to be wrong — I can tell you that," Zimmermann says. But as he clicks through dozens of screens and graphics on three computers, he's the picture of focused calm. Zimmermann, 54, watched most of his peers in energy futures burn out long ago. He attributes his brain's enduring sharpness not to an intravenous espresso drip but to 40 minutes of meditation each morning and evening. The practice, he says, helps him maintain the clarity he needs for quick, insightful analysis — even approaching happy hour. "Meditation," he says, "is my secret weapon.
Everyone around the water cooler knows that meditation reduces stress. But with the aid of advanced brainscanning technology, researchers are beginning to show that meditation directly affects the function and structure of the brain, changing it in ways that appear to increase attention span, sharpen focus and improve memory.
One recent study found evidence that the daily practice of meditation thickened the parts of the brain's cerebral cortex responsible for decision making, attention and memory. Sara Lazar, a research scientist at Massachusetts General Hospital, presented preliminary results last November that showed that the gray matter of 20 men and women who meditated for just 40 minutes a day was thicker than that of people who did not. Unlike in previous studies focusing on Buddhist monks, the subjects were Boston-area workers practicing a Western-style of meditation called mindfulness or insight meditation. "We showed for the first time that you don't have to do it all day for similar results," says Lazar. What's more, her research suggests that meditation may slow the natural thinning of that section of the cortex that occurs with age.
The forms of meditation Lazar and other scientists are studying involve focusing on an image or sound or on one's breathing. Though deceptively simple, the practice seems to exercise the parts of the brain that help us pay attention. "Attention is the key to learning, and meditation helps you voluntarily regulate it," says Richard Davidson, director of the Laboratory for Affective Neuroscience at the University of Wisconsin. Since 1992, he has collaborated with the Dalai Lama to study the brains of Tibetan monks, whom he calls "the Olympic athletes of meditation." Using caps with electrical sensors placed on the monks' heads, Davidson has picked up unusually powerful gamma waves that are better synchronized in the Tibetans than they are in novice meditators. Studies have linked this gamma-wave synchrony to increased awareness.
Many people who meditate claim the practice restores their energy, allowing them to perform better at tasks that require attention and concentration. If so, wouldn't a midday nap work just as well? No, says Bruce O'Hara, associate professor of biology at the University of Kentucky. In a study to be published this year, he had college students either meditate, sleep or watch TV. Then he tested them for what psychologists call psychomotor vigilance, asking them to hit a button when a light flashed on a screen. Those who had been taught to meditate performed 10% better — a huge jump, statistically speaking," says O'Hara. Those who snoozed did significantly worse. "What it means," O'Hara theorizes, "is that meditation may restore synapses, much like sleep but without the initial grogginess."
Not surprisingly, given those results, a growing number of corporations — including Deutsche Bank, Google and Hughes Aircraft — offer meditation classes to their workers. Jeffrey Abramson, CEO of Tower Co., a Washington-based development firm, says 75% of his staff attend free classes in transcendental meditation. Making employees sharper is only one benefit; studies say meditation also improves productivity, in large part by preventing stress-related illness and reducing absenteeism.
Another benefit for employers: meditation seems to help regulate emotions, which in turn helps people get along. "One of the most important domains meditation acts upon is emotional intelligence — a set of skills far more consequential for life success than cognitive intelligence," says Davidson. So, for a New Year's resolution that can pay big dividends at home and at the office, try this: just breathe.
Copyright © 2006 Time Inc. All rights reserved.
Small Business Bulletins
Puget Sound Business Journal (Seattle)
- April 28, 2006 by Ben Miller
Can transcendental meditation really help improve your brain and help you run your small business better?
I always thought it was a relaxation technique. At least, that's what I've heard from other people and from what I've heard in popular music. Take George Strait's "All My Exes Live in Texas," for example. To unwind, he thinks of a river where he learned how to swim in his boyhood and with "transcendental meditation, I go there each night."
Transcendental meditation probably wasn't helping him become a better businessperson. But then, he didn't hear one of transcendental meditation's (TM) adherents talk about the benefits of TM in the workplace. A leading TM adherent, Alarik Arenander, who's the director of the Brain Research Institute of Maharishi University of Management in Fairfield, Iowa, was in town for a few days recently, talking about how TM can improve your small business.
How?
Arenander said practicing TM can "eliminate the stress of the day and bring the intelligence of the brain more online." The elimination of stress part I understand, and so does, I guess, George Strait. But making more parts of the brain work?
Arenander said that practicing TM stimulates the "prefrontal cortex" part of your brain, which controls "executive functions." A high-stress lifestyle, he said, damages the prefrontal cortex of the brain, damage that can be undone by practicing TM.
Also, TM advocates say that practicing TM will improve one's health, especially when it comes to the health of your heart. Learning the TM technique isn't cheap. You'll attend seven-hour-and-a-half classes for which you'll pay $2,000. But after you learn the TM techniques, you'll feel better, Arenander said. "It's very refreshing, very relaxing and you feel completely settled," he said of the TM process."If you practice (TM), you'll unfreeze frozen assets" in your brain, he added.
At some of the local TM for business events, some participants were wired up to a machine that measures brain-wave functions. Participants' brain waves were measured after they entered a deep, meditative state. Supposedly, brain waves grew stronger and stress was reduced. At least, that's what happened in Portland recently, where Arenander appeared and The Oregonian newspaper ran a picture of the event on its April 19 business page.
