The Silent Revolutionaries

.....On the surface of the world right now there is war and violence and things seem dark. But calmly and quietly, at the same time, something else is happening underground. An inner revolution is taking place and certain individuals are being called to a higher light. It is a silent revolution. From the inside out. From the ground up. This is a Global operation... A spiritual conspiracy. There are sleeper cells in every nation on the planet. You won't see us on the T.V. You won't read about us in the newspaper. You won't hear about us on the radio. We don't seek any glory. We don't wear any uniform. We come in all shapes and sizes, colours and styles.

Most of us work anonymously. We are quietly working behind the scenes in every country and culture of the world, cities big and small, mountains and valleys, in farms and villages, tribes and remote islands. You could pass by one of us on the street and not even notice, we go undercover, we remain behind the scenes. It is of no concern to us who takes the final credit, but simply that the work gets done. Occasionally we spot each other in the street, we give a quiet nod and continue on our way. During the day many of us pretend we have normal jobs, but behind the false storefront at night is where the real work takes a place. Some call us the 'Conscious Army', we are slowly creating a new world with the power of our minds and hearts. We follow, with passion and joy, our orders from the Central Spiritual Intelligence.

We are dropping soft, secret love bombs when no one is looking. Poems, Hugs, Music, Photography, Movies, Kind words, Smiles, Meditation and prayer, Dance, Social activism, Websites, Blogs, Random acts of kindness. We each express ourselves in our own unique ways with our own unique gifts and talents. 'Be the change you want to see in the world' (Mahatma Ghandi). That is the motto that fills our hearts. We know it is the only way real transformation takes place. We know that quietly and humbly we have the power of all the oceans combined.

Our work is slow and meticulous, like the formation of mountains, it is not even visible at first glance and yet with it entire tectonic plates shall be moved in the centuries to come. Love is the new religion of the 21st century. You don't have to be a highly educated person or have any exceptional knowledge to understand it. It comes from the intelligence of the heart embedded in the timeless evolutionary pulse of all human beings. Be the change you want to see in the world. Nobody else can do it for you. We are now recruiting, perhaps you will join us or you already have....
All are welcome...
The door is open.

-Author Unknown -

It's not really helping ...

... anybody to live a life that isn’t true to yourself.

What happens when I sit in the dark ...

Last night I sat in a darkened room with a few strangers watching a documentary called Examined Life. It starts with a quote from Plato, “an unexamined life is not worth living”. The question is, what happens when you examine your life? Listening to the words of the philosophers streaming from the screen in front of me my mind begins to wander back to earlier in the day. I’m reminded how BORED I AM, bored and dulled to such an extent that anything but what I am supposed to be doing is attractive and an easy distraction.

Today I dragged myself kicking and screaming against my will and my better judgement onto campus, into work and to the classroom. I’m unsure but it seems that the students are bored and dulled by the experience too. What keeps me going on this treadmill of an existence is the belief that education can make a difference. At times education can provide spaces for transformation, liberation and hope. Education can be a pathway to other places. What is to become of education? The modern, mainstream, institutionalised version of knowledge acquisition, of empiricism is dulled by its own myopia, is void of radical solutions and is becoming a one dimensional training camp for the masses.

Boredom is the domain of the boring. When there is so much inequality, injustice, poverty, violence, destruction in the world there is no excuse for being bored. What happens when you find yourself in an organisation, system or institution that is part of the damage and harm being done to others? Arguably the larger community or structure is a reflection of each individual. The challenge is therefore to change it one day, one person, one thought, deed and action at a time. Maybe most of my working day is spent doing things that seem to perpetuate what I am trying to change. That does not have to define me or hold me back or trap me inside of the oppression. However, it is important to fight back. It is essential to effect change in order to liberate the oppressor and set us all free to live in a new community built on freedom, diversity, hope and love.

