FINDING HAPPINESS IN DARK TIMES #1

HAPPY, HAPPY THANKSGIVING !!

Below is last weeks aborted blog.

Problem solved thanks to -   my computer expert   - He can also fix - on line - anything, for those with ailing Macs. I like to get his name out there because his prices are so friendly.

The Four Noble Truths comprise the essence of Buddha's teachings. They are the truth of suffering, the truth of the cause of suffering, the truth of the end of suffering, and the truth of the path that leads to the end of suffering. The First noble truth is that of uncontrolled birth, aging, sickness and death. Buddhism has solutions for these suffering truths and maintain they are the true hedonists because their path will lead to equanimity. Other ancient wisdoms have similar solutions. The Ancestors say; "you are to find the one for you."                             The bible and Kierkegard reinforce the concept of the First Truth.

"Therefore the Lord banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the         ground from which he had been taken. ... 

In the sweat of your  face will you eat bread, until you return to the ground;  out of it you were taken: for dust you are, and to dust you will return." Genesis 

"Listen to the cry of a woman in labor at the hour of giving birth - look at the dying man's struggle at his last extremity and then tell me whether something that begins and ends thus could be intended for enjoyment." Kierkegaard

When it comes to happiness we seem to be looking in the wrong places! Happiness has many synonyms such as;

joy, equanimity, serenity, balance, harmony, well-being. Joy, however, has a different energy to it. Joy is happiness "on steroids" and except for those few individuals who seem to maintain a joyful disposition, it is fleeting for most of us. What we are aiming for in our practice is well-being which is equivalent to happiness. Ecstasy is usually a spiritual experience described by some wisdom traditions as samadhi, nirvana, sartori ... This has also been called the oneness experience or unity consciousness. It occurs when the Knower (say you,) the Known (what you are observing - say a rainbow,) and the Process of Knowing fuse into One thing, i.e. you become the rainbow. This experience is unusual and often come by grace.

Life is a question of polarity balance that resides between the energies of joy and sorrow. This balance requires spiritual knowledge -

"The value of information is in its use for transformation"

and a diligent spiritual practice in order to stay in harmony. The unplanned, unexpected, unfamiliar are opportunities that arise to challenge this equanimity. It is in the tension between the sacred and profane that we can find spiritual perfection. 

It's all about joy, sorrow and innocence. Our task is to try and maintain a childlike innocence amidst the chaos and turmoil and at the moment there is plenty of that - we are swimming in it. Folks may say it could be worse, it has been worse - look at what has happened with two world wars, depressions recessions etc., be grateful that we are not suffering as much as in some of those times. Gratitude unquestionably does bring happiness.

This intellectual rationalization helps somewhat but is not a long lasting solution in making us feel better. Pain is pain and it is highly personal. We all have differing thresholds for it. The only solution is to look for equanimity in the present moment, knowing that everything is a test of our spiritual practice and maturity.

If we imagine ourselves navigating our "boat" down the river of life we should be steering with love and having our True Self and Destiny with us. We must leave fear and the adverse cards we were dealt in life or our fate behind. Also picture the two banks of the river being Sorrow or Grief and Happiness or Joy. Our aim is to remain in the midstream of Well-Being. When we bump into the bank of Joy/Happiness we should enjoy the moment, being unattached, and realizing its impermanence, move back again into the middle. Similarly when we bump into the bank of Sorrow/Grief we should move away as quickly as possible and never set up camp. A diligent spiritual practice will allow us to find the middle way.

Realizing that ...

"No matter how long the night, the dawn is sure to come."         African proverb

Spiritual practice is critical for  us to get out of survival mode and into a transformational vibration and for ...

  Our Good Inclination to overcome the our Evil Inclination or Shadow.

Our Higher Self to subordinate our Ego.

 Our Spacious or Big mind to supersede Monkey Mind.

Our Guides to prevail over the Tricksters.

There are three aspects to the ego complex;

Desirous Attachment or attachment to the objects of our desires i.e. to our wants not needs.

The chameleon like nature of Ego itself - pride, persona, power etc.

 Judgment of others and of ourselves,

all of which get in the way of true happiness. The ego is never satisfied and always wants more. When it gets it, there is momentary satisfaction until the next desire takes over. In this, lies the trickery of samsara.

Kabir confirms that it is not easy for ego to subordinate to the Higher Self. 

It's not what happens to us that counts but what we do with it. Everything can be considered a test of our karma.

We must also make sure that Monkey Mind (our survival mode) and the Shadow do not take hold.

