Maharishi movement hopes to expand in rural areas, but Palo residents worry about three-story ‘magic palace’

“Meditation is a technique for letting go, a way to cleanse the nervous system. Compare it to cleansing the body,” explains Conny Postel. “Group meditation releases energy that has a positive impact on the environment: less crime, fewer accidents, more peace.”

Project leader Postel said about 50 women will do this at the International Women’s Center for Inner Happiness and Well-being, which is to be built in Paarlo, a small village in the municipality of Ruhrdalen.

You still hear things about us like, “You don’t want something like that around you, do you?”

But the residents in this quiet part of the countryside in central Limburg are not so convinced of the beneficial effects of the new complex. They mainly see it as a waste of the cultural landscape. Like a giant thing next to the Natura 2000 area in Roerdal. Marianne Strauss-Naas can see it directly from her house. “Now everything is green. Soon we will mainly see stones, and when it gets dark we will mainly see a lot of light.”

Ruhrdalen city council will consider on Wednesday an adjustment to the zoning plan that would make construction possible.

Headquarters

The Silent Center is affiliated with the organization Maharishi Maharishi Yogi (1918-2008), whose global headquarters are located in the woods near Vlodrop, about 10 km away. Maharishi initially worked in India. In the 1960s, many Western celebrities visited him, including the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Mia Farrow and Clint Eastwood. Vlodrop emerged in 1984. The movement sought a place with a convenient time zone, between India and the United States. Maharishi himself lived in Vlodrop for many years.

New buildings are still being constructed on the 40-hectare campus. In the next few years, a 57-meter-high bright white “Reflection Tower” will be completed.

Postel believes the resistance to the Silent Center has to do with unfamiliarity with and prejudice against the movement. “For a long time, we paid little attention to what the outside world thought of us. Now there’s more. But you still hear voices like, ‘You don’t want that around you, do you?’”

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Jan Bruggenthijs, a Palo resident, swears that residents of the planned Silence Center are not against the women and their activities. “What they do is up to them. Nobody is bothered by it. It would have been nice if a group of about 25 women had come here, as originally planned, in a building as big as Hemke, a run-down farmhouse that was demolished by the Maharishi Organization a few years ago. We are afraid that the municipality now wants to approve a larger volume: almost three times the size of the original farm. The main building alone would be at least 83 meters long and three stories high. It would not fit here.”

The maximum building height has been reduced by two meters due to objections from neighbors, Postel said. “And the original Vedic architecture has been adapted according to Maharishi’s teachings. We hope to further Limburgize this style.”

The locals are afraid of Efteling-style buildings. There are no aesthetic rules in rural areas. Brugentis: “With parliamentary approval, they can build whatever magic palace they want.”

“Potato Shed”

Councillor Ronald Slangen (Roerstreek Local!) for spatial planning sees the quiet centre as an appropriate reuse of farmland. The fact that the new complex will be much larger than the original farm has to do with zoning plans. “We assess what is allowed on that basis. That could also be a larger potato warehouse.”

In recent years, the two camps have not really come closer. Engagement with each other is difficult. “85% of the time it’s about how great the Maharishi is, 15% about what the women want to do, and only 5% about the construction plans,” Bruggenthijs, a local resident, said of a residents’ meeting in September 2020.

We are concerned about the larger building volume. The main building is at least 83 meters long and three stories high.

The Ruhrdalen city council will consider the plans on Wednesday. Brugenthijs does not dare to predict the outcome. “I do have the impression that some parties are shocked that they are given a free pass, which could be a ‘yes’. Then everything can be built within the permitted building volume.”

Project leader Postel is equally uncertain about the outcome of the council meeting. “I continue to hope. I have a good feeling about this, but that feeling could easily change again. If there is so much resistance in the collective consciousness to our coming, then maybe this is how it should be.”

Farm Marianne Strauss (Left) A view of the site where the Maharishi Organization wants to build the Center of Silence. Strauss (left). Jan Bruggenthijs (right) and other residents object to the group’s plans.

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