In Seattle, in addition to the business-related events, there was also a TM seminar aimed at golfers at the Trilogy Golf Course in Redmond. (Now if they could guarantee that the practice could take five or 10 strokes off my game ...)
Arenander said the professionals who attended his recent local events were between 25 and 60 years old, and divided evenly between men and women. Sponsors of the local TM events wonder if a "meditation break" will replace the coffee break? In Seattle? No way.
Contact: bwmiller@bizjournals.com
206-447-8505x106
New York Times
July 2, 2007
By MARIA ASPAN
When the Beatles sought guidance from Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in 1968, they traveled to India. Now that the "giggling guru," as he has been called, is seeking investors, a branch of his organization has come to the New York financial district.
In March, Maharishi's Global Financial Capital of New York quietly opened a headquarters at 70 Broad Street, close to the New York Stock Exchange. The organization had purchased the five-story, 20,000-square-foot building in May 2004 from Goldman Properties for $5.5 million.
The group was drawn to the building, the former home of the American Bank Note Company and its first Manhattan property, for reasons both spiritual and practical.
"It's one of the very few buildings in all of New York City that's oriented due east," said Paul Potter, the director of Global Financial Capital, referring to the Maharishi¹s principles of "Vedic architecture" that hold that east-facing buildings are spiritually healthy.
But, Mr. Potter added, the other incentive was the financial district location and access to the world's moneymakers.
"We've been offering our programs for 50 years," he said, "and now is the time that we want to create financial support for these programs. We want to offer a chance for the investment bankers to steer the finances of the world in this positive direction."
The building required extensive renovations, which continue, and will cost about $4.9 million, according to the organization, which took out a mortgage in 2005 to cover them. In addition to donations and income from real estate assets, the Maharishi's worldwide network is financed primarily by classes in transcendental meditation, which cost $2,000 for a one-time, five-day session.
The new building's first floor is open for business, with meeting rooms to welcome the investment bankers and hold videoconferences. The Maharishi, who is at least 90, conducts many of these Webcasts from a Dutch village, Vlodrop, where he has established his Global Country of World Peace.
The building purchase was a canny one considering the financial district's resurgence, the broker, David N. Lebenstein, director of the nonprofit division at Colliers ABR, said. "Building prices are at least 30 to 50 percent more than in 2004 and in some cases 100 percent more," he said, adding that the Maharishi's choice to buy an entire building is unusual for nonprofits downtown. Most prefer to avoid overhead costs by purchasing commercial condos or leasing long-term office space, he said.
Those overhead costs may yet prove to be a challenge for the Maharishi, who has had decidedly mixed success in the real estate business. While he established the Maharishi University of Management in Fairfield, Iowa, he has stumbled in developing properties including a Chicago hotel that was eventually sold and a proposed São Paulo skyscraper that was abandoned after Brazil stalled on approval.
Plans for 3,000 worldwide "peace palaces," which will teach transcendental meditation and the elusive art of "yogic flying," have also had mixed reactions. (Four of the projected 200 palaces in the United States have been completed, while land for 52 others has been acquired.)
In January, The Plain Dealer in Cleveland published an article reviewing the Maharishi's history in developing two local properties that were later sold and questioning whether his palace proposals would ever come to fruition. And in March, the Maharishi's organization sued the city of Mayfield Heights, Ohio, saying it refused to allow a proposed peace palace setback variances given to local corporate offices.
When asked about these earthly roadblocks, Mr. Potter seemed, well, serene. "The pursuit of money hasn't really brought real happiness, real fulfillment," he said. "We hope to be able to rebuild the whole world to be fortune-oriented buildings, to be heaven on earth."
Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
By Brian Tracey
Associate editor
U.S. stocks have had a tough time recently, with the Dow Jones Industrial
Average suffering its worst one-week point drop in five years. No worries
though, as a Midwest meditation group promises their good vibrations will send
the blue-chip index past 17,000 within a year.
A group calling themselves the Invincible America Assembly made that claim and
more last week, insisting they have America's prosperity under control and
their positive vibes will bring fewer hurricanes and better U.S.-North Korean
relations.
Using group transcendental meditation, the assembly — which has 1,800 people
meditating daily in Iowa since it was formed in July 2006 — releases harmonious
waves which benefit all aspects of U.S. life, spokesman Bob Roth told Reuters.
And the group's leader, John Hagelin, said when that number reaches 2,500
within the next 12 months, America will see a major drop in crime and the
virtual elimination of all major social and political woes.
Asked what it would take to achieve world peace, Hagelin said such a utopia
would need 8,000 meditators.
The group takes credit for, among other things: The Dow Jones Industrial
Average reaching a record high of 14,022 before its most recent downturn,
unemployment rates falling to a six-year low at 4.5 percent, and North Korea
shutting down its nuclear reactor.
It operates two facilities in Iowa, where followers practice several hours of
transcendental meditation each day.
And while most people may be skeptical of the ability of meditation to bring
such change, Roth said the Assembly was not going to try to change people's
opinions.
"We're not trying to convince anyone of anything," Roth said.
"We're just doing it."
Great, after they fix all our 401k plans, here's hoping they tackle the
slumping housing market next.
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