March 2009 Archives

According to news reports that came in last week, the Dalai Lama was denied a visa from the South Africa government to attend a peace conference in Johannesburg that would have been attended by five other Nobel Peace prize winners.

Officials believed that banning the Dalai Lama would keep the focus of the conference on the upcoming 2010 World Cup Soccer Tournament and away from messy politics. They probably did not anticipate Archbishop Desmond Tutu and former president F. W. de Klerk dropping out of the conference in protest of the Dalai Lama's dismissal.

Even members of the South African government, such as Health Minister Barbara Hogan, is angered by the decision and believes the South African government owes an apology to all its citizens.

Why would a country that freed itself from an apartheid government deny entry to a spiritual leader who speaks on behalf of 5.4 million Tibetans being oppressed by the Chinese government?

Herein lies the double standard of foreign policy. Though South Africa may have a history of championing human rights and democracy, this nation also depends heavily on Chinese markets for buying its rich natural resources.

Perhaps no person can sum it up better than Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who himself has been jailed and had his passport revoked from his own government for his opposition to apartheid in the 1980's. He called the government's decision "disgraceful" for "shamelessly succumbing to Chinese pressure."

The peace conference has been completely cancelled by the resulting outcry.

In a graceful response that underscores his peaceful nature, the Dalai Lama responded that he does not want to ""cause any embarrassment or inconvenience," and that ironically, the visa refusal has helped further publicize the Tibetan cause.

Mallika Chopra blogs regularly at Intent.com

President Obama is meeting with resistance to some of his biggest and most daring plans for change. He repeats over and over that he is open to suggestions from all sides. When the Republicans balked at his current budget, he asked them to provide one of their own. They didn't, and the reason comes down to closed minds versus open minds. Much of the opposition to change -- and not just from the right wing -- comes from a rigid mindset and clinging to the past.

It's typical of a closed mind to defend itself. Whether it's the right wing going back to Reaganomics, huge banks throwing a fit over regulation, or Wall Street resisting any interference with inflated bonuses, there's a stubborn resistance to change. The issues involved, even the principles being espoused, are beside the point. What a closed mind always wants to protect is its right to be closed.

I'm impressed by the phrase "the tyranny of dead ideas," which is also the title of a new book by business journalist Matt Miller. His topic is economics, and the dead ideas he examines are on the order of "Your company should take care of you" and "Your kids will earn more than you do." Some dead ideas protect us from painful truths, in this case, the truth that companies won't take care of you and maybe your kids won't earn as much as you do. But painful or not, dead ideas blind us to reality and close our minds to change.

Here, then, are some ways to get in touch with reality in the fastest and most efficient way, which is to renounce those habits that close your mind.

1. Stop believing that you're right. Examine the compulsion that forces you to be right all the time.
2. Don't make every argument us versus them.
3. Be less attached to winning and more attached to the truth.
4. Don't color every issue with morality. Right and wrong are generally useless when it comes to finding creative solutions.
5. Write down the five fundamental beliefs that guide your life. Now write down the best arguments against those beliefs.
6. When you are the most emotional about any issue, assume that you are blinding yourself. An open mind is calm, centered, flexible, and tolerant of opposing views.
7. When you are thinking of saying an idea that you know came from someone else, let go of it.
8. Most people either automatically agree or automatically disagree. Examine this trait in yourself and give it up.
9. Be aware of how you feel before you speak. Feelings are closer to the truth than words.
10. Walk in someone else's shoes before you judge them.

These are lifelong lessons, and yet they're worth learning today, this very minute. To be in the company of open-minded people is to breathe freer air. Being in the company of the passionately convinced is to suffocate. It's tempting to grab the common coin of opinion and spend it like real money. Right now common opinion says, among other things, greed got us into this mess, the credit system is frozen, Wall Street destroyed the economy, bonuses are evil, the national debt is going to cripple our children and grandchildren. Yet these are all false coins, the tokens of second-hand thinking, received opinion, and the refusal to think for oneself.

I'm not saying these opinions are wrong. There's a different point: If you stick a fixed idea in your head, you've effectively closed your mind. Speaking personally, I had accepted the fixed notion that the credit system was frozen. You hear this every day, and nobody seems to contradict it. Yet I subsequently read an analysis that concluded that American banks loaned more in the last quarter of 2008 than the year before. If true, it paints a more complex picture, one closer to reality. AIG has become the poster child for the evil of retention bonuses, but then I read a letter in the New York Times from an AIG employee who points out that his bonus had nothing to do with credit default swaps but with work he did to help the company get out of those toxic swaps (and repay the company's bailout loan). Again, the reality and the fixed notion don't fit.

A Sunday morning pundit remarked that the economic crisis is going through the six stages of grief. We started with denial, and now we're on to anger, with the next stage, bargaining, on the horizon. I believe we're in a much simpler place. We're deciding whether to face reality or not. After a long period of economic delusion and reactionary ideology, our only hope is to face reality. But we can't do that and cling to a closed mind at the same time.

