My spiritual awareness and successful use of and confidence in a meditation practice was enhanced tremendously by the examples set forth by the lineage of Indian saints, Parahamansa Yoganada, Sri Yukteswar, Lahiri Mahasaya, and Babaji. Through Parahamahansa Yogananda's book, Autobiography of a Yogi, and, later, through study with the Self-Realization Foundation that Yogananda founded, I was able to connect very deeply to the Universal Consciousness. Nurturing relationships with Yogananda and his three predecessors has had profound effects on my life, on my spiritual progress. Yogananda's teacher, Sri Yukteswar, was a figure that inspires respect due to his amazing discipline, his laser focus. For me he has been a teacher of focus and commitment.
I feel particularly strongly connected to Sri Yukteswar's teacher, Lahiri Mahasaya. Lahiri Mahasaya led a relatively "normal" life in which he was somehow able to maintain healthy, committed relationships to his parents, wife and children as well as to a white collar desk job while at the same time dedicating adequate time and energy to a very advanced spiritual meditation and teaching practice. As a husband and father of young children of my own, I needed this kind of example. I needed to see that not every human who masters his spirituality, who dedicates himself to serious spiritual practice, is required to assume patterns of self-denial, anchoritic isolation or seclusion, and/or asceticism. I needed to see that a serious and successful spiritual practice can, in fact, be achieved within the 'civilized' world--that Self-realization can happen even to those who choose to remain actively engaged within the fabric of human society.
Then there is Lahiri Mahasaya's teacher: the 800 year-old, sometimes physically present saint, Babaji. Babaji is another Christ-like example of what is possible for humans while still traveling in or using the four-dimensions of the Earth plane. Babaji uses a body--a youthful, ageless human body--to the degree necessary to deliver his message or to inspire others. However, he spends most of his time without encumbrance of the 'physical' vehicle that he once used with greater commitment.
I have found Babaji's presence in meditation and prayer to be quite powerful. In fact, it is quite similar to the effect I used to feel upon receiving the Eucharist (the 'body of Christ') in Catholic Mass. Calling Babaji into my meditation enables me a rapid and direct connection to himself, his very image burning in my field of consciousness, but it also promotes an expanded fields of consciousness with a receded or fading connection to Drew fisher or even Journeyman Paul Self-hood. It is as if Babaji's presence, his loving, welcoming embrace, helps me to become part of something much greater, much more pure and forceful, I become much more imbued with Light, Love, Beauty, Joy and Truth and much less connected with any "I-ness" or ego.
I would like to also point out that two of my personal teachers, Irmgard Kurtz and Barbara Briner, were long-time disciples of Yogacharya Oliver Black who was one of Paramahansa Yogananda's original American students. Irmgard and Barb lived and worshipped off and on at Song of the Morning Ranch, Yogacharya Oliver Black's Self-Realization Fellowship retreat center in the pristine woods of Northern Michigan. I have been fortunate enough to have spent some time there as well. A magical place for one to experience Beauty, both inside and out.
The book that allowed me to open my awareness to these wonder-filled spiritual teachers, Parahamahansa Yogananda's Autobiography of a Yogi, is another one of the synchronous gifts that came out of my association with Dr. Barbara Briner and her Institute for Bioenergy Studies' bookstores. Autobiography of a Yogi arrived in my life at a time in which I was looking for more real life "heroes" for inspiration and example. The way Yogananda's book is structured, it's almost as if each and every chapter introduces the reader to someone worthy of worship and inspiration, a figure or event that teaches very valuable lessons to the reader, as it did to Parahamahansa Yogananda. The Chapter on Giri Bala, "The Woman Yogi Who Never Eats" has proved particularly motivational to me--and has remained close to my consciousness for years and years. I know that being in a body of a being that lives under the illusion that our bodies exist and that our bodies need things is difficult to overcome, but Giri Bala lived on nothing but sunshine and water, thanks to a special Kriya yoga technique she practiced every day. This is not, to me, mythology or quackery. Giri Bala is but one example representative of the true potential of all beings of Creation. Our human bodies--and all matter--is made up of 99.99999% space and 0.00001% probabilities of energy which our scientists have convinced us to call "subatomic particles."
With the material world being made up of this much space and so little actual "matter," it is, to me, mystifying that we can't walk through walls, float into the sky, or think ourselves into any state or scenario that we want. That we require nourishment at all stymies me. We do not, in fact, "need" or "require" anything! It's all illusory! Our world is, for all intents and purposes, empty space! (Though I believe that the 'fluid' or 'ether' filling this space--that is, the substance that subatomic particles, atoms, molecules, cells, organs, living organisms, planets, galaxies, and universes move about in--is in fact The Unified Field of Consciousness--the God-ness! Us!) Such options as "need," "requirement," "individuality," and belief are all just illusions that We have created for Our own means to experience the infinity of experiential possibilities. And isn't it wonderful? Isn't the dearth of experiences, real or imagined, lived or storied, amazing to behold--to feel a part of?
Another reason that examples from Parahamahansa Yogananda's book like that of The Woman Yogi Who Never Eats are so important to me is because they help me affirm my belief that there is no such thing as "can't." The inability or the ability to limit one's potential, to eliminate specific possibilities from one's life, from one's palette of experiences, is, to my mind, illusory, a fabrication, a self-limiting excuse. "Can't" is an option. The "can't" belief is one that is learned. It is conditioned. It is programmed into us. Those who learn to unlearn--to remove--the self-imposed "can't" restriction are then free to do . . . anything! Without "can't" anything and everything is possible! Since reading Autobiography of a Yogi, since being inspired by The Woman Yogi Who Never Eats (Giri Bala), I have been on a quest to achieve the release from the shackles of "can't" and to achieve the freedom to move . . . like Babiji: that is, using my body, my presence, only as and when I wish. My self-imposed restriction from achieving this lies in my addictions: my perceived needs and my conditioned desires. A dedicated spiritual focus and a unilateral practice of detachment will be necessary to achieve this. So far, I am stuck in a pattern of resisting this; I am lacking the motivation to try.
While I am here, I would like also to give recognition to the overall contribution that India and all things Indian have provided for my enrichment and growth. India has been a source of many inspiring and/or thought-provoking teachers. I would like to give thanks for the inputs of Sri Aurobindo, "the hugging saint" Ammaji (Mātā Amṛtānandamayī), Satya Sai Baba, The Maharishi (Maharishi Mahesh Yogi), Mohandas Gandhi, Vinoba Bhave, Guatama Siddhartha, Krishnamurti, Tara Singh, Randolph Stone, Deepak Chopra, Kumare, and many others--of course to include the hundreds of gods and mythological entities from the Hindu tradition as well as the amazing musicians from the incredibly rich and devout traditions of Indian music. Plus, I will also mention the 5000 year old sciences of Ayruveda and Hatha Yoga which have served so many so amazingly well over the millennia. I, too, have benefitted tremendously from all of these esteemed persons and traditions--in this, the Drew Fisher lifetime, as well as during several other Earth incarnations.