"If you do not what to see the shadow turn your face to the sun." Aboriginal saying

Look to the light

Click, play and meditate

http://davidcumes.com/music/Messages_from_Ancestors_vol_1_-_MP3s/03_Light_and_Dark.mp3 

http://davidcumes.com/music/Messages_from_Ancestors_vol_1_-_MP3s/05_Equanimity.mp3

Dear Blog reader Sadly this is all I will or can publish today I have been working on my new blog which has to do with finding happiness in dark times. I had already prepared the first one and was about to fine tune it this weekend and publish it. Now when logging on I find all of them as well as my past posts have turned into what looks like computer code. The already published blogs that you go to are intact. I am not a computer geek so I do not understand what has happened. I hope it is a Google problem and they will sort it out. If not I am not sure what to do. Maybe it has to do with the new platform they converted to recently which has been sketchy. I will talk to my computer expert (whom I highly recommend for those with Macs - Rogier Willems - he can usually fix anything - and see what he says.) Many, many hours of work and I do not want to start all over again just to find it has reverted to nonsense. With apologies and much frustration. All good things for the coming week Dave

GAIA AND ALUNA

ALUNA IS CONSCIENCE 

“Earth is best understood as a single, self-regulating, Superorganism. The planet is self-regulating through the interaction between living things and the inorganic environment on earth. Gaia’s goal is to maintain a balance in the ecosystem that allows Her to stay alive.”     J. Lovelock and Lynn Magulis

Lovelock represents the modern view of why the earth changes are happening. The Kogi give us the indigenous view of the same. Both are very useful.

The Kogi believe they were placed on our Earth Mother to protect her and have warned us before of her imminent destruction. They say it is reversible even, while maintaining our life style, if we take action immediately. Lovelock adds that the right technology will save us. Many indigenous peoples believe that the planet is a living Being. The book of the Zohar would agree with them.

The Kogi have theories that they regard as truths as to how we have allowed this to happen and what must be done to begin the process of restitution and rehabilitation. Essentially we should treat her like our mother and the mother she is, to all of us.                                               If the reader wants to take their understandings of the Gaia concept and the earth changes to a deeper level it is worth listening to what they have to say.

This short preview of the Kogi's philosophy is an introduction to the longer, full length movie below.

For those who do not want to watch the whole thing the preview will hopefully tempt you to watch the film. Below the link is a summary of what I think they are saying but it makes more sense after you have seen the feature. To me it was profound especially their views on the     Darkness which sounds very much like the enigmatic Dark Matter of the universe which no-one can explain. Some of the truth of what they are saying of course is lost in the interpretation. I will do my best to write what I understood.

PreviewPreview3:38Aluna official trailerYouTube · Skabmagovat FilmfestivalJan 25, 2013

Aluna means "Conscience " (or also maybe, the right consciousness.) With this video one can begin to understand a little of this chiefdom hidden for centuries on a mountain in Colombia. This documentary helps us to better understand how to avoid the destruction of the world that they are trying to protect.

The "Mother" linked the sacred sites with a black thread of invisible thought.
The "Se, the Darkness in the heavens" is the mother of all things and it accelerates the universe and fills all space (sounding very much like what the Quantum physicists call Dark Matter.)
The Kogi were left objects like maps to connect with this Darkness. They believe that the Darkness is linked to the material world in critical places that must not be damaged. The Kogi can connect to "Darkness" with thought.

The Ancestors

The ocean sites that are "threaded" together have connections with the mountains above and these connections are being destroyed. The rivers are born in the mountains but then go home to the mother below.
The Kogi make ritual "payments" above and below.
They take offerings from the mountains to make payments to the shore and vice versa. They walk these sacred threads to make payments with the understanding that this is key to healing the world. They take shells from the shore which are like seeds of knowledge.                             Burnt crushed shells are also placed in a gourd (segui) which is always carried. They taste the shell paste deposited onto the segue with a stick from inside the segui to connect with Aluna, with thought. Thought builds up on the segue placed by the stick. Each person carries a book of their thoughts in the segue. Segui means to know everything - to be given the segue means to listen. With this kind of dedication, prayer, meditation and love they have helped to preserve the earth but now it is up to us to reverse the damage that the "younger brother" (that's us,) has caused.

Bubbles in the water make connection from the lakes to the rivers to the ocean. The Kogi divine by placing a hollow tube in the water  – the bubbles emerge from the ends of the tube which tell them what they need to know. The water speaks to them about the planet.

