A Tale of Grace

posted by Kamala on Jun 27

Dearest Friends and Family,

Amma has counseled us to raise our voices wherever see see adharma or unrighteousness.  I greatly appreciate the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, article 19: that we have the right to voice our opinions and communicate them through whatever media we choose.

In recent years, there is increasing criticism by western countries of the outfits that Moslem women wear. Increasing denunciation of anybody wearing ‘religious jewelry’ or symbols. There seems to be a great fear of people thinking on their own. This type of intolerance is now spreading to India, in certain pockets, as She seeks to emulate the  repressive western political fads.

I recently saw an article by an Australian woman who is Muslim, and trying to spread awareness in that country in reaction to recent governmental barking about Moslem dress on women there.   I wrote this comment, which I wanted to share with all of you.  I like to be frank about things, and `agree to disagree’, if need be. It reflects an evolution in my thinking, which I think is due to living here in India.

This is in response to an article called: Banning the Niqab by Zara Syed on Countercurrents.org on June 24, 2010. The url to the article is: countercurrents.org/syed240610.htm

A mafta is the head scarf worn by Muslim women, that covers their ears, neck and hair, but leaves their faces visible. A Niqab is a facial covering as well.  My comment:

I am not a Muslim woman, but in talking with many of my women friends over the years, we have all agreed that the Muslim style of dress for women is not necessarily prohibitive at all, but, one that allows women to be taken more seriously, as the author notes:

“Everything about me BESIDES my beauty should be important to society” .

At this time, when human society is hurling itself towards ribald, gross and unbridled expressions of its primitive instincts of brutality, greed, and lust rather than our ethical and humane instincts, the dress of Moslem women is an eloquent reminder to all people who see it, that there is another way of thinking about being a human being in today’s world, about being a woman.

All voices and views need to be honoured if we are to have a creative and humane society in which to live. Our children’s minds are improved by teaching them to respect different outlooks upon life.

The Moslem way of dressing is not offensive, crude, violent or hurtful to others.

However, I do feel offended as a woman, when I see my sisters deliberately showing their breasts and bottoms to men, when all women know that many men, strangers unknown to them even, will look at a woman’s body, and desire it, particularly if she accentuates it. Its offensive because it limits the dynamic role that women have in society. When one woman agrees to be a play thing, to an extent, it hurts the chances of other women to be taken seriously.

What young wife would be completely and totally comfortable with her beautiful female friends coming over infront of her husband with their breasts pushed up with push-up bras, their shirts revealing their mammary glands almost down to their nipples?  Or their bottoms tightly outlined?  There is a basic code of human decency which we expect each other to be aware of and observe.  Denying it in the name of ‘objective’ individual self-expression doesn’t make it go away, nor invalidate it.

Perhaps it is because women have been diminished and demoralized into sexual playthings that human brutality towards other humans, other mother’s sons, to Nature, has increased to the destructive level that it has.

If the women who wear it feel the Moslem style of dress is oppressive to them, if they feel they are being conditioned to believe that they are to blame for the lustfulness of men, rather than men having and exercising responsibility to educate and restrain themselves, then, they should feel free to do away with it. But this is their choice, and not something that can be imposed upon them from somewhere else.

However, the author repeatedly uses the word “Protection.” This shows that women do not feel safe from the eyes and intentions of men.

Why is this and who is to blame for this?

Its time that we, women and men together, work towards a society where the relations between women and men are founded upon an ethical footing, first and foremost. Then, perhaps in a more ethically inclined atmosphere, Moslem women will not feel it is necessary to protect themselves through their clothing.

Perhaps opponents should view this insistence on clothing as a sociological symptom – a reaction to an imbalanced human society that does not protect and honour some essential quotients of being a woman? Like Motherhood, maternal feelings, like Love Power, like prizing the creation and children?  All Life is One.  We are one human family, no matter what religion we call ourselves.

It is hoped that Muslim women, recognizing they feel a need of protection will strive even harder to inculcate ethical ideals into their sons that will enable all women to feel safe around them, as should all of us mothers.  We must be vigilant in the character development of our children and each others children, so we have sons and daughters that won’t wage war or hurt others, for anyone.  We the women have this power.  Lets use it.   A son who is violent or who rapes women, has not been given or allowed to have the education he was meant to get from Nature, through his Mother.  If Mothers get distracted from their primal duty to Life itself, who is to blame?

Even if the distraction has been generations, we all have that power, ever present inside us.  Lets use it.

We are human beings, with the capacity to behave with consideration and courtesy towards one another. Tolerance is part of this. I feel that anyone who wants to be reminded of their religion or noble inspirations by wearing a cross or a skull cap, or a pendant of some sort, bracelet or hat,  should not be denied that opportunity. That is self expression also. Its at a higher level than just the physical, its at the level of the mind and aspiration. As a globalized human society, we should encourage any and all ideals which will motivate us towards becoming kinder, saner, more loving and respectful, humane human beings.