Sunday, May 31, 2015
Sunday, May 24, 2015
The Teachers: Siddhartha and Michael Valentine Smith
The two "teachers" I am presenting today are actually characters from novels that I read when I was in my early 20s. I refer to them as "teachers" because their entrance into my life, into my active consciousness, fueled new dreams and expanded imaginings of amazing life paths that, I felt, were available for me and for all humans. I felt imbued with the spirit of these two characters. I felt as if wanted to try to behave, to think and act, as they did, that being like them was a viable and desirable goal for me, personally. Siddhartha and Michael Valentine Smith may be fictional characters born of the imaginations of ordinary men, but these imaginary figures have been as familiar and inspiring to me as most of my family and friends!
Siddhartha is here referencing the protagonist of German writer, Hermann Hesse, from his 1904 novel of the same name. I had heard of Siddhartha my first week in college but had never had the novel fall into my hands until I was on my foreign study in Strasbourg, France, during my junior year of college. Siddhartha was the gateway to my devouring of all of Hesse's books (at least, those available in English translation in 1978) as well as those of his contemporary, Thomas Mann.
There are very few fictitious book characters that speak to me as deeply and profoundly as that of Hesse's Siddhartha. The novel was written by a young Hesse as a way of grappling with the humanness of the man who became known as the Buddha. Guatama Siddhartha was an historical figure who was born into an upper class family (either India's Brahmin or priest caste or a politically powerful family) in the fifth Century BCE. As the story goes, Siddhartha rejected his family and caste position in order to seek more just and equal status as a human. He eventually achieved "enlightenment," a state of Self annihilation or Self reunification with All That Is and started preaching and teaching. His teachings attracted enough followers to start a religion that we call Buddhism. In Hesse's version of the Buddha's life, Siddhartha achieved enlightenment while sitting on the river bank, listening to the primordial sounds coming from Nature, from the river, from within his Self.
My own attraction to sitting in stillness alongside a river, stream or babbling brook was at its peak during this period of my life--my twenties. I even 'restored' the spelling of a favorite word at that time to reflect Siddartha's transcendent realization that within the voice of the river could be heard all sounds, all voices of life, and especially of those of humanity. Similar to the mythological Tower of Babel in which egos and arrogance, strife and discord became so disruptive and possessive that Old Testament God had to "curse" all workers on the project each with their own 'tongue' or language in order to cause enough confusion and to get them to disband and give up on their project. Thus, to me, a river or stream always "babels" instead of just babbling.
Like me (and all humans consciously traveling along a spiritual path), Siddhartha had to go through stages in life in order to be able to master certain skills upon which he could build and in order to more fully appreciate the gifts and information available to him in everyday, every moment consciousness. The achievement of mastery of using the human form as a conduit for open flow of spiritual energy came as a result of full conscious investiture into whatever endeavor or 'project' he decided to choose. Also exemplary is the fact that Siddhartha consciously chose each endeavor for very specific reasons and goals he hoped to attain--which is the opposite of so many humans now sleep walking the planet in this age of industrial, technological automation. Siddhartha gave me an example of a human who was making all of his choices in full consciousness--and thus he had no regret. He lived according to principles of his choosing. Whether he adapted or adopted them from someone or somewhere else, he was always aware that he was choosing this, that his choices--and their consequences--were his and his alone. Would that we could all be so present and willful.
There have been many riverbanks in my life--some real, some imagined. All have proved calming and inspiring. One might say that my own adventures into writing fiction started along rivers and streams--as expressed in a poem I was inspired to put to paper in 1985 that I still consider to be my only "perfect" wordsmithing (though years have passed during which I wonder if the couplet is original--whether or not I plucked it out of my subconscious after having heard or read it years before):
Drawn water's edge by listening ears,
I calm my thoughts and still my fears.
Michael Valentine Smith is another character from a piece of fiction; he's the protagonist from Robert Heinlein's 1961 science fiction novel, Stranger in a Strange Land. One of my revered messianic characters of which I have spoken in previous podcasts, Michael is given his 'different' powers via the storyline that he was born of human parents from a failed attempt to colonize Mars. The story unveils itself from the moment Michael is returned to Earth as a twenty-something young man through his unwitting rise to power, his struggle to remain free and independent and on to his martyr death and afterlife. Michael is another character whose story revolves around or centers on water, which is a great coincidence (which, of course, there is no such thing) since my own life as the fictional character Drew Fisher has been quite aguacentric.
Through Michael Valentine Smith Robert Heinlein unleashed to the world a new "Martian" vocabulary and many new, Christ-like customs upon his readers. The verb "grok," which is meant to imply a very deep, full almost cellular understanding of something, is often seen or heard even among modern day writers and speakers. And the unusual and wonderful concepts of "sharing water," "water brothers," and the literal eating of a loved one's dead corpse as a way to show great love, honor and respect, were all introduced to us with their new sacred meanings by Heinlein in ASIASL.
I was one of many who adopted not only some of the language, references, and deeply reverent concepts from ASIASL, but more, the character of Michael Valentine Smith helped inspire utopian/eutopian/intentional community ideas, yearnings and writings in me. Many themes in my writings, including my novels, Adventures in Drewtopia, The Mysterious Life of Antonin Maniqui, grew out of the inspiration of Michael Valentine Smith. Several "free love" experiments in my personal life also occurred thanks to the spirit imbued in me from the example of MVS.
The Michael character helped validate in my innocent naïveté, my openness to love for every person in my presence in every moment, my belief that every person on the planet was worthy of my love, as well as a temporary belief that sexual intimacy was the highest celebration of one's expression of love.
Siddhartha is here referencing the protagonist of German writer, Hermann Hesse, from his 1904 novel of the same name. I had heard of Siddhartha my first week in college but had never had the novel fall into my hands until I was on my foreign study in Strasbourg, France, during my junior year of college. Siddhartha was the gateway to my devouring of all of Hesse's books (at least, those available in English translation in 1978) as well as those of his contemporary, Thomas Mann.
There are very few fictitious book characters that speak to me as deeply and profoundly as that of Hesse's Siddhartha. The novel was written by a young Hesse as a way of grappling with the humanness of the man who became known as the Buddha. Guatama Siddhartha was an historical figure who was born into an upper class family (either India's Brahmin or priest caste or a politically powerful family) in the fifth Century BCE. As the story goes, Siddhartha rejected his family and caste position in order to seek more just and equal status as a human. He eventually achieved "enlightenment," a state of Self annihilation or Self reunification with All That Is and started preaching and teaching. His teachings attracted enough followers to start a religion that we call Buddhism. In Hesse's version of the Buddha's life, Siddhartha achieved enlightenment while sitting on the river bank, listening to the primordial sounds coming from Nature, from the river, from within his Self.
My own attraction to sitting in stillness alongside a river, stream or babbling brook was at its peak during this period of my life--my twenties. I even 'restored' the spelling of a favorite word at that time to reflect Siddartha's transcendent realization that within the voice of the river could be heard all sounds, all voices of life, and especially of those of humanity. Similar to the mythological Tower of Babel in which egos and arrogance, strife and discord became so disruptive and possessive that Old Testament God had to "curse" all workers on the project each with their own 'tongue' or language in order to cause enough confusion and to get them to disband and give up on their project. Thus, to me, a river or stream always "babels" instead of just babbling.
