Emotional Growth is a Subtractive Process

thank you Dr. Shefali

Return to Normal Life?

black and white asian girl smiling

Many try to console themselves with this idea. A return to normalcy after the virus epidemic. This means living in a world of dreams, hypnotizing ourselves with a hope that in fact has no chance of coming back.

And what normalcy? That of individualism, the one where everyone thinks about themselves to beat others?

I try to indicate some of the various reasons that make this idea absurd and enemy of our evolution as human beings:

1. First of all, I wonder what is “normal” in a world where you work like crazy to buy “things” that mostly do not help but fill our lack of meaning and contact with ourselves and others ?

What is normal regarding the separation that we continuously nourish within ourselves and others through judgments, prejudices, exclusion, racism, ideology, nationalism, false gods?

What is normal about not having time, being stressed, running after money and success?

Telling us the tale of the golden age that preceded this moment only serves to keep us in a perennial state of narcissistic infantilism.

2. What is usually called normality is a continuous reduction in the field of possibilities and an adjustment to mediocrity as established by the canons of power.

“What is mediocrity? Mediocrity is a way of being in which the aspirations and yearnings for the highest values ​​and meanings of existence are suppressed or latent. Mediocrity is not what the average is, but conforming to the average in the absence of desire, aspiration and longing for the highest values ​​and meanings of existence.

Since no human being was born with an intrinsic desire to be mediocre but, on the contrary, with the desire and aspiration for greatness, the mediocre person must justify or ignore his mediocrity in order to live with it and with himself. This means that he or she must live a life that is false and without integrity disconnected from his deepest desires and aspirations “. Yasuhiko Genku Kimura

3. And then, in short, when will we understand, once and for all that the past is dead, and that the new continuously presents itself? What we call normality, referring to what has been, is now a corpse. It would be better to bury it, burn it, let it go, possibly even celebrating it. Our existence, in its infinite goodness, is pushing us to say enough!

4. Fortunately, normality does not exist. It is only a concept with which power — in all its forms, social, political and religious — has attacked the individual and our uniqueness.

It has manipulated us for millennia to induce us all to obedience.

The obedience to a certain way of seeing the world and oneself, the obedience to shoes and designer clothes, the obedience to the search of certainty, the obedience to hide ourselves and presenting a mask that wishes to please others, the obedience to money … etc. etc. (The reader can add whatever he/she wants to this list)

5. A look at the history of humanity clearly shows that it is not possible to go back to the past.

As far as we are concerned: globalism is showing all its limits, as a productive and financial strategy, expression of capitalist ideology, finally opening the way for a more human form of production where there is also time for oneself and life; the US empire has dominated the international scene since WWII, hiding behind the myth of democracy the desire for domination. This is falling apart with Nero / Trump burning what he can and showing his real face; communism has failed long time ago. So the planet is re-harmonizing as always, cleaning itself of useless things and offering new unpredictable possibilities; contact and cooperation re-propose themselves as real, and concrete; non-ideological values ​​go beyond the status quo and invite creativity.

It is up to us to take this evolutionary challenge and look for a meeting point between the individual and the community beyond known boundaries: I + We = All of us.


Whether you want it or not, this is where we are going: Infinite possibilities in infinites.

Avikal Costantino

EVER SO LONELY – Monsoon feat. Sheila Chandra

 

Ever So Lonely is a single written by Steve Coe and originally recorded by Monsoon with Sheila Chandra on vocals. The song went on to be a #12 hit in the UK in April 1982, staying for nine weeks on the chart.
It was a hit in the UK, Europe and Australia but was never released as a single in the USA.
Sheila Chandra was aged only 16 and had just left school when her first single was a hit.

sheilachandra.com

Trance Dance & Dreaming

Trance Dance is a unique blend of body movement, healing sounds, dynamic percussive rhythms, transformational breathing techniques and the innovative use of a blindfold or bandana – together stimulating a ‘trance’ state that promotes spiritual awakenings, mental clarity, physical stamina and emotional well-being.

 

TranceDance.com …way more soul

500 days of Osho Dynamic Meditation

 

An year and a half experience of Dynamic Meditation: an intense process of great and deep healing.

