He said He was just going out for a pack of cigarettes.
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I drive by this place a few times a week. I never thought it was a big deal, but Saranap is this funky little spot that is unincorporated Walnut Creek, but (mostly) in the fancier-still Lafayette school district. I heard a lot of opposition to it on Patch and Nextdoor and all that sort of thing, but anti-crypto-islamism never entered into it. It’s fucking big and I’m glad they were able to do it – it’s their property – the opposition to it (and a proposed transit village or superdense housing or something) proposed for across the street seem far more about the size and scope of a project on a pretty inadequate street (the awesomely named “Boulevard Way”)
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Do a search on G-Maps for Saranap California and it will draw boundaries for you. Wow, I didn’t realize the east boundary is along the huge 680/24 interchange. I go that way all the time when fleeing the bay area.
Then, switch to satellite view and zoom in on the big round white thing (can’t miss it), and that’s it. Getting closer, street view will expose that it was still under construction two years ago (May 2015, it says).
Yep, maps are fun!
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They should have called it the Church of the Holy Cheesecake. I’d become a follower no questions asked.
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Invective?
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When do we not do that? Have you looked at our cities lately. Those skyscrapers aren’t built by communes.
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Saranap was, until the War, primarily as a stop on the old Sacramento Northern railroad between Lafayette and Walnut Creek.
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I don’t see why its that much of a tall order. Pretty much any concrete structure will last 700 years if it isn’t pulled down or blown up. Standard calcs should be sufficient.
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I’ve been guilty of this many times.
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I get the cynicism, and I’m not a religious guy myself, but in fairness to Meher Baba and his followers, you should know a couple things.
Meher Baba was never a conman, hustler, or swindler. He didn’t ask for donations, dues, memberships, etc., although for practical reasons, his followers need SOME money for education, facilities, helping others, etc.
Baba walked the walk. He lived extremely simply and had very few possessions. From 1925 until the end of his life, decades later, he took a vow of silence that he never broke.
If he wasn’t on a power or money trip, what would his motivations be? Something pure and sincere, I’d imagine.
"My work is different. It is not my work to travel continuously and hold darshan programs simply to allow people to bow down at my feet. It is not my work to give long discourses, to perform miracles, or to attract crowds to me. I do not come for this. I come for all; I come to awaken all!”
“Give up all forms of parrotry. Start practicing whatever you truly feel to be true and justly to be just. Do not make a show of your faith and beliefs. You have not to give up your religion, but to give up clinging to the husk of mere ritual and ceremony. To get to the fundamental core of Truth underlying all religions, reach beyond religion.”
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I hope it’s not contagious!
It’s intentional. I’m going to misspell his name as long as he mistypes “Iphone.”
Yes, “Boulevard Way” always makes me smile. I’m still looking for “Drive Street”.
Blessed are we who can laugh at ourselves, for we shall never cease to be amused.
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I’m sure it’s been at least that long since I was there. I think there’s a restaurant in the area that my wife likes. Otherwise, no reason to go there for me.
Nope. Average 1) design life is around 50 to 60 years, and that’s with some sort of persistent maintenance. I’ve done enough building renovation projects over the last 25 years or so to push structures past that age. Concrete isn’t as durable as it seems, especially if durability wasn’t explicitly addressed in the design stage and the implementation wasn’t done properly.
1) As in garden variety office block, block of flats, etc. Dams, bridges, power plants etc are build to last, but that a) takes considerable effort in designing, building and maintaining them and b) doesn’t mean half a millennium and upwards.
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I always had a soft spot for Mountain View’s La Avenida Avenue (prior to this it was called by the French/Spanish abomination of L’Avenida Avenue).
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I’m in! When’s dessert?
Sohrawardi, one of the first commentators on Sufism as an organized activity, around 1150, explicitlty refers to it as the manifestation of a pre-Islamic unitarian mysticism, endemic to the Indo-Iranians of Central Asian antiquity. It assumed the form and customs of contemporary settings both before his time and during. Hence its emergence as mystical Islam, and strains of its thought and experience have once influenced the neo-Platonic schools.
Though refined under Islam, with that religion’s rigorous insistence on the singularity and transcendent oneness of the divine, in this modern era it’s not unexpected that the identification with a Muslim ethos begin to transform and wane. The requirements of this time are quite different than those long removed - when Islam was largely the principal force under which sciences and civilizing ethos were sponsored in the world.
That said, the Sufism Reoriented group seems - as most congregations of aspirants - to have been transformed into another, more or less ordinary religious congregation, following the departure of the spiritual genius that pulled these aspirants together. The norm is for these people to speak in parable and aphorism, which are assigned literal or at least fixed interpretation by those following. Jesus speaks of this in the oldest Gospels. It can be seen in numerous examples before and since - like cargo cultists lighting signal fires for the return of the magnificent dragons, bearing their gifts from the heavens.
I don’t imagine my arguments mean much to those without an inclination towards the possible reality of mystical awareness and the necessity of guidance for sincere aspirants to acquire that portion for which they have a capacity. It should be put forth in some way here, nonetheless.
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What about the big lumps of concrete we see around the place? Coastal fortifications from the early 1900s for example. Granted, they will erode over time, but if you pour enough it it, your structure should still be there 700 years later.
