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Meditation Room, Integral Yoga Centre, Bond Street, Lindsay. The beginnings of our Centre go back to l997, when Roger Calverley purchased a 65 acre forest preserve as a spiritual retreat. Word of mouth led to invitations to give talks, and a small meditation group formed. Some of our early meditations took place in this forest setting, but before long we began meeting at the home of Ron and Sandi Warrilow in Lindsay.
Roger had been in contact with Sri Aurobindo groups in Burlington and Toronto, and with SABDA at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry. In Spring of 2001 our group attended a conference on Auroville held in downtown Toronto, and later in the year members began to attend darshan days at Renu Ray's home in Toronto. A number of our members have travelled to Matagiri and spent several days there, and we are in touch regularly with students of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother in India, California, at Matagiri, in Burlington, and in Toronto.
With the purchase of a suitable property in 2001, we began to meet regularly as a group in our new Centre on Bond Street. We also formed a study group which meets once a week, and began to spend time reading Savitri. The fact that we had our own property as a meditation centre made it possible to begin practising karma yoga more than we had been. We have also organized several workshops on meditation offered free of charge to the general public as a service. In 2001, we had several new members come to our group as a result of our workshops and we now number 16 members and several associated members in nearby towns.
We began the New Year, 2002, by forming a co-ordinating committee to oversee all the practical arrangements of the Centre. All of the members who had been with us for more than a year wanted to serve, and there is an abundance of inspiration to grow together as a spiritual family with a living oneness-heart. The publication of a monthly newsletter emerged from the first committee meeting, as well as plans to bring guest speakers to visit us.
We feel that our use of the country retreat area is likely to grow. The facilities include a guest house, log home, extensive rose gardens, a stone circle, a natural power spot, a half mile of pristine river frontage, vegetable and flower gardens, and nature trails with lots of wildlife and mature stands of hemlock, maple, cedar, birch and oak trees.
Early in 2002, Roger visited the Sri Aurobindo Ashram for three weeks at the time of the Mother's birthday darshan, and brought back abundant inspiration and contacts which will help us to continue to grow.
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