Specific Diseconomy of Nonprofits

My great-uncle NC Surya wrote often about the topic of 'specific diseconomy' -- a measure of the degree to which systems are self-undermining.  In his case, as a doctor, he was interested in the degree to which the medical system contributed to people's sickness, and thereby perpetuates itself.  The concept applies anywhere -- degree to which legal system contributes to injustice or IT systems contribute to inefficiency -- but it happens gradually so systems get more stuck over time...  This recent SSIR article entitled The Nonprofit Paradox (freely available for another week, until the end of July 2010)  has a similar flavor I thought worth sharing focusing on non-profits.  In this case, he talks about how nonprofits can take on the personality of the problem they try to solve. 

 

Paths Many--Truth One

In response to this article from Dr. Aseem Shukla in the Washington Post online entitled The Theft of Yoga, and comments from Deepak Chopra and many others -- Love and Light to you all!

In the healthy debate over the origins and intentions of yoga,  please let us not lose sight that – in those first ancient words of the Dao De Jing – The Way that can be spoken is not the True Way. 

Hinduism, Yoga, Hatha, Dharma, Asana ....  These are all made-up words, first created by seers to aid seekers on their path.  Then, others carried those words beyond those first compassionate offerings -- some in the same spirit --but others to build walls of ignorance out of fear, walls through which seekers must even now struggle to move through.   Either way, the words were never, and even now, are not Truth.  At best, they are aids on our journey.  At worst, they are sources of division and difficulty.   

Let us pray we choose to allow these words to aid…. And may we reaffirm now in our hearts -- words are not Truth and cannot contain Truth.

 Only We can do that, in how We live, and love and serve one another.  This is true regardless of the place, time, and nature of the chosen path. 

Whether through athleticism (hatha), devotion (bhakti), song (bhajans and kirtan), service (seva), ritual (tantra), sacrifice (yajna), sensory indulgence (vama), renunciation (sanyaasa), individualism (ahamkara), communism (saamyavada),  knowledge (jnana), investigating the mind (raja-yoga), repetition (japa), life science (ayurveda), dance (natya), martial arts (dhanurveda),  despair (vishada), fellowship (sangha),  spiritual suffering (tapas), laughter (haasa) --  all these, and many other approaches, tools and methods -- when practiced with the spirit of sincere seeking, have led people in every place and time to awakening, and to people teaching one another how they did it.

Some paths explicitly set out with that aim, but all paths arrive at it eventually, through the inherent virtue of their sincere practitioners. This consistent fact -- that people awaken to Light and Peace whenever they honestly try -- this is the evidence that there is a Truth, and that It is beyond all words and methods, and is reachable by anyone.    

This is as true in America today as it was in ancient India, which is why above I used the English words for these diverse practices first -- they are techniques, just as scientists use in the lab.  They are not the province of any one culture, but, while they have their historical and cultural roots to some extent in particular places and times, they are our common human heritage. 

In America, it is the founding premise of the republic.  Jefferson wrote in the American Declaration of Independence –

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

America begins speaking of self-evident Truth.   

Yoga is  ancient India’s name for the process of awakening to this Truth – of coming into Union -- whatever the path. But Union with what exactly?  A traditional answer is Union with Truth, God, the Infinite, the Universe, or however you call your higher power.   

My experience on my path thus far is that when one experiences this Union, it can happen as a sudden intuition of mystic unity with all that Is.  I had such a moment when I was 19,  in my home near Washington, looking out at evergreen trees, and realizing that we are not separate, that everything is deeply bound together, that even in that moment, I was breathing in the air they had just breathed out, that always, we are in this intimate, interwoven web of life and being.  

That experience I cherish, and it led me to my first deep relationship with a spiritual teacher -- my great Uncle NC Surya.  But I've also seen in the years since that the more substantial change occurs gradually, in stages, as the intuition of unity takes a great deal of work to integrate fully, and the more it does, the more the 'with' part (of Union) slowly drops away -- there is less and less of an other with which to unite.  It is a state of completeness or fullness unto itself.  In this way, the Self evidences Truth, by direct experience.

