We are the Revolution

Just a few more thoughts on Solstice as it winds down. Not everybody of coarse practices with the amount of vigor that I do. The teens are there having fun, and it is hard not to get caught up in the laughter during the ‘serious’ event. As I look around me there are some really old people doing this. Some are setting in chairs, some have to put their arms down now and then, as do we all as there is always that one kriya that no matter how hard you try to maintain… anyway the revolution:

Just to begin because I think he is a forward looking person, Yogi Bhagan said before he passed, that the time of a spiritual leader has passed and no one shall follow him. What he meant by that is that there would no longer be a central figure as in the past. And since his passing what remains is a board to take over all the functions that he once served. As we move into the Aquarian age from the old age, the Piscean Age of command and control- into an age of greater cooperation. In between that change is going to be a certain amount turmoil, but also great opportunity.

I believe we can and need to make changes to our society on a large scale. My proposal, and I am not the only one thinking this way, is that we work away from the central control model to a distributed network. Sort of like a web, or a mesh, inter-connectivity- much like the internet, and actually using the internet- sort of an electronic democracy. Call it a universal blog… We need a system that changes and adapts to the needs of people very quickly, whether it is a health crisis, housing, natural disaster, monetary crisis, making budgeting decisions. How long does it take the government and central control to respond to any of those? And many times the solution is worse than the problem itself.

The government is here to serve us, but instead we seem to have to serve it with questionable benefit and much disharmony. How about a system set up in this fashion - where no one part is the whole system, and if any one part of the system breaks down it continues to function without that part.

Some of the problems of today are the direct result of too much central control, and some of the by-products are war, lack of action when action is required such as the current energy crisis, politicians acting in their own self interest rather than that of humanity at large. It is time to end the command and control value system. It is time for all who desire to be, to be a part of the decision making process to have the power to do so. As a collective group- we have high intelligence, as separated groups, or individuals we have low intelligence.

Buckminster Fuller once said that the best way to change a system is not to fight it, but to build a better model.

More thoughts on this subject:

ʽManifesto for the NEXT Industrial Revolution ʽ

Sat Nam! - 'truth is our name'… -m

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Summer Solstice

3HO (Happy Healthy Holy Organization) puts on a week long event twice a year at the sun’s northern and southern most trajectory, it is called Summer and Winter Solstice, of course depending on the time of year! It is the easiest time with the effect of the sun on the earth’s magnetic field to make change. To say the least it is always a challenge to try and explain the “solstice” experience to anyone other than someone who has been to the event, so I simply anymore call it a camp. What you might imagine as camp is only one aspect. I know the experience varies with the individual attending.

I sat down one time with a woman while at Summer Solstice in Ram Das Puri, the Jemez mountains just outside of Espanola where the summer event is held, the altitude, heat and dryness all put pressure on the body. She was from another practice, and told me to her it was like the Olympics of Yoga. That might be one way to look at it. After three hours with your arms up in the air trying to think of anyway possible to keep them up, yah…. Focus and the correct mental image… Why why why would anyone put themselves through all that? The desire for change- and it takes that much force usually because the mind habits are hard to break, just ask any psychologist. Well I don’t know but, it gives you inner and outer strength to endure, mental toughness, to maybe have endurance beyond what others have, giving you advantage in life. You release inner anger, emotional garbage floating around and in the end you circumvent the ego and all the selfish ‘the world revolves my a--’ and one becomes very blissful and connected with everything around you. I may have even reached states of Nirvana, or Samadhi. Of course you can reach these states on your own but maybe not quite so sustained. And there is nothing like a little support of those around you, other teachers, fellow Yogi's, your Tantric partner.

Through all the trials that make up the Solstice experience- whether you loose your luggage, forget your ID, loose your partner... you have managed to removed some of the blinders and blocks; the vision is a little clearer. It can be a challenge coming back into the world, not at first you are way to blissed out to care that the world is as it is, but after about 40 days- the effect of the White Tantric Yoga does indeed begin to wear off. It's all the same though, challenge is challenge, no matter where you are in the path of life. So this year after Winter Solstice, in an attempt to counter balance the effect of conflict between the ego and the higher self at least by a little bit I am doing a 1000 day meditation. Never estimate the ability of the ego to create conflict!

So that is every day without missing a day- I am doing the same meditation. And as the days go by- sometimes with boring repetition, there are points of inflection - revelation that can occur, you move beyond time and space, and thank GOD- why would you ever keep on doing this- and it comes- perhaps you chose to pulse the navel differently, or change the breath or it's the way you hold the locks, and suddenly you know what it is to be a yogi, for a moment in time the ancient one, the wisdom, you are not you, everything is very still, no concern of today - tomorrow, and every moment is a moment of timelessness- no beginning no end. I suppose maybe yesterday was one of those moments for me, day 183, and why not it was Solstice.