I know most of you probably agree, but wanted to put this out there.

Loving you,

Aunty Kamala

posted by Kamala on Jun 22

Dearest Friends and Family,

Yesterday was Anni’s Release Day in 2007.

The day before, we were talking with the children’s Uncle Sudheer.

When we first came to the ashram, Amma’s baby brother,  Sudheer and his beautiful wife Maneesha were god-sends to us.  There was no school for the children to attend at their grade level, and their Aunty Maneesha began teaching them the NCERT ‘portions’ which are deemed “relevant education”.  She had just had their first child, a baby boy, Amritanand, as well.  They also arranged  violin music lessons for the kids and Mohini Natyam (ancient Kerala style classical sacred dance) lessons for Anni.  Their home has always been open to us, we could trust deeply in their love for Amma, so there was sureness and understanding between us.  They became, really, our blood family.  Around them we have always felt very safe and loved.

Of course, it was all great fun for us, we got a peak into Kerala homes and kitchens, saw infant care, and learned tons of things that one does through atmospheric, rather than bookish means. We learned that Amma’s family are heart people, they live in their hearts.  We got to see the vows of non-possession, detachment in action, as their furnishings, food, supplies of all sorts, as well as time,  rooms, facilities, even laundry facilities, were continually being used or taken out the door for this event or that event at all sorts of odd hours through numerous different angles by the Ashram.  We learned a lot about Amma from their legacies of life with Her.

In those last days in the ashram before we went to the US, after the ‘terminal’ diagnosis, almost all, if not all, of the ashramites came to our room to see Anni.

I remember how after one long stream of visitors, when I had closed the door, Anni said to me, “I feel happy.”  She loved all the loving and genuine meeting with community members that was taking place.

People who were dropping their masks, to show their hearts.  It was all wonderfully healing.  Its strange that love requires bravery, but it does.  You can’t love if you are a coward, only if you are brave.  Real bravery is to keep loving truthfully, not just a show of compassion and empathy.  Amma and Anni are the bravest people I have ever met.

Two days ago,  Uncle Sudheer told us that when he took Anni’s hand to say goodbye at that time, with the crowds around her, she squeezed his hand really, really, hard and long but said nothing.

She Knew.  My Baby Knew.

Only we couldn’t know.  Even to the last second, we couldn’t know, and then, it was clear as day, that Anni had not died, she had just left that aching body.  How could that be death?  She was released, from the experience of the body, and we were stuck here to learn more before we can be released.  As Gandhi noted, ‘Birth and Death are not two different states, but rather two aspects of the same state.”

When we stayed at Mahima’s in Dubai, on the way to the US, when Anni was alone with Mahima, she told her she would not be coming back from the US.

She Knew.

Sometimes I wonder if people will ever recognize who Anni is, what she is.  This is a world of shadows, wherein we eat and breathe, and never give thought to the great essential of our existence.  Her leaving forced Link and I into the direction of certitude, for she can never die. Its a good direction, and actually, the only real direction. And she is with us, in following the trail she blazed for us.

On June 6th, a just two weeks ago,  our Mama Janice also passed on. She is in the photo album with her daughter Suzanne. Her last words to her daughter were, “I can never die!  I’ll never die!” Such is the war-cry of a spiritual lion, a Queen!  Mama Janice also lived a life of great Awareness and utter certitude.  She brought and brings great solace and inspiration to our lives.  These are the only real things.

I found this quote from Amma:

“The wise ones are aware of the inevitability of death and try to transcend it. While living `in life’ a wise person acquires the mental and spiritual strength to live also ‘in death’ or to live in eternity, beyond death. He dies to his ego. Once one dies to the ego, there is no person, and thus there is no one to die. Such people are so full with life that they do not know death.” - Holy Mother Amma in AC 4:270-271

In our room interview this year, Holy Mother Amma said that in the future, Anni’s life will be known as a Life of Light.  Let it be so, from Now.

We were so privileged to live with her, to experience her Love, to be her own.  Looking around us, we still see no one with that degree of purity, kindness, gentleness, bravery, strength of will to be brave in  the face of denial of Love and Truth….to be true to conscience no matter what…she wasn’t dumb about anything, her qualities came from brilliance, not ineptitude, which kindness and goodness is often categorized in…and the miles of maturity.  She had control over her speech.  She never chatted aimlessly.  We always felt she was older than us.

Her leaving made it very clear to Link and I, that we were left here, because we had more to learn.  She had finished with the school.  And this learning, is nothing about what all people seem to think is important – degrees, social positions, accolades of some sort or another.  None of that is at all relevant.  Our learning lies in un-learning all of that, and concentrating on all the virtues that help us to listen and support the voice of the heart within us and all that helps us to be true to it.  Thats all, for that is the Abiding One, within us.  Anni’s message to us was so simple.  In that simplicity is all the Truth, Love, and freedom, contentment, as well as power that anyone could want.

