Here is spiritual news from across Southwest Florida:
Fundraising
* Lely Presbyterian Church will sponsor a rummage sale from 8 a.m. to noon today at 110 St. Andrews Blvd., Naples. Information: 774-6151
* Messiah Lutheran Church will sponsor a yard sale from 8 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Feb. 5 at 5800 Golden Gate Parkway, Naples. Spaces are $20. Information: 455-2520
* Council of Catholic Women of San Marco Church will hold a “This ’n That” sale from 9 a.m. to noon Feb. 6 at 851 San Marco Road, Marco Island. A bake sale and refreshments will also be available. Proceeds benefit local scholarships.
Book sale
Vanderbilt Presbyterian Church will host a book sale from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. today and 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sunday at 1225 Piper Blvd., Fellowship Hall, Naples. Information: 597-5410
Forum
Jay Naghib and Bob Augustine will present a forum titled “Iran — Past and Present” at 9:15 a.m. Sunday at the Unitarian Universalist congregation. The congregation is at 6340 Napa Woods Way, Naples. Information: 455-6553
First Congregational Church
The First Congregational Church of Naples, 2338 Immokalee Road, Naples, will sponsor the following:
* A recognition service for the contractors and workers who helped build the new church at 10 a.m. Sunday. Lunch will follow the service.
* A concert sponsored by the Southwest Florida Italian Opera Society featuring Dino Valle singing songs of faith will be held at 7 p.m. Sunday. Information: 293-5210
Feast of Candlemas
The Feast of Candlemas will be celebrated with a holy Eucharist service at 10 a.m. Sunday at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, 9801 Bonita Beach Road, Bonita Springs. A reception will follow the Mass. Information: 992-4343
Kirkin’ o’ the tartan
First Presbyterian Church of Bonita Springs will celebrate the Kirkin’ o’ the Tartan at the 9 and 11 a.m. services Sunday at 9751 Bonita Beach Road, Bonita Springs. The Harp & Thistle Pipe Band will lead the procession and Don Goller, a bagpipe soloist, will play the “Highland Cathedra.” Information: 992-3233
Catholic/Jewish dialogue
The Catholic/Jewish Dialogue of Collier County will be held at 2 p.m. Sunday at the Jewish Congregation of Marco Island, 991 Winterberry Drive, Marco Island. The topic is titled “2,000 Years of Old Anti-Semitism — Today’s New Anti-Semitism.” The discussion will be led by the Rev. Tim Navin of San Marco Catholic Church and Rabbi Edward Maline of the Jewish Congregation of Marco Island. Information: 263-4205
Men’s Christian Fellowship
The Men’s Christian Fellowship will feature Minnesota Twins radio announcer John Gordon at 8 a.m. Tuesday at the Community Congregation Church, 15300 U.S. 41 N., Naples. $8. Information: 597-1000
Tuesday at Emmanuel
The Tuesday with Emmanuel lecture series will be held at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday at Emmanuel Lutheran Church 777 Mooring Line Drive, Naples. Marsha Foster Boyd will present “A City Set on a Hill: Theological Education in Challenging Times.” Questions and answers will follow the lecture from 5:30 to 6 p.m. $10, at the door. Information: 261-0894.
Prayer breakfast
The Marco Island Community Prayer breakfast will be held at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Marco Island Marriott Beach Resort, 400 S. Collier Blvd., Marco Island. Ken Smith, the former chaplain of the University of Florida, Michigan State University and the University of South Carolina, will be the speaker. $20. Information: 642-3622
Missions conference
The Marco Presbyterian Church will host the Missions Conference starting with a women’s brunch at 9:30 a.m. Friday and ending at a 6 p.m. worship service on Feb. 7 at 875 West Elkcam Circle, Marco Island. Information: 394-8186
Women’s retreat
The Heart-Felt Friends group from the Faith Lutheran Church will sponsor a retreat from 5:30 to 9 p.m. Friday at Lakewood Country Club, 4235 Lakewood Blvd., Naples. The retreat will continue from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Feb. 6 at the church at 4150 Goodlette-Frank Road, Naples. The retreat celebrates Christian fellowship; $35, both days to be paid in advance. Information: 354-2563 or 775-2880
Fashion shows
* The Naples Christian Women’s Connection will sponsor a fashion show by Cache of Waterside Shops from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Friday at the Ritz-Carlton Naples, 280 Vanderbilt Beach Road. The event will feature music by Billie Dean & Dawn and guest speaker Deanna Hansen-Doying discussing the balance between prudence and whimsy. $50. Information: www.cwcfl.net
* St. Katherine Greek Orthodox Philoptochos Chapter is sponsoring the “Hats off to Fifth and Third” luncheon and style show at noon Feb. 6 at the church’s culture center, 7100 Airport-Pulling Road N., Naples. A Chinese auction starts at 11 a.m. $50. Information: 593-5659
Author
Wayne Weible, an author, will speak about the Blessed Virgin at 7 p.m. Feb. 6 at Stoneybrook Community Center, 11800 Stoneybrook Golf Drive, Estero. Free.
Super Bowl
Moorings Presbyterian Church will sponsor a Super Bowl party at 5 p.m. Feb. 7 at the home of a parishioner. $40. Information: 261-1487.
Centering prayer
A workshop on centering prayer will be held from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Feb. 13 at the Claussen Center at St. John the Evangelist Church, 625 111th Ave., Naples. $10, includes continental breakfast. Information: 566-2937.
Stephen ministry training
A Stephen Ministry training class of 22 people from Vanderbilt Presbyterian Church, St. Monica’s Episcopal Church, St. Mark’s Episcopal Church and Naples United Church of Christ is being held at the Vanderbilt Presbyterian Church through April.
Vendors needed
Cornerstone United Methodist Church needs craft and food vendors for the Naples Strawberry Festival to be held March 5-7. Information: 354-9160
Deadline for Spiritual Briefs is 10 a.m. Thursday. E-mail to snmesulam@naplesnews.com or mail to Sheila Mesulam, Naples Daily News, 1100 Immokalee Road, Naples, 34110. All briefs are printed on a space-available basis. Connect with Sheila Mesulam at www.naplesnews.com/staff/sheila_mesulam
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Saturday, January 30, 2010
J.D. Salinder is Dead at 91
By Sharon Autenrieth
Special to the Post-Dispatch
My senior year of high school I swapped favorite books with my friend Nancy. She read my copy of To Kill a Mockingbird and I read her favorite, The Catcher in the Rye. So began my J.D. Salinger period. Like millions of other teenagers from 1951 on, I felt that someone - finally! - understood me in my uniqueness. The irony that millions of us were all feeling unique together seems beside the point. Salinger gave voice to that particular combination of precocity, egoism and vulnerability that so many of us pass through as we grow up, and he did it better than anyone before or since. Somehow immersing ourselves in the lonely, miserable world of Holden Caulfield made us feel less miserable and alone.
J.D. Salinger died yesterday at the age of 91. He was famously private and hadn’t published a new work since 1965. But The Catcher in the Rye is still the most of famous piece of coming-of-age fiction in the world, and sells 250,000 copies a year.
In the movie “The Royal Tenenbaums”, Owen Wilson’s character, Eli, remarks of growing up a neighbor of the Tenenbaums, “I always wanted to be a Tenenbaum.” I understand what Eli meant. The Tenenbaums were clearly based on J.D. Salinger’s Glass family who appeared in many of his short stories and in the novel Franny and Zooey. The Glass children were all prodigies (like the Tenenbaums) who struggled mightily to live successfully as adults (again, like the Tenenbaums). During my college years it was the Glass children, rather than Holden Caulfield, who captured my imagination. Just today I’ve pulled out several pages of notes I took in college as I read Franny and Zooey and Salinger’s short story collections (Nine Stories and Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: an Introduction). On those pages I found words I’d written down to look up later, and I’m happy to report that I actually did look them up and wrote in definitions for words like “cavilling” and “panegyric”. I also wrote down names mentioned in the books so that I could research them, from Betsey Trotwood to Vivekananda. Mostly, though, I wrote down passages from the books, from the sublimely absurd (”…evidently Mrs. Felder has been haunted for days by my remark at dinner one night that I’d like to be a dead cat.”) to the simply sublime (”I’ve never know sickness-or sorrow, or disaster for that matter-not to unfold like a flower or a good memo. We’re required only to keep looking. Seymour once said, on the air when he was eleven, that the thing he loved best in the Bible was the word WATCH!”).
At a college chapel service one of our religion professors once read a passage from Franny and Zooey. I was in tears by the end. I was moved partly by the professors courage. In a conservative evangelical climate, letting J.D. Salinger teach us about living incarnationally seemed to me a brave move. But at it’s center, Franny and Zooey is a deeply spiritual story. The Glass family is Jewish/Catholic (one of the brothers has become a Carthusian monk), but they are also heavily influenced by Eastern spirituality. Talk of detachment and Christ-consciousness sits alongside discussion of biblical characters like Moses. Salinger didn’t hesitate to draw on various religious sources, but that doesn’t mean that he treated religion flippantly. In one of my favorite passages in Franny and Zooey, Zooey scolds his younger sister for using the Jesus Prayer to try to achieve spiritual enlightenment, without having a proper regard for Jesus.
I can’t see -I swear to God I can’t - how you can pray to a Jesus you don’t even understand. And what’s really inexcusable, considering that you’ve been funnel-fed on just about the same amount of religious philosophy that I have - what’s really inexcusable is that you don’t try to understand him….If you’re going to say the Jesus Prayer, at least say it to Jesus, and not to St. Francis and Seymour and Heidi’s grandfather all wrapped up in one. Keep him in mind if you say it, and him only, and him as he was and not as you’d like him to have been.”
It was not that passage but the final counsel that Zooey gives Franny that our professor read in chapel years ago, a passage that I won’t print for fear of spoiling the book for those who haven’t read it. I will only say that while it can be understood in more ways than one, spiritually speaking, I find it one of the loveliest expressions of devotion to Christ ever put in print.
J.D. Salinger was a source of frustration to his most ardent fans. He was almost never interviewed, and said that he wanted to write only for himself and not for publication. Perhaps, for him, writing was not a profession but a religion, as he said of one of his characters. Despite his long silence and the small body of work that he shared with the public, I still feel we’ve suffered a loss. I think it’s time to get out my Salinger paperbacks and read them again.
“Seymour said that all we do our whole lives is go from one little piece of Holy Ground to the next.” - Seymour: An Introduction
Special to the Post-Dispatch
My senior year of high school I swapped favorite books with my friend Nancy. She read my copy of To Kill a Mockingbird and I read her favorite, The Catcher in the Rye. So began my J.D. Salinger period. Like millions of other teenagers from 1951 on, I felt that someone - finally! - understood me in my uniqueness. The irony that millions of us were all feeling unique together seems beside the point. Salinger gave voice to that particular combination of precocity, egoism and vulnerability that so many of us pass through as we grow up, and he did it better than anyone before or since. Somehow immersing ourselves in the lonely, miserable world of Holden Caulfield made us feel less miserable and alone.
J.D. Salinger died yesterday at the age of 91. He was famously private and hadn’t published a new work since 1965. But The Catcher in the Rye is still the most of famous piece of coming-of-age fiction in the world, and sells 250,000 copies a year.
In the movie “The Royal Tenenbaums”, Owen Wilson’s character, Eli, remarks of growing up a neighbor of the Tenenbaums, “I always wanted to be a Tenenbaum.” I understand what Eli meant. The Tenenbaums were clearly based on J.D. Salinger’s Glass family who appeared in many of his short stories and in the novel Franny and Zooey. The Glass children were all prodigies (like the Tenenbaums) who struggled mightily to live successfully as adults (again, like the Tenenbaums). During my college years it was the Glass children, rather than Holden Caulfield, who captured my imagination. Just today I’ve pulled out several pages of notes I took in college as I read Franny and Zooey and Salinger’s short story collections (Nine Stories and Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: an Introduction). On those pages I found words I’d written down to look up later, and I’m happy to report that I actually did look them up and wrote in definitions for words like “cavilling” and “panegyric”. I also wrote down names mentioned in the books so that I could research them, from Betsey Trotwood to Vivekananda. Mostly, though, I wrote down passages from the books, from the sublimely absurd (”…evidently Mrs. Felder has been haunted for days by my remark at dinner one night that I’d like to be a dead cat.”) to the simply sublime (”I’ve never know sickness-or sorrow, or disaster for that matter-not to unfold like a flower or a good memo. We’re required only to keep looking. Seymour once said, on the air when he was eleven, that the thing he loved best in the Bible was the word WATCH!”).
At a college chapel service one of our religion professors once read a passage from Franny and Zooey. I was in tears by the end. I was moved partly by the professors courage. In a conservative evangelical climate, letting J.D. Salinger teach us about living incarnationally seemed to me a brave move. But at it’s center, Franny and Zooey is a deeply spiritual story. The Glass family is Jewish/Catholic (one of the brothers has become a Carthusian monk), but they are also heavily influenced by Eastern spirituality. Talk of detachment and Christ-consciousness sits alongside discussion of biblical characters like Moses. Salinger didn’t hesitate to draw on various religious sources, but that doesn’t mean that he treated religion flippantly. In one of my favorite passages in Franny and Zooey, Zooey scolds his younger sister for using the Jesus Prayer to try to achieve spiritual enlightenment, without having a proper regard for Jesus.
I can’t see -I swear to God I can’t - how you can pray to a Jesus you don’t even understand. And what’s really inexcusable, considering that you’ve been funnel-fed on just about the same amount of religious philosophy that I have - what’s really inexcusable is that you don’t try to understand him….If you’re going to say the Jesus Prayer, at least say it to Jesus, and not to St. Francis and Seymour and Heidi’s grandfather all wrapped up in one. Keep him in mind if you say it, and him only, and him as he was and not as you’d like him to have been.”
It was not that passage but the final counsel that Zooey gives Franny that our professor read in chapel years ago, a passage that I won’t print for fear of spoiling the book for those who haven’t read it. I will only say that while it can be understood in more ways than one, spiritually speaking, I find it one of the loveliest expressions of devotion to Christ ever put in print.
J.D. Salinger was a source of frustration to his most ardent fans. He was almost never interviewed, and said that he wanted to write only for himself and not for publication. Perhaps, for him, writing was not a profession but a religion, as he said of one of his characters. Despite his long silence and the small body of work that he shared with the public, I still feel we’ve suffered a loss. I think it’s time to get out my Salinger paperbacks and read them again.
“Seymour said that all we do our whole lives is go from one little piece of Holy Ground to the next.” - Seymour: An Introduction
Friday, January 29, 2010
Chabad Spiritual in Southern California
College students from across the West Coast are making their way to Southern California for an all-inclusive Jewish weekend that has been billed by organizers as the social, spiritual and educational event not to be missed.
All told, hundreds have signed on the seventh-annual West Coast Intercollegiate Shabbaton, which begins this Friday afternoon in the Pacific Beach neighborhood of S. Diego. Some 15 schools from California, Arizona and Nevada will be represented at the gathering, a project of Chabad-Lubavitch centers on the West Coast and the Chabad on Campus International Foundation.
“I am so excited!” raved Sandra Bram, a freshman at the University of California, S. Barbara.Bram, 18, said she’s a regular at her campus Chabad House because she feels safe and comfortable there, able to explore her Judaism in a non-judgmental environment. She was looking forward to sharing her hotel room in Pacific Beach with three of her sorority sisters, as well as meeting other students from across the state and its neighbors.
“I’m hoping to gain lots of knowledge about Judaism,” she added.
Different from past years, when out-of-towners descended on a specific campus and bunked with host students, this year’s Shabbaton will be taking over two local beachside hotels.
“The Shabbaton was getting bigger and bigger each year, until it was not really feasible for most schools to host it,” said Mirel Levitansky, co-director of the Chabad House serving S. Monica College. “It just grew and grew so much.”
Raizel Brook, co-director of Chabad serving California State University, Northridge, who did most of the organizing for this year’s event, said the challenge was figuring out how to capture the energy of past years’ Shabbatons and take it off campus. Students and Chabad House directors together settled on a resort-style setting and an agenda jam-packed with meet-and-greets, roundtables and gourmet meals.
Like her counterparts at other schools, Bram, a member of her Chabad House’s four-person student board, helped recruit other students to attend the weekend. For Tiffany Alyesh, it was a quick sell. She attended last fall’s Chabad on Campus International Student Shabbaton in New York, and said that she’s expecting to be inspired once more.
A Canada First
The West Coast weekend comes amidst several regional Jewish student gatherings in North America. Last weekend saw the first-ever Shabbaton coordinated by Chabad Houses in Canada, a two-day affair hosted by Chabad of Western University. A total of 250 students from McGill University in Montreal, McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, the University of Toronto, York University in Toronto, and the University of Waterloo, Ontario, attended.
“It was unbelievable,” said Rabbi Shmuly Weiss, co-director of Chabad of McGill University, who accompanied 17 students to the Shabbaton. “Everyone stayed up until 2 a.m. talking and asking questions.”
In the fall, Binghamton University was the site of the Chabad on Campus Northeastern Intercollegiate Shabbaton. In the coming weeks, Shabbatons will take place in Texas and Florida, and for students from schools throughout the Midwest.
Rabbi Yossy Gordon, executive vice president of the Chabad on Campus International Foundation – which has been providing funding and logistical assistance for regional immersion experiences across the continent – said that such gatherings are an important way for students to network with each other and learn about their heritage.
“With such a concentration of future Jewish leadership in one place,” explained Gordon, “the meaningful conversations and friendships formed take on so much more importance for the participants. We’ve seen from past Shabbatons that the experiences stay with students long after the weekend closes.”
Alyesh, 19, echoed Gordon’s point.
During the New York weekend, “I learned a lot about myself, about others, and a lot about Judaism,” she said. “And I made a lot of bonds and memories.”
This weekend’s West Coast bash will include a women’s-only gathering on Friday night with Molly Resnick, a former NBC producer who later in life, learned about Torah and Judaism from a young Chabad-Lubavitch emissary in Brazil, and embraced an observant Jewish lifestyle. She will share her experiences with the students, and offer insights on world events.
“I was at the height of my career at NBC News,” said Resnick, who in 1978, decided to take a break for a spiritual journey. “Everything was too glamorous, without having meaning or purpose.”
Resnick will also lead a workshop on Israel during the weekend.
“I admire their enthusiasm,” she said of college students, “their energy, and their desire to do good.”
Other workshops will include a “Stump the Rabbi” session with Rabbis Mendel Loschak of the Chabad House serving UCSB, and Dov Wagner of the Chabad Jewish Student Center serving the University of Southern California; a Talmudic-based exploration of a modern-day ethical problem; and a presentation from Rabbi Zalman Kravitz, education director of the Los Angeles Jews for Judaism center.
After the close of Shabbat, Paul Cohen, a professional basketball agent, will share the highlights of his spiritual journey and how he makes Shabbat observance central to his practice of Judaism.
And while time was carved out in the schedule for students to take advantage of the sun and surf, Alyesh said that she’d go to the Shabbaton no matter the location.