I think a daily vacation and recentering does one a world of good, and it only takes a few minutes.

Happy Solstice

Sat Nam

-m

Boom Bust and Politics

I don’t often touch on the subject of politics, but it is interesting to note that neither of the two candidates has any idea what to do about the economy, maybe that is good, maybe that is bad. But in truth or in theory- the notion is that our economy is self adjusting, and left somewhat to its own devices it will purge and move on. The problem is we have tried to avert crisis for so long- usually by government or central bank intervention… i.e. remember some of the crisis’s of days gone by: Long – Term Capital Management collapse, the Asian Contagion, the Internet Stock Market Bubble followed by the Real Estate Bubble, now the current cycle Commodities Bubble (while still in the midst of one crisis as another emerges). The cycle of boom and bust seem to be more rapid than ever. All I can say is everything seems to happen real time with all this information. And there is the drone of a thousand analysts on the sidelines giving the play by play, and with a few notable exceptions way off base.

So Oil up 40% year to date, there is a lot of debate as to what that means, and whether or not we are suffering from inflation in the traditional sense. The difference between now and the 70’s is wages are not going up, and the supply of money is not going up out of control, or so they say, it could be these new liquidity injections and so forth into the banking system are stealth ways to add money. So now we find the basic needs of society are being priced out of reach. Is it going to have to reach some sort of crisis before anyone does anything ? And by anyone I mean those people in power with the bigger cushion of wealth to protect them, the ones that can put people to work, and the ones that $4.00 gas is really no big deal what is all the fuss? An interesting side note is this, the U-4 Unemployment rate is running close to 10%, this includes workers who have given up on looking for work.

Much of our problems could be expectations. In order to grow society and wealth, we need more of everything, more demand increases prices, but consider the Europeans:

Europeans schedule activities, use public transportation, share, and do without. They are more apt to live in a small apartment or flat, travel and have lavish meals as they learned long ago by culture, to live for the experience rather than collecting things which, is the norm in this society.

And how about oil when we compare ourselves to the rest of the world:

Worldwide oil consumption is about 87 million barrels of oil per day.

We consume 25% of that alone in the U.S.

That's about 22 million barrels of oil a day.

That works out to about 11 supertanker loads.

Those big black tank rail cars you see hold about 26,000 gallons.

So at 42 gallons per barrel, 22 million barrels works out to some 924 million gallons.

At 26,000 gallons per car, it would fill over 35,000 tank cars. Per day.

I am going to try and take some time out, even if only a day, and get my compass aligned again. The magnetic poles get influenced by too much magnetic fields acting on it all the time, and I forget the real me, which does not always correspond to what others think that may be. The biggest mistake in life is to try and define oneself, for you are undefinable, infinite, and without any limitations.

-m

White Collar Turns Blue

Here is an article written in 1996, in the New York Times, projecting what the world would be like in 2096. An interesting view of supply - demand. Humm.... interesting.

Click here to read the article

The Character of the Aquarian Age

I think we can all directly feel the changes occurring today on the planet- stress is increasing, the demands on us more intense. Some people are freaking out with the change of the earth's energy field, while others bask in it. The practice of Kundalini Yoga can help us deal with the stresses of the times. Here is from the 3HO newsletter on the Aquarian Age:

• Change and learning is continuous and life-long. We must maintain mental, emotional, and physical flexibility.

• Intellect is not enough. We need a new relationship to intuition, emotion and instinct.

• Information is not enough. Neither is knowledge. We need wisdom.

• Learning is not enough. We must learn to learn.

• Complexity is increasing as is our need to deal with it.

• Our sense of personal identity and its foundation is shifting.

• This is an age of paradox–more global and more individual, with fewer boundaries and more demand for political separations. Everything is faster and we have less time. We need far more love and unity, for we have more fear and tremendous insecurity.

• Stamina and constant peak performance are the common benchmarks to evaluate all people and their work, and the need is to go inward and regenerate.

• We require a reconciliation and integration of the spiritual side of life with the technological and material sides–a spiritual fitness to sense values and meaning.

• There is no isolation. Each action we take must be considered ecologically, and globally, because each person does affect, directly or indirectly, vast networks of people, and other living beings and places.

© The Teachings of Yogi Bhajan

From "The Aquarian Teacher Level One Textbook" by Yogi Bhajan,
published by the Kundalini Research Institute

Classes starting next week will feature the chakras system. I have been wanting to do this for awhile, but then we did them for Spring Cleaning decided to wait for awhile. Each week we will work on one of the chakras and do exercises to help stimulate that particular area. We will move up the spine until we have experienced them all. We also will be exploring the various bodies via meditation, starting with the soul body, moving to the mind, physcial body, the arcline, the aura, pranic body, subtle body, and the radiant body. Hope to see you there.

Mike