I passed a friend this morning, I hadn’t seen in some days in the lift, and asked, where is your daughter?

“She is studying in L____”

“What is she studying?”

“Ph.D.”

“That’s nice, but what is she studying?”

“Ph.D! Ph.D!”

“Great!  Wonderful!  But what subject?”

“Vedantic Philosophy.”

So many ways this world of shadows dances before our eyes, both entrancing and scaring us.  We have to do something, while we try to learn our lessons, which can’t come from anything outside.  We have to find someway to give our Life the  Space inside us, to unfold….so we do all kinds of things, and keep ourselves ever so busy, until we finally decide to start to listen to the Ever Abiding One.  Then, the busy-ness takes on a different feel – its no longer ‘busy out there’ but becomes ‘busy in here’ with the Abiding One.  Thou the Sufficing, Thou the healing, Thou the Abiding, O Thou, Abiding One!  ( thats from the long healing prayer in the Bahai Prayer book.)  It becomes a sort of experiencing-busy.

At least, this is the understanding we have gained from our Anni and Amma…from the experience….
and all this helps in the certitude…in the certainty.
The certainty, is, I think, everything that is Real and meaningful.

Yesterday, I was debating, ’should I keep silence, seclusion for the day, withdraw and release the pain a little’ -  sort of musing to myself about it.  Then, in the morning itself, in our usual way of working together on music, Anni helped us figure out a song.  Even the tune is there.  We had started it before, but it never came fully.  Here it is.  The first phrase is from a sentence by Malalai Joya, a fearless woman in Afghanistan, who lives in utter certainty.

You can cut the flower, but you cannot stop the spring

There’s a fearless tide, that starting to rise,

inside us all

We will wash the Earth, of selfishness and greed

And sing our song, Yeah, we’ll sing our song, Again

We won’t bash the Earth,by cre-ating Trash

And we won’t have war, we won’t allow war anymore

No more war, we said, NO MORE WAR

You hear? We said, No More War, anymore

The springtime of Her love, is covering this Earth

thawing our frozen hearts

And we’ll sing our Song, That we are One! In Her Love

And we’ll sing our Song

That we are One, in Her Love!

In Her Love! In Her Love! In Her Love!  In Her Love!

Yeah, We’ll sing our Song, that we are One, again.

Loving you,

Aunty Kamala, Anni and Link

posted by Kamala on Jun 6

Dearest Friends and Family, this is our most recent article, wanted you to see the trend my thoughts are going in.  It ended up becoming somewhat autobiographical.  Loving you,   Aunty Kamala

Gandhi and John Lennon: A Call to Quit School

P.K. Willey, Ph.D. Amritapuri, 2010

Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism.

The question is not whether we will be extremist, but what kind of extremist will we be.

Dr. M. L. King, Jr.

The Hippies

Let’s face it. The `development’ model has failed the planet miserably, and it’s now failing the chances of human civilization even existing. I’m a 60’s baby. I grew up in the USA when people from every age and walk of life in the US and Europe were making a last ditch effort against the tom-toms of industrialized war crushing the poor on Earth, against a system of economic governance that raped the Earth, and made trash with it. My millions of bigger brothers and sisters were fighting with the swords of ideals. What I saw as a child made me proud, made me feel free. Peace. Love. Truth. Co-operative living, even communal living.

My exemplary teachers didn’t heed ridiculous ideas about private property, gates and manicured lawns. They shared. A car wasn’t to exalt themselves, it was to get as many of their friends where they needed to go. A nice house was one where everyone could be together, growing flowers and vegetables, cooking, eating, being friends and working. Where you could count on a welcome, a place to sleep if you needed it, and even a plate of food. They could smile and give a helping hand to anyone. They could share their things, and didn’t get worked up or worried about them. They weren’t tensed, they were relaxed. They accepted each other, where a person was `at’. When they greeted each other, their raised their hands in a mudra (a fixed gesture) of Peace. Some people called them `hippies.’ If trying to live out one’s ideals of Love, Truth and Peace, meant being a hippy, then, they were admirable to me.

In childhood days in rural Connecticut, USA, children got off the bus, and we played outside until it was too dark to see - and then some. Outside where Nature could help us heal and recover from a day of being stuck inside, in a classroom with strange adult minds and their stranger goals for us. Fifteen years later, one never saw children outside their houses, playing. Everyone had moved indoors, into their own rooms. Houses became enormously big, and the grounds around them, stylized, untouched…unrelated to the hearts inside the house. Nature became entertainment, a recreational vehicle, as did our own bodies. We became dead to the knowledge of making ourselves sensitive instruments to know Truth, how to be harmonious, to express inner beauty.