“It could be in a hut, I’d still go,” she stated. “I wouldn’t miss it.”
All told, hundreds have signed on the seventh-annual West Coast Intercollegiate Shabbaton, which begins this Friday afternoon in the Pacific Beach neighborhood of S. Diego. Some 15 schools from California, Arizona and Nevada will be represented at the gathering, a project of Chabad-Lubavitch centers on the West Coast and the Chabad on Campus International Foundation.
“I am so excited!” raved Sandra Bram, a freshman at the University of California, S. Barbara.Bram, 18, said she’s a regular at her campus Chabad House because she feels safe and comfortable there, able to explore her Judaism in a non-judgmental environment. She was looking forward to sharing her hotel room in Pacific Beach with three of her sorority sisters, as well as meeting other students from across the state and its neighbors.
“I’m hoping to gain lots of knowledge about Judaism,” she added.
Different from past years, when out-of-towners descended on a specific campus and bunked with host students, this year’s Shabbaton will be taking over two local beachside hotels.
“The Shabbaton was getting bigger and bigger each year, until it was not really feasible for most schools to host it,” said Mirel Levitansky, co-director of the Chabad House serving S. Monica College. “It just grew and grew so much.”
Raizel Brook, co-director of Chabad serving California State University, Northridge, who did most of the organizing for this year’s event, said the challenge was figuring out how to capture the energy of past years’ Shabbatons and take it off campus. Students and Chabad House directors together settled on a resort-style setting and an agenda jam-packed with meet-and-greets, roundtables and gourmet meals.
Like her counterparts at other schools, Bram, a member of her Chabad House’s four-person student board, helped recruit other students to attend the weekend. For Tiffany Alyesh, it was a quick sell. She attended last fall’s Chabad on Campus International Student Shabbaton in New York, and said that she’s expecting to be inspired once more.
A Canada First
The West Coast weekend comes amidst several regional Jewish student gatherings in North America. Last weekend saw the first-ever Shabbaton coordinated by Chabad Houses in Canada, a two-day affair hosted by Chabad of Western University. A total of 250 students from McGill University in Montreal, McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, the University of Toronto, York University in Toronto, and the University of Waterloo, Ontario, attended.
“It was unbelievable,” said Rabbi Shmuly Weiss, co-director of Chabad of McGill University, who accompanied 17 students to the Shabbaton. “Everyone stayed up until 2 a.m. talking and asking questions.”
In the fall, Binghamton University was the site of the Chabad on Campus Northeastern Intercollegiate Shabbaton. In the coming weeks, Shabbatons will take place in Texas and Florida, and for students from schools throughout the Midwest.
Rabbi Yossy Gordon, executive vice president of the Chabad on Campus International Foundation – which has been providing funding and logistical assistance for regional immersion experiences across the continent – said that such gatherings are an important way for students to network with each other and learn about their heritage.
“With such a concentration of future Jewish leadership in one place,” explained Gordon, “the meaningful conversations and friendships formed take on so much more importance for the participants. We’ve seen from past Shabbatons that the experiences stay with students long after the weekend closes.”
Alyesh, 19, echoed Gordon’s point.
During the New York weekend, “I learned a lot about myself, about others, and a lot about Judaism,” she said. “And I made a lot of bonds and memories.”
This weekend’s West Coast bash will include a women’s-only gathering on Friday night with Molly Resnick, a former NBC producer who later in life, learned about Torah and Judaism from a young Chabad-Lubavitch emissary in Brazil, and embraced an observant Jewish lifestyle. She will share her experiences with the students, and offer insights on world events.
“I was at the height of my career at NBC News,” said Resnick, who in 1978, decided to take a break for a spiritual journey. “Everything was too glamorous, without having meaning or purpose.”
Resnick will also lead a workshop on Israel during the weekend.
“I admire their enthusiasm,” she said of college students, “their energy, and their desire to do good.”
Other workshops will include a “Stump the Rabbi” session with Rabbis Mendel Loschak of the Chabad House serving UCSB, and Dov Wagner of the Chabad Jewish Student Center serving the University of Southern California; a Talmudic-based exploration of a modern-day ethical problem; and a presentation from Rabbi Zalman Kravitz, education director of the Los Angeles Jews for Judaism center.
After the close of Shabbat, Paul Cohen, a professional basketball agent, will share the highlights of his spiritual journey and how he makes Shabbat observance central to his practice of Judaism.
And while time was carved out in the schedule for students to take advantage of the sun and surf, Alyesh said that she’d go to the Shabbaton no matter the location.
“It could be in a hut, I’d still go,” she stated. “I wouldn’t miss it.”
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Pope John Paul II for Sainthood
Yesterday, the world was made aware of yet another reason that Venerable Pope John-Paul II should be advanced to the altars. Msgr. Slawomir Oder, in his book, Why A Saint? revealed spiritual aspects of the late Pope’s spiritual life previously unknown. Namely, John-Paul practiced acts of penitence and self denial in his pursuit of a deeper understanding and relationship with the suffering Jesus.
While often portrayed incorrectly in treatments by the secular media, Catholic acts of self-mortification, penance and self denials are part of the accumulated traditions of the Catholic Church‘s spiritual heritage. Traditional acts of penance and fasting are often overlooked by Catholics except during the required days of strict fasting and abstinence from meat during the penitential season of Lent. However prior to the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, abstinence from meat was a universal practice for Catholics globally every Friday. In addition to abstinence, the Eucharistic fast before the reception of Holy Communion was not always the one hour regulation which we observe today. Part of the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, Pope Paul VI initially introduced a fast before Holy Communion that was three hours before reception of the Sacrament. That replaced the previously more stringent fast that was observed from midnight prior to reception of the Holy Eucharist, where medications and even water were included as part of the abstinence before Communion. The practice of the fast before the reception of Holy Communion in our contemporary Catholic Church allows Catholics to exclude medications and water from the regulations of the Eucharistic fast.
In addition to fasting, the tradition of acts of self denial has always been part of the Church’s depository of spiritual practices. For most Catholics, such acts of self denial are usually reserved for the penitential season of Lent. For example, Catholic of the 20th century would frequently deny themselves certain foods, such as sweets and candies during the Lenten period, so as to “make sacrifice” for their sins and offenses. The practice is still common today, and this author knows of many Catholic that, “give-up” certain dietary items for Lent such as candy, potato chips, alcoholic beverages in preparation for the great celebration of Easter. Other acts of self denial include activities such as refraining from watching television during Lent, prolonged days of fasting during the season and other small acts of denial. The revelation of Pope John-Paul’s habit of occasionally sleeping on a hard floor rather than in a comfortable bed is another example of self denial consistent with the Church’s admonitions and traditions.
Most strikingly the revelation that the late Pontiff employed the technique of auto-flagellation, namely striking oneself with a leather strap or other instrument is the most revealing point of John-Paul’s spirituality. Most Catholics are familiar with the movie, The DaVinci Code, where a monastic member of Opus Dei is shown flagellating himself with a scourge and even drawing blood. This portrayal of self-mortification as part of the Catholic spirituality is keenly exaggerated in the sensational blockbuster for Hollywood’s purposes. However, self-mortification, such as striking oneself with a whip over the back and shoulders has frequently been a part of the spiritual journey for those that want to associate themselves more closely to the sufferings of Christ on His journey to the cross. The actions of self mortification more closely highlight the physical suffering of Christ’s Passion and Death. The Catholic that engages in this activity experienced a heightened sense of awareness of the Passion and in a mystical and spiritual manner participates in Christ’s suffering.
Pope John-Paul’s spiritual activities of self -mortification, self-denial and penance were never intended for public revelation on the part of the former Pope. However, these activities have only come to public scrutiny during the process the Church has developed in declaring an individual as a Saint of the Catholic Church. Catholics need to appreciate the spiritual development and activities of individuals as they seek to participate more deeply in the mystery of Christ’s suffering. These individuals are seeking a heightened sense of spiritual awareness that unites them more closely to the Church and Jesus Himself.
Revelations of the late Pope’s spirituality that included self-denial and mortification are clearly indicative of the deeply intense spiritual relationship that was unfolding in John-Paul’s life, pontificate and teachings. While largely attributed to spiritual forefathers known for their mysticism and sanctifying activities, the individuals we call saints practices forms of self-denial and self-mortification in pursuit of perfecting their spiritual lives. The work by Msgr. Oder clearly shows the remarkable nature of John-Paul’s life that was part of his unseen persona and an integral part of his spiritual life.
Revelations of activities that promote spiritual discipline and aspirations of a deeper union with Christ in a mystical manner only highlight and accelerate the call for John-Paul’s canonization and proclamation as a Saint. Perhaps a deeper understanding and appreciation of this man’s search for personal holiness serves as an exceptional example of how we are all called to live a Catholic life deeply searching for a deeper relationship with the Church, the Mystical Body of Christ and unity with the Pascal Mystery.
John-Paul II…Sainthood NOW!
Hugh J.McNichol is a Catholic author and journalist writing on Catholic topics and issues. He attended Saint Charles Borromeo Seminary in Philadelphia, where he studied both philosophy and theology. He writes frequently at http://verbumcarofactumest.blogspot.com & http://nothing-left-unsaid.blogspot.com . Hugh writes about his Irish Catholic upbringing and educational experiences at http://graysferrygrapevine.blogspot.com . He has contributed works to Catholic News Agency, Catholic Online, The Irish Catholic, Dublin, the British Broadcasting Company, London and the Philadelphia Bulletin, Catholic Exchange, Pewsitter.com, Blogger News Network & The Catholic Business Journal and Wilmington Examiner. Comments are always welcome at hjmn4566@gmail.com.
While often portrayed incorrectly in treatments by the secular media, Catholic acts of self-mortification, penance and self denials are part of the accumulated traditions of the Catholic Church‘s spiritual heritage. Traditional acts of penance and fasting are often overlooked by Catholics except during the required days of strict fasting and abstinence from meat during the penitential season of Lent. However prior to the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, abstinence from meat was a universal practice for Catholics globally every Friday. In addition to abstinence, the Eucharistic fast before the reception of Holy Communion was not always the one hour regulation which we observe today. Part of the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, Pope Paul VI initially introduced a fast before Holy Communion that was three hours before reception of the Sacrament. That replaced the previously more stringent fast that was observed from midnight prior to reception of the Holy Eucharist, where medications and even water were included as part of the abstinence before Communion. The practice of the fast before the reception of Holy Communion in our contemporary Catholic Church allows Catholics to exclude medications and water from the regulations of the Eucharistic fast.
In addition to fasting, the tradition of acts of self denial has always been part of the Church’s depository of spiritual practices. For most Catholics, such acts of self denial are usually reserved for the penitential season of Lent. For example, Catholic of the 20th century would frequently deny themselves certain foods, such as sweets and candies during the Lenten period, so as to “make sacrifice” for their sins and offenses. The practice is still common today, and this author knows of many Catholic that, “give-up” certain dietary items for Lent such as candy, potato chips, alcoholic beverages in preparation for the great celebration of Easter. Other acts of self denial include activities such as refraining from watching television during Lent, prolonged days of fasting during the season and other small acts of denial. The revelation of Pope John-Paul’s habit of occasionally sleeping on a hard floor rather than in a comfortable bed is another example of self denial consistent with the Church’s admonitions and traditions.
Most strikingly the revelation that the late Pontiff employed the technique of auto-flagellation, namely striking oneself with a leather strap or other instrument is the most revealing point of John-Paul’s spirituality. Most Catholics are familiar with the movie, The DaVinci Code, where a monastic member of Opus Dei is shown flagellating himself with a scourge and even drawing blood. This portrayal of self-mortification as part of the Catholic spirituality is keenly exaggerated in the sensational blockbuster for Hollywood’s purposes. However, self-mortification, such as striking oneself with a whip over the back and shoulders has frequently been a part of the spiritual journey for those that want to associate themselves more closely to the sufferings of Christ on His journey to the cross. The actions of self mortification more closely highlight the physical suffering of Christ’s Passion and Death. The Catholic that engages in this activity experienced a heightened sense of awareness of the Passion and in a mystical and spiritual manner participates in Christ’s suffering.
Pope John-Paul’s spiritual activities of self -mortification, self-denial and penance were never intended for public revelation on the part of the former Pope. However, these activities have only come to public scrutiny during the process the Church has developed in declaring an individual as a Saint of the Catholic Church. Catholics need to appreciate the spiritual development and activities of individuals as they seek to participate more deeply in the mystery of Christ’s suffering. These individuals are seeking a heightened sense of spiritual awareness that unites them more closely to the Church and Jesus Himself.
Revelations of the late Pope’s spirituality that included self-denial and mortification are clearly indicative of the deeply intense spiritual relationship that was unfolding in John-Paul’s life, pontificate and teachings. While largely attributed to spiritual forefathers known for their mysticism and sanctifying activities, the individuals we call saints practices forms of self-denial and self-mortification in pursuit of perfecting their spiritual lives. The work by Msgr. Oder clearly shows the remarkable nature of John-Paul’s life that was part of his unseen persona and an integral part of his spiritual life.
Revelations of activities that promote spiritual discipline and aspirations of a deeper union with Christ in a mystical manner only highlight and accelerate the call for John-Paul’s canonization and proclamation as a Saint. Perhaps a deeper understanding and appreciation of this man’s search for personal holiness serves as an exceptional example of how we are all called to live a Catholic life deeply searching for a deeper relationship with the Church, the Mystical Body of Christ and unity with the Pascal Mystery.
John-Paul II…Sainthood NOW!
Hugh J.McNichol is a Catholic author and journalist writing on Catholic topics and issues. He attended Saint Charles Borromeo Seminary in Philadelphia, where he studied both philosophy and theology. He writes frequently at http://verbumcarofactumest.blogspot.com & http://nothing-left-unsaid.blogspot.com . Hugh writes about his Irish Catholic upbringing and educational experiences at http://graysferrygrapevine.blogspot.com . He has contributed works to Catholic News Agency, Catholic Online, The Irish Catholic, Dublin, the British Broadcasting Company, London and the Philadelphia Bulletin, Catholic Exchange, Pewsitter.com, Blogger News Network & The Catholic Business Journal and Wilmington Examiner. Comments are always welcome at hjmn4566@gmail.com.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
In Pursuit of Spiritual Enlightenment
Reclaiming an Authentic Life
by Jeremy Henzell-Thomas
It has been a while since my last essay, for we have been busy moving back to England after four years living in France. It may be of interest to write about why we have returned, but I will reserve that for a later piece on the topical theme of ‘identity’ and ‘roots’, for there are now some more pressing matters to discuss following the dramatic events of the last few months.
Dramatic events? Well, you may be relieved to know that I do not refer to the Ross-Brand scandal, which sparked off such incandescent outrage, and (to continue the incendiary metaphor) appears to have culminated recently in a twin effigy of the pair being set on fire as part of Edenbridge Bonfire Society’s Guy Fawkes celebrations on 5 November. To dwell on such things only drags us down.
Neither do I wish to dwell unduly on the bizarre ruling by the Malysian national fatwa council which has just issued an edict prohibiting Muslims from practicing yoga because, in the words of the council’s chairman, it “destroys a Muslim’s faith”. This followed their earlier perplexing ruling that Christians are not allowed to use the word Allah and was widely reported (The Guardian, 24 November, for example). At the time the ban on yoga was just the latest in what I described in one of my previous essays as a whole series of “lamentable and risible pseudo-controversies” serving to heap public derision on Muslims (“Embracing optimism: becoming a creative minority in the media”, emel June 2008) and which included such wincingly embarrassing distractions as the Sudanese teddy bear incident and the ban by Muslim cabbies on blind passengers with guide dogs.
One can only ask: what kind of faith is so brittle and insecure that it is “destroyed” by practising a discipline designed to promote physical health, inner harmony and spiritual enlightenment? I personally studied and practised yoga for many years as a young man and it set me on the road of a spiritual journey which ultimately brought me to Islam. By “yoga”, I do not mean only hatha yoga, the yoga of physical postures (asanas) and breathing exercises (pranayama) which define this discipline for many people and to which it is often reduced in the West. I mean rather the yoga of progressive development of mental and spiritual faculties from concentration (dharana) through meditation (dhyana) to contemplation (samadhi) undertaken for the attainment of knowledge (jnana) of God. Deep inward reflection is continually enjoined upon us by the Qur’an and the Prophet and it our duty as Muslims to develop that capacity for spiritual reflection and higher consciousness.
Instead of unthinking and mechanical knee-jerk reactions against practices and terminology associated with other faiths, we would do better to try to comprehend how they converge at the deepest and most universal level with what is surely at the core of our own faith – that is, the unwrapping of those higher faculties with which all human beings are innately endowed for the purpose of remembering God.
And if we are put off by the Sanskrit terms I deliberately used here, then we surely need to liberate ourselves from the conditioning which shackles us to the surface form of words in a single language. We need to go beyond these names and forms to discover the universal concepts beneath them, for do they not all point to the attainment of that state of being to which we Muslims ideally aspire, the state of taqwa? Muhammad Asad pointedly translates this term not as “fear of God” but as “consciousness of God” so as to emphasise its positive connotation, and he further defines it as the “awareness of the all-presence of God and the desire to mould one’s existence in the light of this awareness”. And is not that state of awareness nourished by the activation of those higher faculties such as conscious insight (albab, basirah), deep reflection, meditation and contemplation (tafakkur), pondering (tadabbur), and taking to heart (tadhakkur) to which the Qur’an itself repeatedly alludes? When we use Arabic words from the Qur’an instead of Sanskrit ones, are we still going to maintain that the exercise of truth-seeking faculties is going to destroy our faith? I am not saying that these terms in different languages are all strictly equivalent, for does not the Qur’an tell us that there are “signs for people of insight” in the differences and particularities which we can observe in the rich diversity of nations, tribes, races and languages. But our openness to other perspectives allows us to vie with another in continually advancing towards an inclusive and all-encompassing vision of the Truth.
Now, I promised not to be sidetracked by the Malaysian fatwa, and I still have not revealed the pressing matter which I had intended to write about. So here goes. Hold your breath. Yes, it is the inescapable GLOBAL FINANCIAL MELTDOWN. Oh no, you may well say; haven’t we all got CREDIT CRUNCH FATIGUE, the fatigue to end all fatigues? We may (or may not) have heard of Compassion Fatigue, the dulled public sensitivity towards catastrophe promoted by formulaic and sensational news coverage (see Susan Moeller’s 1999 book Compassion Fatigue: How the Media Sell Disease, Famine, War and Death); we (or our children) may already suffer from Facebook Fatique and more and more of us are succumbing to Batty-Stories-about-Islam-and-Muslims-in-the-News-Media Fatique; some, like me, hope against hope that the British populace will soon suffer from Celebrity Chef Fatigue (and actually start cooking instead of gawping in wonder at others doing it), or other variants of Reality TV Fatique and begin asking questions about what is real and what is not. I have even seen a website devoted to the ultra-modern syndrome of Green Fatigue for all those poor souls constantly lectured to about recycling, light bulbs, and the like. But all this pales into insignificance before the crushing fatigue and the glazed eyes which come over us when we see another article on Global Financial Meltdown (I type it here in a smaller font size lest it leaps out at you again and puts you off reading any further).
