Movie Review: ‘HIDALGO’ & the Wounded Knee Massacre

The New York Times article I just shared (or at least tried to!) on my Facebook Timeline, “Save
Wounded Knee”, instantly brought back to my heart’s memory one of my
favorite films: “HIDALGO”.

I know, the film shouldn’t have been claimed to be based on real facts,
as on further research it was found not to be, it would seem. That is,
as far as the big, long, deadly endurance race that Frank Hopkins and
his dear Native-American mustang, Hidalgo, are supposed to participate
in through the Saudi Arabian area deserts, is concerned.

But WHY did Frank Hopkins decide to take part in that ‘Race of Fire’ to
start with (if he ever did and if that race ever existed at all) is for
me the main point, the central issue, the central fact burning at the
heart of the story really told in the film, forming its whole actual
background from its beginning to its end: that very real fact, that very
real topic is the slow extermination of the Native Americans by their
White conquerors, and the torn loyalties lived by those who happened to
be half White, half Indian, and to have to witness and endure that
brutal extermination of the Indian half of themselves by the other half,
the White.

To witness and endure it would already be bad enough, but in the case of
Frank Hopkins he happens to be also the very messenger who, on Hidalgo,
is missioned to unknowingly deliver the terrible official orders to the
general in charge of containing what was seen by the White as the
uprising of the Indians in the area of Wounded Knee – the very area of
Frank’s own birth, of his boy’s years among the Sioux tribe of his mom,
married by one of the White men, his father. His name there had been
‘Blue Child’, and in the tribe he was still remembered and saluted
affectionately as such, but his outside appearance didn’t betray his
double origin, so among the White he was working for, he was just seen
as another White man, known as Frank Hopkins, with the reputation of
being the best endurance rider of his time.

Totally shaken by the massacre that happened under his very eyes after
he himself had unwittingly delivered the order for it, Frank has turned
into an alcoholic, saved from complete misery only by compassionate
Buffalo Bill and his Shows of the Wild West, where he and others find
some employment re-enacting for an audience scenes of the now extinct
conflict between the Red and the White.

One fine evening some very special spectators from Saudi Arabia convey
to Hopkins the challenge from their Sheikh, that the cow-boy cannot
claim to be the greatest endurance rider of his time, or he must prove
it by participating in one more race, right against their own Beduin
riders and thoroughbred stallions and mares, through the deadly expanses
of their own Arabic deserts.

Frank could not care less about the challenge, but there is a Prize to
the race; that huge sum of money, if won by him, could buy up all the
wild mustangs, so loved by the Indians, that are being rounded up and
corralled by the White Government, to be all shot if they are not bought
back, each of them for an amount no Indian could afford to pay.

To save those mustangs, his friend the Chief points out, would be to
save at least something very important in the Indians quickly vanishing
culture and way of life; even Buffalo Bill cannot help this time; where
else would the needed enormous amount of money be found? A hesitant
Frank finally accepts the challenge and with Hidalgo he embarks, leaving
the coasts of the US for that new, far away adventure.

If really the story of Frank Hopkins and this ‘Race of Fire’ is largely
fiction, as some critics of the film have so relentlessly done their
best to demonstrate (why??? Does it matter so much after all???), still
as it is told it is undeniably a beautiful story, and the real-life
Frank Hopkins, however a spinner of high tales he may have been in his
memoirs, can at least be proud of having been the basis for a truly
inspiring Myth, as it is told in the movie: even if it is all mostly
invented, still I hail the script-writer(s) for having believed in their
character enough to make of him a convincing and moving Hero, out of
his White cow-boy’s humble straightforwardness and simple dignity, yes,
but also out of his deep love for that secret Indian culture buried in
his roots, which in the end he allows to burst fully out of his White
man’s crust, and which saves him and Hidalgo from impending death, when
he at last claims that other identity so long repressed in himself:

After days and days of impossible situations to be faced and overcome in
a merciless nature and among even more merciless rivals, fallen with
bleeding Hidalgo in the burning sands, out of sheer exhaustion and
despair, only a few miles away from the end of the race, down on his
knees in a last cry of anguish he calls to his Sioux ancestors,
imploring their help through one of those poignant Sioux songs he knows
so well from his childhood; and his ancestors, among whom his mother and
brother, appear to him in the heat waves of the desert, with love in
their eyes and smiles, infusing back in him life-energy and power, and
desire to win; to the fierce, arrogant Beduin Prince with whom he has
particularly struggled all along in the race, and who now passing on his
great horse this fallen rival, mocks him, when the Prince jeeringly
boasts,

“You cannot win! I am of a  People of the Horse! I am of a great Rider Tribe!”,

Blue Child, a new flame in his eyes, quietly answers,

“So am I.”

And leaving behind his usual saddle and reins of the White rider, he
jumps straight upon resurrected Hidalgo and rides him bareback like a
Sioux, irresistibly passing the few remaining competitors, to a victory
hailed by the whole crowd and the Sheikh himself and his daughter, both
grown great admirers and friends of this incredible hero from far away
lands.

The last scenes bring us back to the real purpose all along behind all
that has been attempted and finally achieved: back in the US, the wild
mustangs of the Indians have been all rounded up and imprisoned in vast
corrals; soldiers are now getting ready to shoot them all down in a huge
mass slaughter; but a rider comes on a mustang, who shows them the
receipt he has from just buying back – the full amount paid in cash!- all the
mustangs; his friend the Chief has died, but did get the news of his
victory before dying; with the help of a few other Indian friends, Franck has the joy
of freeing again all the wild horses, who will have now a new,
unthreatened life in that area… where their descendants still live,
still free, to this day.

What I found remarkable also in that story is that the usual expected
love-stories are avoided. with both the two charming feminine presences
in the film: on the one hand, the heartless, ambitious and spoiled
British heiress whose old husband stayed behind on the ship, sipping his
iced gin, while his wife, familiar to the region since childhood and
having also her own thoroughbred mare in the race, will use any
seductive or devious means to win the race; and on the other hand the
thoroughly sympathetic young daughter of the Sheikh, raised on a horse
like his now all dead sons, but not allowed to ride in public and fated
by her culture to become merely one of the obscure wives of some Beduin
Prince who may win the race; so she does her best to help instead the
intriguing cow-boy who is competing too; circumstances bring them
together for some chaste moments, and she points out, quite rightly,
that both of them are hiding their true self: she, as a woman, wearing
the veil her culture compels her to wear whenever men other than her
father or husband are present; and he, as Blue Child hiding himself
under the face of a White man,,, in his case too, because the White
culture he lives in will not allow him to do otherwise. Together at
least they don’t need to hide: he is the only man to whom she will
deliberately show her face, without fear; and with her the ‘Blue Child’
in him will not fear to reveal himself either.

