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You are here: Home / Archives for Little Ways of Being™ / Comments on Current Events

To Vote or Not to Vote, That is the Question

September 9, 2012 by Pranada Comtois Leave a Comment

For the person taking an inner journey do politics and spirituality go together? Is it politics and spirituality or politics or spirituality?

For the past year I’ve been following American politics, as well as world politics focusing on issues concerning women. So Marianna Williamson’s recent article Sister Giant: Consciousness and Politics at HuffPo, which partially takes on the questions I posed, caught my attention.

The article is a feeder for the November event “Women, Non-Violence and Birthing a New American Politics,” which aims to encourage more women to enter politics. The logic is that we’ll heal what ails us if we increase women’s participation in politics. We need more heart in governing society.

I support the concept; I think I’ll sign up for the live streaming of the event. After all, one of my primary callings is to explain the spiritual reasons why women have the potential to make significant world change and show them how to practically do it, starting with themselves and their home.

That stated a word of caution about simplistic thinking is in order. Women can’t provide magical cures just because they are women. Though this is self-evident and common sense, weak or confused thinking could lead us to believe that simply placing women in the Senate, Congress, Supreme Court, or the presidency will put a dent in our social ills. Women instead of men won’t necessarily “birth a new American Politics.”

I agree with Marianna that the value of the feminine’s receptive, inclusive nature cannot be understated. But not just any feminine or any female will do. It is the feminine divine: the female or male who has embodied deep spirituality.

The solutions we desperately seek are arrived at by putting spiritually awake women or men into those positions.
As I read Marianna’s article I flashed to the 2012 Election and the quandary nagging me all year: Should I vote?

I don’t trust Obama or Romney. Therefore, how can I cast a vote for either?
The logic that I should vote for the lesser of two “evils” doesn’t work for me. Voting is more than marking a ballot next to someone’s name. It is participation—in a real way, partial ownership—of choices that person makes.

Although the premises behind Marianna’s proposal seem to draw from unclear thinking and thus are suspect, her article got me to take action: I registered to vote.

Now what will I do with that privilege? I’m undecided.

I say give me a real candidate: a woman or man who has understood why the feminine divine holds so much power and how to embrace and wield that force. If the Sister Giant project could deliver that candidate I’d run to the polling station.

What about you?

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Filed Under: Comments on Current Events

#BlueBra, There Comes a Time

December 21, 2011 by Pranada Comtois Leave a Comment

bluebra-time-is-now

Though my eyes are swollen almost shut from crying since yesterday morning, and I can barely take full breaths, due to losing a spiritual-sister and lifelong friend, I am impelled to dry tears of mourning to speak about the Women of Egypt's struggles. Though you are preparing for the holidays, please take time with me for the Women of the Middle East.

Muslim women all over the Middle East region need to hear women's united voices, our combined prayer. They must claim their protection and sovereign human rights themselves, but to oppose the nearly insurmountable obstacles they face, let them hear our cheers, feel our desire for their well being.

It is incumbent on every human being to hear the cries of Islam's women.

I especially want to speak to the wise-women of America's baby boomer generation. Together we comprise the largest number of women in their middle-age that the United States has ever seen. We are the women that came into America's work force as never before in modern history. We are the women who have been exposed to the broadest understanding of the world's religious, philosophical, and spiritual paths. We are the women raising grandchildren in unprecedented numbers. We do this while we caring for our aging or invalid mothers, and still nurture our adult children, who for the first time in our history are not reaching maturity until their 30s and later. Caring for three generations, we have grown large in wisdom by our experiences and exposure to global realities.

Before we die it behooves us to give the great gifts we have received through our trials and triumphs. More has been given and more has been asked of us. More is required of us. Let us extend our love, and take any practical actions we can, to support our Islam sisters.

While visiting a young friend's FaceBook page she jokingly referenced a BBC news article stating that a report was being circulated in Saudi Arabia that if women are given the right to drive it could spell the end of virginity in the country. Several other young women on FaceBook joined the discussion and laughed at the article.

I don't find the news report funny, and young women in America would do well to understand the seriousness of the misogyny Islam women face. We, as their mothers, need to educate them about the horrors of abuse of women and the extent of the abuse of human rights Islam women endure on a moment-to-moment basis.

Though I am not a follower of Islam, I support the religion of our Islam sisters. What is happening in the Middle East, in several countries, is not a secular uprising demanding modernity in terms of how Americans see modern progress.

Religious or not, whether interpreting the Torah, Bible, Bhagavad Gita or Shariah, or any secular laws, women must be empowered, dignified, and protected.