However, be assured, dear reader, that I have an alternative perspective on this. I am not an expert in economics, finance or banking, and I would like to draw out a message which explores the profoundly positive opportunities the crisis gives us at the level of the soul, and not that of the pocket. Others far more qualified than me have written about it from the perspective of Islamic finance. We have been told about the relatively strong position of British Islamic banks, which have not invested in toxic assets and derivatives (for Islamic banking transactions must, so I understand, be backed by real assets) and the growing demand for financial products that avoid paying interest (for example, John Weguelin, Chief Executive of the European Islamic Investment Bank in the Financial Times on 10 November).
Some might see this as a welcome occasion for Muslim triumphalism, but it should not be so. As Hamza Mian writes in last month’s issue of this magazine (“Finding solutions”, emel, December 2008), “the Islamic finance community should not be complacent or unduly proud”. Islamic finance, he says, has the potential to contribute to a more stable economy and make a real difference but it is only halfway to the goal, and “as it stands in its current form has little to offer in terms of long-lasting solutions”. The solution ultimately has to be a moral, not a material one and, as Iqbal Khan explains in the same article, Islamic finance needs to graduate beyond Shariah compliant products to a truly alternative vision based on the ethical and moral safeguards within authentic Islamic concepts.
Well, here’s my cue. It is the word “authentic” and it is why I give this article the title “Reclaiming an Authentic Life”.
Going beyond a conventional response based on the potential of Islamic finance, I might have chosen to explore in this essay the powerful moral significance of the verses in Surah At-Takathur in the Qur’an which admonish us for rampant materialism:
You are obsessed by greed for more and more until you go down to your graves. (102:1-2).
And moments after I wrote these words on 28 November, I heard this on the radio: 34-year-old Jdimytai Damour, a Wal-Mart worker had just been trampled to death after an out-of-control mob of frenzied shoppers smashed through the Long Island store’s front doors in pursuit of Black Friday sale bargains. Such are the deadly consequences of a greed which knows no bounds, a greed which can not only harm and even destroy others, but also kills our own souls.
Commenting on the global financial system, (“A last chance”, New Statesman, 10 November), Paul Mason, economics editor of BBC Newsnight, suggests that the best of three alternatives to the system of neoliberal, free-market capitalism is “the abandonment of a high-growth economy”. He points out that even a mainstream corporate economist, such as Morgan Stanley’s Roach, has called for “a greater awareness of the consequences of striving for open-ended economic growth.” Mason’s aptly named book Meltdown: the End of the Age of Greed is due to be published by Verso in April 2009.
With our insight sharpened by the financial crisis, let me come back again to the characteristic contemporary relevance of Muhammad Asad’s comment on those Qur’anic verses, which I quoted in a previous essay (“Choosing an Abundant Life”, emel, January 2007):
“The term takathur denotes man’s obsessive striving for more and more comforts, more material goods, greater power over his fellow-men or over nature, and unceasing technological progress. A passionate pursuit of such endeavours, to the exclusion of everything else, bars man from all spiritual insight and, hence, from the acceptance of any restrictions and inhibitions based on purely moral values – with the result that not only individuals but whole societies gradually lose all inner stability and, thus, all chance of happiness.”
Those powerful verses and Asad’s commentary could well be seen as the definitive statement on the crisis. They exhort us, however, to go much further than the easy option of crowing about the collapse of a defective financial system or exposing “moral hazard” in others; they urge us to discover how each and every one of us can reclaim for ourselves an authentic life based on spiritual insight and moral values. The starting point is ourselves, not others, for the Qur’an is above all an urgent call to each of us to live a spiritual life, and to begin now to live it. Not tomorrow, but now, in this moment. And that brings me back to that word “authentic” and what it says to us in these turbulent and disorientating times.
In an article in The Daily Telegraph of 1 November (“Why the crunch could be a walk in the parklands”), Dame Fiona Reynolds, Director-General of the National Trust, is reported as saying that the “looming threat of austerity” was giving a boost to a “growing shift towards authentic experiences” which was part of a wider reaction against “more material experiences”. She continued: “I think this is more than a nostalgic reaction to the economic crisis…There has been a preoccupation in society with affluence, status and materialism for some years, but the looming threat of austerity appears to be giving new impetus to the search for the ‘real thing’. Simple pleasures, she believes, like a walk in the woods and spending time as a family will make a comeback thanks to the economic crisis.
A welcome comeback, indeed, but it is surely not simply the “threat of austerity”, or the prospect of hard times, or the disenchanted reaction to “affluenza” which should provoke in us the search for what is real and authentic. That hunger to be authentic and to live an authentic life is ingrained in us as part of our very nature. When we say that something is authentic we assert that it is genuine, of undisputed origin. A painting verified by experts as an authentic work by Leonardo da Vinci will fetch millions at auction, and the detection of forgeries has become a complex science. The word authentic comes from Greek authentikos and its essential meaning is “having the authority of the original creator”. Its original meaning in English was “authoritative”. For people of faith, the authentic person is authoritative only in so far as he or she is stamped with the attributes of the ultimate authority, the Creator of all the worlds, Rabbil-‘alamin. This accords completely with the Islamic concept of the human being as khalifa, ‘vicegerent’ or ‘representative’ of God. To be authentic is to be true to our essential nature (fitra) and to the divine pattern on which we were created. It is to embody the original character with which we were imprinted. Not to be true to that is to have a false identity, to be a fake, a forgery, a fabrication.
The Arabic DJL root gives us ad-Dajjal, a False Prophet, the last of whom according to various Hadith will be al-Masih ad-Dajjal, the Antichrist, and one of the very concrete and evocative meanings of this root is to “spread tar on a mangy camel”, to artfully cover over what is defective so as to present it as something attractive. Ad-Dajjal is the deceiver or impostor, intent on deforming and inverting the truth. As Hamza Mian says, were not the repackaged sub-prime loans “nothing more than artful works of deception that fed the speculative excesses and hubris in the financial markets”? We have all heard of false eyelashes, faux (false, simulated) fur, and ‘fool’s gold’ (iron pyrites) but few of us were aware that the financial system depends on conjuring tricks with faux money, the work of illusionists.
To be authentic is to use our God-given faculties to distinguish what is true from what is false, to sniff out deception, to see through the glitter to what is rotten beneath. “Beware the farasa (discernment) of the mu’min (person of faith),” said the Prophet, “for he sees with the light of Allah.”
So how should I sum up what it means to reclaim an authentic life? Certainly, a walk in the woods (or, indeed, a more demanding hike up a mountain) and spending more time with one’s family may be important elements in the rediscovery of what is real. But as people of faith our commitment to authenticity takes us to another level. It is to realise that when we walk in the woods, we are not doing so only to avoid spending money in times of austerity as a temporary belt-tightening measure, or to live a healthier lifestyle, or even to feel elated by beautiful scenery. It is to become more aware of the expansive presence of God, and that walk in the woods may be the best way for us to reconnect with the touchstone deep in ourselves. That touchstone or criterion is the key Qur’anic concept of the furqan, translated by Muhammad Asad as “a standard by which to discern the true from the false.”
Ultimately, to live an authentic life is to strive to become aware of the all-presence of God in every moment, and to live one’s life in every circumstance and setting in the light of that awareness. That is taqwa. Rooted in that awareness, the ups and downs of the financial markets and the fabrications, illusions and “artful works of deception” we see all around us in the world recede in importance, and we take heart from what is real, permanent and indestructible, and give heart to others.
First published in emel Magazine, January 2009
by Jeremy Henzell-Thomas
It has been a while since my last essay, for we have been busy moving back to England after four years living in France. It may be of interest to write about why we have returned, but I will reserve that for a later piece on the topical theme of ‘identity’ and ‘roots’, for there are now some more pressing matters to discuss following the dramatic events of the last few months.
Dramatic events? Well, you may be relieved to know that I do not refer to the Ross-Brand scandal, which sparked off such incandescent outrage, and (to continue the incendiary metaphor) appears to have culminated recently in a twin effigy of the pair being set on fire as part of Edenbridge Bonfire Society’s Guy Fawkes celebrations on 5 November. To dwell on such things only drags us down.
Neither do I wish to dwell unduly on the bizarre ruling by the Malysian national fatwa council which has just issued an edict prohibiting Muslims from practicing yoga because, in the words of the council’s chairman, it “destroys a Muslim’s faith”. This followed their earlier perplexing ruling that Christians are not allowed to use the word Allah and was widely reported (The Guardian, 24 November, for example). At the time the ban on yoga was just the latest in what I described in one of my previous essays as a whole series of “lamentable and risible pseudo-controversies” serving to heap public derision on Muslims (“Embracing optimism: becoming a creative minority in the media”, emel June 2008) and which included such wincingly embarrassing distractions as the Sudanese teddy bear incident and the ban by Muslim cabbies on blind passengers with guide dogs.
One can only ask: what kind of faith is so brittle and insecure that it is “destroyed” by practising a discipline designed to promote physical health, inner harmony and spiritual enlightenment? I personally studied and practised yoga for many years as a young man and it set me on the road of a spiritual journey which ultimately brought me to Islam. By “yoga”, I do not mean only hatha yoga, the yoga of physical postures (asanas) and breathing exercises (pranayama) which define this discipline for many people and to which it is often reduced in the West. I mean rather the yoga of progressive development of mental and spiritual faculties from concentration (dharana) through meditation (dhyana) to contemplation (samadhi) undertaken for the attainment of knowledge (jnana) of God. Deep inward reflection is continually enjoined upon us by the Qur’an and the Prophet and it our duty as Muslims to develop that capacity for spiritual reflection and higher consciousness.
Instead of unthinking and mechanical knee-jerk reactions against practices and terminology associated with other faiths, we would do better to try to comprehend how they converge at the deepest and most universal level with what is surely at the core of our own faith – that is, the unwrapping of those higher faculties with which all human beings are innately endowed for the purpose of remembering God.
And if we are put off by the Sanskrit terms I deliberately used here, then we surely need to liberate ourselves from the conditioning which shackles us to the surface form of words in a single language. We need to go beyond these names and forms to discover the universal concepts beneath them, for do they not all point to the attainment of that state of being to which we Muslims ideally aspire, the state of taqwa? Muhammad Asad pointedly translates this term not as “fear of God” but as “consciousness of God” so as to emphasise its positive connotation, and he further defines it as the “awareness of the all-presence of God and the desire to mould one’s existence in the light of this awareness”. And is not that state of awareness nourished by the activation of those higher faculties such as conscious insight (albab, basirah), deep reflection, meditation and contemplation (tafakkur), pondering (tadabbur), and taking to heart (tadhakkur) to which the Qur’an itself repeatedly alludes? When we use Arabic words from the Qur’an instead of Sanskrit ones, are we still going to maintain that the exercise of truth-seeking faculties is going to destroy our faith? I am not saying that these terms in different languages are all strictly equivalent, for does not the Qur’an tell us that there are “signs for people of insight” in the differences and particularities which we can observe in the rich diversity of nations, tribes, races and languages. But our openness to other perspectives allows us to vie with another in continually advancing towards an inclusive and all-encompassing vision of the Truth.
Now, I promised not to be sidetracked by the Malaysian fatwa, and I still have not revealed the pressing matter which I had intended to write about. So here goes. Hold your breath. Yes, it is the inescapable GLOBAL FINANCIAL MELTDOWN. Oh no, you may well say; haven’t we all got CREDIT CRUNCH FATIGUE, the fatigue to end all fatigues? We may (or may not) have heard of Compassion Fatigue, the dulled public sensitivity towards catastrophe promoted by formulaic and sensational news coverage (see Susan Moeller’s 1999 book Compassion Fatigue: How the Media Sell Disease, Famine, War and Death); we (or our children) may already suffer from Facebook Fatique and more and more of us are succumbing to Batty-Stories-about-Islam-and-Muslims-in-the-News-Media Fatique; some, like me, hope against hope that the British populace will soon suffer from Celebrity Chef Fatigue (and actually start cooking instead of gawping in wonder at others doing it), or other variants of Reality TV Fatique and begin asking questions about what is real and what is not. I have even seen a website devoted to the ultra-modern syndrome of Green Fatigue for all those poor souls constantly lectured to about recycling, light bulbs, and the like. But all this pales into insignificance before the crushing fatigue and the glazed eyes which come over us when we see another article on Global Financial Meltdown (I type it here in a smaller font size lest it leaps out at you again and puts you off reading any further).
However, be assured, dear reader, that I have an alternative perspective on this. I am not an expert in economics, finance or banking, and I would like to draw out a message which explores the profoundly positive opportunities the crisis gives us at the level of the soul, and not that of the pocket. Others far more qualified than me have written about it from the perspective of Islamic finance. We have been told about the relatively strong position of British Islamic banks, which have not invested in toxic assets and derivatives (for Islamic banking transactions must, so I understand, be backed by real assets) and the growing demand for financial products that avoid paying interest (for example, John Weguelin, Chief Executive of the European Islamic Investment Bank in the Financial Times on 10 November).
Some might see this as a welcome occasion for Muslim triumphalism, but it should not be so. As Hamza Mian writes in last month’s issue of this magazine (“Finding solutions”, emel, December 2008), “the Islamic finance community should not be complacent or unduly proud”. Islamic finance, he says, has the potential to contribute to a more stable economy and make a real difference but it is only halfway to the goal, and “as it stands in its current form has little to offer in terms of long-lasting solutions”. The solution ultimately has to be a moral, not a material one and, as Iqbal Khan explains in the same article, Islamic finance needs to graduate beyond Shariah compliant products to a truly alternative vision based on the ethical and moral safeguards within authentic Islamic concepts.
Well, here’s my cue. It is the word “authentic” and it is why I give this article the title “Reclaiming an Authentic Life”.
Going beyond a conventional response based on the potential of Islamic finance, I might have chosen to explore in this essay the powerful moral significance of the verses in Surah At-Takathur in the Qur’an which admonish us for rampant materialism:
You are obsessed by greed for more and more until you go down to your graves. (102:1-2).
And moments after I wrote these words on 28 November, I heard this on the radio: 34-year-old Jdimytai Damour, a Wal-Mart worker had just been trampled to death after an out-of-control mob of frenzied shoppers smashed through the Long Island store’s front doors in pursuit of Black Friday sale bargains. Such are the deadly consequences of a greed which knows no bounds, a greed which can not only harm and even destroy others, but also kills our own souls.
Commenting on the global financial system, (“A last chance”, New Statesman, 10 November), Paul Mason, economics editor of BBC Newsnight, suggests that the best of three alternatives to the system of neoliberal, free-market capitalism is “the abandonment of a high-growth economy”. He points out that even a mainstream corporate economist, such as Morgan Stanley’s Roach, has called for “a greater awareness of the consequences of striving for open-ended economic growth.” Mason’s aptly named book Meltdown: the End of the Age of Greed is due to be published by Verso in April 2009.
With our insight sharpened by the financial crisis, let me come back again to the characteristic contemporary relevance of Muhammad Asad’s comment on those Qur’anic verses, which I quoted in a previous essay (“Choosing an Abundant Life”, emel, January 2007):
“The term takathur denotes man’s obsessive striving for more and more comforts, more material goods, greater power over his fellow-men or over nature, and unceasing technological progress. A passionate pursuit of such endeavours, to the exclusion of everything else, bars man from all spiritual insight and, hence, from the acceptance of any restrictions and inhibitions based on purely moral values – with the result that not only individuals but whole societies gradually lose all inner stability and, thus, all chance of happiness.”
Those powerful verses and Asad’s commentary could well be seen as the definitive statement on the crisis. They exhort us, however, to go much further than the easy option of crowing about the collapse of a defective financial system or exposing “moral hazard” in others; they urge us to discover how each and every one of us can reclaim for ourselves an authentic life based on spiritual insight and moral values. The starting point is ourselves, not others, for the Qur’an is above all an urgent call to each of us to live a spiritual life, and to begin now to live it. Not tomorrow, but now, in this moment. And that brings me back to that word “authentic” and what it says to us in these turbulent and disorientating times.
In an article in The Daily Telegraph of 1 November (“Why the crunch could be a walk in the parklands”), Dame Fiona Reynolds, Director-General of the National Trust, is reported as saying that the “looming threat of austerity” was giving a boost to a “growing shift towards authentic experiences” which was part of a wider reaction against “more material experiences”. She continued: “I think this is more than a nostalgic reaction to the economic crisis…There has been a preoccupation in society with affluence, status and materialism for some years, but the looming threat of austerity appears to be giving new impetus to the search for the ‘real thing’. Simple pleasures, she believes, like a walk in the woods and spending time as a family will make a comeback thanks to the economic crisis.
A welcome comeback, indeed, but it is surely not simply the “threat of austerity”, or the prospect of hard times, or the disenchanted reaction to “affluenza” which should provoke in us the search for what is real and authentic. That hunger to be authentic and to live an authentic life is ingrained in us as part of our very nature. When we say that something is authentic we assert that it is genuine, of undisputed origin. A painting verified by experts as an authentic work by Leonardo da Vinci will fetch millions at auction, and the detection of forgeries has become a complex science. The word authentic comes from Greek authentikos and its essential meaning is “having the authority of the original creator”. Its original meaning in English was “authoritative”. For people of faith, the authentic person is authoritative only in so far as he or she is stamped with the attributes of the ultimate authority, the Creator of all the worlds, Rabbil-‘alamin. This accords completely with the Islamic concept of the human being as khalifa, ‘vicegerent’ or ‘representative’ of God. To be authentic is to be true to our essential nature (fitra) and to the divine pattern on which we were created. It is to embody the original character with which we were imprinted. Not to be true to that is to have a false identity, to be a fake, a forgery, a fabrication.
The Arabic DJL root gives us ad-Dajjal, a False Prophet, the last of whom according to various Hadith will be al-Masih ad-Dajjal, the Antichrist, and one of the very concrete and evocative meanings of this root is to “spread tar on a mangy camel”, to artfully cover over what is defective so as to present it as something attractive. Ad-Dajjal is the deceiver or impostor, intent on deforming and inverting the truth. As Hamza Mian says, were not the repackaged sub-prime loans “nothing more than artful works of deception that fed the speculative excesses and hubris in the financial markets”? We have all heard of false eyelashes, faux (false, simulated) fur, and ‘fool’s gold’ (iron pyrites) but few of us were aware that the financial system depends on conjuring tricks with faux money, the work of illusionists.
To be authentic is to use our God-given faculties to distinguish what is true from what is false, to sniff out deception, to see through the glitter to what is rotten beneath. “Beware the farasa (discernment) of the mu’min (person of faith),” said the Prophet, “for he sees with the light of Allah.”