This speaks particularly to me as well, both as a woman still facing so
many prejudices in this contemporary world still so masculine in its
outlook on life; and also as a ‘colored’ person who has in fact all the
existing human colors in her being, but under the appearance of a White
person.

Since I have seen ‘Hidalgo’ a few years ago, I have become more
conscious of that fact. Sometimes I wonder how different my personality
and life would have been, had I been more visibly the metis I actually
am. Am I somehow in hiding?… Have I been all my life?…

What a pity that the critics killed that film even before it got out. It
is not as well known and celebrated as it should be. A movie that conveys
in such an un-preaching and natural manner such deep questions, deserves
to be seen. And it is, on top of it all, a highly entertaining film,
with just the right balance of ‘action’ and quiet moments. A lot of
humour. Stunningly magnificent pictures. Excellent acting all around,
with for example Omar Sharif as the Sheikh, and Viggo Mortensen as Frank
Hopkins (if I had not fallen in love with him already as Aragorn in the
‘Lord of the Rings’ films, I would have now with his Frank Hopkins!)
Viggo, always a most sincere and intense actor, really involved himself
fully in embodying Frank, and even more his “Blue Child’ identity,
learning with total dedication the real language of the song he is
chanting in the end. He loved that underlying theme I too just tried to
reveal in the film; when the critics managed to diminish greatly the
success such a really good film should have met, Viggo was quite
disappointed and saddened by this unjust treatment dealt to it.

I agree with him: this is a really good film. To be enjoyed without reserve by the whole family, again and again!

Cover of Hidalgo (Widescreen Edition)

Why the Body-Cells’ Participation Is Indispensable Too

Chief_cells (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

To have grasped and then also experienced directly the validity and
efficiency of the approach to Healing elaborated in Russia by
Grigori Grabovoi and his two main collaborators, and to have
celebrated that approach in my previous post, doesn’t mean that
everything that needs to be done for our body can be done that way.
There is a reason, and a very important one – an essential one even
- why Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, instead of doing it that way
too, went rather through the trouble of slowly awakening the
consciousness of their body-cells: if that is not done, nothing is
done from the point of view of physical evolution as such.

It is absolutely necessary for our cells themselves to learn the new
way of functioning, based on the New Energy, that the cells of
Mother’s body had the extremely hard task to discover on their own
and start living with. Nothing but learning this new way of
functioning will enable the very consciousness of our cells too to
awaken to the need of the Divine Presence as well as of the
development of their own divine potential.

This higher degree of consciousness that the cells constituting
Mother’s body acquired has become ‘ipso facto’ available to some degree for other
receptive cells in whatever other human body. This is how the new
way of functioning can be said to be contagious, wherever there is,
for whatever reason, the needed receptivity in another body’ cells.
Thus this new way of functioning is quietly spreading, whether the
individuals whose body starts to change are aware of it or not.

While I was in the ‘Russian Healing’ workshop, from the first day I
noticed my cells had gone very silent within me. They had withdrawn
from the nearly constant communication they normally keep up with
me. I understood immediately why: they didn’t feel concerned, as the
specific process going on didn’t call at all for their
participation. It was only my individual consciousness, in its
Higher Self identity, which was taking all the decisions and doing
all the work, the cells being only passively affected by it all.
What a contrast with our usual daily life together, in which they
had gotten used to being constantly consulted and always invited to
consciously participate! They didn’t resent the different kind of
approach that Grabovoi advocated for healing the body, but it led
them to a passive attitude themselves… just like when kids are
with their parents and the parents take the active role and make all
the decisions and treat the kids as if they were unable to
participate.

Children treated that way will never learn to listen to their own
feelings and take their own responsibilities, that means they will
never grow up into well developed and responsible adults, which is
the real purpose of the educative process.

Similarly, the overall purpose of the terrestrial evolutive process
is not just that our individual consciousnesses awaken to their
true, divine nature, but that the consciousnesses of all the cells
constituting our bodies get to do the same too, for they too are,
without knowing it, other forms of the Divine, and must awaken to
their own secret divine nature as well, with all the tremendous
potential this implies.

I know all this may seem extremely far-fetched to people exposed for
the first time to such new concepts, but this is the true Reality we
all actually live in, so we better get used to these seemingly
unimaginable things, for they are part of what will inevitably
manifest in the
new step of terrestrial evolution presently happening. How many
centuries will still be needed for such results to be fully manifested,
no one cans ay, but the process is already started in some people’s
bodies… the ultimate self-healing process, done this time by the cells
themselves!…

Overhauling the spaceship ‘Bhaga’ for ‘StarTrek: The New Evolutive Step’

Friday 22nd March 2013

 I am for the third and last day participating in that workshop in
another part of Auroville about the new method found out in Russia for
regenerating cells and full organs or bones etc (see my previous post).

Here are my preliminary, mostly happy conclusions:

1/ The main and crucially important interest I see in that method, is
that those who invented it are spiritual people first of all:
everything they recommend to do is to be done in what I would call the
right consciousness – the consciousness of our true self – and in the
right attitude towards the Divine we and everything else are part of:

‘I am in spirit, I see and act as the Creator does.

I am in the Light Stream of the Creator’

In that Higher Self consciousness, we are spontaneously attuned with All
That Is, as we are all One, part of The One. So whatever improvement we
want for ourselves we intend also to be for the improvement of the
Whole, as our next words say:

‘Rescue and harmonious development of the whole world.’