Like me (and all humans consciously traveling along a spiritual path), Siddhartha had to go through stages in life in order to be able to master certain skills upon which he could build and in order to more fully appreciate the gifts and information available to him in everyday, every moment consciousness. The achievement of mastery of using the human form as a conduit for open flow of spiritual energy came as a result of full conscious investiture into whatever endeavor or 'project' he decided to choose. Also exemplary is the fact that Siddhartha consciously chose each endeavor for very specific reasons and goals he hoped to attain--which is the opposite of so many humans now sleep walking the planet in this age of industrial, technological automation. Siddhartha gave me an example of a human who was making all of his choices in full consciousness--and thus he had no regret. He lived according to principles of his choosing. Whether he adapted or adopted them from someone or somewhere else, he was always aware that he was choosing this, that his choices--and their consequences--were his and his alone. Would that we could all be so present and willful.
There have been many riverbanks in my life--some real, some imagined. All have proved calming and inspiring. One might say that my own adventures into writing fiction started along rivers and streams--as expressed in a poem I was inspired to put to paper in 1985 that I still consider to be my only "perfect" wordsmithing (though years have passed during which I wonder if the couplet is original--whether or not I plucked it out of my subconscious after having heard or read it years before):
Drawn water's edge by listening ears,
I calm my thoughts and still my fears.
Michael Valentine Smith is another character from a piece of fiction; he's the protagonist from Robert Heinlein's 1961 science fiction novel, Stranger in a Strange Land. One of my revered messianic characters of which I have spoken in previous podcasts, Michael is given his 'different' powers via the storyline that he was born of human parents from a failed attempt to colonize Mars. The story unveils itself from the moment Michael is returned to Earth as a twenty-something young man through his unwitting rise to power, his struggle to remain free and independent and on to his martyr death and afterlife. Michael is another character whose story revolves around or centers on water, which is a great coincidence (which, of course, there is no such thing) since my own life as the fictional character Drew Fisher has been quite aguacentric.
Through Michael Valentine Smith Robert Heinlein unleashed to the world a new "Martian" vocabulary and many new, Christ-like customs upon his readers. The verb "grok," which is meant to imply a very deep, full almost cellular understanding of something, is often seen or heard even among modern day writers and speakers. And the unusual and wonderful concepts of "sharing water," "water brothers," and the literal eating of a loved one's dead corpse as a way to show great love, honor and respect, were all introduced to us with their new sacred meanings by Heinlein in ASIASL.
I was one of many who adopted not only some of the language, references, and deeply reverent concepts from ASIASL, but more, the character of Michael Valentine Smith helped inspire utopian/eutopian/intentional community ideas, yearnings and writings in me. Many themes in my writings, including my novels, Adventures in Drewtopia, The Mysterious Life of Antonin Maniqui, grew out of the inspiration of Michael Valentine Smith. Several "free love" experiments in my personal life also occurred thanks to the spirit imbued in me from the example of MVS.
The Michael character helped validate in my innocent naïveté, my openness to love for every person in my presence in every moment, my belief that every person on the planet was worthy of my love, as well as a temporary belief that sexual intimacy was the highest celebration of one's expression of love.
Wednesday, May 20, 2015
The Teachers: Dr. Barbara Briner and Esoteric Healing
Soon after I began my profession as a massage therapist I began to receive hints from my Inner Voice that I should do some training in the subtle energy realm of healing arts information. I had both received and done some foundational training in Reiki, reflexology, hypnotherapy, Polarity Therapy and Esoteric Healing, but it was the lure of a local teacher of international acclaim, Barbara Briner, that made my entry into the vast and wonderful world of Esoteric Healing happen. Being in my same community, it was natural and easy. Plus, the credits for taking classes in Esoteric Healing satisfied my profession's requirements for annual Continuing Education Units. Obviously, The Universe (and my Higher Consciousness) was making it exceedingly easy for me to find and use Esoteric Healing for my growth and expanding Self-realization.
Dr. Barbara Briner is an osteopathic physician--a D.O.--who had her own manual medicine practice in Okemos, Michigan. At the same time she also occupied herself with teaching and research at Michigan State University's School of Osteopathic Medicine. As a physician Dr. Briner was often referred to as the "last chance" doctor. This is because so many of the people who found her were at there wits end. They were patients who felt that they had exhausted all of the options and hope offered them within the world of conventional, allopathic medicine. Then they would hear of Dr. Briner and appear on her door step. As a healer and helper she had a remarkable reputation. And a remarkable following. And, I think, a remarkable success rate. I think all of these were in no small part due to her ability to restore hope in her rather desperate and forlorn patients. But, I am sure that her additional offering of Esoteric Healing also helped.
Esoteric Healing is a version of what I call "structured prayer." It is a form of energy work that draws from many resources and traditions in order to bring its form to us. Alice Bailey's channelled writings from Master Djwal Khul is a primary source, but many, many people and traditions have helped to add to, expand upon and clarify the information since Ms. Bailey's time. It involves learning and working with a scientized structuring or mapping of the anatomy and pathology of the bioenergy field as well as developing personal receptors to the information to be gleaned while working within these fields. A familiarity with anatomy and physiology is helpful to the acquisition of the Esoteric Healing information as is a sound practice and familiarity with the impressionistic feel of meditation. The science gives you a language with which to receive and express your findings; meditation gives you the familiar "vision" with which to "see" that which you access in the energetic realms.
Esoteric Healing's basic premise that "energy follows thought" finds us rooting our causology in the fact that thought is a creative force, that thought may, in fact, be the Creative Force. This notion also gives great power (and confidence) to our own intuition. "Never discount the imagination," osteopath John Upleger, the pioneer of CranioSacral Therapy, used to say. We all know that Albert Einstein would second John on this suggestion. What they are saying is: If you can imagine it--a thing, then that thing, "it," is entirely possible . . . probable . . . even likely. Any impression, no matter how wild or far-fetched, is considered viable information--and should, therefore, be considered as pertinent, even valuable, to the current situation.
An Esoteric Healing session comprises a practitioner to ask for the presence of the energy field of a desired beneficiary. This process involves the practitioner asking for permission from the desired beneficiary of the treatment, "according to the highest good of that person [or entity] and The Universe." The practitioner is always sensitive and respectful to any reservations or guardedness on the part of the intended beneficiary--and the skilled and True intentioned practitioner will sense this. If a being is unprepared, unwilling, or otherwise resistant to 'being worked on,' their Higher Consciousness will convey this to the practitioner. And the practitioner is bound by a sacred trust to be always respectful in honoring the wishes and boundaries of the other entity. Like prayer, Esoteric Healing is supposed to be, after all, a gift, a benevolence, and thus should never be forced upon a resistant other.