In America, reading revolutionaries like Paine or Jefferson, or philosophical forefathers like Locke, one is hard pressed to imagine that these men didn't also have spiritual experiences and lives.  Somewhere, they found the courage to imagine and bring into being a society based on such self-evident Truth as the equal rights of all.   Yes, it was deeply flawed -- they were not perfect any more than many Indian swamis and yogis who still, at some level even if not publicly, cling to ancient caste, class and gender distinctions. 

The beautiful thing is  -- in America,  awareness of self-evident truth is not some rarefied state only some select few attain; it is our birthright.  In India, living in this Truth is well understood to be our most universally shared experience -- not only with countrymen, but all human beings, other animals, plants, the Earth, Sun and stars. 

In any place, we can just forget or ignore it sometimes (or a lot), and separate ourselves from each other, believing how we differ is greater than what we share. 

That is a great falsity.  We are One.

The ancient Eeshavasya (“Lord’s Abode) Upanishad is a revered mantra which beautifully expresses Union, as that fullness or completeness, which is the Lord’s Abode, the dwelling-place of Truth:

Purnamidah Purnamidam
     That is complete -- This is complete
Purnaat Purnamudacyate
    From That Completeness comes This Completeness
Purnasya Purnamadaya
    If we take away This Completeness from That Completeness
Purnameva Vashishyate
   Only Completeness remains

Click here to download this beautiful recording off Ravi Shankar's Chants of India. 221 KB

… So ...  Relax. You are held -- in Truth, in Completeness – and so are we all.  When that sense of ease arises, then Union with that Truth which cannot be spoken, is possible.

Now what is the aim of this Union and the peace that comes with awakening to It?

When an ox, famer and plow are yoked together, they create a new life-giving entity that prepares the field to issue its bounty. The point is not merely to learn intellectually how to unite the ox and plow, or even to do it just once; that is but the beginning of the useful work that happens.  Once united, the ox, farmer and plow have their ultimate purpose fulfilled in the harvest, and that bounty is also dependent on their careful cooperation with nature, and grace of Earth and Sun to provide life-giving conditions. 

Similarly, yoga is the work of plowing the field of life, of staying connected to Truth, and serving It.  So it is with all forms of sincere seeking – growing in a deep, heartfelt, intuitive way into one's right relation to the universe and oneself -- as a part of a whole, as a part that can see and know the whole, and thereby honor it and make the conscious choice to align with it. This work naturally, gradually gives rise to the life of service that results from such Union. 

Just as there are many processes by which one may experience such Union, there are even more ways in which this knowledge in turn issues out in action -- through love, service, generosity, devotion, art, inquiry, scholarship -- these are but a few ways of honoring one’s own Truth, of enjoying the experience of It while fulfilling one's duty  to abide It.

Being a yogi is in fact our natural condition.  It is our choice, whether to invite all the words, ideas, and practices either to lead us astray into confusion, conflict and harm, both internal and external – or to lead us back home into our Selves, our Truth. 

So, once again -- we must remember always, the Way that can be spoken is not the True Way.   The True Way is found only in our own experience on our own path, and it is our personal Truth.   One way I feel I have drawn closer to It is when I can recognize deeply, intuitively know, that my experience of It is the same Truth that others have found, that there is but One.

Along the way, I've long felt there's no great mystery to awakening people once I learned what  -- usually, they are deeply humble, non-judging, and forgiving, ever growing in dignity, in their capacity to love themselves and others, in laughter and joy,  in their ability to behold beauty, and in being true to their heartfelt calling in  life.  To me, this is the real-life four-dimensional moving picture of yoga.  It knows every country and language and every era. 

So finally, with the frame in which we are asking the question on firm ground -- we can meaningfully turn to the debate of Dr. Shukla and Dr. Chopra – is yoga as practiced in America aware enough of its roots in Hinduism? 

My view is that I say this is not a good question to ask, for three reasons. Two I've already addressed -- first, the falsity of discursive, verbal truths, and Truth of direct experience -- and second, the understanding that the essence of yoga is universal -- that yogis have been in every era, in every place.  