2/ The second most important element in my eyes is that those three
Russian men are also clairvoyant, which enabled them to come up with
some visual representation of how, in a precise way, our thoughts get
translated into Matter, become physical reality. The process is spoken
out step by step by the person as s/he does it:

- first as a Decision/Intent by her/his Divine Self in its capacity of
Creator, to gain control over a certain problem in her/his body;

- then the deletion of the past and present bad condition altogether out
of Time itself, as if the wrong condition had simply never existed: we
go back in time to one hour before the origin of the condition began,
and we stop henceforth participating at all in the subsequent events,
whatever they were, that initiated the problem in our body;   

- then the decision and the resulting deletion are fixed, recorded in a way, outside of Time and Space. 

The scientists provide us also with the inner images of a number of
symbolic objects that we can use then as tools for representing to
ourselves visually the various inner processes through which a specific
part of our body or the whole of it can be restored to its true way of
functioning, as it was originally and eternally still is, according to
the Norm given to it by our Creator. The result of our intervention is again fixed outside of Time and Space, so as not to be subjected to our possible mood fluctuations when back in the ordinary consciousness.

This whole process I have tried to delineate above in a very clear way
for the visitors of my blog, but it was not all that clear to me at the
beginning of the workshop, far from it.

As the hours and the days passed, though, it became clearer and clearer;
my understanding of the possible range of uses for each inner tool
presented and then tried out during an exercise did increase as well, to
the point that I started spontaneously formulating in my own way the
inner commands that needed sometimes to be used too; yesterday
afternoon, instead of the for me too long ‘Shield of Life: Active!’, I
found myself shouting inwardly the well-known brief and immediate
command used aboard the spaceship ‘Enterprise’ in the episodes of ‘Star
Trek: TNG’, that is, “Shields up!”

And this morning, as I was dressing up for that last day, I suddenly
noticed I was humming cheerfully the celebrissime tune which in each
episode of ‘Star Trek: TNG’ accompanies the celebrissime words said by
Captain Jean-Luc Picard about the mission of the ‘Enterprise’:

“Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its ongoing mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.”

Well, that was the kind of mood I was indeed in, going to that last day
of the ‘Russian Healing’ workshop!!! It says it all about my definitely
growing enthusiasm and sense of empowerment!…

And there was good reason for that: my hearing was already improving,
with the two tiny ‘crystals of my soul’ that I had visualised settling
cozily into my ears, to gently cleanse them and restore them to perfect
functioning thanks to the vibratory frequency of my soul constantly
vibrating in there through those two tiny crystals I could now almost
feel physically whenever I thought of my ears. And there was also my
heart, usually too vulnerable to unpleasant surprises and emotional
shocks; when we the various participants had together created in front
of our chests, each one for our own individual use, a small ‘Sphere of
Living Matter’, again for re-patterning to the Norm of our Creator
whatever organ or anything else in our body that needed it, the Sphere I
had just created had immediately, on its own, jumped inside my heart
and started pacifying and healing it, I could feel its very nice effect
on my heart…  

There is an exhilaration now in me for facing the Adventure of Life, which is akin to a sense of great Fun… Definitely a good sign as one more result of this workshop! Whatever the next command may need to be, as dear Jean-Luc would say: “ENGAGE!”

A derivative collage from two other files – captain Jean-Luc Picard in his quarter on the USS Enterprise-D (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Healing: A Method for Miracles, from Russia

Two Saturdays ago, a friend of mine brought me the photocopy of an article published in October 2012 by the Indian magazine ‘Life Positive’, with this fascinating title: ‘RECREATE YOUR CELLS’.
What I read was so fantastic I would have perhaps discarded it as not real if the photocopy hadn’t been given to my friend by a most serious senior Ashramite lady from the Sri Aurobindo Ashram itself. So not only did I finally keep carefully the article, I also started researching on internet this whole topic. I became really interested, to the point of wishing I had some way to get the direct experience of a workshop about this.
A few days later our little internal weekly newsletter comes out, and what do I find among the various announcements?… This one:

Russian Healer
A NEW KNOWLEDGE FOR A NEW WORLD
3 day workshop

The New Knowledge to cosmic consciousness is used for the rescue and harmonious development of the world. This workshop is based on the research of Russian scientists around Gregori Grabovoi. It is all about taking responsibility for our own healing and the healing of the world. We raise our consciousness through perception. The spiritual expansion leads towards a change of reality and we are acting on our Creator level.
This practical seminar will provide you with a wide range of methods you can use to expand your concentration, raise your awareness and thereby achieve your results. We are learning various techniques which allow us to renew the cellular information, as well as there is the possibility of recreation of organs, teeth, etc… Your concentration can bring immediate results.

Facilitator’s comments: Since many years I have been learning and teaching different holistic healing methods. The ‘New Knowledge’ actually helped me a lot to understand what happens during healing. Practicing with this method brings clarity and a sharp focus towards healing, which leads to amazing results.’

I couldn’t believe my eyes!!! Here was the very workshop I had wished for…!
As soon as I recovered from the joyful shock of this incredible ‘coincidence’, I phoned the facilitator and registered my name at once.

Air du Large

 

Hier soir, j’ai passé du temps allongée sous les étoiles sur ma petite terrasse “Plein Ciel”, simple plateforme découverte, érigée entre ciel et terre. Là, l’euphorie habituelle de la brise marine passant sur moi m’a reprise comme souvent, et faible témoignage des profonds sentiments qui me relient à la plage et à l’océan, un fervent poème a pris forme en moi, que j’ai mis par écrit depuis. Le voici, dédié à l”Air du Large”:

 

Combien de fois sur mon visage
T’ai-je senti,
Air du Large?

 

Combien de fois au cours des âges
T’ai-je chéri,
Air du Large?

 

Ce vent frais, fort, qui caresse au passage,
Vent d’Infini,
Air du Large…

 

Sur ma terrasse au-dessus de la plage
Je te bénis,
Air du Large,

 

Vent de Vastitude où je nage,
Epanouie,
Air du Large…

 

De ta légèreté sauvage
Tu me remplis,
Air du Large…

 

De ce que j’aime en ce monde d’images,
Tu fais partie,
Air du Large:

 

Tu me rappelles, à la fois fort et sage,
Ce que Je Suis,
Air du Large…

 

Ports and Beach Resorts, the Worst Threats for the World’s Beaches

The acute coastal erosion problem we are facing here has made me discover the heavy responsibility of the ports everywhere in setting up the erosion process, by interrupting the natural flow of sand that normally replenishes the beaches along the coasts all year long. The accelerated beach erosion noticed in the last decades on most coasts of the world is usually blamed on the sea level rising due to the so-called ‘global warming’, but actually the main cause of the erosion is the blind, avid multiplication and expansion of ports, done in most cases without applying the measures that would protect the beaches.
Humanity obviously needs both ports and beaches, so a balance must be re-established and kept between the two for the true overall benefit of the Earth’s populations.

