Note to my friends

5 May 2011
GOODBYE, BHAVANA, Part 1, The Physical Story
In January i was experiencing enough discomfort in my neck to go to an ENT specialist who sent me for tests which showed evidence of thyroid cancer, either medullary or anaplastic. Following up at the Cancer Research Centre at nearby JIPMER (a government post-graduate teaching hospital, second best in India), i was admitted for an operation to remove the medullary tumour on Feb 7th, and that operation was successful, although it showed much more aggressive growth and adhesion than expected and the post-op biopsy showed anaplastic cancer, an extremely fast growing and deadly cancer, and i am now experiencing large tumour growth in my neck. I discovered through a great book, Outsmart Your Cancer, an alternative treatment in late April (much too late really), and it is a race between the cancer and the remedy. The cancer threatens to cut off breathing, eating and swallowing faster than the remedy can kill off cancer cells. So here i sit short of breath, barely able to swallow, extremely weak and low energy... It’s extremely fast, a week ago i was climbing the stairs (albeit slowly) to an airy room for evenings – today i need help to bet to the bathroom.
GOODBYE. BHAVANA AND HELLO AGAIN, Part 2, The Inner Story
But most interesting for me has been the inner journey which this diagnosis triggered. My first reaction was actually, “O good, i will get to prepare for my death and depart consciously.” I think the main factor in this rather positive reaction was that 17 years ago i nearly died of cerebral malaria – coming out of a two week coma, i had a very strong sense that death is really not anything to be afraid of (it’s much harder on the people all around than on the dying/dead person). I wondered how deep that fearlessness was, but i have found that it is sustaining at an even keel during all this period. Also, i am 67 and have had a very full life – so i’m not facing a lot of regrets or unfinished dreams. And i must admit that the 9 months last year i spent with my 92 year old mother in a nursing home in Florida made me open to a relatively early departure before sight, hearing, mobility, etc. breakdown. But i am not inviting death, i was always fully happy to continue on living, and with wonderful support from my community here, entered the course of further tests to ascertain the diagnosis and take the appropriate treatment. I was operated on by one of the best surgeons in India, and a wonderful person also. Meanwhile, i also began to work on the body of work which has been growing up over the last decades which approaches cancer as a turning point in one’s life (specially that of Dr. Carl Simonton and Dr. David Servan Schreiber, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXwt-e7rKf0 , and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lwiQm5QaTs), and encourages one to look at the stresses which have led up to the onset (the key causative factor they’ve found is not the stress itself but a feeling of helplessness around it and i had two where they only solution was “give it to Mother”, but although the mind accepted, the vital found them intolerable), the secondary benefits of falling sick (primarily that all my friends come and tell me how much they love and will miss me, showering me with genuine care and evoking responsive feelings in me, and also being freed from the daily grind of routine busy-ness), and for the “message” of the disease (in my case, precisely that i was neglecting my inner work and that i should give it priority). This seems just like integral yoga to me, and more and more i found that the cancer seemed like a blessing, acting as Death-as -Guru overcoming my resistances to spiritual progress and goading me into intensified practice.
The most important of these practices has been listening to Shraddhavan’s reading of Savitri on CD. I find her reading so evocative and smooth, not only do i listen during the day but i sometimes play it all night long, dosing off and then waking to listen. Savitri is mantric, we know, and when listened to has deep effect. One night i experienced Mother coming in – She took my hands and whirled me around , letting me go flying. I swooped and dived and moved around in the air, so happy to be free of the heaviness of ordinary body consciousness. I thought to myself, this is an astral/vital experience not a spiritual one – but that’s okay since i can tell the difference. It was such fun, and i was so grateful i just lay my head on Her thigh, grasped Her hands and cried. Another night, i awoke at exactly midnight and Shraddhavan had just begun the Book of Fate – i was immediately completely alert and listened rapt for 4-5 hours through the