Most energy beings are usually very eager and grateful for contact that is intended for their "highest good and the Good of all The Universe." In my practice of thousands of hours of Esoteric Healing it has been very seldom that I have been denied access to the energy field of another. And when it has happened I always react with, "Oh! Well, I guess now is not a good time!"
Once "alignment and attunement" have occurred, one of many variations of protocols unfold in the effort to assess and treat energy flow. Though I called Esoteric Healing "structured prayer," and my alignment and attunement processes require me to ask for the treatment to go according to the Highest "good" of both my client and The Universe, it is with an understanding that I, in my finite abilities and meager comprehension of The Universe and all its workings, may not exactly understand that which is the "Highest Good."
The odd thing in all this is that we Westerners get caught up in thinking that there is a right or a wrong, a good or a bad, a better or worse, when, in fact, there is just stuff. Just information. Information that is always changing, always in flux, never static. "Energy follows thought." Is thought static? No. Then neither is energy. The Highest Good for one person according to it's Soul Plan may be for dis-ease and death. Esoteric Healing's most profound effect, in my experience, has been in its ability to help people expand their understanding of the temporary place that things like their human bodymind, the Earth, their thoughts, and their troubles have in the perspective of the great scheme of all things--in the "Big Picture." This awareness, this reminder, of the "smallness" of their troubles, of their lives, of the human experiment, seems to be quite comforting to most people. "Deflating" the Ego and its tendency toward egocentricity is often quite a relief for those who are ready for sacrifice, that is, ready to make everything sacred.
Though the Original God State has no need of linear time or dimensional space, we Monads in human form are willing subjects to space-time rules and regulations. While working in the energetic realms there is one space-time regulation that does not confine us: that of our own perceived space or time. That is, while working with (and within) an energy field we are not confined to our present "now" nor are we confined to our present "here." We can work with energy beings while they are not in our physical presence. Another person does not have to be in our presence in order for us to work on them. Just as a subatomic particle like a lepton or a Higgs-Boson particle can, in the very same instant, be found at opposite ends of the Universe, so all thoughts and imaginations originate and are accessible from an infinity of locations.
Ten years of training, with each five day class spaced six months apart--and many of the classes required to take twice before moving on to the next level--allowed for slow and full integration and practice of the dense and deeply profound information into my core being. I had to sit with it, meditate upon it, practice it, review it, discuss it, familiarize myself with it, deepen my engagement with it, in order to be ready to receive and work with the next level's information. Interestingly, as the coursework progressed each learning manual would thicken. Also, the feeling that I was walking around in a state of floating, time-slowed expandedness which followed each class would last longer as well.
Barbara Briner was once a student to some of the founders of the first organized teaching of Esoteric Healing. But she took the information further. Through meditation and exploration Dr. Briner was able to bring through, organize, codify and teach deeper and expanded forms, protocols, and informations than the original teachers. I believe that I am not exaggerating when I say that Dr. Briner has expanded the information of Esoteric Healing threefold since that of its inception in the 1970s. And I dare say that I believe that any serious student of Esoteric Healing is doing the same: They have learned to make it their own. They have learned to listen to and trust their imaginations, their intuitions, to recognize that any and all information revealed to them is relevant and viable in the practice and expansion of Esoteric Healing. Dr. Briner, however, has been the most prolific, profound, and organized. This is part of her nature, being a scientist. And yet, there are few people that I have come across with the heart and verbal skill to express their information in the profoundly effective and affective way that Dr. Briner does. Her science mind gives you the maps and templates but her heartfelt experiences and anecdotes render them human and personal--making them realistic and potentially applicable to oneself as well as to all others. This is such a gift to be able to bridge the Heart and Mind as Dr. Briner does. That is why she has been such a profoundly influential and inspiring teacher of mine.
Esoteric Healing, on the other hand, has been an even more profoundly effective and contributing teacher of mine because it has immediate relevance--and immediate effects--on both me and the beneficiary. It is little understood that once you "hook up" with the energy field of another you have in fact unified your two energy fields--you have removed the illusory walls of individuality and merged two energy fields into one. Thus, my "reading" and assessment of another's energy field is going to be quite different from that of another person's assessment because "reading skills" are affected, biased and skewed by my "stuff"--all of the accumulated baggage of information, experience, and emotion that I have access to filters my interpretation of the energy field of the so-called "other" person. Also, because our energy fields have merged into one, any "treatment" I "give" to another is received by my own field as well. Just as in the quantum field the observer and the observed cannot be separated, so in the world of energy treatment there can be no separation of the treater and treatee, thus both receive the benefits of the "structured prayer."
It has long been proved under rigorous scientific conditions that the effect of prayer is real. Prayer really does work! It has been measured. It has been proven--time and time again. Energy follows thought. This follows the same principle: If you think it, it is given energy, it is real. Anything--and I mean anything--you think is given the power of Creation. (Remember: We are all Creators as we are all animated by a Spark of the Divine.) Anything you think is helping to increase the potential for the mental, emotional, and/or physical manifestation of that thing. The more your thoughts align and attune with the thoughts of others, of other thoughts, the more likely that thought is to manifest itself into our conscious reality.
Esoteric Healing is a means to information. More, it is a means to Self-awareness, Self-empowerment, and Self-realization. Barbara Briner, Esoteric Healing, Dr. Briner's Center for Bioenergy Studies and its associated bookstore have all lead me, Drew Fisher, to many, many other teachers--some of which you will be hearing about in future podcasts. Thank you so much, Dr. Briner. Your giving has been for me a wellspring of endless bounty.
Dr. Barbara Briner is an osteopathic physician--a D.O.--who had her own manual medicine practice in Okemos, Michigan. At the same time she also occupied herself with teaching and research at Michigan State University's School of Osteopathic Medicine. As a physician Dr. Briner was often referred to as the "last chance" doctor. This is because so many of the people who found her were at there wits end. They were patients who felt that they had exhausted all of the options and hope offered them within the world of conventional, allopathic medicine. Then they would hear of Dr. Briner and appear on her door step. As a healer and helper she had a remarkable reputation. And a remarkable following. And, I think, a remarkable success rate. I think all of these were in no small part due to her ability to restore hope in her rather desperate and forlorn patients. But, I am sure that her additional offering of Esoteric Healing also helped.
Esoteric Healing is a version of what I call "structured prayer." It is a form of energy work that draws from many resources and traditions in order to bring its form to us. Alice Bailey's channelled writings from Master Djwal Khul is a primary source, but many, many people and traditions have helped to add to, expand upon and clarify the information since Ms. Bailey's time. It involves learning and working with a scientized structuring or mapping of the anatomy and pathology of the bioenergy field as well as developing personal receptors to the information to be gleaned while working within these fields. A familiarity with anatomy and physiology is helpful to the acquisition of the Esoteric Healing information as is a sound practice and familiarity with the impressionistic feel of meditation. The science gives you a language with which to receive and express your findings; meditation gives you the familiar "vision" with which to "see" that which you access in the energetic realms.