But this would be only the first step needed, the first and most urgent problem being addressed; another one is coming close second, that we have to be careful about as well: while protecting the beaches, ‘developing’ those beaches shouldn’t mean simply giving free rein to yet another form of economical greed and abuse of Nature’s gifts, the only difference being that it would lead this time not to ever more ports but to ever more luxury ‘Beach Resorts’ filling up the coastal landscape with concrete buildings.

India is at least trying its best to avoid the West’s past mistakes in this regard, by forbidding permanent constructions close to the shore, and it is a good thing, but perhaps another approach could be tried too, that in Auroville is being tried:

In Auroville we are learning to use lighter materials and techniques for the living quarters and the collective facilities needed here in Repos, directly near the ocean, in order to welcome there the Aurovilians and Guests from other parts of Auroville; many of these people  are coming from the West, know how to swim, surf, etc, and understandably want to go on having those healthy activities in their life here too.

But for the future of all this to be environmentally sustainable, the luxurious lifestyle that has been artificially linked with all these beach various modes of enjoyment must disappear to a large extent, for this lifestyle is merely an unnecessary accretion added to activities that could very well be practiced at a fraction of the cost by the innumerable simple people who don’t care about a status statement and just want in their leisure time to enjoy the beach and those beach sports they love. 

For India itself too the same change of attitude towards the beaches and their use would be very beneficial, I would think.
During the forty years I have been living on and off here on the Auroville seaside, it has been so depressing to see in the water only the fishermen, who do that mostly for a living, rarely for pleasure: it isn’t part of the culture.
Besides them and us beach-lovers from Auroville, the only other persons to ever come on the beach were other Indian males, in their forties, winding their way out of some nearby restaurant, a bottle of alcohol still in their hand, all looking not for the great sight of the ocean, but for the great sight of the Western women in bikini they had been told could be seen on this beach. Our poor lifeguards had more often than not to save those inebriated males from drowning, for, being drunk, they forgot that they didn’t know how to swim, and they blithely went into the waves anyway.
There has been a time when these types came here from far away by the bus load, or were brought right here by the local taxi or autorickshaw drivers. How charming.
Then there has been the even worse phase of the crowds of younger guys arriving in groups on their bikes from Pondy or surrounding villages and taking pictures avidly with their cellphones of any bikini girl in sight, to put them up later on various Internet sites. How charming again.
Well, all this is starting to change.
It is such a pleasure for me to watch now more and more Indian people coming to the beach just for the sheer genuine enjoyment of being in the ocean, those who can’t swim playing at least with the waves. The girls too do it, and even the ladies in sarees can be seen out there, making a stronger line by holding hands while standing bravely and letting themselves cheerfully be drenched again and again by each coming wave, everybody laughing their head off and screaming with excitement and delight.
What happened??? How did such a change take place???
Well, there is another beach place, not yet known by outsiders, where since more than a year most of the girls in bikini from Auroville itself find a more discrete refuge. After the cyclone (end of December), for several months the sight of any bikini at all has become rare here – and so have the drunken or cellphone equipped voyeurs. Simple, isn’t it?…
Beginning of July, when the violent waves of June that have eroded things so badly here finally quieted down (my deepest thanks again to all those of you who helped inwardly for that), the very next Sunday, bright and sunny, was the first time I saw a big Indian crowd having genuine fun out there.
What an illuminating sight.
As I watched them, amazed, in their innocent mass revelry, it dawned on me that perhaps our Western way of wearing smaller and smaller swimsuits to go swimming just wasn’t right here.
Tanning is an obsession in India like in the West, but in the reverse way, rather amusing to see for the Westerner I still am in this kind of superficial outer habits: here no one wants to tan, everyone tries on the contrary to become whiter, and all the ads you see for beauty products, even for men, must claim that the product makes your skin also fairer!!! So no one here is seen lying down on the beach, as uncovered as possible, and as exposed to the sun as possible. That all those   Westerners wish to become sun-tanned is quite incomprehensible for an Indian person.
I suddenly remember that not so long ago, we Western ladies didn’t want to tan either, and large hats as well as umbrellas were not only fashion items, but beauty musts too for any refined lady not wanting to ruin her delicate rosy complexion…!
I am not mocking either attitude, mind you, because I have been there too on both sides in one lifetime or the other, but still, how laughable it all is: it’s only a question of the current fashion, all fashion implying that people feel they must follow it or be socially disgraced and ostracized…
Our evolutive future will free us from this collective compulsion: more focused on our own individual uniqueness, and respecting and appreciating that of others too, each one of us will value genuine self-expression more than any dictated fashion.
In Auroville it is already visibly that way, you see as many styles of dressing as you see individual Aurovilians. It is a small thing, but still, already quite liberating, I must say!
The interesting phenomenon that happened next on this beach is that the few Westerners that did come here recently, either were wearing swimsuits, but not being too many, they blended in all right nevertheless; and the others felt by themselves that after all they too could swim in ordinary clothes, just as most of those Indian people were doing, and they gleefully did the same!!!
So the whole scene has changed quite a lot, compared to what it was in the past. I am still digesting the lessons that it seems to indicate as to how to use this beach in the best fitting manner as Aurovilians, supposed to somehow ‘give the good example’ always…
The real problem is not so much the way we human beings dress, but the presently excessive and unhealthy focus most of our societies have developed over sexual matters and the freedom to be left or not to women, of dressing the way they want, just as men are mostly allowed to (still within limits of course) in most countries.
It is not by chance that for the time being beaches, not only in India but more or less everywhere in the world, are seen as the places where you can ‘let your hair down’ and allow yourself more freedom than in other social circumstances. A sunny beach is the very symbol of holidays for most of the Western world, and that is only natural, and perfectly okay. But because of that ever spreading influence everywhere through the invasion by male Westerners looking for exotic pleasures their euros or dollars can buy, poor countries that used to be self-respecting and respectable are now falling to the degrading lure of ‘sex-tourism’. Sex and drugs are what Westerners are more and more known as wanting, and what they are more and more automatically offered wherever they go.
I am really ashamed that this is what our culture is presently doing to all those other cultures.
In India there is since long Goa, but there at least that tendency is somehow softer, less depraved. There remains still something of the idealism of the Sixties and of the Hippies who started it all in Goa. But now the way some other beaches in other parts of India are already busy catering unquestioningly to the Westerners’ and other tourists’ most common wants is quite alarming. It is a rush for money first, even if it comes at the cost of the most honored traditional values. And money itself, one can see it all the way up to the so-called highest levels of our societies, is almost invariably used for easy sex again, at the risk of the scandals no politician or businessman is immune to.
Here itself, right on the other side of our fence, in the guest-houses hastily built both by some local villagers and by some rich Pondy developers, the same downward trend is there.
All this is going so fast, it is frightening.
How can the presence in this area of a growing city as special as Auroville help slow down this trend?
How can we show some other way to make use of beaches, than this so sad and utterly distorted way?
One more challenge, then, that Auroville has on its plate: not only the physical erosion, but the erosion of the human beings themselves and their life-style, because of the wrong way the ‘globalization’ of our world has been happening until now.
It is not yet over though, Evolution will not let us wallow much longer in this disastrous collective muddy ditch!
Let’s try already to do whatever we can here, in those little Auroville places on the beach, to show another way…