On NPR last week, Raghida Dergham, a columnist for a Pan-Arab newspaper, boldly asked ALL OF US to pay attention to what is happening in Egypt.

She asked the United States to reconsider our opinion of thinking the Islamist party a moderate party that can be worked with. Dergham pointed out that though women risked their lives, side-by-side with their fellow brothers, last Spring in the Tahrir Square, to bring about change in that country, their rights are in jeopardy, their protection insecure. They are being sidelined by politics.

Dergham says it's "nonsense" for US policymakers to think they can work with the Islamists, until the female voice is represented, respected, and heard. According to her, Iranian women are telling Arab women,

"Beware. We thought that if we are patient, if we take our time, if we are quiet in the beginning that we will recapture our place in the society. Take a look at us. This is not a place you want to be. Stand up to the Islamists and tell them, 'Explain to me what are my rights.' "

Since the US has a women Secretary of State, who is well aware of the pains chauvinism delivers, I'm surprised that US policy in our foreign relations doesn't lend more support to women in the Muslim region. Mrs. Clinton, you must make sure that the US gives full support to the Muslim women. Your statements today about the thousands of women protesting in Cairo is not enough.

Many can disagree with Dergham, but today we cannot.

Today we see thousands of women protesting in Cairo after they saw another women attacked, stripped, and beaten in the streets. They are proof that Dergham speaks the truth.

There comes a time when the abused, and those spared of such betrayals, must risk their lives to protect others.

There comes a time when a tipping point is reached. I pray the women in the Islam world have come to their tipping point in their struggle for basic rights. 

Shadi Hamid, the director of research at the Brookings Institution in Doha during the same NPR interview that Dergham spoke said, "There's always a sense that the Obama administration waits until the very last moment to take action and to really cast its lot with the aspirations of the protesters on the ground. And that's really troubling because this is an historic moment, I believe, on par with the fall of the Berlin Wall, 1945, 1848, you name it. And I think in times of historical ferment like these, you need strong, bold, decisive leadership."

May now be the fall of extreme stranglehold of misogyny for the Women of Islam.

It is time for the Islam women to face the daunting task of standing up to widespread, systematic misogyny and disempowerment.

If American women thought they had to face difficulties over the past one hundred years seeking the right to vote and a place of dignity in our society, we can think twice, three, and four times about the difficulties our Muslim sisters face. The social and religious structures are so profoundly embedded, that the women's hope for basic rights is almost unachievable.

But the impossible is possible when people are pushed for years and years and years beyond reason and they will not tolerate seeing their children mishandled.

Open your heart to their struggle. Keep them in your prayers in the days, weeks, months, and years as they find their voices and strength to stop the abuse and misuse of power on their minds, bodies, and spirits. 

Let us speak our minds and demand our country's policies reflect the precious rights of women of Islam. Let us not condemn their sacred religious choices. Let us raise the discussion. Women give birth to and nurture the world.  Women protect the world.

Let us send them a message, Women of Islam, Take your power back. We understand your pain. You must do this for your daughters, granddaughters, and future generations. We cannot do this for you. You must stand strong in your countries. We love you.

Let us not laugh on FaceBook. Let us use FaceBook and Twitter and all mediums available to us to embolden our sisters in the Muslim world. Let us send messages to our own politicians, our own religious leaders that we will not tolerate seeing the Women of Islam sidelined, attacked, stripped and beaten in the streets. We will no longer tolerate seeing any woman or girl so violated.

Tweet your support to #BlueBra now. 

And to whomever is BlueBra's mother, father, brother, sister, son, or daughter, Hold nameless, faceless, frightened BlueBra in sacred embrace.

Filed Under: Comments on Current Events Tagged With: #bluebra, Al Hayat, baby boomers, Hillary Clinton, Islam's women, misogyny, NPR Arab Spring, Obama administration on the Middle East, Reghida Dergham, women of Egypt

Fragments of Thoughts on Yamuna Devi’s Life

December 20, 2011 by Pranada Comtois Leave a Comment

yamuna-chanting1

“What is life, if not new beginnings.” —Yamuna Devi

Yamuna, hidden Matriarch of Prabhupada’s Society,

You said everyone—men and women—were welcome in your ashram. Anyone could come and receive the wisdom and love you embodied, assimilated through your relationship with Prabhupada. “Come, as long as you don’t consider yourself man or woman.” The distinctions in our temples hurt your heart; they were not allowed to exist in the sacred space you crafted for Radha Banebihari.

Yamuna, for me you were the embodiment of Prabhupada’s love for us. Like Prabhupada, your love was not sentimental or mushy. It was unconditional. Your love inspired overwhelming admiration and a compelling desire to be near you.