Published in the San Francisco Chronicle

Emotional turbulence interferes with emotional well being and initiative. Fear, anger, guilt and anxiety are deviations from natural condition of balance and stand in the way of spiritual evolution. Restoring balance can be evolutionary in itself.
Patients suffering from life threatening illness often report that their diseases have taught them to love and value the other people in their lives more deeply than before they became ill. During recovery they learn to appreciate and understand areas of life that they took for granted before. Overcoming anxiety can bring the same disguised benefits that dealing with a physical illness can bring. Anger, fear, and worry are not diseases, but we can grow from them even as we process them to become the person we want to be.
By resorting to our inherent intelligence, harmony and creativity, we engage our ability to manifest a positive outcome, but if we are emotionally turbulent, then we are too agitated to access to that field of potentiality. Through meditation we experience our silent self beyond our thoughts and emotions. This is our internal reference point for equilibrium and from where we can create a desired outcome. To restore balance in our life, meditation must therefore be an essential ingredient. It is also important to support this with balanced activity in the basic areas of diet, exercise and sleep. Assuming these fundamental balancing components are in place, I would offer an additional exercise to specifically address what to do in the face of intense anxiety and fear.
Emotional distress is a form of pain. If we learn how to recognize pain as soon as possible, we can also learn how to effectively metabolize and eliminate pain. If we don't deal with pain when it occurs, we can be certain it will resurface as compounded emotional toxicity later on. The remembrance of pain not processed appears as insomnia, hostility, or anger. If a past hurt has not been metabolized and eliminated there will be anticipation of having that experience again, generating fear and anxiety. As a further complication, if you don't know how to deal with either of these feelings of anger and fear, you are likely to turn them inward at your self, believing "It's all my fault." That guilt depletes our physical, emotional and spiritual energy until any initiative or movement feels impossible. We feel exhausted and paralyzed leading to depression. Toxic turbulent emotions have one cause--not knowing how to deal with pain. Pain is normal to life, but suffering isn't. When we do not know how to deal with pain, then we suffer.
Learning how to metabolize pain involves these steps:
• Identify and locate the emotion physically
• Witness the experience
• Take responsibility
• Express the emotion
• Release the emotion
• Share the outcome
• Celebrate the process
Set aside a few minutes when you won't be disturbed. Sit comfortably and close your eyes. For a few minutes, just meditate in silence. Focus on your breathing or if you prefer you may use a mantra.
Now with eyes still closed recall some circumstance in the recent past that was upsetting to you. It may be a time when you felt you were mistreated, an argument with your partner, or perhaps a past injustice at work. Identify some instance where you felt emotionally upset.
For the next 30 seconds think in detail about that incident. Try to picture what actually happened as vividly as you can, as if you were reporting it for a newspaper. Here you are the observer watching this event. You are not the event, the argument, or the emotional upset; you are merely witnessing what is happening from the perspective of your silent self. You are carrying the effect of the meditation you just did, allowing you to maintain a vantage point that is not overshadowed by the quality of the emotions.
Now identify exactly what you are feeling. Put some word on the incident that describes what you are experiencing. Be as precise as you can. Do you feel unappreciated? Insulted? Treated unfairly? Give the feeling a name. Come up with a word that epitomizes the painful experience. Focus your attention on that word.
Gradually allow your attention to move away from the word. Let your attention wander into your body. Become aware of the physical sensations that arise in your body as a result of the emotion you've identified. These two elements--an idea in the mind and a physical sensation in the body, are what an emotion truly is, and they can't really be separated.
This is why we call it a feeling. It is because we feel emotions in our bodies. Let your attention pass through your body as you're recalling this experience. Locate the sensations the memory brings up. For many it's a pressure in the chest or a sensation of tightness in the gut. Some feel it as pressure in their throat. Find where it is in your body that you're feeling and holding the emotional experience.
Now express that feeling. Place your hand on the part of your body where you sense that the feeling is located. Express audibly, "It hurts here." If you're aware of more than one location for the pain, move your hand from place to place. At every location, pause for a moment and express what you're feeling. Say, "It hurts here." When you experience physical discomfort, it means that something is unbalanced in your experience--physically, mentally, or spiritually. You body knows it--every cell in your body knows it. Befriend these sensations and their wisdom, because the pain is actually leading you to wholeness.
Writing your feelings out on paper is a valuable way to express the emotion. This is especially effective when you can write out your painful experience in the first person, in the second person and finally from the perspective of a third person account.
Be aware that any painful feelings you experience are your feelings. These feelings are happening inside your body now as you remember the pain, even though nothing is actually taking place in the material world. You're only remembering what happened, yet your body is reacting with muscle contractions, hormonal secretions, and other responses within you. Even when the painful incident was occurring in the material world, the effect was entirely within you. You have choice in how you respond and interpret this emotional turbulence. Recognizing this is taking responsibility for your feelings.
This doesn't mean that you feel guilty. Instead, it means that you recognize your ability to respond in new and creative ways. Taking responsibility for your feelings, you can also gain the power to make the pain melt away. You're no longer blaming anyone else for having caused the pin, so you no longer have to depend on anyone else to make it go away. Hold that understanding in your consciousness for the next few moments.
Now you're ready to release the pain. Place your attention on the part of your body where you're holding the pain, and with every exhalation of your breath have an intention of releasing that tension. Over the next 30 seconds, just feel the painful sensation leaving your body with every breath. Some people find that making an audible tone that resonates in that part of your body where the pain is localized helps to loosen and lift the contraction away. You can also experiment to discover what works best for you. For others singing or dancing does the trick. You may try deep breathing, using essential oils, or a taking a long warm bath. Finally, if you have written out your emotions on paper, it can be useful to ritually burn the paper and offer the ashes to the winds.
Sharing the outcome of releasing your pain is important because it activates the new pattern of behavior after the old painful pattern is released. Imagine that you could speak to the person who was involved in that original painful incident. What would you say to that person now? Bear in mind that he/she was not the real cause of your pain. The real cause was your response. In your transformed state you are now free. So you can share what happened without blame, manipulation or seeking approval.
Perhaps they intended to cause you pain, and you may have unwittingly collaborated in that intention. Maybe you would like to say you no longer intend to fall into such traps. Whatever you say is totally up to you. As long as you have an awareness of the steps we've taken so far in this exercise, whatever you say will be right for you.
Now you can celebrate the painful experience that had taken place as the valuable material that helped you move to a higher level of consciousness. What was previously a disconnected, destructive and disabled part of your psyche is now integrated and contributing its power toward your greater spiritual goal. Instead of responding to the situation with a pain reflex, perpetuating the problem, you've turned it into an opportunity for spiritual transformation. That is something to celebrate. Go out for a nice dinner or buy yourself some flowers or a present to honor the new you.
Use this exercise whenever you feel upset to free yourself from emotional turbulence and the underlying pain. When you do that, you'll find opportunities will arise more often in every area of your life.