Dialogue with Death. During the listening my mind was working at least two tracks, one was understanding what Sri Aurobindo was saying in a deeper way than i had ever understood before, and another was seeing how all the stresses i was feeling in my personal life and in relation to the worsening economic, ecological and political crises on the planet, as well as all my existential and metaphysical doubts about mind and meaning , were being addressed by Sri Aurobindo so precisely. My consciousness seemed to be rising up above this level of conflict, confusion and contradiction to where i could see with bright certainty that every single factor – the conflicts, the reactions to conflicts, the reactions to reactions, everything i could perceive or imagine, was actually moving and changing in perfect order, part of a larger flux of harmony. And then my previous experience with Mother kicked in as i realised that “flying”, that is being able to swoop down and up on different levels of consciousness, would enable me to easily and lightly keep adjusting and maintaining my state of mind above the conflictual levels without denying them – and that developing that capacity to be aware of my consciousness and adjust could be a priority practice.
At this point my attitude toward cancer treatment took a step forward. Before i had been anticipating a conscious departure, now i began to think about getting yogically skilled enough to make a conscious transition to the next life. I found an interesting thing, that i was much more motivated to “pray” (something i’ve wished to be able to do, but always found difficult) for this transition to move on to a next life so that i could continue to serve conscious evolution on the planet, than to pray for myself living longer or dying well. It came so naturally, so strongly. A little later my mind was straying into thoughts of what sort of parents i should be born to, parents who would recognise the special qualities of their little girl and do everything to encourage and develop those psychic qualities in her, and it suddenly occurred to me i didn’t have to change bodies to do that. I could start taking care of that “little girl” (my psychic being, my soul) right now, from this minute.
But quite typically this rush of peak experiences has been followed by the inevitable troughs where the same obscurities, lassitude and incapacities are the order of the day. As the cancer progresses it makes me very weak, energy-less – and that has proved a good direction to follow: spend much of the day in deep relaxation, “just being”. A lot of purification goes on, as well as aspiring for the consciousness i long to be in, and leaving the results to the Divine. And so it is with me right now, endlessly rocking in the cradle between breaking through into a new body or a new life in this one.
GOOD BYE BHAVANA, Part 3, A Note to my Friends
With all this time “just being” so many of my friends come to mind, and i feel the special quality of love which friendship bestows. I reminds me of a dream i had about a week ago – that i was with a friend who somehow had me lying in a lotus radiating love – it was blissful, i felt really good. But then some pain arose in that lotus-reclining body – but still the love was radiating. I began to see that radiating love was normal for a being, whether we are blissful or painful or so caught up in our little lives that we don’ t even notice. We all just radiate love and that’s how the world holds together. There’s nothing special about it, requiring lotuses and bugles. But if we happen to become aware of it, then it seems special. So friendship is something which gives us a possibility of noticing the radiating of love. Friendship comes by grace, there’s just a rapport and chance to notice the love! And each connection so very unique! How amazing is Infinity. So thanks to all of my friends for this privilege of sharing love and appreciation of Infinity! And please forgive me if i can’t answer to anything you write, because it is already quite a painful accomplishment for me to write this good bye epistle. I love you.
HELLO AGAIN, Part 4
If i recover i will write about the medicine and also about the whole horrid story of how low cost natural non toxic (but non patentable) cancer remedies are suppressed by the “cancer industry”. Meanwhile, if you or a dear one are diagnosed with cancer, you might want to read right away, Outsmart Your Cancer, which very clearly describes 21 alternative cancer remedies which have been curing people for up to 60 years, explaining the way they work, their history, giving testimonials, and directions how to obtain them, and explaining “why, if they work so well, we have never heard of them” (suppression).