Perhaps three stellar characteristics in you were the materials that enabled you to thoroughly embody Prabhupada’s love. Some people don’t know how pronounced these traits were in you because, when called to serve, you were outgoing. You were an eloquent speaker, writer, teacher and expert artisan and chef. These external aspects of your personality often hid the strong, underlying qualities that were most prominent in you.

Yamuna Sara 7You were extremely sensitive. Hyper-sensitive. You were acutely aware of other’s feelings and your own. Much was asked of you; you suffered tremendously for reasons you wish to remain private. But you didn’t allow the pain you experienced to close your heart. In fact, you opened it more and more. Last April when you came over to wish me happy birthday, you quietly sat in front of Srila Prabhupada and Giriraja, tears streaming down your face. You wiped them demurely. Almost frustrated, you said, “It’s so silly how much emotion I feel in these past months!”

Yamuna, I know how painfully shy you were. You were bashful, reluctant, cautious in the best sense. Your mental astuteness and deep intellectual capacity led you to think carefully, deliberately, slowly. This, coupled with your shyness and feeling so deeply, led you to an undying gentleness and softness.

And you were truly humble. You didn’t have a low opinion of yourself; you had a modest estimate of yourself. A simple, eloquent understanding of yourself as a finite spiritual Being and servant of your master. You were completely unpretentious.

I believe your shyness and humility played a large part in your perfectionism. You never assumed you could make a wonderful offering, though your skills, creative abilities, intuition, intellect, philosophical depth and wisdom were quite pronounced in you. You strived with attention to detail and much love to make each offering.

Both your shyness and humility gave you a sense of awe of other people. Not awe in reverence—though sometimes that—but of deep appreciation and respect. O Yamu! how deeply you appreciated others. How much you wished everyone well—even those steering odd or crazy courses.

Your sensitivity, shyness, and humility were supreme gems among your qualities and opened your heart wide open, vulnerable and feeling, so sympathetic and compassionate with everyone you were. You loved everyone with an immenseness of heart that stunned me and many others.

Bhakti wasn’t just devotional service meant for Deities or the Divine in the spiritual sky. Bhakti was to be given to each soul, to our Selves. Held in each moment. You spread Bhakti through your every action: cooking a meal, cleaning the house, raking the yard, speaking to hundreds, singing to thousands. Every movement an offering to your Lord.

Oh Yamuna! All your relationships were saturated with Bhakti. And that, I believe, is really Bhakti life.

Take my hand, dear friend. Draw me closer to you and your Bhakti. There I will sit at Srila Prabhupada’s lotus feet. Maybe we can kiss them together.

A million hearts back to you,
Pranada

 

To Yamuna’s dearest friend, Dinatarine

December 21, 2011

Dearest Dina,

I have been on the floor crying since news of Yamuna’s departure reached here. So I don’ t need to get down to offer you pranam dandavats. My grief is so overwhelming I am terrified to think of the scope of yours. There is no way in this lifetime I will understand the depth of your feelings of this loss of the most beautifully, happily, eloquently, exquisitely, artistically unique soul, Yamuna.

I am so sorry for your loss. I am so sorry for your loss. I am so terribly, awfully sorry for your loss.

And yet you were certainly blessed to receive so much intimate association.

Such a gift comes with a high price in losing. That is the vipralambha seva of divine love. Feeling it for lovely Yamuna is a taste of the nectar of loving Krsna, your “sree radha banabehari,” these very words cut and pasted from an email she sent me less than 24 hours before her departure.

I simply do not know what to do with her email. I cannot delete it. Maybe I’ll just keep it in my InBox for the rest of my life as a reminder of her as the embodiment of all that is good in Krsna consciousness. Perhaps I’ll use her email whose subject line is, “year closeout,” forever as a reminder that death is very near. I’ll open it and allow her chipper words and broad heart be an inspiration to make an offering to Srila Prabhupada with a fraction of her devotion, meticulousness, artistic excellence and penetrating humility.

The last words Yamuna spoke to me a few days ago, were “A million hearts.” It was her sign off from our  phone conversation before pushing the Off button on the handset. Her version of goodbye, farewell, hari bol. All her opening lines and goodbyes endeared the heart to move toward Krishna and real feeling with other souls.

“A million hearts” is a significant gift to me. I told her in a follow up email that I would forever be indebted for the words which point to my goal in my own Bhakti practice. She was so expert at coming up with ingenious, flowing, and creative words and phrases that held deeply-felt Bhakti. Though she was sober and grave, Yamuna’s primary mood was of a child full of joy and verve. Here are her words, as we know she spoke to so many, and wanted to speak to many more. Here is a sampling of love and light that I pray we all share with each other more and more:

“Dandis and jaya jaya all around.”

