A lot has been happening in the homeland while we were peacefully exploring the spirituality of India!
Though I am still sifting through my impressions, here’s what I currently find most significant:
…Immediately I was taken with the extremes of modernization and long held traditions. No where were we without cell phone coverage, event in the most remote countryside of Tamil Nadu. Yet, their roads even highways were clogged with donkey carts, bicycle rickshaws, three-wheeled auto rickshaws and the most prevalent means of transportation…the motorcycle. Cars, vans, trucks and buses had to maneuver around the many slower vehicles.
There is an old India and there is a new, progressive, driven-to-succeed India ready to take an international role, but will their ancient spiritual traditions suffer as a result? Our intelligent, well-educated guides could speak well of the spiritual history and traditions but admitted to no belief in them.
It seems they are struggling with rapid change (Uranus) what to do with long-held traditions (Saturn). It will be interesting to see how it plays out over the next five-to-seven years as the United States is not the only country that is going through a clash of past and future under the Saturn/Neptune opposition that is now moving into influence for the next two plus years.
…The multitude of Gods in the Hindu pantheon total more than 33,000, yet clearly they are understood to be the many facets of “the One.” The variety of Gods resulted from local areas each developing their own understanding of the Vedas and other writings, as well as being influenced by many invaders – Mongols, moguls, Portuguese, French, and the enduring British.
I have come to believe that there are as many paths to God as there are people, since we all experience God from a very personal inner place that ultimately has no words. The multitudes of Gods they worship just confirm my belief.
…Worship for a Hindu is part of every day and woven into their daily activities. For me, God is present in every moment; every breath is an expression of the Divine. It felt confirming to me to watch the spiritual bathing ritual that has taken place for eons at the river Ganges.
So many, many moments of interest that I could write for many more pages, but I hope this gives you a flavor of some of what I experienced during my trip. I feel quite privileged to have been there. I look at my luxurious lifestyle and know that there are so many different ways to do life and mine is just one of them. Every one of them is right…for the one living it.
As for Wall Street’s bank failures, buy-outs, rescue plans… It’s enough to make you want to stay in bed and pull the covers over your head, right? Think again.
This is only a surprise if you believe that life can always be lived with more money, more things, my investments, more cars, more houses…whoa, that’s where it all originated. Speculation and greed have gotten the better of us and it is time to pay the piper.
Quite frankly, I was expecting the possibility of a financial crisis while we were gone. I don’t like the idea that many people are enduring hardships as housing values drop like a stone. My own daughter told me today that her home appraised at $270K two years ago just went on the market for $123K.
This could well be just the beginning of changes that will come in waves as we move through the next five-to-seven years. But lest you think I am trying to alarm you…I am not.
My message is this:
…Right now your best action is to get your needs and your wants sorted out. What you need you will always be able to find a way to fulfill. Setting aside what you want but don’t need and simplifying your life will release undreamed of space for a more harmonious, love filled life as things such as family, friends, nature, sunsets, etc. find a higher presence in your value system.
…Reach out to ask for help when you need it and offer help when you can. There has always been enough for everyone as long as it is shared.
…The sky is not falling. It may be turning a new shade, however, one that will ultimately be more enjoyable to view. When Pluto returns to Capricorn the end of November, it will be breaking down and rebuilding government, business, economic and leadership structure until 2024.
…If you are still worried about how to cope, attend my workshop, “Facing Change, Thriving in Uncertainty,” on November 1. I have some tools and some processes that might help.
I leave you with the following piece written by Julie Redstone in her Light Omega newsletter:
Upheavals call upon each heart to find its way to the bedrock of its own trust in, and alignment with, the Divine – the source of strength that can carry us beyond the visible manifestations of what may be taking place, to a more certain future.
We are entering such a time now – a time of upheaval – and it is incumbent upon each one who has a heart that can connect with a larger context in which to hold things, to establish such a connection and to anchor in it.
For only such anchoring in a greater truth whose purposes are good and loving can hold us during a time of upheaval and of turbulence. The heart must strengthen and grow larger in order to sustain us through the unknowing and the turbulence of the times that lay ahead.
Not everything that can be counted counts and not everything that counts can be counted.
~ Einstein