Esoteric Healing's basic premise that "energy follows thought" finds us rooting our causology in the fact that thought is a creative force, that thought may, in fact, be the Creative Force. This notion also gives great power (and confidence) to our own intuition. "Never discount the imagination," osteopath John Upleger, the pioneer of CranioSacral Therapy, used to say. We all know that Albert Einstein would second John on this suggestion. What they are saying is: If you can imagine it--a thing, then that thing, "it," is entirely possible . . . probable . . . even likely. Any impression, no matter how wild or far-fetched, is considered viable information--and should, therefore, be considered as pertinent, even valuable, to the current situation.
An Esoteric Healing session comprises a practitioner to ask for the presence of the energy field of a desired beneficiary. This process involves the practitioner asking for permission from the desired beneficiary of the treatment, "according to the highest good of that person [or entity] and The Universe." The practitioner is always sensitive and respectful to any reservations or guardedness on the part of the intended beneficiary--and the skilled and True intentioned practitioner will sense this. If a being is unprepared, unwilling, or otherwise resistant to 'being worked on,' their Higher Consciousness will convey this to the practitioner. And the practitioner is bound by a sacred trust to be always respectful in honoring the wishes and boundaries of the other entity. Like prayer, Esoteric Healing is supposed to be, after all, a gift, a benevolence, and thus should never be forced upon a resistant other.
Most energy beings are usually very eager and grateful for contact that is intended for their "highest good and the Good of all The Universe." In my practice of thousands of hours of Esoteric Healing it has been very seldom that I have been denied access to the energy field of another. And when it has happened I always react with, "Oh! Well, I guess now is not a good time!"
Once "alignment and attunement" have occurred, one of many variations of protocols unfold in the effort to assess and treat energy flow. Though I called Esoteric Healing "structured prayer," and my alignment and attunement processes require me to ask for the treatment to go according to the Highest "good" of both my client and The Universe, it is with an understanding that I, in my finite abilities and meager comprehension of The Universe and all its workings, may not exactly understand that which is the "Highest Good."
The odd thing in all this is that we Westerners get caught up in thinking that there is a right or a wrong, a good or a bad, a better or worse, when, in fact, there is just stuff. Just information. Information that is always changing, always in flux, never static. "Energy follows thought." Is thought static? No. Then neither is energy. The Highest Good for one person according to it's Soul Plan may be for dis-ease and death. Esoteric Healing's most profound effect, in my experience, has been in its ability to help people expand their understanding of the temporary place that things like their human bodymind, the Earth, their thoughts, and their troubles have in the perspective of the great scheme of all things--in the "Big Picture." This awareness, this reminder, of the "smallness" of their troubles, of their lives, of the human experiment, seems to be quite comforting to most people. "Deflating" the Ego and its tendency toward egocentricity is often quite a relief for those who are ready for sacrifice, that is, ready to make everything sacred.
Though the Original God State has no need of linear time or dimensional space, we Monads in human form are willing subjects to space-time rules and regulations. While working in the energetic realms there is one space-time regulation that does not confine us: that of our own perceived space or time. That is, while working with (and within) an energy field we are not confined to our present "now" nor are we confined to our present "here." We can work with energy beings while they are not in our physical presence. Another person does not have to be in our presence in order for us to work on them. Just as a subatomic particle like a lepton or a Higgs-Boson particle can, in the very same instant, be found at opposite ends of the Universe, so all thoughts and imaginations originate and are accessible from an infinity of locations.
Ten years of training, with each five day class spaced six months apart--and many of the classes required to take twice before moving on to the next level--allowed for slow and full integration and practice of the dense and deeply profound information into my core being. I had to sit with it, meditate upon it, practice it, review it, discuss it, familiarize myself with it, deepen my engagement with it, in order to be ready to receive and work with the next level's information. Interestingly, as the coursework progressed each learning manual would thicken. Also, the feeling that I was walking around in a state of floating, time-slowed expandedness which followed each class would last longer as well.
Barbara Briner was once a student to some of the founders of the first organized teaching of Esoteric Healing. But she took the information further. Through meditation and exploration Dr. Briner was able to bring through, organize, codify and teach deeper and expanded forms, protocols, and informations than the original teachers. I believe that I am not exaggerating when I say that Dr. Briner has expanded the information of Esoteric Healing threefold since that of its inception in the 1970s. And I dare say that I believe that any serious student of Esoteric Healing is doing the same: They have learned to make it their own. They have learned to listen to and trust their imaginations, their intuitions, to recognize that any and all information revealed to them is relevant and viable in the practice and expansion of Esoteric Healing. Dr. Briner, however, has been the most prolific, profound, and organized. This is part of her nature, being a scientist. And yet, there are few people that I have come across with the heart and verbal skill to express their information in the profoundly effective and affective way that Dr. Briner does. Her science mind gives you the maps and templates but her heartfelt experiences and anecdotes render them human and personal--making them realistic and potentially applicable to oneself as well as to all others. This is such a gift to be able to bridge the Heart and Mind as Dr. Briner does. That is why she has been such a profoundly influential and inspiring teacher of mine.
Esoteric Healing, on the other hand, has been an even more profoundly effective and contributing teacher of mine because it has immediate relevance--and immediate effects--on both me and the beneficiary. It is little understood that once you "hook up" with the energy field of another you have in fact unified your two energy fields--you have removed the illusory walls of individuality and merged two energy fields into one. Thus, my "reading" and assessment of another's energy field is going to be quite different from that of another person's assessment because "reading skills" are affected, biased and skewed by my "stuff"--all of the accumulated baggage of information, experience, and emotion that I have access to filters my interpretation of the energy field of the so-called "other" person. Also, because our energy fields have merged into one, any "treatment" I "give" to another is received by my own field as well. Just as in the quantum field the observer and the observed cannot be separated, so in the world of energy treatment there can be no separation of the treater and treatee, thus both receive the benefits of the "structured prayer."
It has long been proved under rigorous scientific conditions that the effect of prayer is real. Prayer really does work! It has been measured. It has been proven--time and time again. Energy follows thought. This follows the same principle: If you think it, it is given energy, it is real. Anything--and I mean anything--you think is given the power of Creation. (Remember: We are all Creators as we are all animated by a Spark of the Divine.) Anything you think is helping to increase the potential for the mental, emotional, and/or physical manifestation of that thing. The more your thoughts align and attune with the thoughts of others, of other thoughts, the more likely that thought is to manifest itself into our conscious reality.
Esoteric Healing is a means to information. More, it is a means to Self-awareness, Self-empowerment, and Self-realization. Barbara Briner, Esoteric Healing, Dr. Briner's Center for Bioenergy Studies and its associated bookstore have all lead me, Drew Fisher, to many, many other teachers--some of which you will be hearing about in future podcasts. Thank you so much, Dr. Briner. Your giving has been for me a wellspring of endless bounty.
Sunday, May 10, 2015
The Teachers: Deepak Chopra and Neale Donald Walsch
I owe an extreme debt to both Deepak Chopra and Neale Donald Walsch for the magical gift of words, of vocabulary, that they have bestowed upon me.
