I was all set to write a post about how we at Yoga and Pilates for Everyone are preparing for the upcoming Sardinian retreat or maybe about how I got free of some hangups when I read the momentous news that Ireland recognised Palestine. I do not know why this had to take so long when it is obvious that these people have a right to their land and to living together in safety, but all the same I am delighted to hear that something is shifting - and about time, too. While we sit here discussing how many weapons the US should or should not provide to keep this genocide going, these people - children and pregnant women included - keep being murdered, every day, every hour, every minute. How can we live this way, as if this was not really happening? And why (and this might seem a petty question, but it raises a more important one) why, pray, were Russia excluded from the Eurovision on the grounds that they are attacking another country, and Israel were not? Might it be true that, as I read some months ago but refused to believe at the time, we in Europe care less about Palestinians because they are Arabs? It is an appalling thought but one that is becoming more and more evident.
Are we not all human? People with hopes, families, friends, jobs, needs and rights? What IS the difference? Yoga teaches us that we are all Loving Awareness, and we all have the Divine in us. Our bodies, our eathly existence are only a small, temporary part of who we are. So why are we deciding who we should or should not help based on skin tone, religion, geographical location? If it were us, would we not want every single country to be doing all they can to help us? While we worry about which pair of shoes to buy, they die.
I feel so impotent and so entitled and so useless in all this. Because, how do you help? Other than sending money, other than educating your children to peace ... how do you?
So this small news today is at least a step towards the light.
Speaking about this, a lot of us might have experienced a certain degree of exclusion, discrimination, nastiness in our lives. Whether it was the colour of our skin, where we came from, our body shape and size, our age, our beliefs, our ability levels, our gender, our sexual orientation, and so on ... we at some point might have been humiliated and even traumatised by the way other people treated us.
So, I think, it all starts with teaching our children, and ourselves, to see and recognise differences but to treat everyone with the same respect, compassion and kindness we would want to receive ourselves. This is a work in progress and is not going to be perfect, but imagine if we ALL tried our best to do this. Imagine the changes this would bring about!
We humans are social creatures. We all want to be loved. We all wish for freedom, safety, belonging, happiness. And we should be able to help others be free and safe and to belong without being afraid of their freedom and safety diminishing ours. It is time to stop with the old "mentality of scarcity" and just see past the surface to that Light we all have within - which makes us all ONE.
Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu
लोका: समस्ता: सुखिनो भवन्तु
“May all beings everywhere be happy and free, and may the thoughts, words, and actions of my own life contribute in some way to that happiness and to that freedom for all.”
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