So the answer for each of us on a personal level depends entirely on whether we have yet come to know what is our personal yogic path, and whether we are called to the ancient Vedic, Buddhist or Christian roots, or to the modern, diverse global branches of every kind.  None are wrong; they are simply preferences for an entry point to a Universal journey.  They all lead to the same place, even if they are not trying to lead anywhere, if we are sincere seekers, the needed path will reveal itself.  The Truth is that powerful. 

If you are called to the Vedas or asceticism or rigorous hatha practice, wonderful!  These are tried and true ancient paths.  They are often slow, but sure.  If you are called to modern teachers and teachings, that's wonderful too. 

Even drug abuse or gluttony or sexual addiction can serve the intention to find freedom from suffering, if one has turned to those things sincerely seeking a way out of suffering and into the light, even those clearly harmful paths will reveal Truth in due course, by demonstrating the wisdom of abstinence or moderation as appropriate for you, and leading you to people who can help you along such a path. Needless to say, those are far riskier and more painful roads, and the suffering you endure may overwhelm this body you inhabit, before the needed moment of clarity and awakening arrives in this lifetime.  

But the awakening to Truth can also come much more decisively and quickly, if one chooses to use the pain of their path as fuel for spiritual growth.  I have seen many, many people come into direct and deep communion with their Higher Power in just such a way, of healing the pain of various self-imposed harms, then leading the way to healing the pain of all our life experiences, our past karma. 

Obama and the Hanuman Chalisa, word-for-word

President Obama carries in his pocket a figurine of the Hindu deity Hanuman – the embodiment of the divine strength that arises from humble, devoted service.  Tonight, I adapted this page from the Neem Karoli Baba website to create a PDF of a word-by-word translation of the Hanuman Chalisa, a hymn of forty verses many bhakti-yogis sing to remind us of the story and character of Hanuman, told in the great Ramayana epic -- which Obama read as a young man in Indonesia. I’ve made the PDF  so that it’s one front-and-back sheet of paper you can print and use to sing along to a recording or can inexpensively reprint and conveniently distribute for kirtan.  Enjoy!

 

One-planet living--long bus rides

Tips on how to pick a bus line and arrive well:

http://www.vikramsurya.net/long-distance-bus

Can we bear witness?

Like most, I am strong, decent, kind man. Flawed, but good.  And, like many, I have borne much in this life, but this – this, I can hardly bear.  I am nauseous as I write.

Actual footage from an American Army chopper outside Baghdad.  The ill-informed, light-hearted murder of innocents by men carrying out orders, doing their duty as directed in the course of daily business. 

 

Grown American men in the grip of the fog of war, seeing  those who they have no real information on -- peaceful journalists, parents and children -- as video game targets.  Slaughtering them, pushing a button from the sky. 

 

Even with all my imagination, I can’t find another God-honest way to see this.

 

America – wake up!  Half of our discretionary tax dollars -- 700,000 military -- 2.3M civilians -- $900 Billion/yr -- 8% of our annual GDP -- helped to perpetrate this.  

 

That chopper took billions of our dollars and hundreds of lifetimes of our brightest scientists, engineers and technicians to build.

 

This is not just the men sitting in the cockpit pushing buttons.  All of us, together, have done this.  Their blood is ours to sop up.

America! Do we recall our promise?  We are a covenant to the world.  My parents, like so many , left all they knew in the hope of its fulfillment, and I work, as so many do each day, in that same hope.   

AMERICA! We the People are financing this every day -- the one-third of our paychecks in taxes – a quarter of that money goes to pay for this -- on average, about 40 minutes of your work day, even this very day, is STILL paying.  If you are blessed with employment. 

 

It is our voice, our silence, our unwillingness to bear witness, and the hours and dollars we spend each day doing looking away – that has done this, just as much as the men pushing the buttons above Baghdad. 

The men in the chopper are merely the symptom.  We are the problem – our ruthless, murderous silence. 

 

Those men were just doing their jobs, clicking their mouse, just as you click yours. 

 

And they were doing it in January 2007, knowing full well -- as we all did by that time -- that there were no WMD’s in Iraq – our whole rationale for military action there. 

 

And yet we all just kept clicking.  What, in God’s name, what is wrong with us?

