This was a very rich passage. I wasn't able to share all that came to the mind/heart at the circle of sharing because we were 60 people! Through the magic of the electron land, I will let flow the information that was resonating with the being last Wednesday. Here are 3 points:
1. Unconditional Loving, Mirror Neurons and True Compassion
2. Enlightened Anarchism or Non-hierarchical Compassionate Organizing
3. The Power of Being in Receptive Silence
1. Unconditional Loving, Mirror Neurons and True Compassion
There is something that permeates one's soul when one is at the Kindness Temple. Is there something more powerful than the love felt by a mother towards her children? What if mother and father treat everybody in their home as if they were their family, as if they were their children? What if a whole family, the mother, the father, the brothers and their wives, treat you as their own family? Welcome to Wednesdays! :-)
And once a few human beings perform the outrageous boldness to leave the doors open for anybody to come to their home and love them and serve them with no strings attached, it becomes contagious. The scientific explanation of the beauty of this kind of love can be briefly glimpsed in this TED talk about
Mirror Neurons -- or Gandhi Neurons as Vilayanur Ramachandran calls them. This is intimately linked to
true compassion.
However, no TED talk, book or post will give us the full experience of love and compassion. We must live it.
On Wednesdays in Santa Clara, we come to train these mirror neurons, our subconscious being and to develop our compassion, so that when the time comes to face physical, emotional or psycological violence from other beings, we are prepared to empathize with them and the feeling but immediately (read subconsciously) "fire back" with _genuine_ equanimous love. This response, not reaction, causes a confusing scenario in the other person(s) who will experience fear/hatred/violence AND fearlessness/love/nonviolence at the same time. This only can be done by purifying the mind. A very hard task the Universe of Love will be glad to hep us with. In this way, we stop the ancient madness of violence and become agents of harmony, happiness and joy.
That's why, and most importantly from my point of view, our collective sitting on Wednesdays are about transforming the most difficult of all of them: our inner violence. Through fearlessness, spending countless hours in receptive silence and exercising the muscles of loving speech and compassionate listening this trasnformation can be organically done.
2. Enlightened Anarchism or Non-hierarchical Compassionate Organizing
Anarchy doesn't mean chaos, it means without government: the state of a people without any constituted authority. When the author of the passage says:
"You have to see your place in society and your function as a social being. You have to see your duties and obligations to your fellow human beings, and above all, your responsibility to yourself as an individual living with other individuals."
I thought about Gandhi and how he talked about human responsibilities and enlightened anarchy. Was Gandhi an anarchist?
Journalist: Do you prefer English people as governing race to other races?
Gandhi: I have no choice to make. I do not want to be governed except by myself.
Gandhi’s “nationalism” stood to disband the Congress Party upon independence:
“Its task is done. The next task is to move into villages and revitalize life there to build a new socio-economic structure from the bottom upwards.”
He also understood patriotism differently than his contemporaries:
“By patriotism, I mean the welfare of the whole people.”
“The very right to live is only afforded to us if we fulfill our duty as citizens of the world. Nationalism is not the highest concept. The highest concept is a world community.”–M.K. Gandhi
“Political power, in my opinion, cannot be our ultimate aim. It is one of the means used by men for their all-around advancement. The power to control national life through national representatives is called political power. Representatives will become unnecessary if the national life becomes so perfect as to be self-controlled. It will then be a state of enlightened anarchy in which each person will become his own ruler. He will conduct himself in such a way that his behavior will not hamper the well being of his neighbors. In an ideal State there will be no political institution and therefore no political power.”
In other to live in a harmonious community without governments, first we need to develop a self-government, self-rule. In a world where the system is broken we need new forms to relate with the Planet, with animals, with plants, with each other, with our choices. That’s why some of us are not anarchists as defined in the encyclopedias, dictionaries, etc. written by the hierarchies and their corporate media. We go beyond labels, we are human beings who are engaged and in love with the voluptuous authority of collective intelligence/wisdom; with her hugs of education, respect and peace; and with her kisses of justice, true democracy and freedom. This is the non-hierarchical way in which compassionate organizing arises.
3. The Power of Being in Receptive Silence
How do you talk about the Great Silence and the unmanifested?
Not possible. It cannot be spoken, thought, written or imagined only experienced. We are consciousness remembering its origin. Inner connectedness. Our link to the unmanifested is consciousness that emanates as radiation emanates from the stars. Don't cultivate awareness of the inner body, be inner awareness for presence is consciousness lifting our souls to the higher realm of here and now: the inner realm.
Life could be radically more beautiful than what currently is for everybody in our communities. The beautification starts with us, Today. We don't have to wait. Here is
a story of the power of being in receptive silence, also know as meditation. It goes beyond our rational and intellectual understanding. Because Love is the goal. Love is the means. Love is the reason! :-)
May all become compassionate, courageous and wise.
Pancho