There is a very different, specific trend of tourism that has spontaneously developed around these two linked spiritual centres that are the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry, and Auroville just nearby in Tamil Nadu. The kind of tourists who flock here are mostly not the same as those who go to Goa or to Kauvalam. They want a different atmosphere, one that is elevating and conducive to the meditations and spiritual states those special tourists are after.  Many, from abroad as well as various parts of India, are disciples of Sri Aurobindo and Mother since long, old friends of the Ashram and Auroville – and for some of them, friends specifically of Repos too…

And there are now these young adults, again from all parts of India but the younger generation, preferring to come to the simple life in Repos’ humble Guest-Huts, rather than to the usual Beach Resorts or Hotels most other youth go to… Some of them get so interested also in the new way spirituality is being lived here, they are following this blog as well..! 

So let’s do our best, all together, to keep the new atmosphere of this place protected from the intrusion of the unwanted kind of tourists! As the Mother put it so simply, defining actually criteria that make all the difference, making people sort themselves out automatically:

‘Are invited to Auroville all those who thirst for progress and aspire to a higher and truer life.’

These are the ones who are also welcome to Repos! 

Another Healing Miracle… from a Cake

Health (Photo credit: 401(K) 2012)

An indelible memory I have of another case of a spontaneous and instantaneous healing I myself saw happening to someone else, is a great testimony to the extraordinary healing power of food, when associated with comforting childhood memories:

An American Aurovilian I lived with for five years, who normally was in quite good health, one day fell ill for no known reason, and within a few days had to take to his bed and remain there because of his increasing weakness. I don’t remember if there were other symptoms, but  all appetite had gone, so he was practically not eating anything, and the weakness kept increasing alarmingly.  I myself never had had to take care of an ill person before, so I was doing what I could to help in the small ways at my disposal, but many of his friends kept coming to visit, bringing one medicine after the other that they were sure was going to help, but that didn’t have any effect whatsoever on the prostrate condition of the patient.
Things were becoming so bad as days kept passing without any improvement in my companion’s health, people were now entering his room  on tiptoes and were speaking with me in the low voices you hear only in hospital rooms. I was indeed starting to consider calling a medical doctor, in spite of our shared reluctance to do so. I was prepared to wait only a few more days if it was going on like this.
And then one visitor came, who happened not to even know personally the ill person, she was just a passing guest, but as a fellow American from the same region, she had heard, as the patient, she had felt like cooking something for him, that she had brought along and was timidly offering: a special cake very appreciated in that region, but she wasn’t sure she should even propose it, as it was such a rich food, full of stuff no person in that almost dying condition should ever ingest.
Still, I sent her to the bedside of my poor companion, so that she herself could explain to him what exactly she had brought for him. As she spoke, I saw a faint smile grace his white, lifeless lips, and he thanked her with a grateful look from his half-closed eyes.
She left. I put the cake away into the safety of the cupboard, wondering if I shouldn’t eat it myself soon with the help of some other friends, so that something prepared with such good  and loving intentions wouldn’t go wasted.
I was about to tiptoe out of the room to let my friend rest after this visit, when I heard his voice feebly calling, and I quickly went back towards his bed.  I noticed his eyes had some tiny bit of light in them as I leaned and he whispered into my ear,
“Could I please have some of that cake she brought?”
I couldn’t believe what I had just heard. And then I hesitated too, before giving him the symbolic slim slice I hoped he would be able to keep in, so slim I hoped also it wouldn’t disturb too much his already exhausted organism.
As I helped him to half-sit, he gulped that tiny slice of cake in one single mouthful, and asked for more.
My mind in a daze, I complied.
He wolfed that second slice down just as quickly, and asked for more.
Quite alarmed now, I wanted to discuss with him, but he insisted quietly but firmly, so I again complied.
After a few more slices like this, sensing that something extraordinary was going on, I brought the whole cake to him on its plate, settling it down on a stool next to his bed so that he could take some whenever he felt like it, even if I happened not to be around at that moment.