My boredom is a manifestation of my frustration, anger and sadness. To give in to it is the tragedy. To be motivated to find new ways of communicating with people, new ways to learn and most of all new communities in which to redress the injustices that surround us is my path away from BOREDOM to a more enriched, compassionate and gentle life.

turning to one another

There is no greater power than a community discovering what it cares about
Ask "What is possible?" not "What is wrong?" Keep asking.
Notice what you care about.
Assume that many others share your dreams.
Be brave enough to start a conversation that matters.
Talk to people you know.
Talk to people you don't know.
Talk to people you never talk to.
Be intrigued by the differences you hear.
Expect to be surprised.
Treasure curiosity more than certainty.
Invite in everyone who cares to work on what's possible.
Acknowledge that everyone is an expert about something.
Know that creative solutions come from new connections.
Remember, you don't fear people whose story you know.
Real listening always brings people closer together.
Trust that meaningful conversations can change your world.
Rely on human goodness. Stay together.


- Margaret Wheatley -

Letters to a young poet ...

...I would like to beg you dear Sir/Madam, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.

- Rainer Maria Rilke, 1903 -

Lost

Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.

- David Wagner -

What do you love?

"In the end

we will conserve

only what we love.

We will love

only what we

understand.

We will understand

only what we are

Taught."

- Baba Dioum, Senegalese Poet

and Environmentalist, 1937 -

Tree/Jack

It's your softness, your gentle spirit
That leans me to you
You are a place of safety
A wise old soul.

I sit my spine touching yours
Drawn by your compassion
I fall into your tender clasp
Held so caringly.

You know what is felt
Beyond any need for an
Exchange of words
I talk to you like no other.

You are my special friend
A most precious gift
Always to be cherished
Never to be forgotten.

Never Give Up

No matter what is going on

Never Give Up

Develop the heart

Too much energy in your country

Is spent developing the mind

Instead of the heart.

Develop the heart

Be compassionate

Not just to your friends

But to everyone

Be compassionate.

Work for peace

In your heart and in the world

Work for peace

And I say it again

Never Give Up

No matter what is happening

No matter what is going on

Around you,

Never Give Up

- HH 14th Dalai Lama -

What I mean is ...

What I mean is,
we stood on the bank of the river
under the trees,
the pair of us,
and we promised the nothing
that was there,
the nothing that made us,
the nothing that was listening,
that we truly desired to go
beyond ourselves.

- Ali Smith -
Girl Meets Boy, p.159

It is said ...

It IS said that all that
you are seeking
is also seeking YOU,
that if you LIE still,
sit STILL,
it will find you.
It has been waiting for you
a long time.
Once it is here don't move away.
REST.
See what happens next.

- Clarissa Pinkola Estes -
Women who run with the wolves (p.148)

I Carry Your Heart

I carry your heart with me
(I carry it in my heart)
I am never without it
(Anywhere I go you go;
And whatever is done by me is your doing)
I fear no fate
(For you are my fate)
I want no world
(For beautiful, you are my world, my true)
And you are whatever a moon has always meant
And whatever a sun will always sing is you.
Here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(Here is the root of the root
And the bud of the bud
And the sky of the sky of a tree called Life;
Which grows higher than Soul can hope
Or mind can hide)
And this is the wonder that's keeping
The stars apart
I carry your heart
(I carry it in my heart).

- e.e.cummings -

All you need are hugs (I mean, all you need is love) ...

There's nothing you can do that can't be done.

Nothing you can sing that can't be sung.

Nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game

It's easy.

All you need is love.

There's nothing you can make that can't be made.

No one you can save that can't be saved.

Nothing you can do but you can learn how to be in time

It's easy.

All you need is love.

There's nothing you can know that isn't known.

Nothing you can see that isn't shown.

Nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be.

It's easy.

- John Lennon -

What does it mean to be human and alive?

