Mind The Gap!
My general observations lead me to conclude that we are either in autopilot and react in line with the coping mechanisms and survival strategies we developed before our fourth birthday (approximately) or, having developed sufficient awareness, mindfulness, and mental fitness, we learn to pause before responding to whatever stimuli cross our paths in a conscious, loving manner – beneficial to the healing, growth, and joy of all concerned. The term “autopilot” may be considered charitable. Some would call it “sleepwalking through life” (Dr Allen Berger) or even refer to a “Zombie” existence. And of course, this is not an all-or-nothing phenomenon…
Balance
So, it was really telling when, in a recent yoga lesson, we went though balance exercises which included the Vrikshasana (The Tree Pose, where standing on one foot we bring the other to the inside of our upper thigh), that the terror of childhood – as a felt state – returned. My heart began to race; I began to sweat and couldn’t maintain my balance for longer that twenty seconds. Of even more interest was the fact that my breathing froze. Despite all the insights and, indeed, practice in so many other modalities and situations, here we had the default patterns re-asserting themselves immediately, and with a vengeance…
Dis-illusion
Then there is the case of Deepak Chopra whom I have admired as a spiritual teacher and a person who has not only achieved heightened states of awareness but has also been very effective in helping those who have embarked on a similar quest. What alarms me is the documented propinquity, familiarity, and absence of scruples between this powerful spiritual figure and a man (Epstein) whose crimes against children and young women were not only widely known but had already led to criminal prosecution. When someone claims moral authority, association itself becomes evidence of lack of discernment. When Chopra positioned himself as a global moral authority, and spoke endlessly about consciousness, healing, and enlightenment, while simultaneously maintaining close relationship and correspondence with one of the most documented child sex traffickers in modern history, no further „evidence“ of his spiritual bankruptcy is needed.
Slave Patrols
I have been living in Germany for many decades now. My arrival was preceded by the NBC mini-series on the Holocaust which had been broadcast on German TV over four consecutive nights in January 1979 and coincided with public interest in the third instalment of the Majdanek trials, the longest Nazi war crimes trial in history, spanning over 30 years. Members of the main government party, the Social Democrats, had seen the original — English language — NBC series some months earlier and urged its broadcast in Germany, dubbed in German, of course. Broadcast on WDR State TV, the viewership was estimated to have comprised up to 15 million households or 20 million people, approximately 50% of West Germany’s entire adult population….
