The first clip focused on OUR PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY for this one unique life. This is a central challenge for most modern societies. The famous psychologist Viktor Frankl, has both written and spoken on this issue. He maintained that much of the spiritual and psychological angst of western societies was rooted in our tendency to both avoid responsibility and to allocate blame and shame.
Ishpriya focused on our need to take responsibility every moment of every day for our life. She emphasised to importance of ( Mindful) Awareness and encouraged each individual to find moments of awareness every day.
Our 2nd , but linked theme, was our need to acknowledge that we were part of a Global Family. Sister Ishpriya quoted a famous line from the Hindu Upanishads. I have also included the preceeding and succeeding verses for clarity.
He moves, and he moves not. He is far, and he is near. He is within all, and he is outside all.
Who sees all beings in his or her own Self, and his or our own Self in all beings, loses all fear.
When a sage sees this great Unity and his Self has become all beings, what delusion and what sorrow can ever be near him?
She reflected on how this basic and fundamental tendency towards FEAR was at the heart of so much violence and prejudice. Yet modern science and ancient wisdom knows that we are essentially one species and one family. Yet the false barriers of ethnicity, religion, culture etc block this realisation and in ignorance we can react out of fear Modern Neuroscience also supports this inherent tendency towards fear. Our primitive brain is 'programmed' for negativity and thus we can be programmed to automatically react negatively and with fear. However, these reactions are mainly part of the 'ancient' brain and developing our awareness can help us educate a, restrain and restrain our more basic reactions.
The Satsang Triple Commitment is a daily reminder of our need to develop our spiritual awareness and to break down both the internal and external barrriers that seperate us.
This COMMITMENT is the single most important one for any Satsang Member. It is their acceptance and recognition of their response and acceptance of personal responsibility
Satsang Members commit themselves to :
* a personal growth in spiritual awareness and practice
* helping remove the barriers of prejudice and ignorance which divide persons from each other.
* building up relationships of compassion and appreciation across frontiers of race, ethnicity, culture,language, economic class and religion.
And in so doing each member plays their part in an attempt to
‘Create a Planetary Vision and a Universal Heart of Compassion’
We spend some time reflecting on our human tendency towards fear and how this was a major block. However, we also shared some positive signs of human growth and evolution in consciousness. One of our members shared how her son, who was growing up in multi-cultural Wolverhampton, was already showing signs of feeling inter-connected and was and sharing the fruits of this experience. Another shared her growing optimism, that new shoots of evolutionary consciousness were springing up but reflected that, as with all growth, there are birth pangs and pain and she read the following poem from Rabindranath Tagore to both commence and end the 2nd Reflection ( Video) from Ishpriya
WHERE THE MIND IS
WITHOUT FEAR
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake
Rabindranath Tagore
This poem by Tagore really sums up this topic and theme of false barriers between members of the Global Human Family. It reminds us that only by constant and regular practices of awareness can we hope
to play our part in the necessary, and yet painful, changes in evolutionary consciousness that will help each of us become co-creators in the ongoing evolution of our Cosmos.
Reflecting on this 'necessary' pain or bith pangs and the tendency for people to despair, I was reminded on a quote that my wife Angela and I found helpful
Reflecting on this 'necessary' pain or bith pangs and the tendency for people to despair, I was reminded on a quote that my wife Angela and I found helpful
‘Despair is suffering without meaning’ – When we can find meaning in our suffering there is no despair. ‘
(See Frankl Man’s Search for Meaning p 132-133)
There is meaning to our current suffering or birth pangs. Many of the Mystics both of the past and present, recognise our need to grow in spiritual awareness and all growth and change involves challenge and potential growth pains.
Next month we continue this journey into awareness in our Satsang Meetings with a Day of Reflection
Living in the Eye of the Storm
Saturday 8th November 2014
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