So how should I sum up what it means to reclaim an authentic life? Certainly, a walk in the woods (or, indeed, a more demanding hike up a mountain) and spending more time with one’s family may be important elements in the rediscovery of what is real. But as people of faith our commitment to authenticity takes us to another level. It is to realise that when we walk in the woods, we are not doing so only to avoid spending money in times of austerity as a temporary belt-tightening measure, or to live a healthier lifestyle, or even to feel elated by beautiful scenery. It is to become more aware of the expansive presence of God, and that walk in the woods may be the best way for us to reconnect with the touchstone deep in ourselves. That touchstone or criterion is the key Qur’anic concept of the furqan, translated by Muhammad Asad as “a standard by which to discern the true from the false.”
Ultimately, to live an authentic life is to strive to become aware of the all-presence of God in every moment, and to live one’s life in every circumstance and setting in the light of that awareness. That is taqwa. Rooted in that awareness, the ups and downs of the financial markets and the fabrications, illusions and “artful works of deception” we see all around us in the world recede in importance, and we take heart from what is real, permanent and indestructible, and give heart to others.
First published in emel Magazine, January 2009
Monday, January 25, 2010
Shen Yun in Little Rock Arkansas
LITTLE ROCK, Ark.—The Shen Yun Performing Arts Company chose The Robinson Center Music Hall for their Wednesday, Jan. 20th evening performance.
Dee, the owner of a coffee products company, learned about Shen Yun from a local community television channel and decided to become a sponsor.
"This was a wonderful event, and I think we made a very good decision to be one of the sponsors for it," Dee said.
Dee enjoyed hearing and seeing Chinese stories through dance, song and music.
"Oh, it was spectacular. It's just amazing. I was just blown away. It was terrific," Dee said enthusiastically.
Dee was particularly impressed by the spiritual aspect of the show. She went on to explain how she felt listening to the singers. “To me, it held meaning … such as life is too short, or don't live your life just for wealth … because it will bring you sorrow in the end. These types of songs were beautiful and just heart-warming," Dee said. "You could just feel everything. It was just beautiful. It was a very spiritual enlightenment encounter for me."
Dee said that she would certainly be a sponsor for the show again when it comes back to Little Rock in 2011.
Dee summed up by saying, “If people have not seen this show, they really need to make the effort to see it.”
With reporting by Gary Du.
Dee, the owner of a coffee products company, learned about Shen Yun from a local community television channel and decided to become a sponsor.
"This was a wonderful event, and I think we made a very good decision to be one of the sponsors for it," Dee said.
Dee enjoyed hearing and seeing Chinese stories through dance, song and music.
"Oh, it was spectacular. It's just amazing. I was just blown away. It was terrific," Dee said enthusiastically.
Dee was particularly impressed by the spiritual aspect of the show. She went on to explain how she felt listening to the singers. “To me, it held meaning … such as life is too short, or don't live your life just for wealth … because it will bring you sorrow in the end. These types of songs were beautiful and just heart-warming," Dee said. "You could just feel everything. It was just beautiful. It was a very spiritual enlightenment encounter for me."
Dee said that she would certainly be a sponsor for the show again when it comes back to Little Rock in 2011.
Dee summed up by saying, “If people have not seen this show, they really need to make the effort to see it.”
With reporting by Gary Du.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Ganges River Bath is Holy Spiritual Ceremony
THE devotion, respect and faith shown by the thousands of people who dipped in the Ganges river at the start of the Kumbh Mela festival was astonishing.
The chilly weather and freezing water on Jan 14 – the first day of the three-month long festival in Haridwar, India – did not deter them from performing the bathing ritual. Kumbh Mela offers pilgrims a chance to wash away their sins and stop the karmic cycle of life and rebirth.
I joined the crowd to experience spiritual awakening and it was an incredible journey of sight, sound and emotions. Men and women, young and old, braved the weather and performed brief ceremonies for their families and ancestors before taking the ritual bath.
Many placed flowers and oil lamps into the waters and there was always the strong aroma of burning incense. Pilgrims sang mantras and devotional hymns like Ganga Mata Ki Jai (Victory to Mother Ganga) as they dipped themselves into the river three times.
Some even shaved their heads bald to “remove their ego’’ before the ceremonial bath.
There was no rushing, pushing or shoving. Everyone conducted themselves with discipline in order to show respect for the river.
We were at the point where the glaciers from the Himalayas spill into the Ganges and the strong tide moves swiftly and prevents people from swimming.
Despite the millions who dipped themselves in its waters in the first few days of the festival, the Ganges remained free from rubbish, debris and pollution.
My feet cramped when I stepped into the freezing -2°C water at sunset after the Ganga Aarti, a daily evening-time ceremony conducted to show reverence to the river.
Rituals such as this are commonplace during the festival, and prayers are offered by devotees and spiritual leaders all along the 2,510km river, which is dotted with small and big places of worship.
In a meditative state, I cupped my hands and scooped some water from the river and drank it. It tasted like chilled bottled water.
A devotee beside me who wore slippers to get into the cold waters was stopped immediately by others and was reminded that the had to remove them as it was a sacred site.
According to devotees, mixing even a small quantity of water from the river with ordinary water makes it “Ganges water”, and it will offer healing properties.
For Hindus, Ganges water has the power to cleanse bathers from sins when the bath is performed on an auspicious day. Every major Hindu ritual involves the use of holy water from the Ganges and the river is also a popular spot for scattering the ashes of the dead.
Besides the river’s holy and mystical attributes, the other attraction at this auspicious festival is the opportunity to seek blessings from the thousands of monks, spiritual gurus, saints and masters who attend the event.
The Naga Babas, better known as Naga sadhu (holy men), are especially sought after as this is the only time they emerge from their remote dwelling places around India.
Naga sadhus renounce all earthly pleasures in their attempt to attain spiritual enlightenment. While these hermits usually shun all contact with the outside world, at this festival, they are quite hospitable.
I met one seated beside a fireplace under a tree at the riverbank and sought his darshan (blessings) by bowing my head and he placed some holy ash on my forehead.
For devotees, receiving darshan is a way of tapping into the divine energy of such spiritual leaders. They are regarded as representatives of the gods and are highly respected.
I returned from my trip feeling lighter and blissful, and was immediately filled with a yearning to return to the Ganges river before the Kumbh Mela ends on April 28.
The next grand Maha Kumbh Mela will be in January 2013 in Allahabad and it is expected to attract over 100 million people.
Vasthu talk
The columnist will present a talk on the astrological forecast for 2010 and how to attract positive energy into a house for peace and prosperity following Vasthu Sastra on Feb 25 at 6pm at KTAR Learning Centre, Wisma MCA, ground floor, No. 163, Jalan Ampang in Kuala Lumpur.
Admission is free; to register call 012-329 9713.
Senior News Editor T. Selva has spent years researching and writing about the ancient Indian science of construction, better known as ‘Indian feng shui’. He is the first disciple of 7th generation Vasthu Sastra Master Yuvaraj Sowma from Chennai, India.
The Star does not give any warranty on accuracy, completeness, usefulness, fitness for any particular purpose or other assurances as to the opinions and views expressed in this column. The Star disclaims all responsibility for any losses suffered directly or indirectly arising from reliance on such opinions and views.
The chilly weather and freezing water on Jan 14 – the first day of the three-month long festival in Haridwar, India – did not deter them from performing the bathing ritual. Kumbh Mela offers pilgrims a chance to wash away their sins and stop the karmic cycle of life and rebirth.
I joined the crowd to experience spiritual awakening and it was an incredible journey of sight, sound and emotions. Men and women, young and old, braved the weather and performed brief ceremonies for their families and ancestors before taking the ritual bath.
Many placed flowers and oil lamps into the waters and there was always the strong aroma of burning incense. Pilgrims sang mantras and devotional hymns like Ganga Mata Ki Jai (Victory to Mother Ganga) as they dipped themselves into the river three times.
Some even shaved their heads bald to “remove their ego’’ before the ceremonial bath.
There was no rushing, pushing or shoving. Everyone conducted themselves with discipline in order to show respect for the river.
We were at the point where the glaciers from the Himalayas spill into the Ganges and the strong tide moves swiftly and prevents people from swimming.
Despite the millions who dipped themselves in its waters in the first few days of the festival, the Ganges remained free from rubbish, debris and pollution.
My feet cramped when I stepped into the freezing -2°C water at sunset after the Ganga Aarti, a daily evening-time ceremony conducted to show reverence to the river.
Rituals such as this are commonplace during the festival, and prayers are offered by devotees and spiritual leaders all along the 2,510km river, which is dotted with small and big places of worship.
In a meditative state, I cupped my hands and scooped some water from the river and drank it. It tasted like chilled bottled water.
A devotee beside me who wore slippers to get into the cold waters was stopped immediately by others and was reminded that the had to remove them as it was a sacred site.
According to devotees, mixing even a small quantity of water from the river with ordinary water makes it “Ganges water”, and it will offer healing properties.
For Hindus, Ganges water has the power to cleanse bathers from sins when the bath is performed on an auspicious day. Every major Hindu ritual involves the use of holy water from the Ganges and the river is also a popular spot for scattering the ashes of the dead.
Besides the river’s holy and mystical attributes, the other attraction at this auspicious festival is the opportunity to seek blessings from the thousands of monks, spiritual gurus, saints and masters who attend the event.
The Naga Babas, better known as Naga sadhu (holy men), are especially sought after as this is the only time they emerge from their remote dwelling places around India.
Naga sadhus renounce all earthly pleasures in their attempt to attain spiritual enlightenment. While these hermits usually shun all contact with the outside world, at this festival, they are quite hospitable.
I met one seated beside a fireplace under a tree at the riverbank and sought his darshan (blessings) by bowing my head and he placed some holy ash on my forehead.
For devotees, receiving darshan is a way of tapping into the divine energy of such spiritual leaders. They are regarded as representatives of the gods and are highly respected.
I returned from my trip feeling lighter and blissful, and was immediately filled with a yearning to return to the Ganges river before the Kumbh Mela ends on April 28.
The next grand Maha Kumbh Mela will be in January 2013 in Allahabad and it is expected to attract over 100 million people.
Vasthu talk
The columnist will present a talk on the astrological forecast for 2010 and how to attract positive energy into a house for peace and prosperity following Vasthu Sastra on Feb 25 at 6pm at KTAR Learning Centre, Wisma MCA, ground floor, No. 163, Jalan Ampang in Kuala Lumpur.
Admission is free; to register call 012-329 9713.
Senior News Editor T. Selva has spent years researching and writing about the ancient Indian science of construction, better known as ‘Indian feng shui’. He is the first disciple of 7th generation Vasthu Sastra Master Yuvaraj Sowma from Chennai, India.
The Star does not give any warranty on accuracy, completeness, usefulness, fitness for any particular purpose or other assurances as to the opinions and views expressed in this column. The Star disclaims all responsibility for any losses suffered directly or indirectly arising from reliance on such opinions and views.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Thailand Meditation Direct Path to Spiritual Enlightenment
BANGKOK – A growing number of people are trying to tidy up the crowded façade of their cluttered lifestyle — they're tackling the congestion at its root by exploring a simpler yet richer path: studying Buddhist meditation and, in some cases, being fully ordained as a Buddhist monk or nun. While one can manage this in almost any big city, many people aren't aware that the process is gaining popularity in Asia, where the religion was born and remains the dominant moral philosophy.
One of the most popular places for this undertaking is Thailand, where many people subscribe to Therevada Buddhism, a school that claims direct lineage back to the Buddha himself. It emphasizes wise reflection, meditation and the belief that one of the main causes of human suffering is craving, or the desire to amass wealth.
"The more you give up, the more freedom you have," says Pandit Bhikkhu, a Brit who was ordained as a monk in 1996 and one of the most visible westerners in Thai Buddhist circles. Monks, a moral pillar of Thai society, live a modest life — an average day begins around 5 am, and follows a pattern of meditation, studying and various temple-related duties. Most Thai men are expected to be ordained at some point, earning respect from their community and good karma for their family in return for their oblation.
"I don't miss the western lifestyle, although I do miss the food sometimes," he laughs. "Some take to it and remain a monk for years, while others can't wait to get back to their car and girlfriend."
But being ordained is a long process that requires deep commitment, and the English monk recommends experiencing a meditation retreat first.
"Retreats are organized and well planned, so it's a more accessible way to get an idea of the things that Buddhism and monkhood offer."
Steve Weissman, a former student of and now teacher at Wat Khowtam on the popular island of Ko Phangan since 1988, says, "The majority of our guests either want to learn more about themselves or are interested in what the Buddha taught. Many people have become aware of certain aspects of life that they consider unsatisfactory and would like to know how to lessen or solve these problems."
Life at the hilly retreat among a thick jungle landscape is austere: participants sleep in dormitory rooms on straw mats and spend their time in near-silence, meditating in groups and honing their skills via one-on-one conversations with the teachers. "We have many students from around the world who return to continue their development and pass on what they have learned to their children, family and friends," says Weissman.
Thailand has many similar retreats that cater to Thais and foreigners alike, from the southern sandy beaches to the lush northern capital of Chiang Mai, and even in and around the noisy, fast-paced capital of Bangkok.
One such place is Wat Prayong International Meditation Centre, located 30 minutes outside of Bangkok among an endless expanse of banana trees and deep green rice paddies. Austrian Mae Chee Brigitte has been at this temple since she was ordained as a nun in 1990 after trying meditation on a whim and feeling a deep and ethereal connection to the philosophy (like Bhikkhu, Mae Chee is a religious title).
"I try to teach my students not only meditation within the temple, but to develop mindfulness in all their daily activities so that they can apply it at home, because mindfulness leads to wisdom. If you are able to be more mindful of your daily existence, you learn to let go of useless and negative thoughts, giving you control over your emotions and allowing an easier path to happiness."
Mae Chee Brigitte's tutelage is free for those who are interested, but donations are always appreciated. Like Wat Khowtam, prospective students should send an email rather than simply show up, and may stay as long as they wish as long as they continue to practice meditation. Some have followed the path of their teacher and have remained in Thailand to study.
"Two of my disciples have been in the monkhood for over ten years, and one even lives in a cave in Suphanburi province," she says.
However, such an extreme lifestyle shift isn't for all tastes, so a more scholarly approach to Buddhism is another option. Tony MacGregor, a retired 64-year old from Nanaimo, B.C, is in his second year of an M.A. program in Buddhist studies at Bangkok's 122-year old Mahachula University.
"I tried meditation on the advice of a friend and found it incredibly helpful, which led to Buddhism and eventually, Thailand," he says.
Classes at Mahachula are taught in English, and lay-students and orange-robed monks alike listen to lessons on Pali, Modern Science and Buddhist Research Methodologies.
"Most of my 20-odd classmates are monks from neighbouring countries. It's not as stern as you might think — there's a fair amount of laughter and horseplay in class, but they're serious about earning their degree," he says.
But meditation remains the doorway. "Once you learn how to meditate properly, it stays with you forever," says Pandit Bhikkhu. "You can meditate anywhere because the base of your happiness is inside you. If you're married, in prison, in a hot country, cold country, rich or poor, it doesn't matter. Happiness comes from letting go."
JUST THE FACTS: There are numerous places that offer meditation retreats, and plenty of online communities where you can find advice, stories and contacts.
- Pandit Bhikkhu's frequently updated blog, with plenty of resources. http://www.littlebang.wordpress.com
- Wat Mahachula, Bangkok's oldest school of Buddhist studies. http://www.mcu.ac.th/En/in_mcu.php
- Wat Prayong International Meditation Centre, where Mae Chee Brigitte holds her retreats. http://www.meditationthailand.com/
Wat Kowtahm, Thailand's well known 'jungle temple' on the island of Ko Phang Ngan, offers meditation courses of varying length. http://www.watkowtahm.org/
Monk for a Month will take all the guesswork out of the process and provide you with a support network, although their programs aren't free. http://www.monkforamonth.com
One of the most popular places for this undertaking is Thailand, where many people subscribe to Therevada Buddhism, a school that claims direct lineage back to the Buddha himself. It emphasizes wise reflection, meditation and the belief that one of the main causes of human suffering is craving, or the desire to amass wealth.
"The more you give up, the more freedom you have," says Pandit Bhikkhu, a Brit who was ordained as a monk in 1996 and one of the most visible westerners in Thai Buddhist circles. Monks, a moral pillar of Thai society, live a modest life — an average day begins around 5 am, and follows a pattern of meditation, studying and various temple-related duties. Most Thai men are expected to be ordained at some point, earning respect from their community and good karma for their family in return for their oblation.
"I don't miss the western lifestyle, although I do miss the food sometimes," he laughs. "Some take to it and remain a monk for years, while others can't wait to get back to their car and girlfriend."
But being ordained is a long process that requires deep commitment, and the English monk recommends experiencing a meditation retreat first.
"Retreats are organized and well planned, so it's a more accessible way to get an idea of the things that Buddhism and monkhood offer."
Steve Weissman, a former student of and now teacher at Wat Khowtam on the popular island of Ko Phangan since 1988, says, "The majority of our guests either want to learn more about themselves or are interested in what the Buddha taught. Many people have become aware of certain aspects of life that they consider unsatisfactory and would like to know how to lessen or solve these problems."
Life at the hilly retreat among a thick jungle landscape is austere: participants sleep in dormitory rooms on straw mats and spend their time in near-silence, meditating in groups and honing their skills via one-on-one conversations with the teachers. "We have many students from around the world who return to continue their development and pass on what they have learned to their children, family and friends," says Weissman.
Thailand has many similar retreats that cater to Thais and foreigners alike, from the southern sandy beaches to the lush northern capital of Chiang Mai, and even in and around the noisy, fast-paced capital of Bangkok.
One such place is Wat Prayong International Meditation Centre, located 30 minutes outside of Bangkok among an endless expanse of banana trees and deep green rice paddies. Austrian Mae Chee Brigitte has been at this temple since she was ordained as a nun in 1990 after trying meditation on a whim and feeling a deep and ethereal connection to the philosophy (like Bhikkhu, Mae Chee is a religious title).
"I try to teach my students not only meditation within the temple, but to develop mindfulness in all their daily activities so that they can apply it at home, because mindfulness leads to wisdom. If you are able to be more mindful of your daily existence, you learn to let go of useless and negative thoughts, giving you control over your emotions and allowing an easier path to happiness."
Mae Chee Brigitte's tutelage is free for those who are interested, but donations are always appreciated. Like Wat Khowtam, prospective students should send an email rather than simply show up, and may stay as long as they wish as long as they continue to practice meditation. Some have followed the path of their teacher and have remained in Thailand to study.
"Two of my disciples have been in the monkhood for over ten years, and one even lives in a cave in Suphanburi province," she says.
However, such an extreme lifestyle shift isn't for all tastes, so a more scholarly approach to Buddhism is another option. Tony MacGregor, a retired 64-year old from Nanaimo, B.C, is in his second year of an M.A. program in Buddhist studies at Bangkok's 122-year old Mahachula University.
"I tried meditation on the advice of a friend and found it incredibly helpful, which led to Buddhism and eventually, Thailand," he says.
Classes at Mahachula are taught in English, and lay-students and orange-robed monks alike listen to lessons on Pali, Modern Science and Buddhist Research Methodologies.
"Most of my 20-odd classmates are monks from neighbouring countries. It's not as stern as you might think — there's a fair amount of laughter and horseplay in class, but they're serious about earning their degree," he says.