About ten minutes later, I  came back to check if he was still all right with all those pieces of cake he had eaten; I don’t remember for sure, but I might have been bringing a discrete small bucket to leave by his bedside too, just in case all this too rich food would already need to come right out again.
I couldn’t believe my eyes; there he was, sitting straight up in his bed against his propped up pillows, looking at me with the broadest grin on his beaming face. On the stool, the plate was empty. Scraped clean. Not the tiniest crumb of that big cake was left.
He chuckled softly:
“Bhaga, I’m feeling much better!”
I came closer, asking, my eyes wide with stupefaction:
“My goodness, what was in this cake, to have such a miraculous effect on you?!?”
He lowered his eyes, and after a short hesitation confessed, still smiling:
“Well, you know, this happened to be exactly the kind of cake my mom was baking for me at home when I was a kid. When that girl told me this was the kind of cake she had brought, I knew at once that I had to try it. And for the first time in days I felt slightly hungry, just to think of that cake, so that was the sign that my body too wanted it! And yes, it was just as my mom was doing it, perfect… Oh, you can’t imagine how much I enjoyed eating that kind of cake again!!! And the more I ate of it, the better I felt, so I kept eating! I think it did me real good, I feel almost normal now, actually, like I could even walk!”
And there goes indeed my half-dead patient, scrambling to his feet and standing unaided, while I was the one gaping and about to swoon  at this astonishing sight!…
Do I need to tell that there was no relapse?
From that blessed day on, my friend’s health returned as mysteriously as it had faded away before.
I strongly suspect it was a case of intense home-sickness after all those hard years in Auroville, far away from one’s culture and everything that made up one’s life previously. But if that is a more potent factor than one would imagine, a factor quite capable of bringing down an adult unaware of or unwilling to admit his own deep feelings of emotional distress, too easily dismissed as childish and irrelevant, the magical cure of the mysterious disease revealed in this case unmistakably what the problem, childish or not, had been all along, and proved that sometimes the richest of foods can be not only totally innocuous to a patient, but become the very saving grace for him or her… if that food happens to be one of the patient’s favorite ones from childhood days and mom’s own cooking!…

Shall I mention my private weakness sometimes for some specific very French foods, like for example sandwiches ‘jambon-beurre’ – made with a French ‘baguette’ of course…! My friends returning from France know also that some simple ‘saucissons secs’ are the best treat they can bring back for me… that is, if they cannot afford ‘le top du top’: a small tin of real ‘foie gras’…!
And then, for the ‘me’ from another lifetime, there is also the couscous, characteristic very ancient traditional Berber food that the Berber in me craves from time to time too!!! So much so, that I had to write a whole post some time ago about those ‘Berber cravings’ in this present non-Berber lifetime…
Or if it is still something else my body needs, that I don’t think myself of taking in, my body has found an amusing way of letting me know: it sends me an image of what it wants! Suddenly in my vacant mind comes floating the image of mashed potatoes, for instance… Or it is directly the taste of the needed item that my body puts on my taste-buds; or the aroma of that food is suddenly there in my nostrils, although none of it is physically present; then I know what I am asked to do, and just like with my sick friend whose body knew it wanted me to give it that cake, I don’t argue: I just comply!!!

Food is such a fundamental part of our being’s make-up, physically for sure but emotionally as well if not more, we have to acknowledge the place it has in our lives. Even the android Data, in the very same episode of Star Trek TNG, ‘Deja Q’, mentioned in my previous post, has observed how for example the ship’s Counselor, the empath from Betazed, Deanna Troi, whenever upset, will tend to go for ‘something chocolate’!… He also observed that it does have wonderful results, and he is right: anything that will improve our sense of enjoyment will automatically improve our health too – as long as it is not some addictive substance that disturbs the natural functioning of the body and makes it dependant of its use, however negative its effects might be for the body.

Conversely, even the best food in the world nutritionally speaking will not profit much to the body if it is eaten only because we are being forced to eat it.

Or it might be like what happened to Q, feeling hungry for the first time of his life as he is now a mere Human: assuming he is probably very hungry from never having eaten before, and following Data’s advice regarding chocolate as a mood regulator, as his mood was dreadful he has ordered ten chocolate sundaes, but when the two full trays are finally brought to their table, he is disgruntled from some additional bad news that have just come, and he realizes he is not hungry any more!!!
In most cases, once again, we see it all comes down to the simple state of well-being we usually call ‘happiness’…

And an additional benefit, literally, that should be mentioned too: health in that way, instead of having to be secured at the cost of ever more money, will become on the contrary a wonderful money-saver!

A Small Healing Miracle… thanks to ‘Star Trek: TNG’

For the entire duration of last week I was in a pitiful state: after a previous week already on the almost depressive side, my thinking power too had been affected in the following days, as my brain kept feeling like it was buried in a thick, gluey smog and was barely able to function at all, even for the simplest everyday things to be done. Days and nights were both spent in a kind of very unusual and very unpleasant sleepwalking condition, in which I found myself totally unable to do anything about the pressing, urgent task of preparing the necessary estimates for the possible fund-raising operation someone wants to start doing for Repos. This was such a terribly important opportunity for this place, it couldn’t be missed, and yet, there I was, paralyzed mentally even more than physically, and not making any progress on preparing those estimates. My poor brain couldn’t even bear the thought of those estimates needing to be prepared!… It actually hurt, it was that bad.
So the Saturday before, at the end of the usual three episodes of ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation’ I had looked at (together as always with my usual accomplice, my Aurovilian colleague and best friend N.), instead of feeling good as usual, I had burst into silent sobs of utter compassion for the Romulan Admiral who had become a defector and asked for asylum aboard the ‘Enterprise’ in order to warn Jean-Luc Picard – and through him the entire Federation – of the massive attack planned by his colleagues from a well-hidden planet in the Neutral Zone.
After a lifetime of being himself totally given to the war against the Federation, this Admiral was now also a father, and that suddenly had made a big change in him: he wanted peace for his dear daughter’s future, so he didn’t want to risk the precarious peace already arrived at between the Romulan Empire and the Federation. As all his attempts to convince the other high-ranked Romulans of his new perspective on things had failed, he had resorted to this last extremity in the hope that his sacrifice would prevent the reopening of hostilities secretly planned by his country.
Alas, as it turned out, the whole so-called plan was only faked by the others, fake ‘information’ had been ‘leaked’ to him, just to make him reveal himself, and at the same time to attract the ‘Enterprise’ into a trap: the planet the ship came to check had several cloaked Romulan warbirds waiting, and the ‘Enterprise’ would have indeed been caught if our dear Jean-Luc, always quite clever too, hadn’t prepared also a little surprise of his own: a few cloaked Klingon war vessels, suddenly uncloaking when the Romulans already thought they had won… and convincing them at once to leave it at that, and go away.
It was a happy end for the Federation, but for the Romulan defector, the disgrace still was complete, and there was no way he could ever be any more considered as anything but a traitor by his countrymen, as long as they would go on being so war-inclined. So, entrusting to Captain Picard a letter of explanation only for his wife and his daughter some day, he committed suicide with the poison he carried on himself in case of torture, preferring to die rather than live for ever in exile from his beloved country.
The sad sight of the complete outer failure of this man after he had tried everything for that good cause reminded me powerfully of my own difficulties in saving what was dear to me and precious, I felt, also to Auroville, and I did feel some tears running down my cheeks…

