Today October 24 sixteen years ago, the Concorde flew its last passenger flight, British Airways Flight 002, from New York's JFK airport to London's Heathrow (earlier, BA 001 had taken off on its last flight from London to NY). It marked the end of a special era of aviation, the end of passenger service of the most remarkable aircraft ever made.
The Concorde was the fastest, most special of magnificent flying machines in the quick and safe service of aviation in the history of transport. Without civil aviation, life would have been very different - with months of voyaging to travel across continents.
Every section and every human endeavor benefited much from civil aviation, including the sharing of Vipassana. Vipassana meditators, Dhamma workers and teachers fly from city to city, country to country, fly across continents to practice, teach and share Vipassana worldwide much faster than would have been possible 100 years ago.
In the old days of steam ships, the Principal teacher of Vipassana Sayagyi U Goenka would have taken a minimum of 70 days to travel from Bombay to Paris to conduct the first 10-day Vipassana course in France in July 1979.
The Concorde (courtesy, Wikimedia Commons)
The Concorde was the fastest, most special of magnificent flying machines in the quick and safe service of aviation in the history of transport. Without civil aviation, life would have been very different - with months of voyaging to travel across continents.
Every section and every human endeavor benefited much from civil aviation, including the sharing of Vipassana. Vipassana meditators, Dhamma workers and teachers fly from city to city, country to country, fly across continents to practice, teach and share Vipassana worldwide much faster than would have been possible 100 years ago.
In the old days of steam ships, the Principal teacher of Vipassana Sayagyi U Goenka would have taken a minimum of 70 days to travel from Bombay to Paris to conduct the first 10-day Vipassana course in France in July 1979.
Thousands of Vipassana courses have since been conducted worldwide thanks to civil aviation, a remembrance of gratitude to everyone involved in passenger air transport, in the past, present and future.
Pioneers of flying, the two brothers Wilbur Wright and Oliver Wright during their first flight in 1903 at Kitty Hawk. Orville's brother Wilbur piloted the record flight lasting 59 seconds over a distance of 852 feet. One hundred years later in 2003, the supersonic Concorde flew at over twice the speed of sound, at 2,469 kms per hr – faster than Earth’s rotation, so fast it was actually time-travel: depart 6 pm in London and arrive in New York at 4.30 pm the same day.
How much time of life has civil aviation saved. Concorde - meaning 'agreement', 'harmony' - saved time like no other passenger aircraft in history. Time that passenger planes saved - the time that allowed many hundreds of thousands of people across the world to benefit from Vipassana, within this time of 50 years after the "time-clock of Vipassana striking".
The Concorde first flew in 1969, the same historic year of Vipassana returning to India from Burma (Myanmar) where it was preserved in purity for millennia.
The Concorde was a story of epic struggle, of discord and disharmony before two long-term rivals, Britain and France, worked together in 'concorde' to produce this masterpiece of invention and innovation unsurpassed in aviation history:
" The Concorde brought cities together, brought people closer, and reminded us all that we can do extraordinary things."
One world. One family. One path to freedom, to fly free from all suffering.
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