Building Lifeboats

Is it me, or has life become busier and busier? My friend and localisation expert, Helena Norberg Hodge, says it's not me, it's globalisation. She says we're forced to work harder for less, and the collective struggle to make ends meet is felt by everyone, and the by-product is rush, haste and stress. So if she's right - and I think she is - then there's not a whole lot I can do to remedy the external frenzy that seems to be creeping, or rather rushing, into my daily life.

So I've decided to work at it from another angle - from inside. In response to the external speed that attempts to have its way with me and my family, a curious invitation has arisen. I call it 'curious' because it could have arisen any time, any where. But it has arisen now. Now, when it seems that many others are being met with the same invitation, in response to similar external challenges. That invitation is a summons to come home. To turn within and navigate my life from Stillness, rather than mind-driven haste. As the gathering clouds of peak oil, climate change and diminishing democracy threaten on the horizon for all of us, perhaps we are all being called - on a collective level - to create internal lifeboats to see us through.

Living from Stillness is not a new concept to me. I've spent precious time with teachers, mentors, friends-of-good-company, and sages around the world since my twenties - Sri Poonjaji, Byron Katie, Wayne Muller, Alan Clements, Steve and Ondrea Levin, Andrew Harvey to name a few. This includes many other deeply profound friends and colleagues, people that remain anonymously folded into every day life without much fanfare, but whose wisdom continues to humble and inspire me. So with so many years hanging out in the awakening scene, what is new about this 'invitation'?

If I were to define the difference, I would put it this way - though words prove highly inaccurate when trying to speak of such things. It would seem that before now, awakening was a bit of a lifestyle choice. It was an 'option' and it was also, of sorts, a love affair - a love affair with something sublime and real. But now it is more pervading than that, more near, more insistent. Now, it seems, it is an imperative. Even more, it is what is true, and therefore the only thing worth aligning with. My guess is that the seemingly dark times ahead are pushing all of us in this direction - deeper, deeper inward.

As a result of this invitation, life continues to speed by, but I have become more still. Not to become anything; not to become 'enlightened', or 'more awake', or more or less of anything. But just because it is what is true. That's all.

So on that note, to aid us in our little lifeboat building, I've posted a couple of my favourites. This first video is of a sage in India named Poonjaji (Papaji as his is affectionately known) with whom I spent many years:





And this one of Byron Katie, who developed what she calls The Work - simply a series of questions that you ask yourself in the face of your ideas, thoughts, troubles. When these questions are asked sincerely, and with a true desire to end one's suffering, the impact is profound.




Also check out the new book (and you can download a free copy) Thank God for Evolution! How the Marriage of Science and Religion Will Transform Your Life and Our World.

The fallacy of some child care arguments

Daily we are told that mums would all be back at work if only they had childcare.
This raises a few issues - yes, mums want to rejoin the world post childbirth, and for many mums career is very important, and mostly it is the mum who faces the choice of home or work. (Perhaps it is the dad who stays at home...) OK, that is fine, but there are a few assumptions that need to be tested.
What is the point of having kids if you are going to get someone else to raise them? Can someone with no 'bond' to your child other than financial provide the necessary care to the half dozen or so little kids in their care?
What is the financial cost? For a mum/dad on $50k/y the financial advantages of working and putting their kids in child care, mostly, are negligible, except the child gets to be raised by a stranger and the parent is exhausted and stressed from the relentlessness of commuting, working, home upkeep ....
Some people pay $7-800/week for childcare, and when govt subsidies are considered, the cost can blow out to $1200/w. In that situation if a mum was paid a minimum of $200, tax free, to stay at home till the kids are of school age, then it is a net financial saving as well as the additional gain from kids being raised by their mum.
Business and govt want women to work because it helps the GDP, regardless of it is makes any economic sense or is good for anyone.
It is cheaper to pay a parent to stay at home if there is one child below school age, and this becomes radically cheaper when there are 2-3 kids under school age, esp when after school care is considered.
It is also a no-brainer that kids are mostly better off with a caring parent at home. no doubt some parents have major issues with being at home