Find the strength to follow the rhythm of your life

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Listen. Listen. Listen.

There is an ancient Dance

in your veins

a rhythm in your Heart

– Sri YanchiGuruji 1

 

WHY should it be only the privilege of artistic prodigies, the financially secure or even drop outs, to choose how they move through the day according to the rhythm of their own inclination? We only seem to allow (albeit begrudgingly) such privileges to the Steve Jobbses, Picassos, Lady Gagas and bag ladies of this world.

I remember from a very young age a feeling of resistance at having to do certain things at certain times. I often still do, and I know that you do too. Those feelings are relevant. Not that I was able to articulate this when I was younger, and no one around me was able to offer further understanding about those feelings.

Just as the growing generation of today, I was simply asked – mostly non-verbally – to follow the status quo: “This is how things are done”. I call this ‘the law-of-man’. Nobody realizes or admits that this law-of-man only serves an economy and economic principles to build or maintain an “empire”. Parents, teachers, friends and colleagues live and therefore confirm in me the same paradigm.

Yet I remember hearing of people who somehow “escaped” the system of “working” life. They were mostly artists, adventurous entrepreneurs, or others with some extreme passion or drive. I was made to feel I was not like them, just an ‘ordinary’ kid, so whenever I showed signs of disinterest in doing things the way they were “meant to be done”, it was considered a sign of laziness. At some point in my life, I became convinced that I was lazy (contrary evidence notwithstanding), exacerbating an impulse to self-improve. After all, laziness gets bad press. It is deemed a bad habit that at most needs exterminating and at least requires the person to feel bad, threatening this ‘attribute’, setting them up to be a failure waiting to happen.

I am sure this is a common conundrum for all of us. In the human world created over the past few hundred years , there is now a vacuum when it comes to your natural life rhythms. At best, you are allowed to poo and pee according to the law of nature. But eating patterns, sleeping patterns, learning patterns, feeling patterns, contemplation patterns are all sophisticatedly regulated from the moment a baby draws its first breath until a human draws their last.

Why does so many teenagers miss out on relevant, profound education because at age ten it wasn’t yet clear to them what they wanted to do in life? Why isn’t your grandmother allowed to drop dead in her luscious garden when her time has come when that is the way she wants to go? Why are we so inflexible towards life taking its own course?

Once enough of us understand why, we will begin to ‘stop’, able to return more and more to feeling and insight as the basis of governing our practical day.
This will be a tiny yet significant step towards true progress.

Sitara Morgenster

1) These lines have been taken from a longer poem titled ‘Don’t be afraid’ published in The Hanging Garden of Eden; The Ecstatic Confession of the Wisdom Adept Sri YanchiGuruji (The Dancing Lion Press, first edition 2009)

Money is not the root of all evil. Unhappiness is.

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Why do we allow trees to be cut down? Because it makes money (for logging companies and developers). Why do we allow the exploitation and killing of animals? Because it makes money (for the meat- and dairy industries). Why are seeds being patented, making the saving and sharing of seeds a crime? Because it makes money (for the agrochemical and agricultural biotechnology corporations).
Why is a wide range of normal human behaviour diagnosed as mental illnesses? Because it makes money (for the pharmaceutical companies). And on and on!

Only a materialistic attitude to life can turn money in to the ‘end in itself’ that it now has become. An intervener, propelling ecological destruction, and the destruction of healthy human livelihoods, to paraphrase the ecological activist Vandana Shiva.

Money is not the root of all evil. Unhappiness is the root of all evil. And money in the hands of unhappy people becomes a tool to try to chase away our uninspected dissatisfaction.

We all pay lip-service to the fact that money doesn’t make us happy, yet most of us still succumb to a lifestyle with a lot of unnecessary or careless spending.

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Curriculum Vitae of “I” or Who needs water into wine

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From my earlobe dangles a praying mantis and a family of rats nests in my nostrils. My pubic hair paves forests with moss, my toenails form bark and fungi. I grow trees from seeds, with deep roots in dark earth, only to snap their branches and trunks in my drunken, heavy storms. With or without my interference or that of another, when they die it is my death and their decay is yours.

I am the genesis of all elements and flocks of birds flying as one. I am wet and old, broken and cold. I am breath and hot, wet and sod. From my lungs comes the air, from my veins the rivers, from my saliva the rain. My singing voice carries the wind. The sun bursts out of my shining eyes to all directions. When I move, an earthquake ensues and dissolves countless forms with life in them. They are destroyed but never lost. Temporariness is always back into me, silence and matter.