Words have always been a source of endless fascination for me--even, or perhaps, especially, words in foreign languages and the etymologies of words that we use in the English language. In fact, I believe that a vocation as a linguist could very easily have been my own had I chosen so. My discovery of the writing of Deepak Chopra came at a time in my life in which writing and wordsmithing had taken a primary in my life. In fact, I had interrupted a two year hike across Europe to assuage the creative Muse within me that had awakened during my physical wanderings. Post cards turned into pages of journalling until one night I was awakened in the middle of the night by the clamoring chorus of characters of my first novel, demanding that I write down their story. It was wonderful! Writing, creating life on paper from the characters and scenery living within my being was so invigorating! But then, my writing and voracious reading habits turned on the insatiable curiosity. The meaning of life, the meaning of my existence, the meaning of all being drove me to further and further, broader and deeper explorations. Which soon led me to the inspirational, informative and comprehensible publications of Deepak Chopra.
In the 1980s I became quite a devotee of the writings of Deepak Chopra. I was there buying hardcover copies of his book publications as they hit the bookstores. Perfect Health: The Complete Mind/Body Guide, Quantum Healing: Exploring the Frontiers of Mind Body Medicine, Perfect Life, The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, Ageless Body, Timeless Mind, The Seven Spiritual Laws for Parents: Guiding Your Children Success and Fulfillment and, later, his monthly newsletter to which I subscribed, Infinite Possibilities, were all instrumental to my growth and awakening. But more, they help give me words; they helped me to create the language that I needed at that time (and now) in order to to adequately and comfortably express myself--to express my Truth, to reveal my Self to my Self and the world.
Deepak was a continuation of my need to have science-speak validate some of the mystical ideas and beliefs I was revealing from within myself. I had been through the mystical writings of Christian writers like Augustine, Plutarch, Vico, Thomas à Kempis, and Thomas More, the psychology of Dostoevesky and Alice Miller, the inspiration of Herman Hesse and Thomas Mann, and of Richard Bach and Dan Millman. Perfect Health arrived on the heels of my first exposures to both Theosophical and Jungian writings. The writings and speeches of Deepak Chopra came as a way to validate my unfolding understanding of the world and my Self in terms of science.
I must here acknowledge the important influence that Gary Zukov's The Dancing Wu Li Masters had had. It was my first foray into the links being made between Eastern mysticism and Western science--specifically, quantum physics. You might say, then, that The Dancing Wu Li Masters primed me for the East-meets-West integration that Deepak provided. However, the science in The Dancing Wu Li Masters was still a bit too dense for my wee little brain. Deepak was the one who really helped bring it all into comprehension and utility for me.
After the two Seven Spiritual Laws books found their way to me--and became guides to a period of very serious and focused commitment to the practice of their principles and standards--I gradually lost connection to Deepak's work. This was partly due to the feeling that I was outgrowing his approach, his style, or it was as if the information Deepak provided began to feel as if it was on a continuous loop, repeating what I had heard before, reiterating that which I already remembered or felt I had internalized and put into practice as best I could. But, more the truth of the matter--of my 'molting' beyond Deepak--was the appearance of the work of other teachers one of which was Neale Donald Walsch.
Somewhere in the mid-1990s I was sucked into the magical and empowering world of my own inner Truth thanks to the Conversations with God series of books that Neale Donald Walsch and his Nonmaterial Informant revealed to the world. The opening chapters of each of these books--the opening paragraphs!--were revelatory and transformational in the way they helped me to see, understand, and believe that everything we encounter, everything we choose to give our attention to, is exactly that which we need, is exactly a form of something that we have asked for in order to grow, in order to awaken new comprehension and definition of our selves and of our place in the world (in the Cosmos). And the books kept coming, the next building upon the others in ways that fed my still starving soul! I read and reread them, bought them on tape and CD, listened to them at home or in the car, posted the phrases and sayings that resonated most deeply with me around my house and in my own writings. "Can't is never true," and "We evolve through pain and suffering until we learn to choose to evolve through Joy and Love," and "There is no coincidence, nothing happens by 'accident'" and "Cultivate the technique of seeing all problems as opportunities--and recognize that all opportunities exist to help you to decide Who You Really Are" and I could go on and on. But I won't. I'd rather that you pick up your own copies and discover your own latest and greatest version of Who You Really Are.
Truly, the Conversations with God series provided me with some of the best, most nourishing, food that my soul has acquired while in this Drew Fisher vehicle--food that has been comforting in a way that has only been topped by the works of Michael Newton and my past-life and Life-Between-Life experiences. Conversations with God helped me achieve understanding and acceptance of the fact that there is no right or wrong, no better or worse, no good or evil, that there is just experience and information. They also helped me further validate the truth that a nonmaterial, spiritual world was alive, real, and actively engaged in our own world--actively engaged in my own growth and progress, health and well-being. It also helped me to understand that everything is ongoing, that nothing is ever finished, that my unveiling of my own latest and greatest version of Who I Really Am is still just a version, just a snapshot, just a silly attempt to assess something that is always in flux, always in progress, always in process. Amazing.
Anyway. I, Drew Fisher, have achieved the state of awareness and confidence I possess today in no small part through the information disseminated by these two Bringers of Light; it is through the words and language of the publications attributed to Deepak Chopra and Neale Donald Walsch that I possess the tools and the desire and motivation to express myself--to express my Self--to the world in the forms that I do: through massage and healing work, through parenting and close interpersonal relationships, through writing, podcasting, and social networking. Infinite possibilities and the God within me, the God that is me, allow me to be who I am, allow me to choose joy over suffering, to choose love over fear, to choose perspectives of infinite possibilities instead of those of limitation and impossibility. The information I assimilated and accommodated from their work has enabled me, Drew Fisher, to recognize truths that have helped to reveal my own ever-evolving concepts and definitions of Who I Really Am and Who I Want to Be. What more can one ask of a teacher? I am forever grateful for the gifts of Deepak Chopra and Neale Donald Walsch.
Words have always been a source of endless fascination for me--even, or perhaps, especially, words in foreign languages and the etymologies of words that we use in the English language. In fact, I believe that a vocation as a linguist could very easily have been my own had I chosen so. My discovery of the writing of Deepak Chopra came at a time in my life in which writing and wordsmithing had taken a primary in my life. In fact, I had interrupted a two year hike across Europe to assuage the creative Muse within me that had awakened during my physical wanderings. Post cards turned into pages of journalling until one night I was awakened in the middle of the night by the clamoring chorus of characters of my first novel, demanding that I write down their story. It was wonderful! Writing, creating life on paper from the characters and scenery living within my being was so invigorating! But then, my writing and voracious reading habits turned on the insatiable curiosity. The meaning of life, the meaning of my existence, the meaning of all being drove me to further and further, broader and deeper explorations. Which soon led me to the inspirational, informative and comprehensible publications of Deepak Chopra.
