From the Deep Place

Muhammad Ali and his younger brother Rahman Ali, with their grandmother provokes the thought of the loss in American life: the proper respect for the old, the wise old people, and the prospect of dying. It is embedded within Life to live, to die, and to profit from the benefits of Life, as a man, as a woman. What is wrong in the ideology of American life is the inherited disrespect for Life Europe peed into the souls of the Africans, and the First Nation's peoples! Undoing this is Sacred Work, and terrifying because it goes against what replaced who we are and were meant to become before 'they' came to kill, and take! - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 2/20/19

Muhammad Ali and his younger brother Rahman Ali, with their grandmother...

IN the Hebrew Mystery Teachings...

Simple the innocent conceptual feel of worth within the ease of Kalisy touching the guardian within a real man. It is a flow easily received if held honestly within the poetry of soul. How a finger touches fragrance tells a woman about a man. How she touches him in reciprocation whispers into the essential purpose of man with woman. Eve fed Adam a forbidden fruit. Fully aware of what the loss to his world would feel like he broke the law he knew, and ate of the forbidden fruit. Loss of a woman is worth the risk to her man's soul is the testimony of this Hebrew story. He had reacted badly to his first wife's spirit, and to lose another was unbearable. Unbearable was the punishment he and Eve suffered banished from the Garden of Eden.

Only in the Book of Adam and Eve is the texture of loss told, and felt by anyone not there to experience their ordeal in the aftermath of their disobedience... - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 12/06/18

Alishaaa Mae flashes a glint of the spectacular with the most humble of gestures. "It is astounding the movement of strength in vulnerability!" 

Alishaaa Mae gentle of spirit is easily on a list of wants. What she needs is in her eyes. Within her voice is her heart and at the core the substance of things looked for as quality she can develop... - Dawn Wolf, Keeper of Stories 

Ancient Teacher.

10 Hindu Environmental Teachings

By Pankaj Jain, Ph.D.

1. Pancha Mahabhutas (The five great elements) create a web of life that is shown forth in the structure and interconnectedness of the cosmos and the human body. Hinduism teaches that the five great elements (space, air, fire, water and earth) that constitute the environment are all derived from prakriti, the primal energy. Each of these elements has its own life and form; together the elements are interconnected and interdependent. The Upanishads explains the interdependence of these elements in relation to Brahman, the supreme reality, from which they arise: “From Brahman arises space, from space arises air, from air arises fire, from fire arises water, and from water arises earth.”

Hinduism recognizes that the human body is composed of and related to these five elements,
and connects each of the elements to one of the five senses. The human nose is related to earth, tongue to water, eyes to fire, skin to air and ears to space. This bond between our senses and the elements is the foundation of our human relationship with the natural world. For Hinduism, nature and the environment are not outside us, not alien or hostile to us. They are an inseparable part of our existence, and they constitute our very bodies.

2. Ishavasyam — Divinity is omnipresent and takes infinite forms. Hindu texts, such as the Bhagavad Gita (7.19, 13.13) and the Bhagavad Purana (2.2.41, 2.2.45), contain many references to the omnipresence of the Supreme divinity, including its presence throughout and within nature. Hindus worship and accept the presence of God in nature. For example, many Hindus think of India’s mighty rivers — such as the Ganges — as goddesses. In the Mahabharata, it is noted that the universe and every object in it has been created as an abode of the Supreme God meant for the benefit of all, implying that individual species should enjoy their role within a larger system, in relationship with other species.

3. Protecting the environment is part of Dharma. Dharma, one of the most important Hindu concepts, has been translated into English as duty, virtue, cosmic order and religion. In Hinduism, protecting the environment is an important expression of dharma.
In past centuries, Indian communities — like other traditional communities — did not have an
understanding of “the environment” as separate from the other spheres of activity in their lives.

A number of rural Hindu communities such as the Bishnois, Bhils and Swadhyaya have
maintained strong communal practices to protect local ecosystems such as forests and water
sources. These communities carry out these conservation-oriented practices not as “environmental” acts but rather as expressions of dharma. When Bishnois are protecting animals and trees, when Swadhyayis are building Vrikshamandiras (tree temples) and Nirmal Nirs (water harvesting sites) and when Bhils are practicing their rituals in sacred groves, they are simply expressing their reverence for creation according to Hindu teachings, not “restoring the environment.” These traditional Indian groups do not see religion, ecology and ethics as separate arenas of life. Instead, they understand it to be part of their dharma to treat creation with respect.

4. Our environmental actions affect our karma. Karma, a central Hindu teaching, holds that each of our actions creates consequences — good and bad — which constitute our karma and determine our future fate, including the place we will assume when we are reincarnated in our next life. Moral behavior creates good karma, and our behavior toward the environment has karmic consequences. Because we have free choice, even though we may have harmed the environment in the past, we can choose to protect the environment in the future, replacing environmentally destructive karmic patterns with good ones. 

5. The earth — Devi — is a goddess and our mother and deserves our devotion and protection. Many Hindu rituals recognize that human beings benefit from the earth, and offer gratitude and protection in response. Many Hindus touch the floor before getting out of bed every morning and ask Devi to forgive them for trampling on her body. Millions of Hindus create kolams daily — artwork consisting of bits of rice or other food placed at their doorways in the morning. These kolams express Hindu’s desire to offer sustenance to the earth, just as the earth sustains themselves. The Chipko movement — made famous by Chipko women’s commitment to “hugging” trees in their community to protect them from clear-cutting by outside interests — represents a similar devotion to the earth. 