One summer, my true-blue friend and I hitched rides up the California coast to Oregon. Several nights, after our last ride for the day, we would camp in the lovely landscaped back yard of a beautiful house. Fish ponds, flower gardens, arbors, perfect benches and table nooks, placed just so, right out of Better Homes and Gardens but no one to enjoy them, everyone was inside, absorbed with the box that gave off a blue-glow.

My bigger peer teachers took ideals, like: Thou Shalt not Kill, to heart: many became vegetarian, none thought war and hitting back were solutions to anything. They were wiser than our leaders. They weren’t afraid to say “NO.” There knew there were no enemies anywhere to be hunted and killed, only brothers and sisters, who may have forgotten the relation. They had faith in the power of Love to heal, to overcome. Those that became Mothers taught their children to walk a path of peace, and their kids were called, “flower children”. Their songs, coming from the depths of their hearts became my bhajans, or sacred hymns, and teachings, touching chords that made me weep with the affirming knowledge that our Oneness was Truth. They sang great songs – We Shall Over Come, Peace Train, Blowing in the wind, Little Boxes, Mercedes Benz, Through the Eyes of a Child, Let it Be, Sounds of Silence, Here Comes the Sun, My Sweet Lord, O Beautiful for Spacious Skies, Heart of Gold, tons and tons of beautiful songs, filled with beautiful ideals, that my heart absorbed like water in a desert. And many looked to India, for the light that guided them.

India turns to Kindergarten

Ironically, I first heard popular American music in India, in high school there in the early 70’s. And India then was clearly in love with America. I didn’t understand why. They were only in love with a dream of things, a dream of a life with things, and an empty freedom. Indian life showed me, that no one really needs those things. India had more meaningful things – India acknowledged our interdependence with reverence and Love. India was deep fun, in a totally real way, that had nothing to do with entertainments, but everything to do with the joy of dutiful and ethical inter-relationships.

I remember as a sophomore in high school, going home to the USA for `vacation’, the chill I felt in my heart when the KLM stewardess came down the airplane aisle, pushing a drink cart, her face covered in make-up, and a completely insincere smile on her mouth – that came from her head and her training, and not her heart. I sat frozen in my seat, and wondered wildly – “O God! Where are you taking me?”

As the plane circled JFK in industrialized, smog filled, grey New York, where people walk with their faces within 12 inches of each other with no acknowledgment, I wondered, “To where have I come?” I was desperate to get back to India, where people were more natural, where Mothers could be proud of their stretch marks, and few people put a make-up mask on – where one could still feel the heart everywhere, still touch that interconnectedness of human love that ran underneath everything. My daughter Anni was to spend half her life in India in Holy Mother Amma’s ashram. As a lovely, poised young teen, she once told me, “Mom, its just so nice to have hair just be hair, not a statement about yourself.” Anni was the quintessence of ideals for Indian maidenhood – chaste, honest, brave, brilliant, stunningly beautiful with no awareness of it, with perfect control over her speech, and a forgiving, compassionate heart. As a mother, I was intensely grateful to the atmosphere in the ashram and India, which assisted her in intuitively guiding herself towards her own ethical instincts.

Traveling back and forth between the US and India in high school, and later for a year in college brought an awareness of what India was turning away from in herself, and what she was turning towards. But India was big and slow, too slow I thought, to leave her deep moorings of a spiritually and socially sanctioned way of life, of being, based upon communities, committed to peace, harmony and acknowledgment of the right of all life, to live. The government handled the television, and there were censors on the movies. Modern life was free of heavy media pressure to become fad consumers. India was clearly a world teacher, of human wisdom, ethics, tolerance, spiritual Love, art, community life, how to live responsibly together, how to honor all the gifts of Nature well, how to accept one’s purpose and role in the vast scheme of Life, so many things.

Living in India now since 1999, at the ashram of Holy Mother Amma, Mata Amritanandamayi, the change in more than 30 years has been massive and dramatic. I have to say now, exponentially noticeable every 6 months. There is hardly a hut one passes in the local village without the blue-glow of colour satellite TV at night. Completely uncensored television media. India is now in free-fall towards the West. Its alarming and disturbing. It seems like the Teacher forgot she was the teacher, and decided to join kindergarten.

The Pain of taking care of \#1

My studies on Gandhi and life experience in India revealed to me what was going wrong in American society. Education that cut us off from Nature, that could not serve our families or communities, that felt meaningless. It had less and less ethical values, more and more emphasis on transitory ideals – presentation and competitiveness. Along with this was centralization, outsourcing and importing of everything, instead of localization. Privatization instead of community, to the point we no longer knew or even cared deeply about our neighbors.  And with privatization came alienation, and human mistrust, and a lack of responsibility taking for one another, a myopic cancer, that in the US, has eaten into the very vitals of family life, as the fading flowers of humanity stuck in old age homes attest.