The Shadow Side

I got this on my ordinary email, what do you think?

Facebook at 517 million users suppresses ET/UFO disclosure with cointelpro spying, censorship - By Alfred Lambremont Webre (October 1st, 2010)

http://www.examiner.com/exopolitics-in-seattle/facebook-at-517-million-users-suppresses-et-ufo-disclosure-with-cointelpro-spying-censorship

With the premiere of a blockbuster movie The Social Network (Tagline: "You don't get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies"), social network website Facebook.com - whose approximately 517,760,460 current members now total 7.6 % of the human race - has become the online emblem of virtual society in first decade of the 21st century. Facebook.com has, by publicly reported evidence, become a covert data mine of Facebook users personal data and habits, at a time when Facebook's 517 million members now number nearly 30% of all 1.9 billion Internet users on the planet. Facebook.com is more than a covert data mine. Facebook.com is, by the evidence, an instrument of information warfare and attack against Facebook users whose actions fall within specific clandestine surveillance guidelines established by DARPA and the U.S. Department of Defense Information Awareness Office. Facebook.com has, by the evidence, also been used in furtherance of black budget operations such as the April 20, 2010 BP Gulf oil spill. Investigation has revealed that Facebook.com has denied its users access to critical extraterrestrial disclosure information, and has sabotaged Facebook groups intended for organizing a boycott against BP, the oil giant responsible for the April 20, 2010 BP Gulf oil spill false flag operation, through the use of sophisticated spying and cointelpro Facebook.com software attack techniques. One of the cointelpro-type attacks carried out by Facebook.com and documented by mainstream media newspaper Politico was against Facebook members who attempted to organize a boycott on Facebook.com against BP, one of the corporate perpetrators of the April 20, 2010 BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill that has devastated the ecology, economy, and population of the Gulf area. These sophisticated spying and cointelpro Facebook.com software attack techniques could only be employed with the explicit approval of an upper management executive and venture capital level at Facebook.com. This Facebook.com upper level advertises its easy, open access to U.S. President Barack Obama, one of the largest recipients of campaign contributions from BP, and whose Secretary of Energy, Steven Chu, received a $500 million grant from BP prior to joining the Obama cabinet. Researchers such as Vishar Agarwal have demonstrated the deep interconnection between venture capitalists behind Facebook.com and the Central Intelligence Agency investment front company InQTel, whose Board member Dr. Anita Jones was a former high-ranking official of DARPA and of the U.S. Department of Defense Information Awareness Office. Facebook.com is the de-facto controlled Internet asset of the CIA and Department of Defense Information Awareness Office (IAO), "The IAO was established after Admiral John Poindexter, former United States National Security Advisor to President Ronald Reagan and SAIC executive Brian Hicks approached the US Department of Defense with the idea for an information awareness program after the [false flag operation] of September 11, 2001." Facebook.com, the clandestine manifestation of SAIC and Admiral John Poindexter's brainchild Information Awareness Office (IAO) that has now infiltrated 77.4% of all 266 million Internet users in North America (all of whom are now Facebook.com members), and has transformed the Internet into a velvet-gloved virtual form of Friendly Fascism, and conditional virtual citizenship

Birthday Thanks

I'm so grateful for all the birthday greetings you all sent. It was a lovely birthday, full of the things which are worth doing: in the morning helping in coordinating a workshop on "Exploring a Sustainable Future" where a small team of us Aurovilians host a group of about 25-30 Indians and show them the sustainable alternatives we've developed in Auroville. For years we had to convince many in the groups that there was a problem, but this year the group was full of people already aware and practising -- it was like a big get-together that inspired and encouraged everyone, even us!
And in the afternoon i attended the "inauguration" of a large project proposal bringing Auroville livelihood skills into the bioregion (organic farming, compressed earth blocks, cottage industries, etc.), which is especially exciting because we seem to be willing to work together (for a change). This project is the fulfilment of numerous of my dreams: reaching out in a big way to the villages, applying our best minds the project, working together, exploring management techniques which will make it a "development project" also for the people who are implementing it, a chance to grow innerly by addressing the problems we meet consciously...
So, it was a very lovely day, my birthday, and i like being 67. With yoga everyday, i am feeling very limber and strong and good... and here in Auroville i am finding that being an "elder" is a respected status, and i find myself able to feel useful and productive in the teams i belong to....
Thanks again everyone for remembering me.