6. Hinduism’s tantric and yogic traditions affirm the sacredness of material reality and contain teachings and practices to unite people with divine energy. Hinduism’s Tantric tradition teaches that the entire universe is the manifestation of divine energy. Yoga, derived from the Sanskrit word meaning “to yoke” or “to unite,” refers to a series of mental and physical practices designed to connect the individual with this divine energy. Both these traditions affirm that all phenomena, objects and individuals are expressions of the divine. And because these traditions both envision the earth as a goddess, contemporary Hindu teachers have used these teachings to demonstrate the wrongness of the exploitation of the environment, women and indigenous peoples. 

7. Belief in reincarnation supports a sense of interconnectedness of all creation. Hindus believe in the cycle of rebirth, wherein every being travels through millions of cycles of birth and rebirth in different forms, depending on their karma from previous lives. So a person may be reincarnated as a person, animal, bird or another part of the wider community of life. Because of this, and because all people are understood to pass through many lives on their pathway to ultimate liberation, reincarnation creates a sense of solidarity between people and all living things.

Through belief in reincarnation, Hinduism teaches that all species and all parts of the earth are part of an extended network of relationships connected over the millennia, with each part of this network deserving respect and reverence.

8. Non-violence — ahimsa — is the greatest dharma. Ahimsa to the earth improves one’s karma. For observant Hindus, hurting or harming another being damages one’s karma and obstructs advancement toward moksha — liberation. To prevent the further accrual of bad karma, Hindus are instructed to avoid activities associated with violence and to follow a vegetarian diet.

Based on this doctrine of ahimsa, many observant Hindus oppose the institutionalized breeding and killing of animals, birds and fish for human consumption.

9. Sanyasa (asceticism) represents a path to liberation and is good for the earth. Hinduism teaches that asceticism — restraint in consumption and simplicity in living — represents a pathway
toward moksha (liberation), which treats the earth with respect. A well-known Hindu teaching — Tain tyakten bhunjitha — has been translated, “Take what you need for your sustenance without a sense of entitlement or ownership.”

One of the most prominent Hindu environmental leaders, Sunderlal Bahuguna, inspired
many Hindus by his ascetic lifestyle. His repeated fasts and strenuous foot marches, undertaken to support and spread the message of the Chipko, distinguished him as a notable ascetic in our own time. In his capacity for suffering and his spirit of self-sacrifice, Hindus saw a living example of the renunciation of worldly ambition exhorted by Hindu scriptures.

10. Gandhi is a role model for simple living. Gandhi’s entire life can be seen as an ecological treatise. This is one life in which every minute act, emotion or thought functioned much like an ecosystem: his small meals of nuts and fruits, his morning ablutions and everyday bodily practices, his periodic observances of silence, his morning walks, his cultivation of the small as much as of the big, his spinning wheel, his abhorrence of waste, his resorting to basic Hindu and Jain values of truth, nonviolence, celibacy and fasting. The moralists, nonviolent activists, feminists, journalists, social reformers, trade union leaders, peasants, prohibitionists, nature-cure lovers, renouncers and environmentalists all take their inspirations from Gandhi’s life and writings. 

(Acknowledgement: Adapted from the essays by Christopher K. Chapple, O. P. Dwivedi, K. L. Seshagiri Rao, Vinay Lal, and George A. James in Hinduism and Ecology: The Intersection of Earth, Sky, and Water and Jainism and Ecology: Nonviolence in the Web of Life, both published by Harvard University Press. Thanks also to the essays by Harold Coward and Rita DasGupta Sherma in Purifying the Earthly Body of God: Religion and Ecology in Hindu India, published by SUNY Press. I am also indebted to
kind comments by Reverend Fletcher Harper and for his invitation to write this article.)

A version of this post was published originally via GreenFaith: Interfaith Partners for the Environment.

Follow Pankaj Jain, Ph.D. on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ProfPankajJain

the Womb in Violence

Womb is treated incorrectly in Western life. What is placed in front of the vagina is as important as who is placed within Her. She is Sacred Space. Know this and live, know this and change the environment. Around you within is the change we crave because men know not what to do. The hint of scripture or sacred text as the basis for change in this society turns millions of Euro-Americans off for one reason, and this is significant because the subject is ancestry.

Their ancestry finds their repulsion in the substance of Creation by God! Divorced from heart, self, others and soul their path of thought and belief has led the entire world downward into self destruction. Without understanding of how we, as a species, are consuming ourselves for comfort, convenience and the accumulation of wealth and dominance have come to this place is ignorance, deliberate ignorance. You have to go to the roots to understand what the next right step is to be considered and made! This is the direction whites fear within. - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 3/12/18

the Deep Knowledge of...

the mystery of Yasmina Rossi in her 61st year in her glory.

It takes time to acquire the energy, and capacity to delve into the substance of beauty. Women, in particular, shovel bad thoughts about them into who they are as women to the astonishment of their higher selves. It is hardly expected youth will grasp the depth of an insight such as: "... the beauty is ours, all we got to do is never let the laziness hide it as time goes by." that Yasmina Rossi shared. In time, perhaps, some will, but working against the feel of being away from the sacredness of their core makes it a struggle for a daughter to know Beauty is an essence formed without form... - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories [April 3, 2018]