Books came out, espousing the new social philosophy, like Taking care of #1. Selfishness was made into a virtue. Capitalism was the root of all this private-ness, and led to the socially and legally sanctioned licensing of greed, and all the other problems of a system we have been forced to live in, that I have come to view as an economic gridlock. It has become a globalized consumer culture, a monoculture…it has many names. I like Dorothy Day’s – “a filthy, dirty, rotten system.” Dorothy founded the Catholic Worker Movement, and knew for certain, that we are all One human family. She lived, worked, spoke and moved in light of that knowledge.

By the time I arrived on the planet, the military-industrial complex, the big guns of business were in full swing. The medical-industrial complex was gaining steam. Advertisements incessantly drilled new values into us, from all sides, even without watching TV, their jingles were in the air, the effects of their images in people’s minds, which children acted out with one another. They tried to tie our finer subtle feelings that lead to our ideals to material products, entertainments and short-lived enjoyments. Freedom was tied coke-cola, cars and throw-away items. Happy family life – to Disneyland vacations, and fast food restaurants. Beauty and personal success – to sexuality and money. The new values stressed entertaining each other rather than working together. Entertainment of children soon became almost a duty for parents and now it has reached a high note in westernized societies. There were social pressures upon us, put forth by our educations, the media, the goals of big business. We were all affected.

Gandhi noted:

“I have not come across any human being who remains unaffected by his surroundings. I for one think there can be no such person. If there is any such person in a million, he must be a Vatapi, that is, one who lives only on air.”

The 1960’s were a people’s statement, about how we didn’t want these pressures. How we wanted real values that reflected what we all know, that we are One human family, under God, and `God‘ here, means the Truth of that Oneness. We wanted community, to work meaningfully together with the Earth and be able to live with that work, to have education for peace instead of war, a chance to contribute towards a better human culture. And to be responsible and generous on the global level, for all `Americans’ have come from somewhere else. We wanted leadership that was connected, like we were trying to become again, to the Earth, to the interdependence of all life.

Lennon Sings out our Educational Deficiency

The former Beatle, John Lennon, wrote a song “Working Class Hero” which described well the scene for many of us, who dared to keep in touch with another value system found in our hearts, besides rank materialism and capitalism. Who dared to think that actually, Love and Truth are what we really are here for. We disappointed our parents plans for us, in a solid rejection of all that they had worked for as being meaningful and valuable, a comfortable plan of opulent and aspiring middle class life, with all the politically correct clothing, furnishings, and goals. They wanted to see us succeeding in the dream of cars, homes, vacations, financial security and a place of standing in the world until our exit from the glamorous dream.

It was awareness of that exit made us question everything, for senseless war in Vietnam was making so many of our peers exit early, death was on everyone’s doorstep. And many of us got lost. Drugs, sex, bad relationships, which distracted us further and further. Some gave up, and renounced their quests, they didn’t want to think anymore – it had become too painful. They bought into the you’ve got to survive and turned away from the lights of their ideals. They brought a bad name to being a `hippy.’

Lennon’s song spoke to the social conditioning and education that is failing us from “a filthy, dirty, rotten system,” for education is never limited to a curriculum devised at some place, taught in another. Education is always all the stuff, seen and unseen that we absorb and react to, even if almost unconsciously, from our environments and ecological settings.

They Make You Feel Small

As soon as your born, they make you feel small

By giving you no time instead of it all

till the pain is so big, you feel nothing at all

A working class hero is something to be

A working class hero is something to be

When a child is put in a classroom, beside the teachers words, the books and the blackboard, he is in the proximity of the minds and thoughts of his peers. The physical environment of the classroom, and its inclusion or exclusion of the natural world is another powerful factor. Most importantly, the contents of his teacher’s character, his or her honesty, gentleness, kindness, sense of justice or not, are picked up instantly. The characteristics of the teacher have a great deal to do with the ethical orientation of the class. All of us remember those rare and outstanding teachers we had in our lives, and those that weren’t. The teachers that made the class honour fair play, or let it slip into foul.

The value of our education is seen in the ethical standards we hold for ourselves. How can we call an MD educated, when he will perform breast enlargement surgery on an insecure teenager? Or for that matter, on anyone? Into what has he been educated? Where is the ethical board that should strip a medical doctor of his license if he uses his medical training, intelligence and skills just to get a buck? The medical world now is filled with people who made a hypocritic promise to themselves, not the Hippocratic oath. People aren’t fools, we all know the use of education for self- aggrandisement and greed is disgusting and loathsome. Gandhi said:

“It is an abuse of one’s education to use it for earning money. Education proves its worth when used for the service of others.ⁱ

Too Crazy to Follow Their Rules

They hurt you at home and they hit you at school

They hate you if you’re clever and they despise a fool

Till you’re so \#\#\#\# crazy you can’t follow their rules

A working class hero is something to be

A working class hero is something to be

Then there is the education that Life tries to give us through Nature. The Day, the sky and clouds, its moistures, lights, smells, moods, the plants, earth, birds, animals, the Night, the moon and stars…the elements, heat, water, earth, at all times, we are receiving unending and unutterable instruction from every angle, through every pore of our being from Nature. Through our contact with Nature we gain knowledge about ourselves, without even being aware of it, by the ways in which we interact with Her. Nature immediately gives us an honest reflection of our actions and intentions. Animals and plants, all life, can not be deceived. In Nature, we gain learning in the art of abidance in ourselves.