Saving Grace

After several months of spiritual isolation in Florida, a Greenpeace friend introduced me to another activist who is also a Buddhist, and this kind woman took me to the meeting of the Soka Gakkai at another friend’s house. We had to drive far into the interior of West Palm Beach County, through the gates of a planned community to a very nice house where i joined a dozen people in a small side room who were chanting “Nam Myoho Renge Kyo” in front of a Japanese altar. Stumbling over an assortment of people, and barely avoiding sitting in the seat destined for the boyfriend of one young chantress, i was given a bookmark-sized paper with those four words written on it and encouraged to join in. I did. It was mesmerising and warm. I would have liked to go into a trance, but i wasn’t supposed to close my eyes, but focus on the altar and the scroll. It went on for quite a while, led with much passion and persistence by a small pretty woman who looked South American. They gave me a pamphlet which let me see what the words meant, and the few other prayers which we recited together. All in Japanese.
When it was over, we repaired to the living room and sat around on the comfy sofas and chairs. The leader gave me and another newcomer a chance to introduce ourselves, and then she told us about how her sister-in-law had been suffering terribly with an abusive husband and kept on hanging on the phone with her, bewailing her stuck condition. Finally she had convinced her to resume chanting practice – and after a while things were sorting out in their family life, and she was no longer beleaguered by depressing phone calls. Another person had been reading the World Tribune, the newspaper of the sect, SGI-USA, and had filled it with notes and exclamation points – it had meant so much to him. A business woman confided that she’d become so accustomed to the way Buddhists relate, she was quite repelled when she’d been in the company of people who complain and blame and backbite as daily fare. Going around the circle, there were such a variety of ethnicities – Colombian, Polish, Greek, Argentinian, Japanese, Mexican, Californian, Jewish – but they were all telling how chanting and the Buddhist community was bringing order and joy into their lives.
As each was telling his or her story one after the other, i was struck with recognition – O, I’ve been here before, and this is a wonderful thing, a very real thing which scientific materialists aren’t able to fathom. The room was full of the Saving Grace. I’d first encountered it at a Baptist Youth Camp in Maine – i was there as a riding and swimming counsellor and was not myself “saved” – but i could sure see the difference in centeredness and poise between my campers who were and those who weren’t. It was obvious in the way they conducted themselves, calmly, with care and consideration for others, confidently. But i’ve witnessed it again and again, in AA meetings or with the Salvation Army, in the gatherings of Children of God or Hari Krishnas ministering to the addicted and otherwise-lost children of the hippie diaspora, in revival meetings in the South, and in Boston even the teaching of Sri Aurobindo was being used in this way by an extraordinary saint-ex-thief Mickey Finn. It really doesn’t matter what the name of the saviour is, or if it is operating through or shooting off from Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Buddhist or whatever established religion or not, it is a palpable force which when invoked helps people focus their lives in a way that produces order, happiness, harmony both within the individual and also in the community around them. I felt very very happy to experience this, to be able to recognise the energy and wholeheartedly praise the Presence. It made the assembly happy to be appreciated too.
Amazing Grace is a wonderful song, which says “Amazing Grace, how sweet thy sound, to save a wretch like me,” and it was written by the former captain of a slave ship who then saw the light, upon whom Grace had shown. He was able to turn his life around. “O, i once was lost but now am found, was blind and now i see!” Composed in the pentatonic scale of the African tribal chants, it captures the anguish and exhilaration of moving from one state of consciousness to a higher. And this grace is ubiquitous, it is working at every level, at all times, but when it is recognised and invoked it’s more powerful. I felt immensely blessed to spend an evening in the Grace.
I think that this Grace needs to be invoked at this time in humanity’s history. The passage we are in, crushed in the heaving birth canal on our way to becoming a new species, is a movement from one state of consciousness to a higher. But rather than an individual initiation we are experiencing this collectively, as a terrestrial phenomenon. It’s huge. The former pillars and unquestioned assumptions of the old paradigm have turned into addictions and dangerous habits, which have to be sloughed off so the new state of consciousness can emerge. A new consciousness which just automatically doesn’t feel separate from the Earth, or from the creatures of the earth, or from each other, or even from the cosmos, -- a consciousness that will love the Earth, and delight in the diversity, and at a new level of perception sing “i was blind and now i see!” And the key is what i have been calling the Grace, but which can also be seen as Evolutionary Force which has been pushing us along since the first cells appeared in the primeval ocean. It is a Higher Consciousness which we are gradually becoming conscious of, as quantum physics turns us in on ourselves and says we create what we perceive. This Higher Consciousness is, after all, conscious. It can be invoked in the service of becoming more transparent to it, more able to attune to it and act through it to turn our planet’s history around, reverse the ecological havoc, and be born into a new age. It’s an amazing grace.