“Dandies and hugs.”

“Jaya Jaya all things kc related.”

“Dear super girl”

“Mercy Mercy Be, Love Y and D”

“Sweet dreams srila prabhupada daughter”

“You are always in my heart and treasured.”

“Hari Hari Bifale, Love Yamuna and Dina”

“Pray you and your little chotti . . . well.”

“Dear Maharani”

“Hari Hari Hugs, kavachas, and all around jayas”

“With appreciation and love, d and y down south . . .”

“Pranam dandies”

“Hari Hari yours,”

“Dear ray of sunshine,”

“Dandies again and again,”

“Jaya jaya Srila Prabhupada”

“Jaya all things Krsna conscious”

“Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna”

“sree sree guru gouranga jayate”

“hare krishna dandies”

“radhe radhe”

“jaya sree radhe love and appreciation your y”

“Hare Kreeshna greetings and Kreeshna Dandavats,”

“Oceans of gratitude your way,”

“Your grateful yamu”

“Dear girl who buffets strong winds”

“aho aho to honesty, clarity and purity,”

“the holy name alone is everything,”

“all glories to all things krsna conscious and the auspiciousness that it generates on so many levels.”

How can I ever forget these words and phrases and the concrete form of loving relationship they express? Yamuna arrived to penetrating understanding of the importance of relationships and how we conduct them as devotees. As a sublime giver of love she beckoned me to deeper relationships, anxious to emulate the great treasure she possessed.

I did not know how to reciprocate the tenderness and delicacy of profound love that Yamuna embodied. Her heart was buttery soft and yet powerfully strong with a shining Bhakti that commanded attention. Her presence always challenged even my surest assumptions about how I was approaching our quest of loving Krsna. She continually pushed me further in understanding the true nature of Bhakti and our path.

There is much more to say and perhaps one day we will be able to share more.

Sending an embrace and much love, a million hearts,
Pranada dd

 

dingbat-leftie Fragments

While visiting you, we saw your hand glide your calligraphy pen in deft beauty on meticulously chosen paper. You had sat in Professor Lloyd Reynolds classes at Reed University. Mr. Reynolds received the unusual honor of being named the Calligrapher Laureate of Oregon by Governor Tom McCall in 1972, the first such recognition of a calligrapher by a state. He had many students from 1949 to 1978. You were one of his favored and best.

yamuna-stain-glass-1There was no limit to your creative expression. Radha Banebihari’s altar was flanked by detailed pieces of stained glass you constructed, as well as hand-carved wood pieces.

In your ashram you framed large copper leaves, which hung on a wall. Into the copper you fastidiously engraved the name of each devotee who helped you and Dina build your ashram in Saranagati.

Your artistic eye and bhava bhakti oversaw the carving of Radha-Syamasundara in Vrindavana.

After recording the Radha-Krishna Temple album, George Harrison came to you with the proposal to make you a famous recording star. Your celestial singing had captured his attention. You decided your singing, and all your talents, were exclusively for direct service to Prabhupada and the Lord and so you declined George’s offer. What a very different life you would have had! Your singing didn’t stop. You went deeper into the kirtan of the name. Your intense affinity for the Lord’s holy names drove you mad as you tasted bhajan. You held Hari Hari Biphale as the most dear ever since Prabhupada told you it was his favorite.yamuna-copper-leaves

Taking each exchange with Prabhupada with utmost seriousness, you furthered his initial instruction on cooking for the Lord into a masterful compilation of Lord Krishna’s Cuisine: The Art of Indian Vegetarian Cooking. Dubbed the Taj Mahal of cookbooks by the Chicago Tribune, your book won—the first time a vegetarian book had—the prestigious award by International Association of Culinary Professionals Cookbook of the Year. The Taj Mahal of cookbooks has been in print ever since its first release in 1987.

            dingbat-rightie

Filed Under: Comments on Current Events

I Wish We Could Drop the Word Yoga from the Dictionary

November 26, 2011 by Pranada Comtois Leave a Comment

Elephant Journal picked up one of my essays. I Wish We Could Drop the Word Yoga from the Dictionary is a quick overview of the goal and worldview of India’s four yogas. It’s a simple introduction, but chocked full of information that even long-time yoga practitioners may not be aware of. Hope you enjoy it!