But meditation remains the doorway. "Once you learn how to meditate properly, it stays with you forever," says Pandit Bhikkhu. "You can meditate anywhere because the base of your happiness is inside you. If you're married, in prison, in a hot country, cold country, rich or poor, it doesn't matter. Happiness comes from letting go."
JUST THE FACTS: There are numerous places that offer meditation retreats, and plenty of online communities where you can find advice, stories and contacts.
- Pandit Bhikkhu's frequently updated blog, with plenty of resources. http://www.littlebang.wordpress.com
- Wat Mahachula, Bangkok's oldest school of Buddhist studies. http://www.mcu.ac.th/En/in_mcu.php
- Wat Prayong International Meditation Centre, where Mae Chee Brigitte holds her retreats. http://www.meditationthailand.com/
Wat Kowtahm, Thailand's well known 'jungle temple' on the island of Ko Phang Ngan, offers meditation courses of varying length. http://www.watkowtahm.org/
Monk for a Month will take all the guesswork out of the process and provide you with a support network, although their programs aren't free. http://www.monkforamonth.com
Friday, January 22, 2010
Old Spiritual Sundays
This weekend, almost a year after the inauguration of the country’s first African-American President, the town of Franklin celebrated the birthday of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. with two annual events which highlight the diversity and energy of Macon County. Sponsored by the Human Relations Council of Macon County, the festivities kicked-off on Sunday with a program of singing and speakers at United Methodist Church. On Monday, the annual parade was held, with beautiful weather attracting marchers from all around the county.
A proponent of civil disobedience and non-violent resistance, King became the youngest person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, which he was awarded for his work in the struggle to end racial discrimination. King also spoke out for labor and against the Vietnam war before his assassination in 1968.
President Obama’s historic election was undeniably on people’s minds during the weekend’s celebrations. T-shirts and banners from the election were brought to remind people of that important milestone in the country’s social progress. On the other hand, many were also reminded of Haiti and the recent destruction of Port-au-Prince by a 7.0 magnitude earthquake. The devastation has been exacerbated by the poverty in the city, a reminder that the world still has a long way to go in terms of social equality.
Mozart Moliere, a local youth leader and one of the organizer’s of the weekend’s events, is also the son of Haitian parents. “The situation with poverty just adds to the problems of an already horrible situation in Haiti,” he said. In the spirit of Dr. King’s multiculturalism, Moliere encouraged people to reach out to those in need in Haiti. Celebration at United Methodist Church
The celebration on Sunday involved a lively program of singing, speeches and poetry in commemoration of the life of Dr. King. Moliere was the master of ceremonies for the program.
A proponent of civil disobedience and non-violent resistance, King became the youngest person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, which he was awarded for his work in the struggle to end racial discrimination. King also spoke out for labor and against the Vietnam war before his assassination in 1968.
President Obama’s historic election was undeniably on people’s minds during the weekend’s celebrations. T-shirts and banners from the election were brought to remind people of that important milestone in the country’s social progress. On the other hand, many were also reminded of Haiti and the recent destruction of Port-au-Prince by a 7.0 magnitude earthquake. The devastation has been exacerbated by the poverty in the city, a reminder that the world still has a long way to go in terms of social equality.
Mozart Moliere, a local youth leader and one of the organizer’s of the weekend’s events, is also the son of Haitian parents. “The situation with poverty just adds to the problems of an already horrible situation in Haiti,” he said. In the spirit of Dr. King’s multiculturalism, Moliere encouraged people to reach out to those in need in Haiti. Celebration at United Methodist Church
The celebration on Sunday involved a lively program of singing, speeches and poetry in commemoration of the life of Dr. King. Moliere was the master of ceremonies for the program.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Spirituality in the Work Place
By ROB MOLL
New England's Puritan settlers brought with them two ideas that have driven American society ever since: Calvinism and capitalism. From Calvinism's birth in 16th-century Switzerland, its descendants, including the Puritans, developed ever more rigorous arguments for individual liberty, freedom of conscience, the rule of law, and the freedom to associate and to enter into contracts. Combined with a strong work ethic and high moral standards, these social arguments came to propel the modern commercial economy. By the early 20th century, the sociologist Max Weber could give a systematic analysis to the whole potent formula, in "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism."
A century later, as Lake Lambert III explains in "Spirituality, Inc.," religious faith is on display in American business as perhaps never before, from Tyson Foods' "workplace chaplains [who] roam the corporate halls and processing floors" to the never-open-on-Sunday Chick-fil-A's policy of dedicating each new restaurant to God's glory. The rise of companies with an explicitly religious underpinning has been accompanied by an increase of general spiritual awareness in the workplace, Mr. Lambert says. "Corporations like Ford and Xerox sponsor spiritual retreats to spark creativity." Even companies with no overt religious or spiritual interests may be the site of spiritual expression, whether that means a Bible study in a conference room or a weekly meeting hosted by the Spiritual Unfoldment Society at the World Bank.
Workplace spirituality, then, can take many forms, but its overall theme, Mr. Lambert says, is an attempt to transform business "from an egotistic survival of the fittest built around greed to a new vision of commerce grounded in compassion and enlightened self-interest that is, at its heart, a spiritual phenomenon."
In a country where the line defining the separation of church and state is well drawn—lawsuits over Christmas manger scenes aside—the separation of church and work is hardly defined at all. An employee's spiritual expression may be seen by his cubicle-mate as an admirable emblem of shared values or as a troubling imposition. When a boss places, say, a Bible prominently on his desk, what should his subordinates think? Should it be regarded like a family photo or thought to be a source of intimidation? The legal guidelines here are surprisingly vague. The courts still haven't fully worked out what is allowed.
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Spirituality, Inc.
By Lake Lambert III
New York University Press, 216 pages, $35
Expressions of spirituality with no specific religious affiliation are considered less likely to cause complaint. In Mr. Lambert's telling, this sort of spirituality is in fact linked to the advent of the knowledge-based economy. "Creativity, community, autonomy, and holistic concern became new employee benefits that supported the productivity of the new knowledge class," he writes, "and a particular type of spirituality found a partner in knowledge work." Today's workplace spirituality is a search for meaning, but it embraces questions rather than looks for answers. It is essentially, Mr. Lambert says, "the quest for wholeness."
In addition to citing Xerox's "vision quest" outings and Ford's "creativity-building exercises," Mr. Lambert tells us about the storytelling sessions advocated by the popular management theorist Peter Senge and about the efforts of personal-care-products maker Tom's of Maine "to build partnerships with sales outlets . . . so that values and relationships replace deals and competition."
Mr. Lambert worries that corporate executives may have less-than-high-minded motives in fostering workplace spirituality. Is being allowed to contemplate the meaning of life on company time, Mr. Lambert wonders, "a response to the real needs of workers or a rhetorical strategy" intended to buttress demands for higher productivity? One suspects that workers are not so easily duped.
The classical tie between Christianity and work has not entirely devolved into creative exercises with Native American talking sticks. Tyson Foods and Chick-fil-A are hardly the only Christianity-based enterprises in this country. Mr. Lambert also writes about Orthodox Jewish diamond brokers and the Maharishi University of Management. But Christian companies dominate this multifaceted scene.
One such company is ServiceMaster, a national franchise operation that provides home and office cleaning, lawn care, pest control, and other services through companies including ChemLawn and Terminix. Mr. Lambert quotes C. William Pollard, a former ServiceMaster chief executive officer, who writes in a book of his own that the company operates on the Judeo-Christian concept of the "Imago Dei"—the image of God that is placed in every human being, according to Genesis. ServiceMaster would thus regard every employee—from exterminators to executives—in an equal way. The company headquarters in Memphis prominently display an 11-foot statue of Jesus washing his disciples' feet. "Masters of service, serving the Master," was the slogan of Marion Wade, who founded company half a century ago. As Mr. Pollard explains: "The leaders of our firm should never ask anyone to do anything they are unwilling to do themselves. The leader exists for the benefit of the firm, not the firm for the benefit of the leader."
How we got from Calvinism and the Bible-based idea of vocation to the widespread and vaguely spiritual workplace of today is clearly told by Mr. Lambert in "Spirituality, Inc." What he does not discuss is whether the intersection of the workplace with religious or spiritual matters is good for business, or for workers. Less indulgence in the obligatory academic critiques of "hegemony"—the uses of power to, in this case, impose religion on workers—and more thoughtful analysis would have been welcome.
Mr. Moll is editor at large for Christianity Today and author of "The Art of Dying: Living Fully Into the Life to Come," to be published by InterVarsity Press.
New England's Puritan settlers brought with them two ideas that have driven American society ever since: Calvinism and capitalism. From Calvinism's birth in 16th-century Switzerland, its descendants, including the Puritans, developed ever more rigorous arguments for individual liberty, freedom of conscience, the rule of law, and the freedom to associate and to enter into contracts. Combined with a strong work ethic and high moral standards, these social arguments came to propel the modern commercial economy. By the early 20th century, the sociologist Max Weber could give a systematic analysis to the whole potent formula, in "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism."
A century later, as Lake Lambert III explains in "Spirituality, Inc.," religious faith is on display in American business as perhaps never before, from Tyson Foods' "workplace chaplains [who] roam the corporate halls and processing floors" to the never-open-on-Sunday Chick-fil-A's policy of dedicating each new restaurant to God's glory. The rise of companies with an explicitly religious underpinning has been accompanied by an increase of general spiritual awareness in the workplace, Mr. Lambert says. "Corporations like Ford and Xerox sponsor spiritual retreats to spark creativity." Even companies with no overt religious or spiritual interests may be the site of spiritual expression, whether that means a Bible study in a conference room or a weekly meeting hosted by the Spiritual Unfoldment Society at the World Bank.
Workplace spirituality, then, can take many forms, but its overall theme, Mr. Lambert says, is an attempt to transform business "from an egotistic survival of the fittest built around greed to a new vision of commerce grounded in compassion and enlightened self-interest that is, at its heart, a spiritual phenomenon."
In a country where the line defining the separation of church and state is well drawn—lawsuits over Christmas manger scenes aside—the separation of church and work is hardly defined at all. An employee's spiritual expression may be seen by his cubicle-mate as an admirable emblem of shared values or as a troubling imposition. When a boss places, say, a Bible prominently on his desk, what should his subordinates think? Should it be regarded like a family photo or thought to be a source of intimidation? The legal guidelines here are surprisingly vague. The courts still haven't fully worked out what is allowed.
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Spirituality, Inc.
By Lake Lambert III
New York University Press, 216 pages, $35
Expressions of spirituality with no specific religious affiliation are considered less likely to cause complaint. In Mr. Lambert's telling, this sort of spirituality is in fact linked to the advent of the knowledge-based economy. "Creativity, community, autonomy, and holistic concern became new employee benefits that supported the productivity of the new knowledge class," he writes, "and a particular type of spirituality found a partner in knowledge work." Today's workplace spirituality is a search for meaning, but it embraces questions rather than looks for answers. It is essentially, Mr. Lambert says, "the quest for wholeness."
In addition to citing Xerox's "vision quest" outings and Ford's "creativity-building exercises," Mr. Lambert tells us about the storytelling sessions advocated by the popular management theorist Peter Senge and about the efforts of personal-care-products maker Tom's of Maine "to build partnerships with sales outlets . . . so that values and relationships replace deals and competition."
Mr. Lambert worries that corporate executives may have less-than-high-minded motives in fostering workplace spirituality. Is being allowed to contemplate the meaning of life on company time, Mr. Lambert wonders, "a response to the real needs of workers or a rhetorical strategy" intended to buttress demands for higher productivity? One suspects that workers are not so easily duped.
The classical tie between Christianity and work has not entirely devolved into creative exercises with Native American talking sticks. Tyson Foods and Chick-fil-A are hardly the only Christianity-based enterprises in this country. Mr. Lambert also writes about Orthodox Jewish diamond brokers and the Maharishi University of Management. But Christian companies dominate this multifaceted scene.
One such company is ServiceMaster, a national franchise operation that provides home and office cleaning, lawn care, pest control, and other services through companies including ChemLawn and Terminix. Mr. Lambert quotes C. William Pollard, a former ServiceMaster chief executive officer, who writes in a book of his own that the company operates on the Judeo-Christian concept of the "Imago Dei"—the image of God that is placed in every human being, according to Genesis. ServiceMaster would thus regard every employee—from exterminators to executives—in an equal way. The company headquarters in Memphis prominently display an 11-foot statue of Jesus washing his disciples' feet. "Masters of service, serving the Master," was the slogan of Marion Wade, who founded company half a century ago. As Mr. Pollard explains: "The leaders of our firm should never ask anyone to do anything they are unwilling to do themselves. The leader exists for the benefit of the firm, not the firm for the benefit of the leader."
How we got from Calvinism and the Bible-based idea of vocation to the widespread and vaguely spiritual workplace of today is clearly told by Mr. Lambert in "Spirituality, Inc." What he does not discuss is whether the intersection of the workplace with religious or spiritual matters is good for business, or for workers. Less indulgence in the obligatory academic critiques of "hegemony"—the uses of power to, in this case, impose religion on workers—and more thoughtful analysis would have been welcome.
Mr. Moll is editor at large for Christianity Today and author of "The Art of Dying: Living Fully Into the Life to Come," to be published by InterVarsity Press.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Bodhi Tree is the Ultimate Spiritual Experience
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-bodhi18-2010jan18,0,6866197.story?track=rss
For 40 years, the Bodhi Tree Bookstore on Melrose Avenue has served as the metaphysical mecca of Los Angeles.
Inside, seekers of varied spiritual persuasions gather for exploration, contemplation and personal transformation amid soothing music, the aroma of pungent incense and the tinkling of wind chimes under the benevolent gaze of dozens of sages whose pictures hang on the wall as blessings. The store's 35,000 books traverse a dizzying array of disciplines, from Christianity and Buddhism to energy healing and nutrition.
Hector Gallardou, a 39-year-old airport security worker, was there on a Friday night exploring oracle cards. Kennethia Cole, a substitute teacher, is looking for incense and tomes on intuition. Other customers have included actress Shirley MacLaine, who brought international fame to the Bodhi Tree in 1983 by chronicling how her metaphysical journey started there.
Now the iconic bookstore is set to undergo a major transformation of its own. Faced with years of declining sales and their own desire to move on, the septuagenarian store owners Stan Madson and Phil Thompson sold the West Hollywood property to a local corporation, which they said they would not identify until escrow closes next year. They are searching for someone to buy the Bodhi Tree inventory and name and continue the store in a different location.
"We want to see if anyone has the energy to carry this on," Madson said. "Part of it is just facing the fact that we can't do this forever. The mind is strong but the body is weak."
The bookstore's demise underscores the philosophy so many of its tomes teach: Life is impermanence.
Huge changes in the publishing industry, the mainstreaming of once-exotic ideas about spirituality and the economic downturn have hurt the store's sales.
The "MacLaine boom" in the mid-1980s pushed up daily customer sales from 300 to 1,800 almost overnight; they are down to about 200 today, Madson and Thompson said. Annual revenue is about $2 million, compared with a peak of $5 million in the 1990s, Madson said. The last two years have been particularly brutal, with sales down about 15% each year.
Four decades ago, the spiritual marketplace was far different. At the time, Madson and Thompson were aerospace engineers involved in missiles, space projects and thermonuclear war games. Both had fallen away from their families' religious traditions: Roman Catholicism for Madson, Protestantism for Thompson.
Then the 1960s hit. Fellow engineer Bernie Glassman, who would go on to become a renowned Zen roshi, started talking about Buddhism at work. The Beatles were introducing the world to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and transcendental meditation. The thirst for English-language information about these exotic spiritual movements led Madson, Thompson and a third partner, Dan Morris, to launch the Bodhi Tree in 1970.
The partners invested $18,000 to lease a two-bedroom bungalow on Melrose, then a quiet street of mostly antique stores, and buy 2,000 titles. Thompson said they wanted to create a "Library of Alexandria" that would gather the world's wisdom traditions under one roof. They named the store after the place where the Buddha is said to have gained enlightenment.
Amid the spiritual hunger and social ferment of the times, the store immediately took off, doubling its sales nearly every year. In 1976, the owners bought the property. Later, they would build a second floor and buy two adjacent properties for a used bookstore and meeting place.
"People were asking about meaning in their lives," Thompson recalled. "We thought it was important to have a store that could offer literature that was interesting and useful to this question."
The store's turning point came in 1983, when actress Shirley MacLaine published "Out on a Limb," an account of her metaphysical exploration of channeling, meditation and out-of-body experiences that began in the aisles of the Bodhi Tree.
Sales skyrocketed as visitors came from all over the world. The store drew renowned authors and speakers such as Deepak Chopra, Eckhart Tolle, Robert Thurman, Caroline Myss and Thich Nhat Hanh. The Bodhi Tree became not just a bookstore but the premier destination for inquiring minds, free spirits and spiritual adventurers.
"The Bodhi Tree was church for a lot of folk who weren't necessarily Christian or Jewish but interested in religion and spirituality," said Phyllis Tickle, a religion author and lecturer.
But as interest in spirituality grew, others jumped into the marketplace. Major publishers launched their own lines for New Age and religious books. Chain bookstores began carrying the most popular titles and could discount them more heavily. Internet sales boomed. And a host of entrepreneurs began opening their own spiritual bookstores.
Madson said the store received at least one or two inquiries a week from people wanting to launch stores like the Bodhi Tree.
"We helped introduce this kind of material to a wider audience," Thompson said. "But what we didn't realize was that it might marginalize our own business."
Tickle, noting that public interest in spirituality has gone mainstream, said that specialty bookstores like the Bodhi Tree face tough challenges.
"Those days of the mystique of the Bodhi Tree are probably gone," she said. "An era has ended and a new thing comes."
Whatever that will be, Madson and Thompson say they will not be involved financially. Madson said he plans to continue his personal spiritual explorations, travel with his wife, read 200 new books and reread 5,000.
Thompson also looks forward to traveling and spending time with his three children and dogs.
After four decades of delving into the wisdom traditions of the world, the men say they come away with no major revelations. Thompson said he has found that the most important things in his life are relationships, family and children.
"I don't know if I found the secret to anything," Thompson said. "I have an ordinary life and feel good about it most of the time."
Madson said he is grateful for the chance to have helped people find inspiration.
"This general material has helped people live better and transform their lives," Madson said, "and that's sort of nice."
teresa.watanabe@latimes.com
Copyright © 2010, The Los Angeles Times
For 40 years, the Bodhi Tree Bookstore on Melrose Avenue has served as the metaphysical mecca of Los Angeles.
Inside, seekers of varied spiritual persuasions gather for exploration, contemplation and personal transformation amid soothing music, the aroma of pungent incense and the tinkling of wind chimes under the benevolent gaze of dozens of sages whose pictures hang on the wall as blessings. The store's 35,000 books traverse a dizzying array of disciplines, from Christianity and Buddhism to energy healing and nutrition.