But modern education cut that cord. And we suffered. Lennon’s song spoke to the alienation from real Life, from Nature, that modern education is giving us.

Can’t Function for Fear

When they’ve tortured and scared you for twenty odd years

Then they expect you to pick a career

When you can’t really function you’re so full of fear.

A media, paid for by big business, furthering its goals, and journalism that chose to go along with pressures to conform, sought to condition and educate us all into becoming needy, greedy consumers. Helena Norberg-Hodgeⁱⁱ notes:

“Consumerism plays a central role in this whole process, since emotional insecurity generates hunger for material status symbols. The need for recognition and acceptance fuels the drive to acquire possessions that will presumably make you somebody. Ultimately, this is a far more important motivating force than a fascination for the things themselves.

The cultural centralization that occurs through the media is also contributing both to this passivity and to a growing insecurity.”ⁱⁱⁱ

We’re Still Ignorant

It was this more insidious indoctrination, from the totality of our environments, that grabbed hold of most of us, and rocked (or stoned) us to sleep.

Keep you doped with religion and sex and T.V.

And you think you’re so clever and classless and free

But you’re still \#\#\#\# peasants as far as I can see

A 1979 course with Dr. Jane Goodall, “Monkeys, Apes and Humans,” made me begin reflecting on how close our social behaviors in the west were to our primate instincts. Female primates `present’ their bottoms to males when in estrus. Males have characteristically threatening body languages that they use with one another, aggressive postures in their walking. I ruminated on these and other findings after class, at a cafe that overlooked a busy street. Sequestered in its shadows, I silently observed the movements and actions of human beings around me. It was scary, and depressing. The line between human social behaviors and the primate social behaviors seemed only to be covered by a piece of cloth. Was this what our lives were for? To go through primate roles, human beings dumbed down to primitive instincts, the law of the jungle in some shape or form – ugly, constant competition, aggressiveness in academics, business, marriage, in acquiring property and bank accounts, everywhere and everything? The lowest common denominator dominating our lives?

What college education was preparing me for seemed worse than meaningless – a career as a cog in a corrupted system of false values, where I should push myself forward, for name, status, position, establish myself in some way on some platform, join the system, encourage its perpetuity by the support of my life force, my days on Earth…even the `NGO culture’ was a turn off – the same aggressiveness was there, in a different way, even worse, because the ideal of human service seemed closer. `Spirituality’ in the West became infected with the same energies, and people everywhere seemed to be on a fast track to nowhere.

A Working Class Hero

There’s room at the top they are telling you still

But first you must learn how to smile as you kill

If you want to be like the folks on the hill

If you want to be a hero well just follow me

A working class hero is something to be…

I really didn’t know what my life was for, and how I would ever really be able to give my heart’s love to people in a way that was useful, that would help, that would really matter. The wisdoms of the `successful’ sickened me. No one, it seemed around me, really knew what we were here for. Everyone was pretending that they really believed the false goals that we had been conditioned and indoctrinated into. It was a big lie, everyone was trying to believe.

Truth and Education

The call to know Truth, what was really Truth, rose up in me again, and my quest began in earnest, to be massively sidetracked several more times by the powerful distracting and conditioning influences around me, until I reached the home and arms of the Great Light on Earth called Mata Amritanandamayi Devi, or Holy Mother Amma, Amma, our Universal Mother. And even here, it is a constant battle to keep the inner forces focussed on trying to discern the Real from the unreal, to move into `experiencing’ rather than `anticipating’. The powerful energies of India’s ancient ideals infuse the atmosphere of Her ashram.

In Gandhi’s time, he saw the deadening effects of `modern education’ in India, which was done on the British model. Of his own experience of the self-alienating ways of this model he said:

“From my sixth or seventh year up to my sixteenth, I was at school, being taught all sorts of things except religion. I may say that I failed to get from the teachers what they could have given me without any effort on their part. And yet, I kept on picking up things here and there from my surroundings. The term ‘religion’ I am using in its broadest sense, meaning thereby self-realization or knowledge of self.”^iv

It was `upper class’ education that Gandhi received, to create people who would be of service to the exploitive goals of the planet’s first mega-multinational company. He was initially a pawn of its goals, traveling to England to become a lawyer, in the service to Laws that supported British rule. As he developed philosophically, Gandhi saw the industrial age coming, and its dangerous and dehumanizing effects for human society. We live with it now, women no longer allowed to be honored as Mothers, forced into innumerable insecurities, young girls taught that their `sexual power’ is a valuable strength. It continues en masse today, called `modern education’ and the planet is filled with millions of people whose education is designed to enable them to fit into the goals of big business, and worse, to want those goals, turning their hearts and minds away from all that the infinitude of Life offers us.