 

America, may we never again abandon your promise!

 

And, Mr. President Obama, you too made a personal promise us all to end this.  Why are we still there?!

 

Please -- no more!  The time is not someday, not soon -- but now -- to make good on your word.

And most of all, oh dear God of Love, Sprit of Peace, Brotherhood of Man --  please hear our cries!

 

Please, please let this be the real beginning of the real end to the illusive ill-defined war on terror.

 

May we see the terrorists are really just murderous criminal gangs. 

 

May we understand we must no longer dignify them as warriors.

 

May we stop inflicting our fear and vengeance upon their innocent, decent neighbors.

 

May we stop ordering our own best men to commit heinous crimes in our name.

 

May we see that the War on Terror should never have been.

 

May we see, there just should have been, and could still now be -- the largest, most concerted criminal dragnet in the history of humanity – for which we would have the world’s unqualified support. 

 

May we see that if the enemy really is terror, then we can win it now -- when we put down our fears, and live in the clear-eyed faith that terrorists are nothing but criminals.

 

And, unless we let them change us, they can pose no real threat to our way of life –the openness, integrity, generosity of a free people united and peaceful -- only we can surrender that way, that promise.

 

And may we see, in the name of stopping them, that is just we have been doing -- abandoning ourselves!

 

Oh Dear God -- please relieve us of our blindness now -- may we awaken!

 

It is time to just go get the terrorists and bring them out into the light, into the full blaze of justice before the world’s gaze.  

 

Every peace-loving person on Earth wants for that, only that.

 

And, in our heart-of-hearts, we want to stop dignifying them and defiling ourselves with this erroneous war on terror.

 

So all of us -- American, Afghan Iraqi, and all others – may live amongst one another as brothers, in peace.

 

Amen.

 

 

Clare and Harris Wofford's India Afire

It was suggested to me by a friend, Rajeev Goyal of www.PushforPeaceCorps.org, that I reach out to former Senator and Peace Corps Associate Director under JFK and LBJ --  the Honorable Harris Wofford. 

Remarkable photos of Chile quake

Freedom of Information at the Peace Corps

Government should not keep information confidential merely because public officials might be embarrassed by disclosure, because errors and failures might be revealed, or because of speculative or abstract fears. Nondisclosure should never be based on an effort to protect the personal interests of Government officials at the expense of those they are supposed to serve. 

OMB Director Peter Orszag's supporting memo on how each Agency is to carry out such a policy is at http://www.whitehouse.gov/open/documents/open-government-directive

The three principles of transparency, participation, and collaboration form the cornerstone of an open government.  Transparency promotes accountability by providing the public with information about what the Government is doing.  Participation allows members of the public to contribute ideas and expertise so that their government can make policies with the benefit of information that is widely dispersed in society.  Collaboration improves the effectiveness of Government by encouraging partnerships and cooperation within the Federal Government, across levels of government, and between the Government and private institutions.

World Peace?

What does it even mean?

No world war?
No nations warring each other?
No nations preparing for war?
No nations embroiled in civil war?
No violent organized opposition to standing governments--guerrilla war, drug cartels, and separatist movements?
No violence between groups within a nation--gang war, ethnic cleansing?
No violence against disenfranchised groups--women, gays, children, minorities, the ill?
No violence inflicted by one individual on another--murder,assault,rape?
No self-inflicted violence?
No lack of love, security, water, food, shelter, respect, justice, information, or opportunity for each and every single member of the human race?
No violence toward the planet--air, land, sea, and the balance of all life?
No violence toward future generations?
No question mark after the words "world peace"?

Yes.

Yes.

Yes. 

All of it.  All.

World Peace.  I pray.

World Peace. I believe.

World Peace. I try.

Or I cannot have real peace even with myself.

World Peace is the natural state of the Earth.  It is what brought us into being, our birthright.  And it is inevitable.

The only real question is, will we allow it in our lifetimes?  Or will we persist in the tragic, devastating lie that is despairing of it altogether?

We have a choice.  Time to make it in favor of the truth that was here before us and will be here long after:

World Peace.

Time to put away the question marks I say.

Yes -- World Peace -- yes. 

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