In the 1980s I became quite a devotee of the writings of Deepak Chopra. I was there buying hardcover copies of his book publications as they hit the bookstores. Perfect Health: The Complete Mind/Body Guide, Quantum Healing: Exploring the Frontiers of Mind Body Medicine, Perfect Life, The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, Ageless Body, Timeless Mind, The Seven Spiritual Laws for Parents: Guiding Your Children Success and Fulfillment and, later, his monthly newsletter to which I subscribed, Infinite Possibilities, were all instrumental to my growth and awakening. But more, they help give me words; they helped me to create the language that I needed at that time (and now) in order to to adequately and comfortably express myself--to express my Truth, to reveal my Self to my Self and the world.
Deepak was a continuation of my need to have science-speak validate some of the mystical ideas and beliefs I was revealing from within myself. I had been through the mystical writings of Christian writers like Augustine, Plutarch, Vico, Thomas à Kempis, and Thomas More, the psychology of Dostoevesky and Alice Miller, the inspiration of Herman Hesse and Thomas Mann, and of Richard Bach and Dan Millman. Perfect Health arrived on the heels of my first exposures to both Theosophical and Jungian writings. The writings and speeches of Deepak Chopra came as a way to validate my unfolding understanding of the world and my Self in terms of science.
I must here acknowledge the important influence that Gary Zukov's The Dancing Wu Li Masters had had. It was my first foray into the links being made between Eastern mysticism and Western science--specifically, quantum physics. You might say, then, that The Dancing Wu Li Masters primed me for the East-meets-West integration that Deepak provided. However, the science in The Dancing Wu Li Masters was still a bit too dense for my wee little brain. Deepak was the one who really helped bring it all into comprehension and utility for me.
After the two Seven Spiritual Laws books found their way to me--and became guides to a period of very serious and focused commitment to the practice of their principles and standards--I gradually lost connection to Deepak's work. This was partly due to the feeling that I was outgrowing his approach, his style, or it was as if the information Deepak provided began to feel as if it was on a continuous loop, repeating what I had heard before, reiterating that which I already remembered or felt I had internalized and put into practice as best I could. But, more the truth of the matter--of my 'molting' beyond Deepak--was the appearance of the work of other teachers one of which was Neale Donald Walsch.
Somewhere in the mid-1990s I was sucked into the magical and empowering world of my own inner Truth thanks to the Conversations with God series of books that Neale Donald Walsch and his Nonmaterial Informant revealed to the world. The opening chapters of each of these books--the opening paragraphs!--were revelatory and transformational in the way they helped me to see, understand, and believe that everything we encounter, everything we choose to give our attention to, is exactly that which we need, is exactly a form of something that we have asked for in order to grow, in order to awaken new comprehension and definition of our selves and of our place in the world (in the Cosmos). And the books kept coming, the next building upon the others in ways that fed my still starving soul! I read and reread them, bought them on tape and CD, listened to them at home or in the car, posted the phrases and sayings that resonated most deeply with me around my house and in my own writings. "Can't is never true," and "We evolve through pain and suffering until we learn to choose to evolve through Joy and Love," and "There is no coincidence, nothing happens by 'accident'" and "Cultivate the technique of seeing all problems as opportunities--and recognize that all opportunities exist to help you to decide Who You Really Are" and I could go on and on. But I won't. I'd rather that you pick up your own copies and discover your own latest and greatest version of Who You Really Are.
Truly, the Conversations with God series provided me with some of the best, most nourishing, food that my soul has acquired while in this Drew Fisher vehicle--food that has been comforting in a way that has only been topped by the works of Michael Newton and my past-life and Life-Between-Life experiences. Conversations with God helped me achieve understanding and acceptance of the fact that there is no right or wrong, no better or worse, no good or evil, that there is just experience and information. They also helped me further validate the truth that a nonmaterial, spiritual world was alive, real, and actively engaged in our own world--actively engaged in my own growth and progress, health and well-being. It also helped me to understand that everything is ongoing, that nothing is ever finished, that my unveiling of my own latest and greatest version of Who I Really Am is still just a version, just a snapshot, just a silly attempt to assess something that is always in flux, always in progress, always in process. Amazing.
Anyway. I, Drew Fisher, have achieved the state of awareness and confidence I possess today in no small part through the information disseminated by these two Bringers of Light; it is through the words and language of the publications attributed to Deepak Chopra and Neale Donald Walsch that I possess the tools and the desire and motivation to express myself--to express my Self--to the world in the forms that I do: through massage and healing work, through parenting and close interpersonal relationships, through writing, podcasting, and social networking. Infinite possibilities and the God within me, the God that is me, allow me to be who I am, allow me to choose joy over suffering, to choose love over fear, to choose perspectives of infinite possibilities instead of those of limitation and impossibility. The information I assimilated and accommodated from their work has enabled me, Drew Fisher, to recognize truths that have helped to reveal my own ever-evolving concepts and definitions of Who I Really Am and Who I Want to Be. What more can one ask of a teacher? I am forever grateful for the gifts of Deepak Chopra and Neale Donald Walsch.
Thursday, May 7, 2015
The Teachers: Vinoba Bhave and Ideal Community
Vinoba Bhave was an Indian figure of the mid-20th Century who was elevated to sainthood through the popularity he gained through his staunch adherence to principles of decentralizing government to that of more self-regulating local or regional collectives--usually of agrarian orientation. I became aware of what many refer to as Vinoba Bhave's "peaceful anarchism" as a result of my 'accidental' attraction to writings about utopianism--which led to my initial awakening to and awareness of alternate ideals of government, including the various forms and practices of anarchism, communism and socialism. My consciousness was greatly enhanced through the writings and works of Plato, Thomas More, Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, William Godwin, Victor Hugo, Georges Sand, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, William Morris, Leo Tolstoy, Mikhail Bakunin, Peter Kropotkin, Emma Goldman and Mohandas Gandhi.
Vinoba Bhave was, in fact, a contemporary and friend of Gandhi. For a time the two were even on the same page in terms of political agendas for their native India. But, eventually, Vinoba veered away from Gandhi's nationalism in favor of a focus on restoring power and autonomy back to smaller localities.
According to its official census from 2001, India has 122 major languages and 1599 other languages. Figures from other sources vary as to the accuracy of these numbers--primarily due to differences in definition of the terms "language" and "dialect." India's 2001 Census recorded 30 languages which were spoken by more than a million native speakers and 122 which were spoken by more than 10,000 people. Coming from Raigad District of Maharashtra, Vinoba Bhave was a native speaker of Marathi--a language in which he chose to write and speak for the majority of his lifetime. With these statistics in mind, it is easy to understand why Vinoba thought that centralized rule over so many ethnicities was wrong. It was ludicrous. And arrogant.
Vinoba invested little faith or praise in the achievements of modern industry and technology. In terms of what is best for the individual soul, for all humans involved, he believed that the more natural state of small community promoted the personal and mutually supportive interdependence that allowed both healthy and successful relationships both physically but also psycho-spiritually. Thus, Vinoba was in favor of returning power to small states which allowed peaceful consensual autonomy within agricultural-based communal areas.
Vinoba Bhave was, in fact, a contemporary and friend of Gandhi. For a time the two were even on the same page in terms of political agendas for their native India. But, eventually, Vinoba veered away from Gandhi's nationalism in favor of a focus on restoring power and autonomy back to smaller localities.