Paramahansa Yogananda, who saw the trends in the 1930’s-50’s in the US said:

Advancement in science and technology is to be applauded when used for the betterment of the human race, but in practical application, nations of the Earth could enhance the happiness of their citizens if they advocated a consciousness of plain living and high thinking – concentrating their minds more on spiritual development, inspirational literature, philosophy, knowledge of the wonders and working of Creation, and less on frenetic technologies that encourage money-madness. ^v

Gandhi and Real Education

Gandhi saw that `modern education’ created appetites for material acquisitions, it didn’t develop mindsets that thirsted for justice and service. He saw that environment was a crucial factor in the formation of a child’s mind and education and stated:

“We hold that real education does not consist merely in acquainting oneself with ancient or modern books. It consists in the habits which one knowingly or unknowingly imbibes from the atmosphere, one’s surroundings and the company one keeps and above all in work…the primary function of a teacher, is, therefore, not to teach the alphabet, but to inculcate humanity.^vi

He began something called `basic education’ which stressed hand/heart/mind as a way of educating oneself. With `the wolf at the door’ he advocated learning hand craft skills as early as possible that would enable one to keep body and soul together. Many have misunderstood Gandhi’s educational ideals, feeling they advocated rustication, and would keep people out of the `modern world.’ But Gandhi saw that through basic education, human beings would come into contact with dimensions within themselves that current forms of education entirely ignore, while enjoying a semblance of modernity. Discussing the ethical benefits gained from the practice and art of spinning at young ages, Gandhi said:

“It develops in the spinner patience, persistence, concentration, self-control, calmness, realization of importance and value of detail, ability to do more than one thing at a time, making each one of them so habitual that its control and operation are almost unconscious, sensitiveness, sureness and delicacy of touch and of muscular control and coordination…a realization of the value of co-operative work, self-respect and self-reliance arising from recognition of one’s ability to create something of economic value useful to oneself, one’s family, to the school and to the village, province or nation…”^vii

Do our children gain any qualities like this from the endless and meaningless paper art activities given to them in modern education? And much of the ‘busy time’ activities they are required to do, not to speak of the curriculum? Do they gain qualities that can help them cope with Life? When children are not allowed to do genuinely meaningful works that can positively impact their environment, that make them feel a part of a large community, they respond with a lack of motivation. Its the passive silent non-cooperation of youth, to demands that they comply with meaningless activities. `Lack of interest’ is a screaming response, a dire warning to teachers, if only they could hear it. It’s all our youth can do when faced with powerful adult minds and rules that have the power and authority to keep them locked up in a school, all day.

Gandhi urges Everyone to Quit School

Gandhi saw that people’s fascination with the self-serving ideals held out to them by the British Raj, had to be broken. Beginning in the early 1920’s he began a Quit School movement. People had to awake from the dream of becoming happy British Indians, they had to see the actual situation they were in, what the duty that life itself was calling them to. In his day, the Press was not suppressed as it is now. Gandhi was good copy. Furthermore, he started his own Press, to get his ideas out into the public mind. The stupor of 300 years of British domination was strong. He fought the colonialization of their psyche with questions:

“How do children fare in a besieged place? Do they not according to their capacity take part in repelling the attack of the besiegers and suit themselves to the changing circumstances?…True education must correspond to the surrounding circumstances or it is not a healthy growth.”^viii

What is the reality of our planetary circumstances now? Does modern education equip our children to face the challenges that life will present them thanks to the last 100 years of unbridled greed?

Gandhi saw that:

“The greatest obstacle in the way of students is fear of consequences mostly imaginary. The first lesson therefore that students have to learn is to shed fear. Freedom can never be won by those who are afraid of rustication, poverty and even death.”^ix

He had the faith that youth were not as badly blinded and conditioned as their elders by the goals of education under the British:

“From the students, however, I expect more. When they come out of the present schools and colleges, their teachers and professors are likely to follow them on their own. For them, the immediate problem is one of livelihood; for the students, it is a question merely of getting rid of a fascination.”^x

Along with questions, he taunted parents and teachers, challenging them to awaken to the reality of their situation:

“Shall we not free them from the curse of slavery which has made us crawl on our bellies?”^xi

“…if primary school teachers have [any] national consciousness and moral strength…they should leave these schools in which the pupils are educated for slavery and should work to educate the people even begging for their maintenance, as teachers used to do in ancient times. I am certain…the public will not fail to provide for them.”^xii

What are our children being `educated’ for now? It doesn’t jive with the reality of the planetary situation. Its been over 10 generations of continuous ravage and rape of Nature. We have massively polluted the natural Creation. What and where are the remaining resources that are left for the present and future billions of people to come with empty, open hands to receive their inheritance from us? Will they even have clean water, clean rain?

