I won this Library commission through an invitational International Competition sponsored by the Omega Institute of Holistic Studies in 2002. The 3,500 S.F. Ram Dass Library serves five hundred summer guests in a wooded spiritual retreat Center in Rhinebeck, NY. Designed to highlight the world’s great spiritual literary traditions and conversations with Omega’s most respected teachers. Cozy carrels with books and state of-the-art audiovisual and Internet access invite lounging on window seats and floor pillows. This library was conceived as a hybrid of the more familiar Branch library, New Age bookstore, and Community Meeting Room, a place where one can truly find serenity and conversations with authors in the pursuit of illumination.

In keeping with the Omega Institute’s wishes to create a library that expresses the commitment and dedication of Ram Dass to Omega, the Library design reflects the following sacred expressions and symbols: Om meaning Unmanifest, Mani meaning Jewel or Crystal; Padme meaning Lotus and Hum meaning Heart.” From the heart of the Lotus like a pure jewel manifests Light, Knowledge, and Consciousness.” The Lotus blossom is a principle archetypal symbol in Sacred Vedic Architecture and illustrates the unfolding energy of divine essence, an apt symbol for this building expression of spiritual inquiry.

Through form, symbol, and sacred geometry, washed with day lighting, the floor plan is a Mandala creating a power field or circuitry in which the powers of the sacred are invoked, symbolizing the building’s harmony with spirit and nature, and crystallizing the rhythm of creation. Composed of elementary shapes of the triangle, the circle, and the square, the mandala is the fundamental form of sacred architecture in ancient India.

The specific mandala invoked in the Ram Dass Library is that of the Astakana (an eight-sided figure) resulting from the superimposition of square on square and associated with the eight directions and signifying the eight great world religions and wisdom traditions, as expressed in each of the eight petals of the lotus blossom. The focus of the library is an atrium second floor space with a domed bell tower and spire – a vertical energy axis which grounds and connects the earth’s energies and connects it with the higher heavenly vibrations.