The Whole World is One Family
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Dear Friends,
I’ve been resuscitating an R&R workshop that I taught in yesteryear, during our pre-pandemic days, called The Whole World is One Family, which is a core teaching of Swami Kripalu.
I’ve dived into remembering what this practice meant to me before—before so many things we knew to be stable and unchangeable, splintered, imploding and exploding, tearing apart at their fault lines.
It’s a concept I understand intellectually and one that is hideously, almost ridiculously relevant in this, our moment of incredible divide.
How do we live into this practice today, now, in the urgency of these times?
Here are Swami Kripalu’s words:
The highest religious principle is
Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam:
the whole world is one family.
No matter what religion we are following,
if we cannot
love others
then we are not following religion,
but the illusion of religion.
Where there is no unity,
No love,
no harmony among each other,
how can there
be religion?
If you are interested in more fantastic information about and rich teachings from Swami Kripalu, here is the Center’s link:
https://kripalu.org/content/our-history
~~~
Are the people in your life mostly just like you?
Do they look like you?
Do they think like you?
What keeps you apart from others who don’t.
Who are not
just like us,
or
just like you?
How can you imagine stepping across the divides that separate us?
What might that action
look like
For you?
What would it look like,
To receive this message
as an invitation,
As a portal,
As a doorway back
To wholeness?
~~~
I’ve become a pre-blog-writing-internet-troller.
I troll the Internet
A place that is not
A comfortable
stomping grounds
for me
At all.
What’s here?
What’s there?
What’s all
Around?
What touches me?
What doesn’t?
Somehow
(No accidents here),
I started listening to recordings
From Yad Vashem,
The World Holocaust
Remembrance Center
In Israel.
I was drawn to
The
Righteous
Among
Nations.
The Righteous
Among
Nations
(an honorific used by the state of Israel)
Are
Non-Jews
Throughout the world
Who risked their lives,
and
The lives of their families
During the war
To hide,
and
To shelter
And
To save
Jewish lives.
The Whole World
Is
One
Family.
Please check out these links.
Perhaps from these stories, these testimonials, these brave lives, some light can shine onto our current moment:
information about the Museum, born and blessed by ongoing acts of love and unimaginable loss.
https://www.yadvashem.org/about/yad-vashem.html
~~~
Women of Valor, The Righteous Among Nations—These women touched me most deeply.
https://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/righteous-women/index.asp
~~~
Oscar Schindler Saved Her
~~~
As a little Jewish kid,
Then an older Jewish kid,
I was fairly obsessed
With the holocaust,
Especially since my
Best & monogamous friend’s
Family are survivors.
Their house and my house
Echoed with a similar
Emptiness,
Hollowed
Out
By
Grief.
As I grew into a more mindful woman
I worried and wondered,
Who might I
have been then,
There,
In that war.
As a Jew?
As a non-Jew?
Could I be strong enough to lean
Toward others?
Toward helping others?
Toward the suffering of others?
I don’t know.
~~~
I wonder about today.
Don’t get me wrong—
I’m not saying,
This is Hitler’s Germany.
I’m simply asking myself
As I ask you:
When we knew
what was happening,
What was really happening,
What did we do?
Did we help?
Did we touch others?
Did we allow ourselves to be touched?
Did we allow ourselves to experience
The suffering of others?
Do we allow ourselves
The gift
Of
Others’
Suffering?
Can we live with
Our actions/lack of actions?
Who do we choose to be,
In relationship to each other?
Who do we choose
To be
In relationship
To ourselves?
~~~
I leave you with this glorious ending from Playing for Change, the multi-media music project made up of musicians from around the world.
United—Live as One
Please listen through to its end.
~~~
Dear Friends,
We are so much
more powerful together.
Company of heart
Is so much stronger
Than
Individual willpower.
Together
Everything
Becomes
Possible.
With love—
Aruni