So this Saturday I wasn’t too sure if the next episodes of Star Trek that we would be watching would do me any good.
The first two were quite all right…

And then came the third one… “Oh no! Not ‘Q’ again!!!”
This arrogant, cynical and totally unpredictable member of the Q Continuum, like all other Q immortal and endowed with enormous godlike powers, has been so often bothering or even seriously endangering Jean-Luc and his friends on the ‘Enterprise’, his recurring appearance is a frustrating occurrence every time; but little by little even he is impressed and starts liking especially Jean-Luc, and through him comes to respect the potential of Humans as a species.
In this episode, called ‘Deja Q‘, once again he materializes on the Bridge inside the spaceship, but as a stark naked human, stripped as well of all his normal powers by a decision of the other Q, tired of his constant mischief in all the universes. Quickly provided with some clothes, he does his best to curb his arrogant and selfish behavior in order to convince everyone that in his new situation as a human he can be a valuable member of the crew and should be accepted as such aboard the Enterprise, in spite of all the bad tricks he has played on them in other occasions: he doesn’t know where else to go, and finds himself now totally vulnerable to the attacks from the other creatures he has wronged previously everywhere. He soon realizes, though, that because of his presence aboard the Enterprise, the ship is being attacked more and more dangerously. Coming to his help, Data the android gets almost killed as well. Finally, ashamed of the colossal egoism and cowardice he discovers in himself as a simple human, although he knows that in his new mortal condition he will probably face the end of his life, he goes out on his own in a shuttle craft to draw the attacks on himself and save the ‘Enterprise’. The attempts by Jean-Luc etc to protect him by bringing him back all mysteriously fail and we quickly discover why: just as his attackers come near, another Q appears inside the shuttle and explains that his unexpected act of selflessness has been noticed; as it shows he can still change for the better, he is given a second chance and all his powers back! To be used more wisely than before…
All this sound like a very serious story, and it is, but at the same time because of the somewhat very childish huge personality of Q it becomes constantly a comedy and a farce; his histrionic tendency comes back full blast with the joy of being given back his powers: he soon re-appears on the Bridge in an explosion of noisy south-American music, all dressed-up in the colorful human garb he feels most fitting to express his exultation; seeing that this is not much appreciated, he tries giving to this or that member of the crew what he imagines would be to their liking (sexy women appear by their side!…), and when that too is not much appreciated, he graciously leaves, still in fabulous and gentle mood, promising to dear android Data a great special present.

A derivative collage from two other files – captain Jean-Luc Picard in his quarter on the USS Enterprise-D (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Moments later, the usually very serious face of Data suddenly shows quite a surprised and surprising change, as he attempts several times to express a completely new and unknown inner happening, and finally does it fully, erupting into such irresistible laughter that we too, the onlookers, can’t help but laughing uncontrollably with him, and the flabbergasted crew members too start joining in, or at least smiling happily, seeing that their beloved Data is realizing at last, thanks to Q’s gratitude, one of his dearest dreams: to laugh, just like a human does!

Well, on my sofa, I for one was laughing like I had not done since days, and kept laughing with complete glee.
And I started immediately feeling much better than I had for days.
The next morning, after a rather normal night of sleep, I woke up with my head free and clear again, and my normal thinking capacity – whatever that is!… – restored.
And I wondered once again at the marvelous healing power of this so simple but deep thing in us: Laughter. Pure Fun.
Like Data said with softened eyes and voice after his own sudden experience of it,
‘It is such a wonderful… feeling…’   
  

To ‘Recover the Lost Habit of Happiness’…

My friends on Facebook know it already, although you don’t know about it yet here, because of my technical incapacity to bring such links here too, and not just on my Facebook space: a few days ago a momentous minuscule event happened in my life, which I was waiting for since about thirty years.
Here goes:
A short piece of music by Vangelis that I had heard long ago at a friend’s place in another part of Auroville, and which had had a most wonderful effect on me, had remained since then a mystery and a loss, as I didn’t know the title of that song – it was a song -, nor even the title of the album it was from, and my friend, with all the many CDs of Vangelis music he possessed, had never been able to guess what that specific piece was, from the little I remembered of it later: the melody, and the words on which every verse ended, very striking to me, as they were ‘I’m happy, that is all I know…’ 
A few days ago while searching Vangelis on Google because of his Oscar-winning opening score for ‘Chariots of Fire’ (see my posts about that great film), celebrated again right now and played many times during these present Olympic Games happening in UK itself, it suddenly occurred to me to google precisely those words I remembered from that mysterious other piece, together with the name of Vangelis.
And the miracle happened. There it was on the screen, the title of my beloved song I had been looking for since so long: ‘My Face in the Rain‘, from the album called ‘Earth’, 1973.
My heart full of an almost sacred expectation, I listened to it again after all those years, and again it had on me the same so wonderful effect: the simple, true happiness it sang of flowed into my being again, calmly but irresistibly, from within.

Vangelis – My face in the rain lyrics</a>
If by the time I post this there is still no link in it allowing you to listen to that song directly yourself, please do find your own way to it, so that the rest of this post brings its intended benefits to you too, with my comments on it down below:
Being a researcher, in the intervening years I have learnt to observe exactly the whys and the hows of what is happening within me, so this time around I almost immediately noticed what was producing that effect on me; it was two fold:

1/ the lyrics and their very meaning:

    My face in the rain
I walk all alone
It’s Sunday, time is slow
I’m happy, that is all I know

2/ the rhythm of the melody, the way the song is sung, literally breathing these words out, actually as if they were written like this:

    My face…
In the rain…
I walk…
All alone…
It’s Sunday…
Time is slow…
I’m happy…
That is all I know…

Just try it yourself, simply breathing in, before breathing out each little line and letting it fade away into silence; then again breathing in, and breathing out the next little line…
What’s really happening is that you are slowing down your breath ever so naturally, and focusing in that way on your physical being, ever so naturally again, totally effortlessly. Automatically, you are relaxing, and your consciousness is settling back from your head and hectic mind to your body and its soon quieting physicality.

