On the Times...

In such a busy world, sometimes for most of us it’s a good escape to just sit down and chill, and watch TV. For the most part, primetime television is made up mostly of news, and funny enough all the channels reporting on the same topics, most of which really have nothing to do with us personally, however, have twists and turns that allow the mind to solely focus on what it is being told at the time. Most news will not report on the really important issues that affect us, or our communities in our day-to-day living.

If we read between the lines, and pay attention there is a lot happening on the global field in regards to economy, power, control and manipulation by persons who hold power over most components of society. As if there were a mass attempt in keeping the world right where it needs to be for these groups and individuals to continue to benefit.

Equipped with such knowledge, People are organizing themselves on mass levels worldwide, mostly crying out for a fairer and better world, regardless of which path they choose to do it from. Repression is also organizing itself, billions of dollars spent, and thousands upon thousands have been arrested worldwide. In the US alone, over 5,200 people have been arrested for standing up to these beliefs, and again the media as a tool assures the public that we continue to live in a society where people have the ability to practice their human rights and freedoms.

As of now our rights are benefits, privileges that can be taken away if it is felt that it does not correspond or subscribe to the currently proposed way of life. Human Rights are not privileges, they extend beyond the realm of law and privilege, they are a given, regardless of the circumstances. These rights are based on the love of self and others: freedom to say what you want, to organize how you want, to print what you want, vote for who you want, petition, and to be tried by a jury of your peers (among others).

This is sovereignty, this is democracy, yet it is justified to take the lives of thousands of others to spread this mentality and sentiment (In Iraq almost 114,000 people); and these aren’t just men in uniform, we are talking babies, children, women, old people, disabled people, people with strong potentials, with hopes dreams and the right to pursue those dreams just like the rest of us.

Is our world in the place, or is it ready to propagate a more positive/constructive mentality by means of love and peace? Have we not done it before? This is something that I appreciate from the Occupy Wall Street movement, that for the most part its foundation is that of peace, of assisting one another, of creating a voice, in the name of love for another.

It does not apply to you unless it happens to you. We can’t group such movement under one name, because it has a limitless face; anyone can claim that place, it is fluid and constantly changing. There are those who opposed such organization who criticized it, then found themselves being laid off from their jobs, while their CEO’s got pay raises. On the flipside, there are pro-peace members who were not treated in such manners (baton over the head, pepper spray, beatings, arrests) who after undergoing such hardship can find it easy to resign a peaceful belief system to that of a violent one.

As of lately it has been a very strategically placed within our media the concept of Fear, if it isn’t China or Russia’s attempts at being the region in the world with the most power, or Fear of terrorists organizations or persons, or Fear of world disasters, on top of distractions of events occurring in the lives of celebrities, taking away story by story our sense of comfort, of strength, will power, and continuously keep us involved in the lives of others.

In the end it comes down to resigning the void of Fear and filling that void with Love, without minding the cheesiness of such statement, we can all resign to a place in our minds and hearts that know such place, agree with such words. This applies to both extremes, Love for the Less Fortunate, and Love for the Most Fortunate. This creates compassion, understanding and allows us the time and space to actually act in a manner that allows us to evolve to these higher levels of living. What practices can we incorporate individually and collectively to shun such a mentality?

Fear being the tool…is it possible that those who are propagating such mentality are beyond filled with such sentiment, so much that they have to make sure most of the rest of the world lives in such way?

A lot of the world has been subjected to such horrible conditions throughout history at the hands of people with power with the desire to maintain and expand that power and push away such Fear. It’s easy to forget that such events have happened in world history. Millions upon millions of lives have been lost to war, greed, ignorance. We read about it or hear about it in certain conversations, but its very difficult to imagine what that really means.

If I were to measure the progress society and humanity has made it would be in the amount of people on a global level who have had the means, access to information, and increased probability in self-actualizing, if realizing their true potential within themselves and their group societies. It is considered to be idealistic or utopian for people to believe that everywhere in our world there is the strong possibility for society to structure itself in that way, and also find its respective place in world society. Our actual international governing system is based on these principles.

Human Voice is growing and Human Repression is growing, there is enough pressure right now for the whole thing to blow. Do our intentions, beliefs, and sentiments actually affect this push and pull? Can we as individuals with love our intention, belief and sentiment actually tip this scale in creating a peaceful world?

Here’s an exercise: when you have the chance, send some love to those in power, maybe it can eradicate their sense of fear, clear their minds, allow them to see that the decisions they make affect the lives of millions of others. While it is much easier said than done, people in power are just that PEOPLE in power; they also have to incorporate their intentions, beliefs and sentiments into their decision making abilities and their day to day lives, and everybody knows the feeling of being supported and nurtured in their growth, just because you are in power doesn’t mean you don’t need support or nurturing, means you need it more than anyone else.