An amazing technique that touch and open blocked or disturbed areas in the physical and subtle bodies. These areas hiding the dark and masked spaces of our individual system that limit or block our life energy. And perpetuating this work is going to open even the most profound and ancient, more and more, day by day.
So the transformation happens.
An unequaled healing process.

 

“Meditation is an energy phenomenon. One very basic thing has to be understood about all types of energies, and this is the basic law to be understood: energy moves in a dual polarity. That is the only way it moves; there is no other way for its movement. It moves in a dual polarity.

For any energy to become dynamic the anti-pole is needed. It is just like electricity moving with negative and positive polarities. If there is only negative polarity electricity will not happen; or if there is only positive polarity electricity will not happen. Both poles are needed. And when both poles meet, they create electricity then the spark comes up.

And this is so for all types of phenomena. Life goes on: between man and woman, the polarity. The woman is the negative life-energy; man is the positive pole. They are electrical – hence so much attraction. With man alone, life would disappear; with woman alone there could be no life, only death. Between man and woman there exists a balance. Between man and woman – these two poles, these two banks – flows the river of life.

Wherever you look you will find the same energy moving in polarities, balancing itself.

This polarity is very meaningful for meditation because mind is logical, and life is dialectical. When I say mind is logical, it means mind moves in a line. When I say life is dialectical, it means life moves with the opposite, not in a line. It zigzags from negative to positive – positive to negative, negative to positive. It zigzags; it uses the opposites.

Mind moves in a line, a simple straight line. It never moves to the opposite – it denies the opposite. It believes in one, and life believes in two.

So whatsoever mind creates, it always chooses the one. If mind chooses silence – if mind has become fed up with all the noise that is created in life and it decides to be silent – then the mind goes to the Himalayas. It wants to be silent, it doesn’t want anything to do with any type of noise. Even the song of the birds will disturb it; the breeze blowing through the trees will be a disturbance. The mind wants silence; it has chosen the line. Now the opposite has to be denied completely.

But this man living in the Himalayas – seeking silence, avoiding the other, the opposite – will become dead; he will certainly become dull. And the more he chooses to be silent, the duller he will become – because life needs the opposite, the challenge of the opposite.

There is a different type of silence which exists between two opposites. The first is a dead silence, the silence of the cemetery. A dead man is silent, but you would not like to be a dead man. A dead man is absolutely silent. Nobody can disturb him, his concentration is perfect. You cannot do anything to distract his mind; his mind is absolutely fixed. Even if the whole world goes mad all around, he will remain in his concentration. But still, you would not like to be a dead man.

Silence, concentration, or whatever it is called… you would not like to be dead – because if you are silent and dead the silence is meaningless.

Silence must happen while you are absolutely alive, vital, bubbling with life and energy. Then silence is meaningful. But then silence will have a different, altogether different quality to it. It will not be dull. It will be alive. It will be a subtle balance between two polarities.

A man who is seeking a live balance, a live silence, would like to move to both the market and the Himalayas. He would like to go to the market to enjoy noise, and he would also like to go to the Himalayas to enjoy silence. And he will create a balance between these two polar opposites, and he will remain in that balance. And that balance cannot be achieved through linear efforts.

That is what is meant by the Zen technique of effortless effort. It uses contradictory terms – effortless effort, or gateless gate, or pathless path.

Zen always uses the contradictory term immediately, just to give you the hint that the process is going to be dialectical, not linear. The opposite is not to be denied but absorbed. The opposite is not to be left aside – it has to be used. Left aside, it will always be a burden on you. Left aside, it will hang with you. Unused, you will miss much.

The energy can be converted and used. And then, using it, you will be more vital, more alive. The opposite has to be absorbed, then the process becomes dialectical.

Effortlessness means not doing anything, inactivity – akarma. Effort means doing much, activity – karma. Both have to be there.

Do much, but don’t be a doer – then you achieve both. Move in the world, but don’t be a part of it. Live in the world, but don’t let the world live in you.

Then the contradiction has been absorbed…

And that’s what I’m doing. Dynamic meditation is a contradiction.

Dynamic means effort, much effort, absolute effort. And meditation means silence, no effort, no activity. You can call it a dialectical meditation.”

Osho “Meditation: the first and last freedom” © 1988