A Summary of What I've Been Learning

Since i’ve been in the States, with more time on my hands than ever in my life, i’ve gotten a chance to research a bit about what’s going on here in this commercially dominated society which i fled decades ago, but which is spreading over the planet. My first impression was that it was worse than i could ever have imagined -- the deadening alienation and ubiquitous falsehood. But after studying a bit, it now looks to me that there is a big wake-up going on, and although it is not widespread in the mainstream, it is reaching millions through the internet. Since i’ve been living in Auroville, which is based on spiritual insight into the solution, i was curious about the pragmatic understanding of the problem. There are a number of key videos which spell out the situation:
Zeitgeist and Zeitgeist Addendum clearly give the big picture of corporate–political–military entrenchment in a game of Russian roulette – even as the money interests gain dominion over us all, the planet’s ecological health as well as human survival is compromised, despite that the new technologies which could save the situation are already developed.
Then there are some shorter videos which give more detailed explanations of how the money system is inherently skewed to create boom-bust, a widening gap between rich and poor, and increasing the commoditisation of the environment, of personal and social life, etc.: Money as Debt, and The Story of Stuff. There’s also, The Biggest Game in Town that discloses how most of the US governments (federal, state, local) are highly invested in the corporate sector, earning large amounts which are never included in the budget statements shown to the public. As well as John Taylor Gatto’s research on the economic motivations that framed the American educational system.
What’s become clear to me is that i was not so wrong when i fled the unhealthy atmosphere of this country (although whether running away was a noble response could be debated) – indeed there has been a sell-out on higher values which is making people sick (and the medical “industry” is profiting from that too). Individual health and environmental health and social health are all in a bad way, as the “leaders” keep on looking out for themselves and their narrow bottom-line corporate interests. Michael Lerner in his book The Left Hand of God paints the poignant picture of American masses looking for meaning, while the political left is adamantly secular and derisive of their religious beliefs, while the political right joins with the religious right to lead them down the primrose path.
Now, i’ve been living in Auroville India for the last 35 years, which is trying to build a city which will not need money, not need laws, because the citizens of that city will have a consciousness which understands the Whole first, and perceives personal interests in that context. Unfortunately, we the citizens of that city are not yet established in that wholistic state of consciousness, and our efforts to do without money and without laws are thwarted by the prevailing mind-set not only in the world but also within ourselves, in our own mental habits and limitations. What has held us together and with the project (a project which UNESCO endorsed in its beginning and celebrates on its 40th birthday), is a spiritual vision. Not a religious orthodoxy, but a vision of a new consciousness prevailing on the planet. And, as one of our articulators has winningly quipped, we mustn’t overlook that that new consciousness is conscious. Certainly the struggles and achievements of the Auroville experiment, the attempts to do work not as livelihood but as self-expression, the attempts to feed and clothe people collectively, the attempts to avoid legal systems and deal with difficulties in the moment, should be of great interest to the thinkers who are seeing the enormity of the present problem and have an opening to change of consciousness being the solution. Because it is not as easy as having the idea – there is an enormous detailed work to shift the entire economic, political, social context from the old paradigm to the new.
I am particularly thinking of Charles Eisenstein, who’s book The Ascent of Humanity faces the horror of the crises converging on humanity today, but sees it as the inevitable outcome of the course of mental development, and foresees a next step of development, The Age of Reunion. He images our global situation as that of an addict or alcoholic bottoming out, and through that making a radical change in consciousness. He sees the many contemporary movements which describe a new economy, new technology, new education etc. as seeds which would blossom in the world after the crisis. I find that he is carrying forward much of the vision of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother, on which Auroville is based, but of which he has never heard. I also think of Peter Joseph, who after painting the terrible picture of global corruption in Zeitgeist, looks to the Venus Project for the new technology and sociology that would allow humanity to blossom in a world of abundance. The Venus Project is deeply rooted in the scientific method, and also in my opinion the mistaken materialist bias of scientism, but it is hopeful and well-intentioned, and brilliant. I’d love to get these guys together with us in Auroville, let them grok the sublimity of Sri Aurobindo’s vision, appreciate the difficult practicalities we’ve been dealing with, learn from each other, and move on together and with the many other contemporary visionaries, to help midwife the birth of the new consciousness.
There are many many more people who are aware of the change which is happening. For instance, all the interviewees on www.Conscious Media Network, or all the movements cited in Blessed Unrest, even the young “Evolutionaries” of Andre Cohen and Ken Wilber’s trendy new integral naked. I feel a great urgency to let everyone know how we are part of the same wave of change, so that we can experience the joy of working together, the exhilaration of being the change we are waiting for, and more importantly, seeing the enemy and knowing it is us. But not by pointing our fingers at each other, but self-reflecting into our own limitations, sharing with each other our efforts to overcome the obstacles within, helping each other to learn, change, widen....while at the same time we are busy building the new city, the new society, the new economy, the new ecology, -- and knowing that it is as a conscious and willing servitor of a higher order Truth Consciousness. [So difficult to put the most important part in words....Yeah, and we need to be working on a new linguistics too!]
Links:
Zeitgeist: http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/
Money as Debt: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2550156453790090544#
Story of Stuff: http://www.storyofstuff.com/
The Biggest Game in Town: http://uk.video.yahoo.com/watch/4332083/11634205
John Taylor Gatto: http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/
The Left Hand of God: http://www.spiritualprogressives.org/index.php
Auroville: www.auroville.org UNESCO: http://www.auroville.org/organisation/UNESCO/Auroville_40th_anniversary_at_UNESCO.htm
The Ascent of Humanity: http://www.ascentofhumanity.com/
The Venus Project: http://www.thevenusproject.com/
Conscious Media Network: http://www.consciousmedianetwork.com/home.htm
Blessed Unrest: http://www.blessedunrest.com/