Industrial society does not have all the answers.
Of the 6,000 languages that existed in 1960,
today only 50% are being taught to children.
These languages do not belong to cultures that
are failed attempts at being modern.
They are not destined to fade away by natural law.
These languages represent unique facets of the human imagination.
They represent a legacy of humanities brilliance.
They are unique answers to the fundamental question:
What does it mean to be human and alive?
If human beings are the agents of cultural destruction,
we can also be the facilitators of cultural survival.

- Wade Davis -

The Uncertainty Principle

To decide or not to decide.

You don't know.
You can never be sure.
But you take the plunge anyway.
Sure is for people
Who don't LOVE enough!

Whatever You Fear, Do It Now ...

Taking the next step ...

Come to the edge, she said.

They said: We are afraid.

Come to the edge, she said.

They replied: We can’t, we will fall!

Come to the edge, she said.

And so they came.

And she pushed them,

And they flew.

Quit!

Travelling in harmony ...

"Just as a white summer cloud, in harmony with heaven and earth, freely floats in the blue sky from horizon to horizon folllowing the breath of atmosphere - in the same way the pilgrim abandons herself to the breath of the greater life that leads her beyond the farthest horizons to an aim which is already present within her, though yet hidden from her sight."


By Peter Matthiessen in Snow Leopard.

Choose Love

Humans, like all life, are about growth.

We grow and change.

Sometimes, after we've grown,

We find our old relationships

Aren't working the way we want them to.

We've changed.
They've changed.

We've grown.

They've grown.

It happens.
Try to meet in love.

Remember it can all be revised and changed.

Things aren't always clear.

They won't always be clear.
The point of it is to focus on what you want.

Choose Love as your guide.

This Is It ... !

With all this

Past

Future

Past

Future

We miss the now

All we have

Is the now

This is it

This is

Who you are

It is inherent

It is joyful

Don't just do something

Sit there

With all this socially engaged work

First you must learn

What the Buddha learned

To still the mind

Then you don't take action

Action takes you

Peace

And

Love

So who are we?

We are the life force power of the universe, with manual dexterity and two cognitive minds. And we have the power to choose, moment by moment, who and how we want to be in the world. Right here right now, I can step into the consciousness of my right hemisphere where we are -- I am -- the life force power of the universe, and the life force power of the 50 trillion beautiful molecular geniuses that make up my form. At one with all that is. Or I can choose to step into the consciousness of my left hemisphere. where I become a single individual, a solid, separate from the flow, separate from you. I am Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, intellectual, neuroanatomist. These are the "we" inside of me.

Which would you choose? Which do you choose? And when? I believe that the more time we spend choosing to run the deep inner peace circuitry of our right hemispheres, the more peace we will project into the world and the more peaceful our planet will be. And I thought that was an idea worth spreading.

To watch the full talk from which this quote is taken goto http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/229

hymn to the sacred body of the universe

let's meet

at the confluence

where you flow in to me

and one breath

swirls between our lungs

for one instant

to dwell in the presence of the galaxies

for one instant

to live in the truth of the heart

the poet says this entire traveling cosmos is

" the secret One slowly growing a body"

16 million tonnes of rain are falling every second

on the planet

an ocean

perpetually falling

and every drop

is your body

every motion, every feather, every thought

is your body

time

is your body

and the infinite

curled inside like

invisible rainbows turning into light

every word of every tongue is love

telling a story to her own ears

you are the dark

that holds the stars

in intimate

distance

that spun the whirling,

whirling,

world

into existence

let's meet

at the confluence

where you flow into me

and one breath

swirls between our lungs

- drew dellinger -

how do we breathe in under water?

how do we breathe in so much happiness

once you make contact with being
you know that you belong

the thinking mind separates us
outside the garden we are very lonely

we have to find a new way of taking in life
we call it the contemplative life

the way of breathing under water
is some form of simple contemplation

it is a simple as the breath
it does not happen through the mind

you cannot get there
you can only BE there

- richard rohr -

Success

To laugh often and much;
To win the respect of intelligent people
And affection of children;
To earn the appreciation of honest critics
And endure the betrayal of false friends;
To appreciate beauty;
To find the best in others;
To leave the world a bit better,
Whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or
A redeemed social condition;
To know even one life has breathed easier
Because you have lived;
This is to have succeeded.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson -

Identity

The world tells us all about
what we are supposed to feel,
how we are suppose to be ...
and what it wants us to want.