The times are changing; most are placing weight behind 2012, being a year marked by many civilizations through time to be a year of change for the world. Which change is it going to be? Let’s add each other into our resolutions for the New Year, let’s add our sense of love for self with the understanding that the other is self, and let’s take on this New Year on to the next level as prophesized.

The Fear of Death - Mahan Kal Kalka ("The Great Death")

I used to bug myself out with the fact that one day I am going to die. It could be any day…I could wake up dead, I could be watching TV and a small plane lands in my living room, I could be driving over a bridge and the shit could crumble. Sometimes it made me feel as if I didn’t need to make plans, what’s the point? I might die soon anyway…But what is death? Our fear of it base our ultimate beliefs in ideological structures and doctrines. Almost all religions are based on what happens to us when we die, where we go, judgment, heaven, hell…We see death on television, we read about it in papers, most of the movies we enjoy people are popped off, or slaughtered in creative ways (Final Destination…hehe), death surrounds us, and as humans, it can dictate our lives…

I had to re-orient my thinking, or find myself in a way so that at least I could be comfortable with this concept. I accepted that I had to love life, and live in the moment. How precious each moment is, how much happens in a “moment”, and if I am aware, I can live life in bliss. But what is life? If we are infinite, how many lives do we really live? Actually…what constitutes a life? Our physical bodies or our created or imposed self-images?

I found that fear of death is in many aspects of our psyche: Identity. We all carry beliefs, we believe we are something, we tie these beliefs to concepts, language, words, identity. I am a “human being”, I am “Puerto Rican”, I am “25”, I am a “man”, to religion, social status, education…we can place infinite labels on ourselves, and believe that is who we are. To hold on to these beliefs gives us a sense of pride, and power over the world around us. No one is to offend or challenge these beliefs. In many consciousness it is even acceptable to cause violence on a person who demeans or challenges by way of words, we associate what we think of ourselves to our actual lives. It is very hard for many to be fluid, open, and let go. It is easier to get angry and cause violence to protect our “lives”.

To try and find oneself beyond subconscious programming can make one feel lost, scared, confused. How can I live life without standing? “My stance is correct, therefore I will fight until my point is made, I cannot lose, for I will lose myself, my beliefs will not hold water, and what I thought of myself will have to change, my image will have to die.” We get tense, we get angry, we shout, we tense up to anything that may threaten who we think we are. We have been waging wars, building prisons, psychiatric wards, educational institutions, religious institutions, governments, nations…so many constructs, to continue to attempt to define who we are. Yet we never taught to look into ourselves for this answer. If we are STANDING how can we UNDER-STAND?

Divisions, walls, fronts, lack of universality, inhumanness, coldness, all of this stems from fear of death. I’ve had to dig deep within myself and face myself, face that ultimate fear. Eradicating this fear takes ones ability to be forgiving, compassionate, understanding, and aware of love to another level. To FORGIVE is to be able to let go of a “wrong” done to you, but because we are afraid to let go of our self-image, we cannot forgive, our self-image comes first. I cannot be compassionate because the “circumstances” around that relationship must be comfortable to my image and my perceived image of the other. I cannot be understanding, because my stance comes first.

If there is no death, is there life? Can we “live” our lives without death? If I internalize that I am infinite, that I am energy, a consciousness with no end, do I really die? And if so is it worth me holding on to myself for “dear life”? Is it worth chasing wealth, and social status? Is it worth it to absolutely care for what other’s perceptions are of your image? Is it worth it to knock and demean others to preserve ourselves?

An ultimate death is the acceptance that we are beings as fluid as water that take shape by what container we put ourselves in. A container floating in an ocean, for we are all water. An ultimate death is to open that container and become one with the rest of that ocean. To be free, and listen to one’s heart regardless of what we “think” of ourselves, so that we may love to the fullest, to be creative, and to positively affect the world around us.

BE FREE! BE BLESSED, IT IS YOUR BIRTHRIGHT, SAT NAM!

Revolucionario

Womanhood

This is a topic most men would not address, and I am not going to try and define or categorize women in a concept because that is not possible, I will only speak on my experience with women. It is a concept every single man is affected by and struggles to understand. I felt like sharing this insight after witnessing the birth of my son, and the amount of work a woman has to put in to carry, birth and raise a child.

I come from a woman so my first experience is my mother, and as a child my immediate experience to the world came from and was defined by a woman. Every single human being understands the connection (or lack thereof) to his/her mother. Did you know that once a child is born it receives its emotional input and development from its mother? Once there is skin to skin contact (stronger when breastfeeding) the mother and child’s heartbeats synchronize. The mother’s heart’s electromagnetic field (the aura as it is known to “mystics”) synchronizes with the electromagnetic field of the child’s heart…from here the child’s heart communicates with its brain and directly influences the development of the brain (old mammalian/emotional-cognitive/limbic brain).

