History
The Lama Foundation was founded in 1967 by Barbara Durkee, Stephen Durkee, (now known as Asha Greer or Asha von Briesen and Nooruddeen Durkee), and Jonathan Altman. It began with the purchase of 100 acres (0.40 km2) of land adjacent to federal forested land, and continues today as a place for people to visit and live. Construction of the first buildings began in 1968. The following year, the foundation was incorporated as an “educational, religious and scientific” organization.
It was one of almost thirty communes established in the region around that time, and one of the most well-known, along with Morningstar East, Reality Construction Company, the Hog Farm, New Buffalo, and The Family. By 1973, the vast majority of these communities had closed, but the Lama Foundation was able to continue because it had more structure and discipline than most others. The community has gone through several stages, ranging from the search for spiritual enlightenment to a more modern focus on permaculture and natural building.
Ram Dass was a friend of the founders, and he stayed at the Lama Foundation as a guest when he returned to America from India. During his visit, he presented the Durkees with a manuscript he had written, entitled From Bindu to Ojas. The community's residents edited, illustrated, and laid out the text, which ultimately became a huge commercial hit when published under the name Be Here Now. Dass also held seminars at the Foundation. So did other spiritual leaders, such as Samuel L. Lewis, who was buried there after his death in 1971.
Proceeds from the sales of Be Here Now helped to fund the Lama Foundation in subsequent years, as did other publications, craftwork projects such as prayer flags, and a few government grants.
Read more about this topic: Lama Foundation
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Look through the whole history of countries professing the Romish religion, and you will uniformly find the leaven of this besetting and accursed principle of action—that the end will sanction any means.”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)
“These anyway might think it was important
That human history should not be shortened.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“The greatest horrors in the history of mankind are not due to the ambition of the Napoleons or the vengeance of the Agamemnons, but to the doctrinaire philosophers. The theories of the sentimentalist Rousseau inspired the integrity of the passionless Robespierre. The cold-blooded calculations of Karl Marx led to the judicial and business-like operations of the Cheka.”
—Aleister Crowley (1875–1947)