It subjects us to a barrage of subtle
and not so subtle persuasion.
Adverts blare out at us.
TV shows and movies beckon to us.

People around us whisper in our ears
to indicate through their expressions
whether they approve of our behaviour.

In all this, it is hard to know
who we truly are and what
we genuinely require.

Hard but not impossible.

If ...

I f

the earth were only a

few feet in diameter, floating a

few feet above a field somewhere,

people would come from everywhere to

marvel at it. People would walk around it

marveling at its big pools of water, its little

pools and the water flowing between the pools.

People would marvel at the bumps on it, and the

holes in it, and they would marvel at the very thin

layer of gas surrounding it and the water suspended in

the gas. The people would marvel at all the creatures

walking around the surface of the ball, and in the water.

The people would declare it precious because it was the

only one and they would protect it so that it would not

be hurt. The ball would be the greatest wonder

known, and people would come to behold it, to be

healed, to gain knowledge, to know beauty and

wonder how it could be. People would love it,

and defend it with their lives, because they

would some how know that their lives,

their own roundness, could be nothing

without it. If the earth were

only a few feet in

d i a m e t e r.

"When sleeping women wake, mountains move!"

-Chinese Proverb -

Connections

It's the third planet from the sun -- a tiny blue sphere spinning for a moment in time -- a remarkable place that was kind enough to yield just the right elements to sustain a phenomenon called life. Where each creature is as unique as the world we call home and a day begins in much the same way for all. Maybe that's when it crosses your mind; in the warmth from a ray of sun or the kindness of a stranger it occurs to you how one life touches so many others, and you begin to see how all things are connected like the blood that unites one family and you come to realise that mankind did not weave the web of life we're merely a strand in it, and whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves, on the third planet from the sun.

IT'S NOT JUST A PLANET

IT'S HOME

The Hour of the Wolf

You have been telling the people that this is the eleventh hour.
Now you must go back and tell people THIS is the hour,
And there are things to be considered:
Where are you living?
What are you doing?
What are your relationships?
Are you in right relations?
Where is your water?
Know your garden.

It is time to speak your truth,
Create your community.
Be good to each other
And do not look outside yourself for the leader.

This could be a good time!
There is a river flowing now very fast.
It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid.
They will try to hold onto the shore.
They will feel they are being torn apart,
And they will suffer greatly.
Know the river has its destination.

The Elders say we must let go of the shore,
Push off into the river,
Keep our eyes open,
And our heads above water.
See who is in there with you and celebrate.

At this time in history,
We are to take nothing personally,
Least of all ourselves.
For the moment that we do,
Our spiritual growth and journey come to a halt.
The time of the lone wolf is over.
Gather yourselves!
Banish the word struggle from your attitude and vocabulary.
All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner
And in celebration.

We are the Ones we've been waiting for.

- From the Elders of the Hope Nation -

Richard Henry Tawney (1880-1962)

In a diary entry in 1912 Tawney wrote:

"If modern England and America are right in believing that the principle aim of man, what should be taught to children, what should serve as a rough standard of merit, what merits approbation and respect, is the attainment of a moderate - or even immoderate - standard of comfort, and that moral questions arise only after this has been attained; then they must be content to go without religion, literature, art and learning. These are not hard to find for those who really seek them, or who seek them first. But if they are sought second they are never found at all ..."

The choice we all face is not between less and more wealth, it is between less and more civilization.