Hector Gallardou, a 39-year-old airport security worker, was there on a Friday night exploring oracle cards. Kennethia Cole, a substitute teacher, is looking for incense and tomes on intuition. Other customers have included actress Shirley MacLaine, who brought international fame to the Bodhi Tree in 1983 by chronicling how her metaphysical journey started there.
Now the iconic bookstore is set to undergo a major transformation of its own. Faced with years of declining sales and their own desire to move on, the septuagenarian store owners Stan Madson and Phil Thompson sold the West Hollywood property to a local corporation, which they said they would not identify until escrow closes next year. They are searching for someone to buy the Bodhi Tree inventory and name and continue the store in a different location.
"We want to see if anyone has the energy to carry this on," Madson said. "Part of it is just facing the fact that we can't do this forever. The mind is strong but the body is weak."
The bookstore's demise underscores the philosophy so many of its tomes teach: Life is impermanence.
Huge changes in the publishing industry, the mainstreaming of once-exotic ideas about spirituality and the economic downturn have hurt the store's sales.
The "MacLaine boom" in the mid-1980s pushed up daily customer sales from 300 to 1,800 almost overnight; they are down to about 200 today, Madson and Thompson said. Annual revenue is about $2 million, compared with a peak of $5 million in the 1990s, Madson said. The last two years have been particularly brutal, with sales down about 15% each year.
Four decades ago, the spiritual marketplace was far different. At the time, Madson and Thompson were aerospace engineers involved in missiles, space projects and thermonuclear war games. Both had fallen away from their families' religious traditions: Roman Catholicism for Madson, Protestantism for Thompson.
Then the 1960s hit. Fellow engineer Bernie Glassman, who would go on to become a renowned Zen roshi, started talking about Buddhism at work. The Beatles were introducing the world to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and transcendental meditation. The thirst for English-language information about these exotic spiritual movements led Madson, Thompson and a third partner, Dan Morris, to launch the Bodhi Tree in 1970.
The partners invested $18,000 to lease a two-bedroom bungalow on Melrose, then a quiet street of mostly antique stores, and buy 2,000 titles. Thompson said they wanted to create a "Library of Alexandria" that would gather the world's wisdom traditions under one roof. They named the store after the place where the Buddha is said to have gained enlightenment.
Amid the spiritual hunger and social ferment of the times, the store immediately took off, doubling its sales nearly every year. In 1976, the owners bought the property. Later, they would build a second floor and buy two adjacent properties for a used bookstore and meeting place.
"People were asking about meaning in their lives," Thompson recalled. "We thought it was important to have a store that could offer literature that was interesting and useful to this question."
The store's turning point came in 1983, when actress Shirley MacLaine published "Out on a Limb," an account of her metaphysical exploration of channeling, meditation and out-of-body experiences that began in the aisles of the Bodhi Tree.
Sales skyrocketed as visitors came from all over the world. The store drew renowned authors and speakers such as Deepak Chopra, Eckhart Tolle, Robert Thurman, Caroline Myss and Thich Nhat Hanh. The Bodhi Tree became not just a bookstore but the premier destination for inquiring minds, free spirits and spiritual adventurers.
"The Bodhi Tree was church for a lot of folk who weren't necessarily Christian or Jewish but interested in religion and spirituality," said Phyllis Tickle, a religion author and lecturer.
But as interest in spirituality grew, others jumped into the marketplace. Major publishers launched their own lines for New Age and religious books. Chain bookstores began carrying the most popular titles and could discount them more heavily. Internet sales boomed. And a host of entrepreneurs began opening their own spiritual bookstores.
Madson said the store received at least one or two inquiries a week from people wanting to launch stores like the Bodhi Tree.
"We helped introduce this kind of material to a wider audience," Thompson said. "But what we didn't realize was that it might marginalize our own business."
Tickle, noting that public interest in spirituality has gone mainstream, said that specialty bookstores like the Bodhi Tree face tough challenges.
"Those days of the mystique of the Bodhi Tree are probably gone," she said. "An era has ended and a new thing comes."
Whatever that will be, Madson and Thompson say they will not be involved financially. Madson said he plans to continue his personal spiritual explorations, travel with his wife, read 200 new books and reread 5,000.
Thompson also looks forward to traveling and spending time with his three children and dogs.
After four decades of delving into the wisdom traditions of the world, the men say they come away with no major revelations. Thompson said he has found that the most important things in his life are relationships, family and children.
"I don't know if I found the secret to anything," Thompson said. "I have an ordinary life and feel good about it most of the time."
Madson said he is grateful for the chance to have helped people find inspiration.
"This general material has helped people live better and transform their lives," Madson said, "and that's sort of nice."
teresa.watanabe@latimes.com
Copyright © 2010, The Los Angeles Times
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Spiritual Snobbery
Last night, Brit Hume only intensified his calls for scandal-plagued Tiger Woods to renounce his Buddhist faith and convert to Christianity. You can hear his argument, made to WTOP News radio in Washington, D.C., here.
This past Sunday, on Fox News, Hume made his first call for Woods to take solace in the “redemption and forgiveness” of Christianity, startling a lot of viewers with such frank religious proselytizing. Since Hume is currently a commentator as opposed to a news anchor, his opinion isn’t out of line for his role on TV.
Still, to assert that Christianity is a better faith from which to seek comfort than Buddhism seems a bit naive, to put it kindly. And what of this radio statement by Hume last night?: “You could argue that the two most controversial words in the English language are ‘Jesus Christ.’”
Really? Or is Jon Stewart’s take on the subject more in line with mainstream religious thought?:
This past Sunday, on Fox News, Hume made his first call for Woods to take solace in the “redemption and forgiveness” of Christianity, startling a lot of viewers with such frank religious proselytizing. Since Hume is currently a commentator as opposed to a news anchor, his opinion isn’t out of line for his role on TV.
Still, to assert that Christianity is a better faith from which to seek comfort than Buddhism seems a bit naive, to put it kindly. And what of this radio statement by Hume last night?: “You could argue that the two most controversial words in the English language are ‘Jesus Christ.’”
Really? Or is Jon Stewart’s take on the subject more in line with mainstream religious thought?:
Monday, January 18, 2010
Spiritual Enlightenment Prayers to Haiti
According to The Universe Says Press™, the spiritual significance behind this week’s earthquake in Haiti is vast and far reaching.
New York, NY (Vocus/PRWEB ) January 16, 2010 -- According to The Universe Says Press™, the spiritual significance behind this week’s earthquake in Haiti is vast and far reaching.
While Pat Robertson has been reported saying that the Haitian populace’s interest and dealings with Satan can explain this tragedy, Shaman Lawyer Vincent Presti has another perspective.
“Tragedy of this magnitude indicates that there is a major shift coming to the Western Hemisphere. We are not immune to the suffering taking place in Haiti. This earthquake is only a precursor of things to come. We will see far greater tragedies in the months to come,” according to Shaman Lawyer Vincent.
Shaman Lawyer Vincent has had the following visions in response to the Haitian earthquake and the current energies in his vision:
First, there will be a terrorist attack in the United States sometime around March 22, 2010.
Second, there will be two more major earthquakes between Hawaii and California in the next six weeks.
Third, there will be a major military attack against U.S. navy vessels sometime before June 2010.
Fourth, the world economy will continue to falter and a major European bank, probably French, will practically collapse prior to government intervention.
Fifth, the world will suffer a major loss as one of its most beloved leaders will pass.
Sixth, there will be an announcement that the Roman Catholic Church will reconcile with the Eastern Orthodox Church around Easter.
Seventh, the Republican Party will regain control of the U.S. Senate at the next election.
Eighth, the American troops will need to withdraw from Iraq before Christmas 2010.
Ninth, there will be a major discovery between minerals and cancer treatment.
Tenth, new army commanders deployed around the world will challenge President Obama’s role as commander-in-chief in an unprecedented gesture.
The Universe Says Press notes that these predictions were brought forth through the good will of people responding to this tragedy in Haiti.
Shaman Lawyer Vincent notes, “Haiti’s tragedy has made many people think about how they should respond to tragedy. It will be interesting to see how people integrate this lesson into their daily lives.”
About the Company
Founded in 2009, The Universe Says Press™ is a portfolio member of I Wanna Be On® Media, the pioneering Celebrity Image Incubator Platform.
Our Editor-in-Chief, Shaman Lawyer Vincent Presti, is an I Wanna Be On® Packaged Personality.
For additional information, you can visit www.theuniversesays.com, send an e-mail to info(at)theuniversesays(dot)com, or contact our Editor directly at 212 924 3901.
New York, NY (Vocus/PRWEB ) January 16, 2010 -- According to The Universe Says Press™, the spiritual significance behind this week’s earthquake in Haiti is vast and far reaching.
While Pat Robertson has been reported saying that the Haitian populace’s interest and dealings with Satan can explain this tragedy, Shaman Lawyer Vincent Presti has another perspective.
“Tragedy of this magnitude indicates that there is a major shift coming to the Western Hemisphere. We are not immune to the suffering taking place in Haiti. This earthquake is only a precursor of things to come. We will see far greater tragedies in the months to come,” according to Shaman Lawyer Vincent.
Shaman Lawyer Vincent has had the following visions in response to the Haitian earthquake and the current energies in his vision:
First, there will be a terrorist attack in the United States sometime around March 22, 2010.
Second, there will be two more major earthquakes between Hawaii and California in the next six weeks.
Third, there will be a major military attack against U.S. navy vessels sometime before June 2010.
Fourth, the world economy will continue to falter and a major European bank, probably French, will practically collapse prior to government intervention.
Fifth, the world will suffer a major loss as one of its most beloved leaders will pass.
Sixth, there will be an announcement that the Roman Catholic Church will reconcile with the Eastern Orthodox Church around Easter.
Seventh, the Republican Party will regain control of the U.S. Senate at the next election.
Eighth, the American troops will need to withdraw from Iraq before Christmas 2010.
Ninth, there will be a major discovery between minerals and cancer treatment.
Tenth, new army commanders deployed around the world will challenge President Obama’s role as commander-in-chief in an unprecedented gesture.
The Universe Says Press notes that these predictions were brought forth through the good will of people responding to this tragedy in Haiti.
Shaman Lawyer Vincent notes, “Haiti’s tragedy has made many people think about how they should respond to tragedy. It will be interesting to see how people integrate this lesson into their daily lives.”
About the Company
Founded in 2009, The Universe Says Press™ is a portfolio member of I Wanna Be On® Media, the pioneering Celebrity Image Incubator Platform.
Our Editor-in-Chief, Shaman Lawyer Vincent Presti, is an I Wanna Be On® Packaged Personality.
For additional information, you can visit www.theuniversesays.com, send an e-mail to info(at)theuniversesays(dot)com, or contact our Editor directly at 212 924 3901.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Sunday Celebration for MLK
AMERICAN HISTORY MUSEUM KING HOLIDAY WEEKEND, "Little Rock Nine Interview" with Carlotta Walls Lanier, one of the first nine African American students to attend Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas in 1959, 2 p.m. Saturday; a cappella group In Process performs civil rights-era freedom songs and the words of King in a theatrical presentation, 12:30 and 3:30 p.m. Saturday-Monday; join student "sit-ins" that recall the historic lunch counter incident in the Greensboro, N.C., F.W. Woolworth store, 10:30 a.m. and 1:30 and 4:30 p.m. Saturday-Monday; "Sing for Freedom" event exploring the role of music in the struggle for freedom, sing along to "We Shall Not Be Moved," "This Little Light of Mine" and other songs; and other events. 10 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Saturday-Monday, National Museum of American History, 14th Street and Constitution Avenue NW. Free. 202-633-1000.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/16/AR2010011601602.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/16/AR2010011601602.html
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Spiritual Message in Christian Blessing
If one listened to the world news, we would have a grim view of the prospects for peace and prosperity in the new year.
With trouble and chaos appearing on all sides and in all places, the human spirit experiences a deep sadness as it struggles to find light at the end of the tunnel. If we as citizens of this great nation cannot live peaceably with our fellowman, then we must strive with every fiber of our being to find an oasis of peace within ourselves if we are to survive on planet earth.
As I wrestled through a personal problem, I knew with Gods' help the problem would be resolved.
As I sat at my desk in my second-grade class, my students occupied themselves with busy work while I was dismally focused on a disturbing experience. My heart sank as I mentally reviewed the unkind words exchanged between a close friend and myself. In the midst of my mental preoccupation, one of my students timidly approached my desk. At age 7, she demonstrated a maturity beyond her years.
In a sweet angelic voice, she asked to sing me a song. Intuitively, I was aware that a greater power was working through this child to bring peace and healing into a troublesome situation. As I gave her my full attention, I could feel God's peace wash over me, calming my nerves and chasing all the shadows away.
The song "I cast all my cares upon you" was one of my favorite Bible verses put to song, but on this day it captured my whole being. I could feel God remove the sword from my hand and replace it with the "peace that passeth all understanding."
In the midst of my mental misery, God sent this child to me with a message of peace and spiritual enlightenment. Her words dispelled the darkness and opened the doors to inner healing and forgiveness. As I reflect on this experience, I am inspired by God's mandate: "And a child shall lead them."
Two thousand years ago, the child Jesus led God's people out of darkness into the light of God's truth without firing one bullet, rather the quiet voice of spirit touched the minds and hearts of souls searching for a way in the wilderness. Today, the Christ child leads those who have a child-like spirit and renewed faith out of the valley of fear into the dawn of a new day.
Sharon Caprio
Braddock
http://www.thedailyjournal.com/article/20100113/HAMMONTON05/1130313
With trouble and chaos appearing on all sides and in all places, the human spirit experiences a deep sadness as it struggles to find light at the end of the tunnel. If we as citizens of this great nation cannot live peaceably with our fellowman, then we must strive with every fiber of our being to find an oasis of peace within ourselves if we are to survive on planet earth.
As I wrestled through a personal problem, I knew with Gods' help the problem would be resolved.
As I sat at my desk in my second-grade class, my students occupied themselves with busy work while I was dismally focused on a disturbing experience. My heart sank as I mentally reviewed the unkind words exchanged between a close friend and myself. In the midst of my mental preoccupation, one of my students timidly approached my desk. At age 7, she demonstrated a maturity beyond her years.
In a sweet angelic voice, she asked to sing me a song. Intuitively, I was aware that a greater power was working through this child to bring peace and healing into a troublesome situation. As I gave her my full attention, I could feel God's peace wash over me, calming my nerves and chasing all the shadows away.
The song "I cast all my cares upon you" was one of my favorite Bible verses put to song, but on this day it captured my whole being. I could feel God remove the sword from my hand and replace it with the "peace that passeth all understanding."
In the midst of my mental misery, God sent this child to me with a message of peace and spiritual enlightenment. Her words dispelled the darkness and opened the doors to inner healing and forgiveness. As I reflect on this experience, I am inspired by God's mandate: "And a child shall lead them."
Two thousand years ago, the child Jesus led God's people out of darkness into the light of God's truth without firing one bullet, rather the quiet voice of spirit touched the minds and hearts of souls searching for a way in the wilderness. Today, the Christ child leads those who have a child-like spirit and renewed faith out of the valley of fear into the dawn of a new day.
Sharon Caprio
Braddock
http://www.thedailyjournal.com/article/20100113/HAMMONTON05/1130313
Friday, January 15, 2010
Shen Yuh a Spiritual Hit
OTTAWA—Theatregoers attending Shen Yun’s three sold-out shows last Sunday and Monday at the National Arts Centre gave a warm welcome to the New York-based classical Chinese performing arts company visiting Ottawa as part of its 20-country world tour.
Senator Elizabeth Hubley, who spoke at the VIP reception Sunday afternoon, adjusted her travel plans from Prince Edward Island to attend the opening show. A veteran dancer and dance instructor who serves as artistic director and principal choreographer of her own dance studio, Senator Hubley said she was delighted she came.
“The show was absolutely stunning. It was just astonishing in its exuberance and its colour, in the choreography, in the music. It was enjoyable from the beginning to the end,” she told The Epoch Times.
The production, she said, has a “very special spiritual aspect” to it that she found moving. “Moved to tears, absolutely ... The show far exceeded my expectations.”
Shen Yun is a company of leading artists that aims to revive the traditional Chinese culture through excellence in classical Chinese dance and music, taking inspiration from China’s ancient myths and legends as well as modern-day events.
Its programs evoke timeless themes of virtue, compassion, courage, and faith as they reflect the spiritual devotion underlying the culture of China that thrived before decades of communist rule.
MPP Randy Hillier, who also attended the reception, noted that the solo performances by tenor Guan Guimin and soprano Geng Haolan “tell of those common beliefs and common values and ethics between people. You learn more of the culture and the foundations that are similar between all people.”
Gertrude Stutz, owner of the Cartier Place Suite Hotel, winner of the 2008 Travelers’ Choice award, also praised the show. “It was beautiful, beautiful,” she said. “I enjoyed it very much. It’s unbelievable what they can do,” she said of the artists.
A music ensemble group from Ottawa’s Ashbury College performed during the reception.
“We have students from 30 countries at Ashbury, so the opportunity to see performing arts at this level and of this calibre was an opportunity for our students and ourselves to see the show and to support it,” said Tam Matthews, headmaster at Ashbury.
“I learned an awful lot [about ancient Chinese culture]. I learned about the simplicity, the generosity of spirit, the faith in humankind; so it was illuminating,” he said.
“The dances and the singing and the costumes were just superb,” said Chris Carruthers, Chair of the Ashbury College Foundation who is also Chief of Staff at the Civic Campus of the Ottawa Hospital Group and an orthopaedic surgeon. “It is good entertainment and a lot of fun.”
Ottawa city councillor Jacques Legendre praised erhu virtuoso Mei Xuan for her performance on the two-stringed Chinese instrument. “She was almost talking. You could see she mastered her instrument. She is a true artist,” he said, speaking in French.
With two daughters in dance, Mr. Legendre is used to attending dance performances, but found Shen Yun unique. “It was different and amazing. … Bravo to everyone!”
City councillor Georges Bedard saw Shen Yun last year and enjoyed it so much that he came back. “I thought the show was phenomenal,” he said, adding that the presentations of classical, ethnic, and folk dances of China were “helping people understand each other.”
“You simply have to see it to believe it. ... It was just spectacular,” said city councillor Glenn Brooks, who noted that he was most touched by two dances that depicted the persecution of Falun Gong, a spiritual practice rooted in ancient Chinese traditions.
“We have freedom of speech, freedom of action, freedom of choice, and there are countries around the world that do not have that,” he said.
Former Ottawa Poet Laureate Cyril Dabydeen has attended Shen Yun shows since the production first played in Ottawa in 2007. This time, “what has come to me more beautifully is the sense of the divine—the celestial spirit in all of us—that is really coming to me more forcefully than ever.”
The three Ottawa shows were 99 percent sold out by Christmas Eve, after selling out all top-priced tickets at $129 and $159 by early December.
Due to demand, the NAC, in a rare occurrence over its 40-year history, began selling tickets to the standing-room space at the back of Southam Hall a day in advance of the opening show.
Shen Yun will continue on to Montreal, Hamilton, and Toronto in the coming weeks. The company will then visit several U.S. cities before returning to perform in western Canada in March and April.