According to its official census from 2001, India has 122 major languages and 1599 other languages. Figures from other sources vary as to the accuracy of these numbers--primarily due to differences in definition of the terms "language" and "dialect." India's 2001 Census recorded 30 languages which were spoken by more than a million native speakers and 122 which were spoken by more than 10,000 people. Coming from Raigad District of Maharashtra, Vinoba Bhave was a native speaker of Marathi--a language in which he chose to write and speak for the majority of his lifetime. With these statistics in mind, it is easy to understand why Vinoba thought that centralized rule over so many ethnicities was wrong. It was ludicrous. And arrogant.
Vinoba invested little faith or praise in the achievements of modern industry and technology. In terms of what is best for the individual soul, for all humans involved, he believed that the more natural state of small community promoted the personal and mutually supportive interdependence that allowed both healthy and successful relationships both physically but also psycho-spiritually. Thus, Vinoba was in favor of returning power to small states which allowed peaceful consensual autonomy within agricultural-based communal areas.
My discovery of the belief in the health inherent in small community-based autonomous collectives living peacefully with trade and travel agreements with neighbors was the answer to my own internal quandaries. To see that anarchism--or the lack of over-arching authority--could be achieved and maintained peacefully through the small community made absolute sense to me. Peaceful, communal living guided by open, consensual decision-making, going back to agrarian orientation and values, is, in my opinion, the answer to the best living conditions for healthy human societies, for healthy human psyches. Global unity through global government and a global economy is, in my opinion, not the structure to best facilitate the realization of the highest potentialities for the majority of humans; globalization is not the means to successful mastery of human beings' basic needs. In fact, one might easily prove that globalization has the exact opposite effect on individuals--that it promotes fear, isolation, insufficiency, separation, and struggle. Vinoba Bhave and I want to see every human being have an equal chance for successful mastery of the human condition or, as Abraham Maslow put it, the chance to achieve Self-actualization, the highest rung of his Hierarchy of Needs pyramid. This is what my gut tells me--what it has been telling me for millennia.
Vinoba's and my intuitive beliefs are being well-supported by modern social psychology. Anthropologist Robin Dunbar has suggested that there is a cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships. These are relationships in which an individual knows who each person is and how each person relates to every other person in the group. One's "social network." Social scientists can now agree that the number of capacity for successfully active human social interaction (and interdependence) is between 100 and 250 people. The size of a village. Like the cooperative agrarian villages of Vinoba Bhave. Coincidentally, it was revealed to me in my most recent Life-Between-Life session that the Community of Monads with whom I work is numbered at 89.
Vinoba's and my intuitive beliefs are being well-supported by modern social psychology. Anthropologist Robin Dunbar has suggested that there is a cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships. These are relationships in which an individual knows who each person is and how each person relates to every other person in the group. One's "social network." Social scientists can now agree that the number of capacity for successfully active human social interaction (and interdependence) is between 100 and 250 people. The size of a village. Like the cooperative agrarian villages of Vinoba Bhave. Coincidentally, it was revealed to me in my most recent Life-Between-Life session that the Community of Monads with whom I work is numbered at 89.
Such small "villages" are perfect for autonomous self-regulating consensual anarchism. In agriculturally focused life there is no need to seek resources from others, no need to use aggression to solve problems, no need to move or leave in order to meet individual needs as all food and simple needs are met from within the collective or through peaceful trade with neighboring collectives. This is the "anarchism" Vinoba Bhave taught--and practiced. Vinoba walked for years over India asking property owners to share, to give, to donate property to others, especially to the poor and destitute, to those that Nature had shorted. He was a believer and practitioner of social equality and inalienable basic human rights.
Though many writers have written fictitious accounts of perfect societies--utopias, eutopias, dystopias, and the like--the number of active experiments in living a kind of ideal-based social life has usually taken the form of small intentional communities--of which there have been many. The young United States was a haven for experimental communities, some religiously motivated, others politically and economically so. The Massachusetts Bay Colony, Roger Williams' Rhode Island, William Penn's Quaker state, James Oglethorpe's egalitarian Savannah and Georgia colonies, New Chautauqua, New Harmony, Oberlin, Brook Farm, Oneida, The Amana Colonies, Home Washington, Seneca, Auburn, Twin Oaks, The Farm, Esalen, Kripalu, etc., etc., the list goes on and on, from 1620 to the present.
Communal village life was still a common organizational system in rural agrarian France even into the 1980s. I know. I had friends at University who came from such entities. And these village communes worked. They worked because everyone knew each other, because everyone was in active relationship with one another. These bonds of familiarity bred trust and interdependence. In these villages there was no need for property laws. Food and labor were shared, distributed amongst all of the villagers. Community decision-making was done collectively, with all individuals valued by being given equal voice and equal authority. People get along because they know each other personally, because they know and understand the relationships among all of their village members.
Communal village life was still a common organizational system in rural agrarian France even into the 1980s. I know. I had friends at University who came from such entities. And these village communes worked. They worked because everyone knew each other, because everyone was in active relationship with one another. These bonds of familiarity bred trust and interdependence. In these villages there was no need for property laws. Food and labor were shared, distributed amongst all of the villagers. Community decision-making was done collectively, with all individuals valued by being given equal voice and equal authority. People get along because they know each other personally, because they know and understand the relationships among all of their village members.
The modern-day Amish practice a similar kind of communal self-regulation. They choose to organize their communities into "districts" of usually not more than 30 families. With their practice of raising large families (it is common for an Amish woman to bear and raise ten or more children over her lifetime), this could mean gatherings of up to 300 people (or more) for their religious, family, and work celebrations. Having spent some quality time within our local Amish community, working with families and with their individual family members, it feels to me as if Vinoba would have been pleased to see much of the Amish choices in lifestyle. I admire and commend the Amish for being able to sustain their devout principles and practices despite the influences and pressures of the Industrialized "English" world surrounding them, even interlaced within their own.
Vinoba Bhave was a figure of transmission, a person whose ideals and practices were unique, unusual, and admired well-enough to have been recognized and recorded by history. It just happens that my exposure to translations and interpretations of Vinoba Bhave's practices and ideals helped to (re-)awaken within me knowledge and values that had been hitherto hidden to my conscious mind but which resonated thoroughly with my own.
I never met or knew Vinoba Bhave. Still, I consider him to be one of my teachers. His presence on the planet inspired others to record for posterity his works and words so that people like me could find inspiration--could awaken with in the Spirit of them Selves versions of their own Truth that may have been obscured, diverted or repressed. What was once hidden is now awake and alive. (Again.) That is the essence of the effects of teachers: They awaken that which was inside you all along but was before hidden and waiting.
I never met or knew Vinoba Bhave. Still, I consider him to be one of my teachers. His presence on the planet inspired others to record for posterity his works and words so that people like me could find inspiration--could awaken with in the Spirit of them Selves versions of their own Truth that may have been obscured, diverted or repressed. What was once hidden is now awake and alive. (Again.) That is the essence of the effects of teachers: They awaken that which was inside you all along but was before hidden and waiting.
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