A millions hearts,

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Filed Under: Comments on Current Events Tagged With: Ashtanga, Bhakti, Elephant Journal, four yogas, Jnana, Karma

Feminine with a Capital F, According to a Vietnam Soldier

September 28, 2011 by Pranada Comtois Leave a Comment

After I jumped into the car to run a few errands in Gainesville, I turned on the radio. For his “Talk of the Nation” segment on NPR, Neal Conan was interviewing best-selling author Karl Marlantes about his latest book What it is Like to Go to War.

Hearing the title made my stomach tense up. I gripped the steering wheel. The news cast got worse. The first words out of Conan’s mouth were: “You write that like so many veterans, you buried your experiences but literally found yourself haunted by the eyes of a young North Vietnamese soldier.”

As I drove my blue Camry on the perfectly paved road of 43rd Street in Gainesville, Florida, he continued, “I saw a young Vietnamese’s pleading eyes, seconds before Marlantes killed him.” I reached out to turn off the radio, but hesitated. “You need to hear this,” I thought. “This is real life as experienced by real people.” I gritted my teeth.

Conan explored this touchstone moment, when Marlantes had to kill another human being or be killed. Then Mr. Marlantes made his case for the need to spiritually and psychologically prepare soldiers for killing, because of the serious psychological aftermath. Conan then inserted a comment about Marlantes next touchstone moment. It came years later during a dinner party, while Marlantes spoke with other successful executives.

MARLANTES: Yeah, that was one of those moments where you go, Hmm, what am I doing? I was managing director of a corporation in Singapore. We were all at this dinner party, and the guys had all gotten together, and we were talking about what was going to happen to the Deutsche mark and whether the government in Singapore was going to do X or Y.

I was glancing over to where all the wives were, and I was hit with color. There were Indian women, Singaporean women, Chinese women, and European women. The color and the flashing and the talk was so different from my own group, which was sober and gray.

I began to sort of go Wow. There’s a whole other dimension to life, and I believe that it’s called the feminine with a capital F. I was raised in a logging town in Oregon where that didn’t count. It was one of those moments where you go, Hmm, I’m going to have to expand myself a little bit here.

I couldn’t believe this man, born in a logging town, and hardened by the realities of war, being touched by feminine energy so profoundly. As deeply, in fact, as he had been the moment he stood ten feet from another human being and killed him.

It appears this defining moment in Singapore opened him to a spiritual path from where he could reconcile his war experiences. Now he stands in a position of power, to speak for other soldiers and advocate for their spiritual and psychological care.

Beyond the attractiveness of the female’s sexuality, what is the energy—the aesthetics—of feminine qualities that can transform alpha males and others who aren’t sentimentalists or goddess worshipers?

When speaking of feminine qualities I’m not referring to socially-defined qualities, but the biological, and especially, the metaphysical, feminine spirit.

Feminine derives from the Latin femina meaning “one who suckles.” Feminine inherently means one who gives and nurtures life and society. Specific qualities are required for this work: patience, compassion, caring, sensitivity, empathy, assistance, gentleness, intuition, tenderness, yielding, and understanding. True femininity necessarily concerns itself with familial, social, psychological, and physical health.

In many traditions, the feminine represents the nurturing aspect and animating principle of the cosmos. The Bhakti tradition is even more explicit—and fascinating—in its presentation of the feminine.

In the spiritual sphere the only true male is God. All souls, whether in a male or female body, have female psychology—a sensitive, giving, loving frame of mind—in their pure spiritual state. The relationship between souls and God is as lover and beloved.

The feminine is abidingly attractive because it represents our spiritual identity and the exalted possibilities in all relationships. Additionally, Bhakti explains that God manifests in a female aspect. Known as Radha,she is considered greater than God because her love completely controls him.

I was astounded when I first heard that through pure love the female divine controls the supreme. After decades of practice I began to understand another interesting facet of Bhakti.

Because women are biologically wired to be givers of unconditional love they are in a unique position to harness that energy into its pure state because they already have a sense of how these emotions operate. Any woman who has had a child has tapped, at least momentarily (and probably often) into unconditional love. As a mother and grandmother, I can say the love for a child is so unique, it does not compare to any other emotional experience in relationships. It stands supreme as a beacon of true love.

If a group of wives in Singapore can transform a man’s man like Mr. Marlantes, what can women who set out to consciously embody the feminine divine accomplish?

By honing the qualities that support offering unconditional love (compassion, forgiveness, caring, tenderness, patience, etc.), women advance themselves on the spiritual path, practically demonstrate the way for others, and create healthy families now.

Bhakti shows that women are the real spiritual leaders. It’s time for us to claim those positions—out of love for others.

Filed Under: Comments on Current Events Tagged With: Feminine divine, Karl Marlantes, Neal Conan, radha, Talk of the Nation, What it is like to go to war

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