Senator Elizabeth Hubley, who spoke at the VIP reception Sunday afternoon, adjusted her travel plans from Prince Edward Island to attend the opening show. A veteran dancer and dance instructor who serves as artistic director and principal choreographer of her own dance studio, Senator Hubley said she was delighted she came.
“The show was absolutely stunning. It was just astonishing in its exuberance and its colour, in the choreography, in the music. It was enjoyable from the beginning to the end,” she told The Epoch Times.
The production, she said, has a “very special spiritual aspect” to it that she found moving. “Moved to tears, absolutely ... The show far exceeded my expectations.”
Shen Yun is a company of leading artists that aims to revive the traditional Chinese culture through excellence in classical Chinese dance and music, taking inspiration from China’s ancient myths and legends as well as modern-day events.
Its programs evoke timeless themes of virtue, compassion, courage, and faith as they reflect the spiritual devotion underlying the culture of China that thrived before decades of communist rule.
MPP Randy Hillier, who also attended the reception, noted that the solo performances by tenor Guan Guimin and soprano Geng Haolan “tell of those common beliefs and common values and ethics between people. You learn more of the culture and the foundations that are similar between all people.”
Gertrude Stutz, owner of the Cartier Place Suite Hotel, winner of the 2008 Travelers’ Choice award, also praised the show. “It was beautiful, beautiful,” she said. “I enjoyed it very much. It’s unbelievable what they can do,” she said of the artists.
A music ensemble group from Ottawa’s Ashbury College performed during the reception.
“We have students from 30 countries at Ashbury, so the opportunity to see performing arts at this level and of this calibre was an opportunity for our students and ourselves to see the show and to support it,” said Tam Matthews, headmaster at Ashbury.
“I learned an awful lot [about ancient Chinese culture]. I learned about the simplicity, the generosity of spirit, the faith in humankind; so it was illuminating,” he said.
“The dances and the singing and the costumes were just superb,” said Chris Carruthers, Chair of the Ashbury College Foundation who is also Chief of Staff at the Civic Campus of the Ottawa Hospital Group and an orthopaedic surgeon. “It is good entertainment and a lot of fun.”
Ottawa city councillor Jacques Legendre praised erhu virtuoso Mei Xuan for her performance on the two-stringed Chinese instrument. “She was almost talking. You could see she mastered her instrument. She is a true artist,” he said, speaking in French.
With two daughters in dance, Mr. Legendre is used to attending dance performances, but found Shen Yun unique. “It was different and amazing. … Bravo to everyone!”
City councillor Georges Bedard saw Shen Yun last year and enjoyed it so much that he came back. “I thought the show was phenomenal,” he said, adding that the presentations of classical, ethnic, and folk dances of China were “helping people understand each other.”
“You simply have to see it to believe it. ... It was just spectacular,” said city councillor Glenn Brooks, who noted that he was most touched by two dances that depicted the persecution of Falun Gong, a spiritual practice rooted in ancient Chinese traditions.
“We have freedom of speech, freedom of action, freedom of choice, and there are countries around the world that do not have that,” he said.
Former Ottawa Poet Laureate Cyril Dabydeen has attended Shen Yun shows since the production first played in Ottawa in 2007. This time, “what has come to me more beautifully is the sense of the divine—the celestial spirit in all of us—that is really coming to me more forcefully than ever.”
The three Ottawa shows were 99 percent sold out by Christmas Eve, after selling out all top-priced tickets at $129 and $159 by early December.
Due to demand, the NAC, in a rare occurrence over its 40-year history, began selling tickets to the standing-room space at the back of Southam Hall a day in advance of the opening show.
Shen Yun will continue on to Montreal, Hamilton, and Toronto in the coming weeks. The company will then visit several U.S. cities before returning to perform in western Canada in March and April.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Spirit Is in the Movie
The Vatican's newspaper and its radio station have given a lukewarm reception to the film Avatar, criticizing it for its "spiritualism linked to the worship of nature."
A red-carpet preview of Canadian James Cameron's 3-D blockbuster was held in Rome ahead of its wide release Friday in Italy.
The film is set on the fictional planet of Pandora, where humans are creating an environmentally destructive mining colony.
Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano devoted three articles to Avatar in its Sunday editions but said Cameron's plot was "bland" and unoriginal.
"He tells the story without going deep into it, and ends up falling into sappiness," it said.
The newspaper had praise for the film's visual effects, but said the story failed to touch the heart.
Bolivian leader likes movie
Evo Morales, Bolivia’s first indigenous president, says he enjoyed Avatar’s message of saving the environment from exploitation.
The president, an Aymara Indian who was formerly head of the coca grower’s union, commented Tuesday to Bolivia's official news agency ABI.
"There is a lot of fiction in the movie, but at the same time it makes a perfect model for the struggle against capitalism and efforts to protect nature," Morales said.
"So much stupefying, enchanting technology, but few genuine emotions," the reviewer wrote.
Pope fights neopaganism
Vatican Radio said Avatar "cleverly winks at all those pseudo-doctrines that turn ecology into the religion of the millennium."
Pope Benedict XVI has spoken of the need to protect the environment, but warned against "neopaganism" and the danger of turning nature into a "new divinity."
In Avatar, "nature is no longer a creation to defend but a divinity to worship," the radio reviewer said.
Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi said the reviews reflect the Pope's views on confusing nature and spirituality. However, they are independent film reviews with no input from the pontiff, he added.
The Vatican newspaper recently had praise for the long-running TV show, The Simpsons.But it was famously dismissive of the film version of The Da Vinci Code, a criticism that made very little difference to the film's box office.
Avatar has earned more than $1 billion US at the box office so far and looks set to become the highest-grossing film of all time, beating Cameron's previous record with Titanic.
With films from The Associated Press
A red-carpet preview of Canadian James Cameron's 3-D blockbuster was held in Rome ahead of its wide release Friday in Italy.
The film is set on the fictional planet of Pandora, where humans are creating an environmentally destructive mining colony.
Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano devoted three articles to Avatar in its Sunday editions but said Cameron's plot was "bland" and unoriginal.
"He tells the story without going deep into it, and ends up falling into sappiness," it said.
The newspaper had praise for the film's visual effects, but said the story failed to touch the heart.
Bolivian leader likes movie
Evo Morales, Bolivia’s first indigenous president, says he enjoyed Avatar’s message of saving the environment from exploitation.
The president, an Aymara Indian who was formerly head of the coca grower’s union, commented Tuesday to Bolivia's official news agency ABI.
"There is a lot of fiction in the movie, but at the same time it makes a perfect model for the struggle against capitalism and efforts to protect nature," Morales said.
"So much stupefying, enchanting technology, but few genuine emotions," the reviewer wrote.
Pope fights neopaganism
Vatican Radio said Avatar "cleverly winks at all those pseudo-doctrines that turn ecology into the religion of the millennium."
Pope Benedict XVI has spoken of the need to protect the environment, but warned against "neopaganism" and the danger of turning nature into a "new divinity."
In Avatar, "nature is no longer a creation to defend but a divinity to worship," the radio reviewer said.
Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi said the reviews reflect the Pope's views on confusing nature and spirituality. However, they are independent film reviews with no input from the pontiff, he added.
The Vatican newspaper recently had praise for the long-running TV show, The Simpsons.But it was famously dismissive of the film version of The Da Vinci Code, a criticism that made very little difference to the film's box office.
Avatar has earned more than $1 billion US at the box office so far and looks set to become the highest-grossing film of all time, beating Cameron's previous record with Titanic.
With films from The Associated Press
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Shen Yun Spiritual Arts
OTTAWA—It was a crisp, cool January afternoon in Ottawa as Shen Yun Performing Arts took the stage at the National Arts Centre for the first of two shows on Sunday, Jan. 10.
Temperatures outside may have been cold, but inside the theatre enthusiastic cheers and thunderous applause gave a warm welcome to the New York-based performing arts company which recently began an extensive world tour.
The Sunday evening performance was equally well received. Both shows, as well the final show on Monday evening, were sold out, including standing-room seats which were opened for sale a day in advance.
For many, the Shen Yun performances were an introduction to ancient Chinese culture and various Asian ethnicities and legends. For others it was a return to a show they have grown to appreciate and look forward to as an annual family outing.
Senator Elizabeth Hubley, who spoke at the VIP reception on Sunday afternoon, is a veteran dancer and dance instructor. She continues to serve as artistic director and principal choreographer of her own dance studio, Stepping Out, in Prince Edward Island.
“The show was absolutely stunning. It was just astonishing in its exuberance and its colour, in the choreography, in the music. It was enjoyable from the beginning to the end,” she said in an interview at the reception.
The show, she said, has a “very special spiritual aspect” to it that she found moving. “Moved to tears, absolutely. ... The show far exceeded my expectations.”Shen Yun is a company of leading artists that aims to breathe new life into traditional Chinese culture through excellence in classical Chinese dance and music, taking inspiration from myths and legends from Chinese history as well as events unfolding in the contemporary world.
Its performances evoke timeless themes of virtue, compassion, and courage, reflecting the profound spiritual meaning underlying the culture of China that thrived before decades of communist rule.
Member of Provincial Parliament Randy Hillier, who also attended the VIP reception, said the solo performances by tenor Guan Guimin and soprano Geng Haolan, “tell of those common beliefs and common values and ethics between people. You learn more of the culture and the foundations that are similar between all people.”
Among other VIPS who attended the Sunday shows were Ottawa city councillors Glenn Brooks, Georges Bedard, and Jacques Legendre; Tam Matthews, headmaster at Ashbury College; Chris Carruthers, chair of the Ashbury College Foundation; and former Ottawa Poet Laureate Prof. Cyril Dabydeen.
Professor Dabydeen has attended Shen Yun shows since the production first played in Ottawa in 2007. He said that at previous shows what he took note of the most was the richness of traditional Chinese culture.
But this time around “what has come to me more beautifully is the sense of the divine—the celestial spirit in all of us—that is really coming to me more forcefully than ever.”
“Now, the finer points come to me, the embroidery of it all,” he said, referring to the dance titled Elegant Embroidery which evoked images of an exquisite and delicate art form that was the pride of ancient Chinese women.
Shen Yun’s dance style draws from China’s 5,000 years of culture. “The unique art of Chinese dance that we know today, with its impressive scale and system, is the product of generations of dancers’ many years of artistic experience combined with their refining, reorganizing, and reworking of the art form,” says the Web site of Shen Yun Performing Arts.
With both shows on Sunday receiving standing ovations and curtain calls for the performers, theatregoers expressed their appreciation for a truly unique and moving cultural event that is both entertaining and educational for the whole family.
Shen Yun will continue on to Montreal, Hamilton, and Toronto after playing its last show in Ottawa on Monday evening. The company will then visit several cities in the United States before returning to perform in western Canada in March.
The Epoch Times is a proud sponsor of Shen Yun Performing Arts. For more information, please visit ShenYunPerformingArts.org.
Temperatures outside may have been cold, but inside the theatre enthusiastic cheers and thunderous applause gave a warm welcome to the New York-based performing arts company which recently began an extensive world tour.
The Sunday evening performance was equally well received. Both shows, as well the final show on Monday evening, were sold out, including standing-room seats which were opened for sale a day in advance.
For many, the Shen Yun performances were an introduction to ancient Chinese culture and various Asian ethnicities and legends. For others it was a return to a show they have grown to appreciate and look forward to as an annual family outing.
Senator Elizabeth Hubley, who spoke at the VIP reception on Sunday afternoon, is a veteran dancer and dance instructor. She continues to serve as artistic director and principal choreographer of her own dance studio, Stepping Out, in Prince Edward Island.
“The show was absolutely stunning. It was just astonishing in its exuberance and its colour, in the choreography, in the music. It was enjoyable from the beginning to the end,” she said in an interview at the reception.
The show, she said, has a “very special spiritual aspect” to it that she found moving. “Moved to tears, absolutely. ... The show far exceeded my expectations.”Shen Yun is a company of leading artists that aims to breathe new life into traditional Chinese culture through excellence in classical Chinese dance and music, taking inspiration from myths and legends from Chinese history as well as events unfolding in the contemporary world.
Its performances evoke timeless themes of virtue, compassion, and courage, reflecting the profound spiritual meaning underlying the culture of China that thrived before decades of communist rule.
Member of Provincial Parliament Randy Hillier, who also attended the VIP reception, said the solo performances by tenor Guan Guimin and soprano Geng Haolan, “tell of those common beliefs and common values and ethics between people. You learn more of the culture and the foundations that are similar between all people.”
Among other VIPS who attended the Sunday shows were Ottawa city councillors Glenn Brooks, Georges Bedard, and Jacques Legendre; Tam Matthews, headmaster at Ashbury College; Chris Carruthers, chair of the Ashbury College Foundation; and former Ottawa Poet Laureate Prof. Cyril Dabydeen.
Professor Dabydeen has attended Shen Yun shows since the production first played in Ottawa in 2007. He said that at previous shows what he took note of the most was the richness of traditional Chinese culture.
But this time around “what has come to me more beautifully is the sense of the divine—the celestial spirit in all of us—that is really coming to me more forcefully than ever.”
“Now, the finer points come to me, the embroidery of it all,” he said, referring to the dance titled Elegant Embroidery which evoked images of an exquisite and delicate art form that was the pride of ancient Chinese women.
Shen Yun’s dance style draws from China’s 5,000 years of culture. “The unique art of Chinese dance that we know today, with its impressive scale and system, is the product of generations of dancers’ many years of artistic experience combined with their refining, reorganizing, and reworking of the art form,” says the Web site of Shen Yun Performing Arts.
With both shows on Sunday receiving standing ovations and curtain calls for the performers, theatregoers expressed their appreciation for a truly unique and moving cultural event that is both entertaining and educational for the whole family.
Shen Yun will continue on to Montreal, Hamilton, and Toronto after playing its last show in Ottawa on Monday evening. The company will then visit several cities in the United States before returning to perform in western Canada in March.
The Epoch Times is a proud sponsor of Shen Yun Performing Arts. For more information, please visit ShenYunPerformingArts.org.
Monday, January 11, 2010
Dali Lama Answers Spiritual Questions in Kolkata
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/tibet-maintains-indias-rich-tradition-dalai-lama/565845/0
With a sombre look a little girl asked: “What is the meaning of happiness?”
The question was addressed to none other than the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader who arrived in Kolkata on Sunday.
The octogenarian religious leader was quick in his response to the child’s question: “For a child like you, it is holidays. Don’t think about serious things like happiness. Think of studies now and nothing else.”
The Dalai Lama was addressing a gathering at an award giving ceremony organised by the Ladies Study Group of Indian Chamber of Commerce.
With his sharp wit and sense of humour, the spiritual leader answered all audience questions.
“We believe in the karmic cycle of life. In that case do animals like goats and pigs become human beings
in their next birth?” a woman asked.
“I don’t know,” Dalai Lama said, “but it is possible. Then people from other planets are also born here.”
Ads by Google Tibetan Singing Bowls Huge selection of all kinds of Singing Bowls and Accessorieswww.lobny.comBuddhism and Meditation Get regular teachings by email on Buddhist reflection and meditation.www.Buddhism-ConnectAffordable Tours to Tibet Tours to Tibet and China. Free customization! Affordable price.www.ChinaTourOnline.
“We believe in rebirth, but people belonging to religions like Christianity and Islam do not believe in that philosophy. In that case are they not reborn? What happens to them?” another woman asked.
“All men and women are reborn. But I have great respect for those religions. They have powerful concepts,” Dalai Lama replied.
The spiritual leader’s wit was also aimed at himself. “People say I have healing powers, but actually I don’t. Two years ago I went for surgery and that scientifically proved that I had no healing powers,” the
Tibetan Guru said, amid peals of laughter from the audience.
Calling himself a reliable chela of India , Dalai Lama said Tibet nurtures the treasure that went from India .
“Tibet has kept the rich culture and tradition of India with care and India should not ignore that,” the exiled leader said.
Regarding China-Tibet relations Dalai Lama, who calls himself an ordinary monk, said lots of Chinese leaders are saying
they should pay more attention to Tibet .
“These days many Tibetan students come to India and after finishing school they go back. Lots of Chinese intellectuals are showing interest in Tibetan culture and tradition,” he said.
With a sombre look a little girl asked: “What is the meaning of happiness?”
The question was addressed to none other than the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader who arrived in Kolkata on Sunday.
The octogenarian religious leader was quick in his response to the child’s question: “For a child like you, it is holidays. Don’t think about serious things like happiness. Think of studies now and nothing else.”
The Dalai Lama was addressing a gathering at an award giving ceremony organised by the Ladies Study Group of Indian Chamber of Commerce.
With his sharp wit and sense of humour, the spiritual leader answered all audience questions.
“We believe in the karmic cycle of life. In that case do animals like goats and pigs become human beings
in their next birth?” a woman asked.
“I don’t know,” Dalai Lama said, “but it is possible. Then people from other planets are also born here.”
Ads by Google Tibetan Singing Bowls Huge selection of all kinds of Singing Bowls and Accessorieswww.lobny.comBuddhism and Meditation Get regular teachings by email on Buddhist reflection and meditation.www.Buddhism-ConnectAffordable Tours to Tibet Tours to Tibet and China. Free customization! Affordable price.www.ChinaTourOnline.
“We believe in rebirth, but people belonging to religions like Christianity and Islam do not believe in that philosophy. In that case are they not reborn? What happens to them?” another woman asked.
“All men and women are reborn. But I have great respect for those religions. They have powerful concepts,” Dalai Lama replied.
The spiritual leader’s wit was also aimed at himself. “People say I have healing powers, but actually I don’t. Two years ago I went for surgery and that scientifically proved that I had no healing powers,” the
Tibetan Guru said, amid peals of laughter from the audience.
Calling himself a reliable chela of India , Dalai Lama said Tibet nurtures the treasure that went from India .
“Tibet has kept the rich culture and tradition of India with care and India should not ignore that,” the exiled leader said.
Regarding China-Tibet relations Dalai Lama, who calls himself an ordinary monk, said lots of Chinese leaders are saying
they should pay more attention to Tibet .
“These days many Tibetan students come to India and after finishing school they go back. Lots of Chinese intellectuals are showing interest in Tibetan culture and tradition,” he said.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Asaram Bapu Celebrates Spiritual Journey January 14, 2010
The annual event has been celebrated at Ahmedabad’s Motera Ashram since it was started two decades ago
The annual Guru Purnima congregation held by Asaram Bapu at his Motera Ashram, on the outskirts of the city, on January 14 every year has been cancelled this year.
Instead, the event will be held at Ujjain in neighbouring Madhya Pradesh where his followers have been asked to assemble and listen to the sermons of the spiritual guru.
According to Asaram Ashram officials here, more than 1.25 lakh followers used to gather here on every Guru Purnima occasion since the annual event was started two decades ago. About 60 per cent of the visitors came from other states.
This was confirmed by the ashram’s media cell in-charge Uday Sangani.