In my generous red anger, the volcano flows her lava, first killing, then turning soil so fertile that on these excrements of rage all unthinkable other life forms grow and bloom. I am your ancestors and your brother and sister, your mother and father and your future self. I am all the children who are never born, whose blood, marrow, bone, mind, bile and feeling you share. I am your offspring. Whenever a life form or member of any species bleeds, the great ocean turns white, the coral splits your skin and a finned shark dies.

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To be born is to be inspired

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Do you feel inspired?
 Our bodies are given the breath of life from a mysterious source. Until our final expiration we are continually, wonderfully and mysteriously inspired. What we do with inspiration is a different story.

Upbringing and societal conditioning generally train us to use inspiration for personal gain from a very young age.
The aim is to grow us into individuals that can survive in our economically driven world, in which we have lost the connection with inspiration in the real. This way we always harness inspiration for taking rather than giving.

Taking is synonymous with inspiration colliding with conditioning. It is illustrated in its extreme form in the lives of individuals such as Adolf Hitler. Giving is the same as inspiration hitting on the real, of which an individual such as Peace Pilgrim (aka Mildred Lisette Norman) was a shining example.

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Sexual betrayal redefined

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Today I saw two young boys “shooting” each other. They had a machine gun each, made out of white plastic tubes, pieces of wood and duct tape. I wondered, do their parents also actively encourage them to freely play with their genitals, meanwhile wisely guiding them to not use their body for consolation?

Parents don’t seem to mind kids engaging in mock-battle, or playing violent video-games to the noise of gunshots and explosions. Yet generally they squeak and squirm at the “risk” of the little darlings being exposed to sounds of enjoyment from sexual interactions, or catching a glimpse of pornographic material. God forbid they witness pleasure and play, and think bodily sex is okay.

New Zealand is staunchly conservative, and while it has decriminalised prostitution, it stopped short of legalising same-sex marriages. There is an undercurrent of conservative morals, judgements and laws. As a result, the fervent movement venerating the “family-unit” is thriving, and modern day witch hunts are just around the corner, to punish anyone who sidesteps societal conventions, or at least seems to be doing so in the eyes of others. Read More →

The Cosmology of Islam

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The Egyptian-Dutch author Nahed Salim is someone who criticises aspects of Islam and the Koran that no mere human is supposed to touch. In her book “The Prophet’s Wives”, she calls for a fresh interpretation of the holy scripture, in order to fully incorporate contemporary realities. Certain verses of the Koran are no longer regarded as valid and Selim argues that the same should apply to verses with a misogynistic message.

She compares it to the institution of slavery: “The Koran disapproves of slavery and strengthens the rights of the slave, but did not actually abolish slavery. Nowadays, no one demands the reintroduction of slavery just because it’s mentioned in the Koran. The same principle should apply to the situation of women”.

Without discounting Nahed Salim’s bravery or the merit in her intellectual argument, her critique is still operating from within the framework of a religious constitution, founded 1400 years ago in Saudi Arabia. Moreover, this is not a criticism of Islam itself, nor a look at the Muslim cosmology in terms of “right or wrong”. It is a contemplation from the perspective of transcendental wisdom, using as a reference the example, work and words of a Living Spiritual Adept, Sri YanchiGuruji.

The cosmology of Islam (an Arabic word meaning surrender to God, or submission) is a human marvel, constructed to make sense out of life and create meaning, using a combination of scriptures and imagination together with establishing rules for life. These are much needed while we remain bewildered or fearful of the inevitable death of our body/minds. Read More →

On behalf of the cow

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A holocaust is taking place in your backyard. I am not exaggerating, i am not scaremongering, i am not being melodramatic or “green”. And i am not being disrespectful. Prior to writing this article, i didn’t know that my idea of cows milk was very naive and largely based on pure propaganda, fed to me from the day i was born in Holland; a country possibly more crazy about dairying than New Zealand: you feed the cow, you milk the cow, the milk goes in the bottle, the bottle comes to town (or is exported overseas). O, yes, and: milk is good for humans.

I am only just finding out that these are all myths to keep the dairying machine pumping. It is tempting to assume that cows must be kept healthy and happy or else they wouldn’t survive to continue to give milk. But that is equally naive as thinking that those who did survive years of torture, hunger, slave labour and maltreatment in concentration camps had their wellbeing and welfare looked after. Their survival is simply a testimony to the awesome resilience of the Force of Life, triumphing against all odds. In the case of any holocaust the odds being systematical, intentionally inflicted suffering of defenseless, living, breathing creatures, ending in callous slaughter.