A sacred mountain destroyed by developers broke one of the sacred threads. A ditch that drained a mangrove polluted the lagoon and the port built there has disturbed the land that will now bring floods and mudslides.                                                                                             The rivers are drying out and the snow and glaciers are disappearing because these threads have been interrupted. There are special areas, special sites which must be preserved for the species that live there to survive. Alien plants are destroying the eco-system, taking over from native plants and sucking up the ground water (especially eucalyptus.)                                                             

The Kogi are describing a microcosmic dynamic which is destroying not only their habitat but also ours.

This more than one hour movie tells their story and may be worth your time.

                                                       Aluna con subtítulos en español Aluna - The Movie Aluna - The Movie • 33K views 2 years ago                                                      

THE GAIA CONCEPT

“The Wilderness holds answers to more questions than we have yet learned how to ask.” Nancy Newhall

“Earth is best understood as a single, self-regulating, Superorganism. The planet is self-regulating through the interaction between living things and the inorganic environment on earth. Gaia’s goal is to maintain a balance in the ecosystem that allows Her to stay alive.”     J. Lovelock and Lynn Magulis

Margulis was a microbiologist and although she did not believe Gaia was a conscious Being she was well aware of the fact that eventually pandemics would be a consequence of climate change and cause further disruption of the planet's balance. Scientists have been predicting for some time that it was not a question of if - but only when - we would suffer these consequences.

The healing and transformational benefits of the elements and of the Beings apart from their material benefits make it imperative that we sustain the natural world in an optimal state of being – if feasible - as close as possible to its own original nature. The Gaia hypothesis  implies that Nature needs to exist for Her own sake. We, however, desperately need Her for our health and our own sakes’ as well. Lovelock said the current pandemic could even be seen as beneficial, in a cruel Darwinian kind of way.

"The far bigger threat to humanity in the early 21st century is global warming ... Climate change is more dangerous to life on Earth than almost any conceivable disease and if we don't do something about it, we will find ourselves removed from the planet." 

Lovelock doubts we can switch from dirty to clean energy quickly enough to avoid a scenario in which Earth itself—via melting permafrost, the shrinking Arctic ice cap etc.—begins to drive climate change and global warming as well. To buy time, he argues, we need to turn to technology.

This drawing made for me by a young Kua San Bushmen in the Kalahari many years ago tells the story of creation. The Earth Mother was pregnant with all the Four Beings of the planet including the stars, the moon and even the fire. After the belly ruptured it sealed over again, becoming the earth's crust. The San men and women were the first people, hunter gatherers, living in the archetype of the Garden of Eden with all that nature could provide to keep them happy, healthy and alive. They lived in harmony with Gaia with respect taking only what they needed with gratitude and respect to the Creator, as did  other indigenous people after them. The San knew, even if they did not express it, that "Gaia" was conscious too. The Quechua the same of Pacha Mama. The Ancestors add;

From the beginning of creation all Beings have conversed with one another and with all living things. The Ancestors

This was especially true of the San - the original "nature whisperers."

Unfortunately because of the earth changes we are losing more and more "parts" every day. Gaia is sick. Some are saying this is Her   revenge. Karma works at all levels and there are consequences for everything that we do, a kind of collective, global karma. Covid 19 has now arrived and may be the ultimate test which we will discuss in a future blog. It is a unique, novel, pernicious and insidious virus and we are only now beginning to understand its behavior which is not only has acute, but also has lesser known chronic effects (the so called "Long Hauler Syndrome.") Will we prevail just to fight the next pandemic or the next flood, fire or hurricane or will we make drastic changes to the way we live our lives? This is clearly our only long term hope. We are living through an existential crisis. Native peoples especially the Mayans, the Hopi, the Kogi and others have been warning us for some time, notably below Chief Seattle and also the Cree.

“We are all in the same boat in a stormy sea, and we owe each other a terrible loyalty.” Chesterton

The bible, Tolstoy and Gandhi tell us there is hope.

The Ancestors add that we need to learn to coexist but not absorb and assimilate the darkness around us. This will require an ongoing, regular, enjoyable and sustainable spiritual practice so that;

nevertheless, throughout the rain, the howling wind the pain and elements in place - these will never disturb the peace that is within.

Many traditions believed the Creator sang the world into existence. Let's preserve our planet, now more than ever. 

It's all about innocence, sorrow and joy.

 A regular spiritual practice will help us find the middle way between sorrow and joy so that we can maintain our innocence and purity and rediscover and recover our "inner child" again with nature's help.

Music is a powerful form of spiritual practice. Meditate and 

and think about the primary thing that our lives depend on.

Click on the link and play

10 Oran Mor 1.mp3