Though the ashram officials refused to give exact reasons for Asaram skipping the event in Ahmedabad from where he began his `spiritual’ journey in 1972, sources in the ashram said the recent police action against Asaram and his ashram has made him shift the venue to the neighbouring state.Asaram fears his arrest in an attempt to murder case registered against him on December last year. Though Asaram moved from the Gujarat High court to the Supreme Court seeking cancellation of the FIR registered against him, he got no reprieve.
As police has already begun investigations, Asaram may be arrested for interrogation in the case once he lands here.
The land located in the dry bed of the river Sabarmati just behind the ashram was recently taken over by the Ahmedabad district administration arguing that it was a government land and the ashram had encroached upon it. Ashram vacated the land voluntarily when it was pointed out by the district administration and the latter also put up its board declaring it as government land on Friday.
Asaram Bapu and two of his disciples were recently booked in an attempt to murder case based on complaint filed by Asaram’s former disciple Raju Chandak who was shot at on December 6. Chandak has alleged in his complaint that he was attacked at the behest of Asaram as he had deposed against the ashram in the case pertaining to mysterious death of two boys of Asaram Gururkul on July 6, 2008.
The annual Guru Purnima congregation held by Asaram Bapu at his Motera Ashram, on the outskirts of the city, on January 14 every year has been cancelled this year.
Instead, the event will be held at Ujjain in neighbouring Madhya Pradesh where his followers have been asked to assemble and listen to the sermons of the spiritual guru.
According to Asaram Ashram officials here, more than 1.25 lakh followers used to gather here on every Guru Purnima occasion since the annual event was started two decades ago. About 60 per cent of the visitors came from other states.
This was confirmed by the ashram’s media cell in-charge Uday Sangani.
Though the ashram officials refused to give exact reasons for Asaram skipping the event in Ahmedabad from where he began his `spiritual’ journey in 1972, sources in the ashram said the recent police action against Asaram and his ashram has made him shift the venue to the neighbouring state.Asaram fears his arrest in an attempt to murder case registered against him on December last year. Though Asaram moved from the Gujarat High court to the Supreme Court seeking cancellation of the FIR registered against him, he got no reprieve.
As police has already begun investigations, Asaram may be arrested for interrogation in the case once he lands here.
The land located in the dry bed of the river Sabarmati just behind the ashram was recently taken over by the Ahmedabad district administration arguing that it was a government land and the ashram had encroached upon it. Ashram vacated the land voluntarily when it was pointed out by the district administration and the latter also put up its board declaring it as government land on Friday.
Asaram Bapu and two of his disciples were recently booked in an attempt to murder case based on complaint filed by Asaram’s former disciple Raju Chandak who was shot at on December 6. Chandak has alleged in his complaint that he was attacked at the behest of Asaram as he had deposed against the ashram in the case pertaining to mysterious death of two boys of Asaram Gururkul on July 6, 2008.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Spiritual Music for Sunday Church
(MCT) — Gene Ferrara starts the Sunday service by encouraging the six men and six women seated in a semicircle before him to explore their “inner space.”
“Let your outer eye close and your inner eye open,” Ferrara instructed as he led the worshipers at his new Center for Conscious Living through a guided meditation. Later, participants went around the circle greeting each other with the Hindi salutation “namaste.” They clasped their palms together, bowed slightly, smiled and looked each other in the eye.
In the middle of the service, Ferrara passed out dark chocolate and blackberries as part of a “prasada,” or gift. The same basket was later used to collect money.
The group, a branch of the Madison Church of Religious Science, is reinventing the idea of church, with “stand you up” live music, meditation, singing, chanting and “an inclusive message of self-empowerment.”
The result has been enriching and transforming, said Dianne Becker, 50, who plays guitar and sings at the Sunday services.
“I’m hoping to watch it grow. It’s an open book at this point,” said Becker, who didn’t grow up with organized religion and said she had been feeling a spiritual void in recent years. “We’re just excited about the potential.”
The large room is decorated with rugs and wall hangings and sports a stage, video projector, and sophisticated sound system.
Ferrara, 63, came to Madison from Milwaukee in September 2008 to take over the Madison Church of Religious Science when its pastor moved away. The church’s Sunday services were then being held at the AmericInn Lodge & Suites in Monona. The church — part of the International Centers for Spiritual Living based in Spokane, Wash. — was chartered in Madison in 1995.
The denomination doesn’t adhere to a traditional view of God. Rather, it is bound by the belief that the divine works through people, Ferrara said.
“We find our connection to the divine in ourselves and in our interactions with others.”
He tends to use the word “divine,” “source” or “spirit” instead of “God,” saying that word has taken on a lot of baggage over the centuries.
“For some people it can trigger a spiritual shutdown,” he said.
After taking over the congregation, Ferrara soon began looking for a bigger location where he could not only hold Sunday services but also have activities seven days a week.
“We were motivated to build sacred space and invite the community at large to come and use it in a sacred way,” said Ferrara, a divorced father of two adult children who lives in the town of Westport.
Ferrara has been using a variety of approaches to attract people to the unique spiritual center he opened Oct. 22 inside a brick building that was originally a bakery on Madison’s Near East side. Online, the center answers to the Web addresses of “mylovingspirit.com,” “livingonpurpose.org,” “consciouscenter.org” and “wakethehellup.org.”
Originally from Ohio, Ferrara raised his family in Wauwatosa. He spent most of his working life in television production and sales. In the 1980s he began a five-year study of mystical Christianity. He calls himself “eclectic theologically,” and has never been through seminary.
He was ordained in 2003 through the Universal Brotherhood Movement, a nonprofit interfaith ministry that screens, ordains and supports a “more universal” type of ministry, Ferrara said.
For years, he officiated at funerals for families that didn’t have their own clergy and was often approached afterward by people interested in coming to his church. Although he struggled with taking on the responsibility of having a congregation, eventually he sought his own pulpit.
Ferrara designed the Center for Conscious Living with $15,000 he got from his father’s estate and is using some of the money as a rent cushion. He would eventually like to draw a $1,000-a-month salary from donations, but for now lives primarily on Social Security.
Besides Sunday services, the center offers a weekly “spiritual cinema,” and an alcohol-free dance night on Saturdays.
The rest of the week, Ferrara partners with others, who use the space for activities that include hula hoop exercise sessions, yoga, concerts, drum circles and seminars.
“We built the place and then we just stood back and we’re allowing the desire of the community to reveal itself — by who e-mails, who calls, who walks through the door,” Ferrara said. “I feel like a bobblehead doll. I haven’t said no to anybody.”
Garrett Walters, 55, of Stoughton, who calls himself a clairvoyant healer but has a degree in geology, first came to the center for a drum circle, which he said is part of his “spiritual path.” He credited Ferrara with creating a safe place for people from different religious traditions to come together in a spiritual communion.
“Many spiritual environments are designed to advance one particular spiritual agenda, and that implicitly or explicitly brands other spiritual paths as bad or wrong,” Walters said. “And to me, that creates a space that is not safe for me to explore my own spiritual truth. There is only room in that space to explore someone else’s truth.”
Ferrara’s center allows people to find their own spiritual answers, he said.
“I admire and respect that,” Walters said. “That’s a tough thing to try to do. Madison is a very intellectually driven town.”
“Let your outer eye close and your inner eye open,” Ferrara instructed as he led the worshipers at his new Center for Conscious Living through a guided meditation. Later, participants went around the circle greeting each other with the Hindi salutation “namaste.” They clasped their palms together, bowed slightly, smiled and looked each other in the eye.
In the middle of the service, Ferrara passed out dark chocolate and blackberries as part of a “prasada,” or gift. The same basket was later used to collect money.
The group, a branch of the Madison Church of Religious Science, is reinventing the idea of church, with “stand you up” live music, meditation, singing, chanting and “an inclusive message of self-empowerment.”
The result has been enriching and transforming, said Dianne Becker, 50, who plays guitar and sings at the Sunday services.
“I’m hoping to watch it grow. It’s an open book at this point,” said Becker, who didn’t grow up with organized religion and said she had been feeling a spiritual void in recent years. “We’re just excited about the potential.”
The large room is decorated with rugs and wall hangings and sports a stage, video projector, and sophisticated sound system.
Ferrara, 63, came to Madison from Milwaukee in September 2008 to take over the Madison Church of Religious Science when its pastor moved away. The church’s Sunday services were then being held at the AmericInn Lodge & Suites in Monona. The church — part of the International Centers for Spiritual Living based in Spokane, Wash. — was chartered in Madison in 1995.
The denomination doesn’t adhere to a traditional view of God. Rather, it is bound by the belief that the divine works through people, Ferrara said.
“We find our connection to the divine in ourselves and in our interactions with others.”
He tends to use the word “divine,” “source” or “spirit” instead of “God,” saying that word has taken on a lot of baggage over the centuries.
“For some people it can trigger a spiritual shutdown,” he said.
After taking over the congregation, Ferrara soon began looking for a bigger location where he could not only hold Sunday services but also have activities seven days a week.
“We were motivated to build sacred space and invite the community at large to come and use it in a sacred way,” said Ferrara, a divorced father of two adult children who lives in the town of Westport.
Ferrara has been using a variety of approaches to attract people to the unique spiritual center he opened Oct. 22 inside a brick building that was originally a bakery on Madison’s Near East side. Online, the center answers to the Web addresses of “mylovingspirit.com,” “livingonpurpose.org,” “consciouscenter.org” and “wakethehellup.org.”
Originally from Ohio, Ferrara raised his family in Wauwatosa. He spent most of his working life in television production and sales. In the 1980s he began a five-year study of mystical Christianity. He calls himself “eclectic theologically,” and has never been through seminary.
He was ordained in 2003 through the Universal Brotherhood Movement, a nonprofit interfaith ministry that screens, ordains and supports a “more universal” type of ministry, Ferrara said.
For years, he officiated at funerals for families that didn’t have their own clergy and was often approached afterward by people interested in coming to his church. Although he struggled with taking on the responsibility of having a congregation, eventually he sought his own pulpit.
Ferrara designed the Center for Conscious Living with $15,000 he got from his father’s estate and is using some of the money as a rent cushion. He would eventually like to draw a $1,000-a-month salary from donations, but for now lives primarily on Social Security.
Besides Sunday services, the center offers a weekly “spiritual cinema,” and an alcohol-free dance night on Saturdays.
The rest of the week, Ferrara partners with others, who use the space for activities that include hula hoop exercise sessions, yoga, concerts, drum circles and seminars.
“We built the place and then we just stood back and we’re allowing the desire of the community to reveal itself — by who e-mails, who calls, who walks through the door,” Ferrara said. “I feel like a bobblehead doll. I haven’t said no to anybody.”
Garrett Walters, 55, of Stoughton, who calls himself a clairvoyant healer but has a degree in geology, first came to the center for a drum circle, which he said is part of his “spiritual path.” He credited Ferrara with creating a safe place for people from different religious traditions to come together in a spiritual communion.
“Many spiritual environments are designed to advance one particular spiritual agenda, and that implicitly or explicitly brands other spiritual paths as bad or wrong,” Walters said. “And to me, that creates a space that is not safe for me to explore my own spiritual truth. There is only room in that space to explore someone else’s truth.”
Ferrara’s center allows people to find their own spiritual answers, he said.
“I admire and respect that,” Walters said. “That’s a tough thing to try to do. Madison is a very intellectually driven town.”
Friday, January 8, 2010
Spiritual Enlightenment in Continental Book
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2010/jan/05/hugos-lord-of-light-zelazny
As student revolutionaries stormed the walls of the US embassy in Tehran in November 1979, a handful of staff escaped through a back door. They managed to make their way to the Canadian embassy, but were unable to escape from Iran using their own passports. The Canadians and the CIA eventually came up with a cover to get them out of the country – issuing them with new identities and dressing them up as location scouts working on a science fiction film with a middle-eastern theme. This film was supposedly called Argo, and the CIA developed an elaborate back-story to make it appear real. They set up a production office, took out ads in Variety and bought up already-made set designs and script treatments for a film that neatly fitted into the remit of middle-eastern SF – Lord Of Light.
The attempt to make the actual film had stalled in early production when it emerged that one of the crew had been embezzling most of its budget, but the hostage escape operation it enabled was a resounding success (and earned itself the fond nickname the Canadian Caper). That success seems all the sweeter thanks to the delicious irony that the religious revolutionaries in Iran had been duped using the story of a revolution against religion.
The religion in question in Lord Of Light is Hinduism – or, at least, a version of Hinduism that has been operating on an Earth-like planet with the aim of keeping its population enslaved. Yama, Brahma, Khali and co are actually the crew of a spaceship that crash-landed on the planet thousands of years ago. They have used their advanced technology to provide themselves with weaponry that gives them godlike powers, and to transfer their minds to new bodies when the ones they're occupying wear out. They've kept the rest of the human population (largely made up of the descendants of their old bodies) in a state of medieval ignorance and cowed those who don't immediately do their bidding with the threat that they'll be reincarnated as animals – or not at all.
Not that you'd know any of that if you stopped reading before the halfway point. At first it seems as if the gods really are gods – even though they're all fond of smoking cigarettes and slipping in American slang and western cultural references (generally in the form of groansome puns) to deflate the high epic prose in which Zelazny has chosen to present most of his story. The author only slowly reveals the gods' true nature, and the nature of the struggle against them. Even the central character is a mystery – an enigma summed up, but not fully explained, by the novel's typically slippery first paragraph:
"His followers called him Mahasamamatman and said he was a god. He preferred to drop the Maha- and the -atman, however, and called himself Sam. He never claimed to be a god. But then, he never claimed not to be a god. Circumstances being what they were, neither admission could be of any benefit."
And the complications don't end there. The novel's dozens of characters have a habit of changing name as well as shape. The chapters do not fit into regular chronology. Many episodes only make sense in the light of things that happen later in the book; some never really do. It's nearly impossible to tell whether Sam is serious or joking – or whether Zelazny is, for that matter. Did he really write an entire dramatic episode in which an unfortunate character called Shan is given the body of an epileptic just to enable him to land the pun: "then the fit hit the Shan"? What's with the Christian zombies? Is a long episode in which Sam hacks the planet's oppressive Hinduism with Buddhism a giant mickey-take, another example of the absurdity of religious thought, a touching demonstration of the beauty of true spiritual enlightenment or a heady combination of all three? Is this book profound, or daft – or both?
The obscurity and ambiguity are sometimes irksome but generally add to Lord Of Light's considerable appeal. Reading it is a strange and exhilarating experience. I didn't have much of a clue about what was going on for the first 100 pages, but didn't really mind because I was enjoying the dappy dialogue, eastern-tinged scene-setting and epic battles (there are fight scenes in here as beautifully constructed and carefully brutal as Hemingway's boxing descriptions). From the point of view of six American hostages, it's probably a good job it was never made into a film, but the visual appeal is obvious.
Sometimes the epic prose is heavy and overwrought (there are a lot of flames issuing forth and a few too many ponderous constructions: "They sat in the room called Heartbreak and they drank of the soma, but they were never drunken.") Sometimes, too, the more philosophical passages tend towards the windy. But all that's easily forgiven when enlightenment kicks in and you realise how cleverly Zelazny has been spinning the wheels of his story. This intriguing game of bluff would deserve to be remembered even if it hadn't played such a curiously apt part in the hostage crisis.
As student revolutionaries stormed the walls of the US embassy in Tehran in November 1979, a handful of staff escaped through a back door. They managed to make their way to the Canadian embassy, but were unable to escape from Iran using their own passports. The Canadians and the CIA eventually came up with a cover to get them out of the country – issuing them with new identities and dressing them up as location scouts working on a science fiction film with a middle-eastern theme. This film was supposedly called Argo, and the CIA developed an elaborate back-story to make it appear real. They set up a production office, took out ads in Variety and bought up already-made set designs and script treatments for a film that neatly fitted into the remit of middle-eastern SF – Lord Of Light.
The attempt to make the actual film had stalled in early production when it emerged that one of the crew had been embezzling most of its budget, but the hostage escape operation it enabled was a resounding success (and earned itself the fond nickname the Canadian Caper). That success seems all the sweeter thanks to the delicious irony that the religious revolutionaries in Iran had been duped using the story of a revolution against religion.
The religion in question in Lord Of Light is Hinduism – or, at least, a version of Hinduism that has been operating on an Earth-like planet with the aim of keeping its population enslaved. Yama, Brahma, Khali and co are actually the crew of a spaceship that crash-landed on the planet thousands of years ago. They have used their advanced technology to provide themselves with weaponry that gives them godlike powers, and to transfer their minds to new bodies when the ones they're occupying wear out. They've kept the rest of the human population (largely made up of the descendants of their old bodies) in a state of medieval ignorance and cowed those who don't immediately do their bidding with the threat that they'll be reincarnated as animals – or not at all.
Not that you'd know any of that if you stopped reading before the halfway point. At first it seems as if the gods really are gods – even though they're all fond of smoking cigarettes and slipping in American slang and western cultural references (generally in the form of groansome puns) to deflate the high epic prose in which Zelazny has chosen to present most of his story. The author only slowly reveals the gods' true nature, and the nature of the struggle against them. Even the central character is a mystery – an enigma summed up, but not fully explained, by the novel's typically slippery first paragraph:
"His followers called him Mahasamamatman and said he was a god. He preferred to drop the Maha- and the -atman, however, and called himself Sam. He never claimed to be a god. But then, he never claimed not to be a god. Circumstances being what they were, neither admission could be of any benefit."
And the complications don't end there. The novel's dozens of characters have a habit of changing name as well as shape. The chapters do not fit into regular chronology. Many episodes only make sense in the light of things that happen later in the book; some never really do. It's nearly impossible to tell whether Sam is serious or joking – or whether Zelazny is, for that matter. Did he really write an entire dramatic episode in which an unfortunate character called Shan is given the body of an epileptic just to enable him to land the pun: "then the fit hit the Shan"? What's with the Christian zombies? Is a long episode in which Sam hacks the planet's oppressive Hinduism with Buddhism a giant mickey-take, another example of the absurdity of religious thought, a touching demonstration of the beauty of true spiritual enlightenment or a heady combination of all three? Is this book profound, or daft – or both?
The obscurity and ambiguity are sometimes irksome but generally add to Lord Of Light's considerable appeal. Reading it is a strange and exhilarating experience. I didn't have much of a clue about what was going on for the first 100 pages, but didn't really mind because I was enjoying the dappy dialogue, eastern-tinged scene-setting and epic battles (there are fight scenes in here as beautifully constructed and carefully brutal as Hemingway's boxing descriptions). From the point of view of six American hostages, it's probably a good job it was never made into a film, but the visual appeal is obvious.
Sometimes the epic prose is heavy and overwrought (there are a lot of flames issuing forth and a few too many ponderous constructions: "They sat in the room called Heartbreak and they drank of the soma, but they were never drunken.") Sometimes, too, the more philosophical passages tend towards the windy. But all that's easily forgiven when enlightenment kicks in and you realise how cleverly Zelazny has been spinning the wheels of his story. This intriguing game of bluff would deserve to be remembered even if it hadn't played such a curiously apt part in the hostage crisis.
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