Now back to the words:
You will notice that what the words say describe precisely this very inner state when we go away from mental activity and somehow reconnect with our physicalness, generally by a renewed contact with our physical environment:
‘My face in the rain (or ‘to the sun’, as in the next verse, otherwise identical)… describes that contact deliberately looked for;
‘I walk…’, which is not ‘I run’ with its eagerness and excitement;
‘All alone’ doesn’t mean loneliness but the opportunity to turn inward and be more deeply oneself, in silence instead of the constant chatter and superficiality that company usually makes inevitable.
‘It’s Sunday’ brings in the ‘vacation’ feeling of having no duty, no work to do, and so, of having all the time you want… expressed next, so utterly well, by ‘Time is slow…’
… And the perfect result of that blissful absent-mindedness but full presence to the moment, that needs no justification, no reason for just being:
Happiness, all round and peaceful, both self-contained and feeling at one with everything else in the universe…
‘I’m happy, that is all I know…’

There you have it all, the inner contents, so to say, of simple happiness, and of the magic it works on our being.

I have tried above to bring your attention to the few necessary ‘ingredients’ that make the ‘recipe’ for what could be called, yes, daringly, ‘Instant Happiness’, for indeed such a recipe is there, only we don’t know it.
That simple song is providing it all to us.

Now why am I giving so much importance to happiness?…
Because it is our natural, divine way of being.
So much so, that it is what keeps our body in a state of health as well (see my post ‘Gesundheit’).
This is why Sri Aurobindo had that lovely line about happiness, as the ‘lost habit’ that we must ‘recover’, for happiness must become again our natural, spontaneous, constant state of being .
Remember ‘Mother’s Five Points Program’ (see my post), this short message by Mother indicating the five inner states that constitute the ideal inner attitude for doing this  ‘Integral Yoga’, this process of all rounded Conscious Evolution of all the parts of our being? Happiness is part of it of course. And how to be happy in the present condition of the world and of humanity, one might ask: by remembering always that it’s going to change, and better yet, it IS changing! Our personal, individual happiness is actually one of the things that help everything else to change faster, so let’s get on with it!!!
My own way of training myself to ‘recover the lost habit of happiness’, is to use songs such as the lovely one from Vangelis, and other similarly helpful songs, in whatever language happens to touch and move me, but with that particular rhythm that fits with one’s breathing and brings our whole being to this wonderful feeling that

‘It’s Sunday, Time is slow, I’m happy, that is all I know…’

An Early ‘NDE’ from ‘Life’ Magazine, in ‘Mother’s Agenda’

In the extensive research I have done over the years in that so invaluable 13 volume document called ‘Mother’s Agenda’, which, the Mother explains, means her ‘Diary’ (in French the word ‘agenda’ has often this meaning), I was very glad to find the telling of an authentic ‘NDE’ (Near Death Experience) long before that name was coined during the Seventies by the researchers who studied that newly discovered phenomenon.

Of course NDEs have always taken place in some human beings here and there, and a few reports of such occurrences exist since long past Antiquity, but no one had really put together those known occurrences and recognized them as the same basic phenomenon. In the same way, at the time (July 22, 1967) when the Mother came to know about the story she mentions in the text down below, there was in the world no background yet of research into that whole topic, as would become available in the following decade. Nevertheless, the Mother immediately felt the evolutive importance of what was reported, and said so openly.

I was especially glad that she reached at once such a conclusion, as by the time I read that text in the 1967 volume of the ‘Agenda’, I had myself turned into an avid NDE researcher too, as I felt certain this kind of experience was becoming one of the main means used by the Evolutive Force to open up people spiritually in greater numbers than had been possible until then through the normally slow processes of spiritual development. But few were the other researchers, unaware as they generally were of any new step in terrestrial evolution, to reach such daring conclusions as mine, that it was all part of the new ‘strategy’ of the Evolutive Force to awaken spiritually a maximum of human beings in a minimum of time so as to make them ready for the great changes about to happen. When I discovered these comments by the Mother about that lone instance she was informed about at that early time, anticipating unwittingly the field of intensive research it did become later, I took those comments joyfully as a great confirmation that my own conclusions had indeed been right… Rewarding moment for a researcher!…

Here is what Mother had to say:

‘In a magazine (I think it’s Life, an American magazine), they published the story of a man (who is in fact one of the editors or administrators of the magazine), a man who was given an injection of penicillin but was allergic to penicillin. And lo and behold, all his cells begin to dissolve, while he, entirely conscious and as if concentrated in his brain, watches the dissolution. When it reached up to the heart, the doctors declared him dead…. The impression it had on him was that the cells had a kind of expanding movement, then burst and dissolved one after another: feet, legs, abdomen, everything. And when it reached the heart, the doctor said, “He’s dead.”  But he had taken refuge in his brain and thought, “I must hold out; if I can hold out here, concentrate and resist here, all will be well.” And that’s what he did. Then he felt all at once a power, he says, something so luminous, so beautiful, so gentle, so… so much more full of love than anything else in the

brains! (Photo credit: cloois)

world, such a marvelous sensation… that he let himself melt into it, and after some time, order returned everywhere and he came back to life! He describes that. He describes it (with sentences: it’s in a magazine, so he makes sentences), but his experience is really interesting. You see, because of that will to concentrate in what he conceived to be the essential part of his being, the center of his life, he suddenly found himself in the presence of that “power”…. He said he tried to recapture it afterwards, but “I forget what it was, I no longer remember, except for that sensation, more marvelous than anything one can conceive.”2

I found that interesting.

And that brought him back to life.

(silence)

I took it as one of the signs that the Force is really at work. Because I don’t think that man had done any yoga, he knew nothing about those things; he is just a gentleman-who’s-had-an-injection-of-penicillin which he can’t tolerate (those accidents happen often enough), nothing else. There was just this idea that the brain is the conscious part of the being, and if he concentrated there… His idea was, “I want to know what’s happening, I want to be conscious of what’s happening, I want to see what’s happening.” So that’s what pulled the Force. A simple thing.

It seems to me there is a progress in human consciousness – that’s my impression.

An awakening.’