The infant does not have the capacity to interpret its physical reality; therefore the development of the child’s emotional-cognitive brain depends on the emotions of the mother. Lack thereof explains why so many human beings are emotionally retarded. A child is also born with a brain imprint as to what the mother looks like, and spends 80% of its time staring at its mother’s face when it is feeding. Its visual input relates to the mother, the mother’s face serving as a visual “map” to the rest of its visual input to which it spends 20% of the time registering. Our emotions, our senses, and our ability to interpret our reality stem from a woman.

My mother has always been one of the strongest women I have known in my entire life. She had me when she was 17, and had four more children…she practically raised all five of us on her own. I grew up watching the injustices my mother had to grow through at the hands of my father and my stepfather, and in my mind I could not conceive as to why my mother had to suffer like this, thus causing suffering in her children being that we still somehow remain emotionally dependent on our mothers. To see my mother overcome her life situations, and still provide for her children (as hard as it may have been) always gave me the drive I have had my whole life to make my life into what I wanted to make it. Her mannerisms, her way of relating to every single person around her, the amount of love she exuded, her temperament, her advice…my way of seeing people and my social life stems from a woman.

Next in the rung of the ladder of my perception of womanhood would be my sisters, my grandmothers, my aunts, my cousins, my teachers, my lovers, my friends, my co-workers, now my daughter and every woman that has crossed my life that has had an impact on me. All of these categories within what women are to me have different levels of priority, provide different experiences and lessons. Each label for these women comes with a way of interacting, responsibilities, and energy input…each with reciprocation. This is true for every man, and it is impossible to deny the importance and power of a woman.

Why do we depreciate the value of a woman? Is it because women depreciate themselves? Is it a mirror effect? Humans are afraid of the power of the woman. Men and Women must categorize, manipulate, and violate each other to keep another person from learning the truth about ourselves, mainly because we ourselves are afraid to learn the truth about ourselves…what is this truth? That we all affect each other, and that we are all connected. We define this connection as “love”. There is family love, friendly love, being “in-love”, being “out of love”, and so many categories for what implies a CONNECTION. Each category with its set of standards and rules and expected behaviors…and the moment we do not abide by these standards, we risk “losing” that “relation-ship”. “HOW SCARY!” Why must we put love in a box?

What creates difficulty with interaction between men and women? SEX! It has really boggled my mind to try and understand this concept….sex. What we think and know about sex most of the time conflict. We associate sex with being “dirty”, we feel that sex is “bad”, it’s an escape, it is testing boundaries, limits, it is a goal, it is victory, it is a release, it is a punishment, it is a secret, it is a lie, it is a “sin”, so many labels to this basic human interaction, an interaction we all came from.

Where do our understandings of sex come from? Church, School, Parents, basically “society”. But not once do we stop ourselves to examine our subconscious efforts concerning sex. Why do we think and behave the way we do regarding sex? And how does this affect our daily lives? As sexual beings with sexual drives we cannot deny this interaction, we try to push it deep deep into our being, and hide from it. When we do it it comes out sideways, most of the time we don’t know what we’re doing, we don’t entertain the fact that it is the most intimate experiences to have, we judge it, we box it, we deny others the ability to understand it, we make fun of people who find it in the same “gender”, and we speak of it as if it were just the act of putting a penis inside a vagina.

This entire miscommunication between our feelings, our mind, our ego, our sexuality; other people’s feelings, mind, ego, and sexuality; between the definitions, categories and labels; between the established rules and guidelines of societal institutions, aaaalllll of this miscommunication tends to lead people into the madness we all live in, it is a perverted society because we deny ourselves what we really are…sexual beings.

To understand women I had to come to the realization that I had to understand myself. How can this be possible if I am a man? First and foremost you can’t understand anything if you do not understand yourself. Second: does a vagina define femininity, or does our spiritual awareness define it? I had to realize that there is a feminine aspect to every man as there is a masculine aspect to every woman. That I have take pride in my femininity, and it is hard for a man to stand up and admit that, it is hard for men to be feminists, to really dig deep and find out what we truly are. Then and only then can we understand our connection to the women around us: without judgment, without labels.

Taking these thoughts into consideration, I began to realize that one of the solutions to creating a better world is in our understanding of sex, and being that women are the doorkeepers to this concept (unless you’re a rapist) our true understanding of womanhood as men lies in our understanding of ourselves, and our understanding of "relation-ships", intimacy and sex. For an emotionally balanced world will propagate itself into our newly born children by default.

Women: remember to always take pride in yourselves, realize your true power and potential, do not define yourself by the men around you for you hold the power in creating a better world.

Peace and Blessings to all…Sat Nam.

Revolucionario