I Meditate NY has partnered with the BMW Guggenheim Lab to offer a free Urban Meditation Series on Saturday mornings at 10:30am through October 13, 2011. Launched less than six months ago, I Meditate NY’s goal is to increase awareness of the powerful benefits of meditation among New Yorkers as a practical way to recharge and rejuvenate every day. Powered by The Art of Living Foundation, the movement has been characterized by a bold, unconventional and hi-tech style that uses modern technology to increase awareness of the ancient practice of meditation. This approach has captured the imagination of New Yorkers.
“People who have a lot to do in life, they have a greater need to meditate. When you live in the middle of this hustle-bustle [referring to New York], and you have a lot of responsibilities and demands on you, you naturally have a greater longing for it.”
I Meditate NY has partnered with the BMW Guggenheim Lab to offer a free Urban Meditation Series on Saturday mornings at 10:30am through October 13, 2011. The first meditation was held on Saturday, August 6, 2011 and drew 70 participants on the first Saturday of the BMW Guggenheim Lab, located in the East Village at Houston Street at 2nd Avenue.
Launched less than six months ago, I Meditate NY’s goal is to increase awareness of the powerful benefits of meditation among New Yorkers as a practical way to recharge and rejuvenate every day. Powered by The Art of Living Foundation, the movement has been characterized by a bold, unconventional and hi-tech style that uses modern technology to increase awareness of the ancient practice of meditation. This approach has captured the imagination of New Yorkers. 2,700 participants attended the launch event, held at Lincoln Center on April 10, 2011 – one of the largest meditation gatherings in the history of New York City. The event was supported by Mayor Bloomberg’s office and has been featured in the New York Times, The Huffington Post and other popular news sites.
Since the March launch, I Meditate NY has won a following of more than 4,400 friends on Facebook and an active Twitter following. The movement also has a popular meetup group that offers two free meditation classes every week that share practical tips on how to meditate. Most recently, they introduced a Shout Out widget on their website that encourages urbanites to shout out to the meditation community via hashtags #IMNY and #BGLab on Twitter. What makes the success of I Meditate NY truly inspirational is that it is run by a group of volunteers, every day New Yorkers with demanding corporate day jobs who are dedicated to helping fellow New Yorkers recharge through meditation.
The BMW Guggenheim Lab is part urban think tank, part community center and public gathering space, designed with the goal of exploration of new ideas, experimentation, and ultimately the creation of forward-thinking solutions for urban life. I Meditate NY’s Urban Meditation Series at the Lab introduces discourse-based meditation that will challenge comfort zones and provide a tool to create sustainable comfort: comfort that comes from within and goes with you. This fits in well with the Lab’s theme of Confronting Comfort —exploring notions of individual and collective comfort and the urgent need for environmental and social responsibility. As Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar - Founder of The Art of Living Foundation, says in a New York Times article “People who have a lot to do in life, they have a greater need to meditate. When you live in the middle of this hustle-bustle [referring to New York], and you have a lot of responsibilities and demands on you, you naturally have a greater longing for it.” For more information on I Meditate NY and the BMW Guggenheim Lab Urban Meditation Series, visit http://www.imeditateny.org.
About The Art of Living Foundation
Founded in 1981, the Art of Living Foundation is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) educational and humanitarian organization working in consultative status with the United Nations’ Economic and Social Council on initiatives related to health, meditation, education, sustainable development, conflict resolution and disaster relief. For more information on the Foundation’s NY chapter, visit https://www.artofliving.org/nyc.
About The BMW Guggenheim Lab
The BMW Guggenheim Lab is a mobile laboratory that will travel to nine major cities worldwide over six years. It is a part urban think tank, part community center and public gathering space, to address issues of contemporary urban life through programs and public discourse. Its goal is the exploration of new ideas, experimentation, and ultimately the creation of forward-thinking solutions for urban life. The theme of the Lab’s first two-year cycle is Confronting Comfort—exploring notions of individual and collective comfort and the urgent need for environmental and social responsibility. For more information, visit http://www.bmwguggenheimlab.org.
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Poonam Agarwal
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Director, Marketing & Communications
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