Satan is losing the battle for people's minds. This is a clear trend, and it's been mounting for a long time. The basic reason is that evil has gotten a lot of competition. Are schizophrenics possessed by the Devil? Raise your hand if you say yes. A century ago, countless more people would have raised their hands than today, when we use "sick" in place of "evil" for many things, including psychosis. The more replacements we find for evil, the weaker Satan grows. After all, the Devil is the embodiment of absolute evil, the kind that admits no other explanation. His fortunes decline when valid explanations are at hand.

Besides psychosis, we attribute criminal behavior to a host of influences -- poverty, domestic abuse, peer pressure, social resentment -- that overshadow the simple word "evil." Centuries ago, the first word that would come to mind when a murder took place would be "sin," opening the door automatically to think about the great tempter and progenitor of sin, the serpent in the Garden. Today, if we fail to understand why sadistic violence occurs, we might fall back on a phrase like "pure evil," but even then we don't automatically insert Satan's name or make him the cause. We simply mean an evil that passes understanding -- for the time being. Understanding can grow, after all.

And it does grow. Leaving aside the dwindling number of fundamentalists who have made the Devil a core belief, fewer people see the hand of Satan at work around them. Abu Ghraib was a horrific example of human nature at its most depraved, but who did the media rush to for explanation? Psychologists, not preachers. If you take the most evil acts in the world, such as the Holocaust, you must run out of human explanations first before you resort to supernatural ones. These human explanations for evil include the following:

• Hiding dark secrets.
• Feeling ashamed and guilty.
• Repressing feelings of deep anger and hostility.
• Denying painful truths, such as past abuse.
• Imitating the worst actions of one's peers to gain approval.
• Hatred of authority.
• A deeply rebellious streak that acts out as self-destruction.
• Ungoverned impulses of sex and aggression.
• Repression of the shadow side of the psyche.
• Hatred of "the other."

A toxic cocktail of these all-too-human tendencies fueled Abu Ghraib, the Holocaust, and Islamic extremism. No supernatural agency needs to be ascribed. When anyone believes that Satan is a universal force, the enemy of God loosed upon creation, I ask a simple question. How much evil was there in the universe before human beings came along? If Satan is so cosmic, why did he wait billions of years to appear on the scene, until the day when the Old Testament was written? And what about cultures like the Greek, Roman, Egyptian, and ancient Indian that had no concept of Satan?

The rational mind has no trouble discounting the bogeyman, so it's our irrational side that we must calm, with all its shadow fears and shameful impulses. Does Satan perch there, in the darkness we dare not confront? Religious believers haunted by a strong sense of sin may believe this, but look around at all the agnostics and atheists leading normal lives without the notion of absolute evil. They would seem to be the choicest prey for Satan, since they have no faith in God to protect them. But the Devil seems to keep his distance, and there's a simple reason why.

Satan is a projection of human fear, anger, and guilt. He used to be such a major projection that he dominated psychological life. In an age of faith, Satan held a monopoly on evil. Now our minds have expanded, light has been shone on every level of the psyche, and a great change occurred. Satan stopped being strong because we stopped needing him so much. We took responsibility for evil away from him, and although it's hard to face the fact that human evil trumps supernatural evil a hundred to one, the good news is that being human, it's something we can heal.

Published in the Washington Post

Watch "The Nightline Face-off: Does Satan Exist?" March 26 on ABCNews.com and on "Nightline

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