"We assume that the greatest misfortune which can befall a man is poverty - and that conduct which leads to the sacrifice of income is unwise, impractical, etc; in short that a man's life should be judged by its yield of income, and a nation's life by its production of wealth ..."

Tawney was concerned with humankind's seemed obsession with the fallacy that the most important problems are economic problems. He thought the challenges go deeper, and what was (is) needed was (is) a reformation of the fundamental philosophy of life. It's not, as BillClinton famously once said, 'the economy, stupid!', according to Tawney it's moral philosophy, stupid!

He wrote in the 'Acquisitive Society' published in 1920:

"These are times which are not ordinary, and in such times it is not enough to follow the road. It is necessary to know where it leads and, if it leads nowhere, to follow another. The search for another involves reflection, which is uncongenial to the bustling people who describe themselves as practical .... But the practical thing for a traveler who is uncertain of his path is not to proceed with the utmost rapidity in the wrong direction: it is to consider how to find the right one." (p.2)

Tawney considered those who pursued economic productivity and growth as an end in itself as flawed. This approach has been tried and found wanting. Increased productivity alone will not dispel our social or environmental problems. To find the 'right path' Tawney turned to the writings of Ruskin who suggested the purpose of industry is to supply humankind with things that are 'necessary, useful or beautiful, and thus to bring life to body and spirit'. By making the pursuit of productivity the end-goal industry is left to produce goods and services with no other guiding principle than 'more is better'. In these circumstances factories manufacture goods which to some are seen as wealth and to others are seen as waste. It would be better not to produce unwanted goods. Instead of producing and consuming our way out of societal problems, it may serve us to take time to reflect, to simplify, to consume less. Dare it be said to consume what we need as opposed to what we think we want, or what the marketeers tell us we want. Could there be a higher guiding philosophy than consume more, produce more?

Lest it be forgotten Tawney reminded us when he wrote in 'Religion and the Rise of Capitalism' published in 1954, "even quite common men have souls, no increase in material wealth will compensate them for arrangements which insult their self-respect and impair their freedom." (p.233)

If productivity, growth and the accumulation of wealth is not the end-goal, what is? Tawney did not have a singular response to this other than to suggest that the standard applied to an assessment of the ideal is 'transcendental, religious or mystical'. An attempt to articulated an ideal in a definitive sense is impossible. The purpose of life is more likely to be found by first directing our attention towards spirituality, literature, poetry, art and learning before that of mammon.

For an expansion of these ideas read Gerald Alonzo Smith 'The Purpose of Wealth: A Historical Perspective', in Daly, H.E. & Townsend, K.N. (1996) Valuing the Earth: Economics, Ecology and Ethics, MIT Press, London.

We Are All Leaves On One Tree

Imagine being a fish in a bowl. You fall out with your fellow fish. You become so angry that you decide to foul the water, 'That'll teach them a lesson,' you think to yourself. But, of course, it is your water too. Hey ho. Welcome to Planet Earth. There's the human condition in a nutshell. We all imagine that we can pull a fast one over the people around us. They in turn, think the same about us. Yet we are all leaves on one tree, parts of one organism, aspects of one persona.

Mantra for 2008

Embrace

Peace

Love

Hope

Harmony

Joy

Acceptance

Compassion

Inspiration

Creativity

For All

The gift that keeps on giving ...

"The Indian giver understood a cardinal property of the gift; whatever we have been given is supposed to be given away again, not kept. Or, if it is kept, something of similar value should move on in its stead, the way a billiard ball may stop when it sends another scurrying across the felt, its momentum transferred. You may keep your Christmas present, but it ceases to be a gift in the true sense unless you have given something else away. As it is passed along, the gift maybe given back to the original donor, but this is not essential. In fact, it is better if the gift is not returned but is given instead to some new, third party. The only essential is this: the gift must always move."

Hyde, L. (2007) The Gift: How the creative spirit transforms the world, Canongate, Edinburgh, p.4.