In 1974 the Hanuman Foundation was formed to further the spiritual awakening in our society. One of its original projects was to promote the development of a broad base for meditation in the West. We began with a list of meditation facilities. As time went on we felt it would be more useful if we added explanations and advice by Ram Dass, and helpful quotations from a wide variety of teachers. The material mushroomed, and we found we had a book.
We approached Bantam for help in producing and distributing a full-sized book at the cheapest possible price. In the spirit of service and right livelihood the royalties from the sale of this book are being divided equally between the Hanuman Foundation and the author-editors. Thus in part the returns from this project will help to support further work of the foundation.
Four of us collaborated on this book, Ram Dass providing inspiration and text, Daniel Goleman organizing and editing, Ram Dev (Dale Borglum) nursing the project from the start and collating the directory, and Dwarkanath Bonner administering, designing, and helping edit.
The many other people who helped include:
The artists—Vincent Piazza, who with his ingenious pen gave birth to our concept of the little meditator; and Jay Bonner, who designed and drew the mandala dividers.
Laura Huxley, Soma Krishna, K.K. Sah, Father Ed Lavin, Tara Bennett, Saraswati Ransom, Surya Singer, Marie Idol, and Ram Tirth whose articles or portions thereof we are very pleased to be able to include.
Bill Alpert, Mirabai Bush, Richard Clark, Polly Constantine, David Graves, Willow Norris, Acharya Anagarika Munindra, Betsey Serafin, Swaha Smith, Brother David Steindl-Rast, and Robert Thomson, whose energy and assistance have been invaluable.
Lakshmi (Gael Malloy), who did several stages of typing with great patience and good cheer.
And Cecilia (Ceci) Hunt, our editor at Bantam, who helped us focus the book and gave us plenty of space in which to play.
And the many people who have permitted quotations to be used throughout the book, including Richard Clark and Whitall N. Perry. (A few of the quotations have come from secondary sources. The original sources were unknown to us so we left them out. We hope that you will pardon any lack of scriptural scholarship and appreciate, nevertheless, the transmission or transmutation.)
For us the preparation of this book has itself been a meditation. It has been permeated from the outset with the love and spiritual purpose that we have come to know and treasure through our guru, Neem Karoli Baba.
We offer it to you as an invitation to join in the feast.
Ram Dass
Daniel Goleman
Ram Dev
Dwarkanath Bonner