Thanks Giving Paean

I got an invite to a Himalayan retreat, and responded as below. Only later i realised that my words of gratitude to Providence Herself were written on Thanksgiving morning, so i'm sharing it here. Thank you.
Hello retreat participants, thank you for keeping me on your list.
You know what, i feel as if i have been given by Mother these months of retreat in Florida USA for exactly the purpose of the proposed retreat in the Himalayas. I have the presence of a guide in the person of my mother, who is in a non-mentally-coherent state but very much alive and responsive to the emotional field. My job at first was to surround her with enough love and security to bring her out of paranoia and reactive aggressivity, and now to keep on developing a deeper and deeper rapport so whatever soul-work needs to be done is facilitated. Of course, this is for both of us, and on a very real level extremely healing -- (we had not gotten along well during my growing up time at all...one reason perhaps why i fled to the other side of the earth). My family is grateful that i have the time and inclination to do this, which they are not in a position to do, -- which is also healing. I am supported here, in a climate much like Auroville's (as far a temperature, flora and fauna are concerned, almost the opposite in culture), without any other duties than loving, so it is rather like being cloistered, which i recognised early on and continue to appreciate. I miss, perhaps, the collective aspect of being together with fellow seekers, but perhaps recognising the seeker in even those who do not know what that means is part of the opening. In fact, the atmosphere at the nursing home is dense with genuinely good ordinary people doing their best to do good to the inmates and each other, and they just think it's normal. I spend my day there loving mom, chatting with the other inmates, and reading, and in the evening i listen to talks on TED or CMN (Conscious Media Network) and align with the global change, and also do some work for Verite booking for the guesthouse. I think i'm pretty lucky, and frequently feel deeply and profoundly blessed. The sense of being part of a whole which is currently going through a change of state is pervasive. i wish you all well on your retreat. If there is room for me in the Himalayas next year, that would be great, i should be back before then.

A Room of Her Own

I just read a classic -- and understood with a shock of recognition what a "classic" is. Virginia Woolf's little book, written first as a talk on Women and Fiction, must have influenced generations of young women, riveting them with its captivating prose, touching them with its impassioned illustrations of how genius is squelched and inspiring them to express their female genius in literature. I didn't read it as a young woman, but i can recognise her influence in much of the excellent feminist literature which has blossomed: the need to go beyond expressing frustration, the celebration of the stories of ordinary women (and men),the emphasis on relationship, on nuance and detail. And most of all, her unfailing sense of Truth and the need to touch it, serve it, express it through art and life.
Now i'm going to go read as many Virginia Woolf novels and stories as i can! How misleading is this catchphrase "Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf?" -- to so slur such a genius is a great disservice.