Gandhi followed all his efforts up with a demand that we connect with our conscience and turn to our ethical instincts:

“Freedom merely means that, unafraid of anyone, we should be able to speak and act as we feel…the first lesson therefore, which you should learn is to be able to say `NO!‘”^xiii

Choke Tied by ‘Modern Ed’

At present, in militarized western societies, the legal, medical and educational systems have forged interdependent and punishing links for those who do not comply with the systems that have been set up to assure business and profits. We live in a state of fear regarding our future, our present, tonight and tomorrow. Throughout the planet, education only fits us out to be cogs in the corporate madness that has overtaken people’s minds and human society. Helena Norberg-Hodge points out:

“…what we call “education” is part of an infrastructure which has been introduced everywhere, whether through the communist or capitalist mode, as one of the cornerstones of development. The process of development is precisely that of exploiting more resources and extending those exploitations around the globe. ”

“Furthermore, the education that we’re talking about is Western-style education – which is everywhere now. It teaches people little or nothing about the land they actually live on, how to manage limited local resources, how to relate to each other and be in community. Instead, it trains people for an urban, industrial lifestyle. That lifestyle is extremely resource- and energy-intensive and quite unsustainable.”^xiv

Helena Norberg Hodge, looked at the impact of modern education upon Ladhak, which had been virtually untouched by the economic gridlock until 1975:

“The practical result is that the educated children cannot survive in the village. The only place they can live is in the city, as an urbanised consumer. If they have more education they have to go to Delhi, get more, and then they only survive in America or England. Yet in Western terms, all this change is \emph{Progress}. All this economic activity increases the GNP, which in the traditional economy was virtually zero. The Western system is simply incapable of classifying traditional subsistence economies, and accounts them as worthless.”^xv

So, we are in a situation, where our `education’ so called, is not serving us very well at all. It doesn’t help us to maximize our human potential, which is our ethical potential. The greatest human beings are those who have chosen to maximize their ethical potentials, to become the most humane. The planet is in sad shape, thanks to industrialization, and our educations do not prepare us to deal with it head-on, as we must. The masses of us are not interested in becoming rocket scientists, who sit around and devise ways to spend tax-payer monies and Earth’s resources to bomb the moon, as was done October 9, 2009.

We want peace, social security, that is, to be able to live in a society where we can trust our neighbors to be humane people towards us, our environment, our children. Where the food we eat is safe, without side effects. Where the loved Earth is clean, giving and joyous for our presence upon Her. We want to be able to laugh, cry, share each other’s burdens, and have a wide range of loving associates, not only human. We want to use our intellects to really help one another, to aspire to know Truth, to touch the Real, through music, literature, arts, and genuinely useful inventions. We want an education that teaches us how to maximize our human potentials of kindness, caring and fearless justice-seeking. That teaches us how to honour the subtle nuances of Love, that teaches us how to live on and care for all that is here with us in our now severely damaged planet.

We are weary of all of what `education’ so called has brought us to.

What can we do?

It’s time to Quit School

Its time we started a new Quit School movement. Gandhi did it, it can be done. He never agreed to the title of Mahatma and said:

“I have often said that I do not claim to be an extraordinary man unless one who is mad after the search for Truth be called extraordinary. I am certainly mad in the sense that every honest man should be. I have disclaimed the title of a saint for I am fully conscious of my limitations and imperfections. I claim to be a servant of India and therethrough of humanity.”^xvi

World wide, we can unplug our children from the meaningless lock-up time in school. We can collectively turn off the innundation and sexualization of their minds from the media, starting with the box with the blue-glow. We can get together and give our children numeracy and literacy, and the highest ethical standards: fair play, fearless honesty, reliability, courtesy and self-less consideration for all, kindness and truthfulness in thought, word, and deed. We can teach them to honour and guard the purity of their bodies, minds and hearts. We can teach our children to aspire for genuine nobility of character, that bravely carries out duty as a joy, and accepts responsibility for others as well as themselves with ease. We can create children who have inner poise, and self-abidance, and tremendous self-confidence. We don’t need to worry if our children can or cannot cope with the frenetic technologies of the day. We don’t need to make them insecure by trying to keep step with their peers. We can teach them to stand and walk, alone. Once positive character traits are instilled, their ethical instincts awoken, we can rest assured that they will choose what they need, and use it correctly and well, for the benefit of all.

In offering our children this hope for a genuinely beautiful life, we will heal ourselves of the great travesty that our own educations have conditioned us into, by virtue of living in a society governed by the economic gridlock. We will free our minds and hearts from the disease of consumer-itis. We will find our way back into harmony with the Reality of Life.

OM. OM. OM.

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