For most of her life, a cow will be kept pregnant and milked. After giving birth, she will continue to be milked for 10 months – but will be made pregnant again within 3 months. Only for the final few weeks of pregnancy she will be “dried out” (stop being milked) and her overworked udder given a rest. “Dairy cows” never have the opportunity to raise any of their babies. Yet, the bond between a cow and her calf is very strong. Taking away a calf is greatly distressing for both mother and baby. They cry and search for each other for quite some time. Every farmer knows this. Without human intervention calves will suckle their mothers for nearly a year. During natural weaning there is never a complete and abrupt abandonment of the calf by the cow. The cow and calf will maintain a lifelong relationship of social contact and companionship. Read More →

Suppressed facts about antidepressants in Aotearoa and the world

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The irresponsible prescription and use of antidepressant medication is one of the great tragedies of humankind unfolding before our eyes, internationally and in Aotearoa. For years now, scientists specialised in pyscho-pharmacy yell out that most of these chemicals don’t work, and are often dangerous. The status and commercial succes of antidepressants is based on inadequate information. Vulnerable people are given hope in the form of a chemical substance that largely works by coincidence and awful side effects. The root cause of depression is not known by science and pharmaceutical companies, let alone addressed.

Antidepressants are not conducive to life, but really only geared towards the economic machine. Perhaps that is why more and more people get seduced to swallow them. Literally. And they are younger and younger. Just over a year ago, 17-year-old Toran Henry died in Auckland from suicide. He had been diagnosed with depression and was medicated with fluoxetine, the generic form of Prozac. Mainstream media have treated the story as an isolated case. They simply described Toran as a “troubled teen” and didn’t seem to dig much deeper.

In the meantime, study after study confirms that antidepressants perform only a little better than sugar pills, or placebos. In some studies they even turn out to be less effective. What’s more, the world renowned psychopharmacologist, Dr David Healy, found that when healthy volunteers were given antidepressants in tests, the drugs made a number of them belligerent, fearful, suicidal and even pose a risk to others. Dr David Healy estimates that worldwide at least 250,000 people have attempted suicide because of Prozac alone, and that at least 25,000 have succeeded. Read More →

Morning-afterpil verkrijgbaar zonder recept

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Een poging van een conservatief Hogerhuislid om de verkoop van de morning-afterpil in Groot-Brittannië zonder recept terug te draaien, is gestrand. Collega”s van Barones Young verwierpen haar motie met een meerderheid van 82 stemmen.

Apothekers, verpleegsters, huisartsen en de British Medical Council schaarden zich in een open brief achter verkoop over de toonbank, in navolging van Frankrijk. “De verstrekking speelt een belangrijke rol in het terugdringen van het hoge aantal ongewenste zwangerschappen in Groot-Brittannië en de 200.000 abortussen als gevolg daarvan.” Ze benadrukten dat er geen aanwijzing is dat de morning-afterpil “onverantwoordelijk seksueel gedrag” aanmoedigt, zoals tegenstanders beweren. Barones Young is ongevoelig voor feiten. Zij legt het liefst haar moraal wettelijk op aan iedereen: seks alleen binnen een huwelijk en het huwelijk alleen voor heteroseksuelen. Read More →

Overzicht vertaalde boeken

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Als Marja Kooreman, Maria Kooreman en Sitara heb ik van 2002 tot nu de volgende titels vertaald voor uitgeverij Luithingh-Sijtfhoff (LS Amsterdam)

  • Het levensverhaal van de boom, David Suzuki & Wayne Grady (‘Tree: a life story’), 2019
  • De weg naar huis, Katie Arnold (‘Running home’), 2019
  • Stemmen in de oceaan, Susan Casey, 2015
  • Zo stop je met roken, Robert West (‘Stop smoking now’), 2014
  • Sterrenstof, Priscille Sibley (‘The promise of stardust’), 2013
  • Wild, Cheryl Strayed, 2013 (“Marja Kooreman vertaalde Wild knap, zonder Strayeds bijzondere stijl uit het oog te verliezen“)
  • De healing code, Alex Loyd, 2012
  • Stemmen in je hoofd, Gail Hornstein (‘Agnes’ Jacket’), 2009
  • Het glutengevaar, Dr David Perlmutter & Kristin Loberg
  • Prinsheerlijk, Megan Mulry (‘Royal strings attached’),
  • Moordduiding, Jed Rubenfeld (‘The interpretation of murder’), 2008 #thriller
  • De geschiedenis van mijn gekte, Elyn Saks, 2007
  • Een korte geschiedenis van de traktor in Oekraïne, Marina Lewycka, 2006
  • Daniel zwijgt, Marti Leimbach (‘Daniel isn’t talking‘), 2006. Roman, #rouwverwerking #autisme
  • Kiwi’s en kilometers, Polly Evans (“Leest heerlijk weg.”)
  • Ik hoor de vogels vliegen, Louisa Waugh, 2004
  • Hoe gaat het met je? Susan Halpern, (‘The etiquette of illness’), 2002