Building a national identity - a solution for ethnic violence?

Ethnic cleanising and ethnic conflicts are still commonplace on parts of the world. The pain and cost of it is not at all commonplace. The UN estimates 8 million children to die out of lack of food in 2014 if any intervention is not made. In some other parts of the world, a single death is the cause of an uproar on governance. I dont need to speak more about the condition of poverty because of ethnic violence. It is a horrific data we cannot bear to comprehend and hence better left unsaid and undealt with. ..syadly.

On the other hand, lets explore what helped some countries/communities emerge strong and stable. In 15th and 17th centuries, many of the developed countries of today emerged as a nation from being a bunch of fragmented comminites - tribals, peasant communities, settlements or communities with conquestorial interests. In nearly all cases, there are hereoes/heroines, a major movement - peaceful or violent which develops a sense of what it is to belong to that nation. 

The above makes sense when you look at examples - Germany was united under Bismark, French by the wars with Britain, Napoleanic wars and French Revolution, USA as a land of promise from settlers with roots in Free Masons, UK from accession agreements with Scotland and Ireland based on understanding of commonnality and differences in culture, India, China and several other countries with a struggle for independence from colonial powers.

Another major factor has been renaissance, industrialisation, freedom struggle, etc

Factors I call to attention in increasing order of importance -

- conquest by stable monarchs, under whom a common identity is felt

- legends, hereoes and heroines that form the common binding culture

- historic struggles that question status quo, cause churning and bring meaninfullness. In this process, they also establish new legends, heroes and heroines.

- Renaissance, industrialisation, freedom struggles, communist movements debunked the beliefs of fixed places for individuals in society based on their birth.

All this together helped developed a unique national identity that gave the people an identity and cemented them as a community. This is what we have come to identify as a nation of people distinct from a country (country's definition is limited to being citizens of a politically defined region.). The development of this identity heralded a common vision in which everybody finds a stake and this provides a stable environment in which this vision can be pursued.

This is effect an Organsiation Development perspective developed from applied psychology for small groups and organsiations.

Now by extending this model, can we examine what processes can be set , communication to be developed that can help small sub saharan, western african communities to develop national identities in ways that allows them to retain a tribal identity along with a national identity like India has language, caste, ethnic, regional identities co-existing with national identity.

What are the legends, struggles which are common in communities. The communication of challenges in such ways that it brings communities together to face them in a struggle that develops national identity.

A mango - Breaking invisible boundaries

                                             
Yesterday, I went to a store to buy some vegetable. Seeing beautiful mangoes, on a spur I bought a few. A gentleman before me literally looked at every mango before selecting about 6 of them. After waiting for 5 min, I decided to quickly pick up the mangoes that 'felt' right. If these were not good then I would change them. So 4 came up quickly. Then there was one, which I realised I did not want, nevertheless 'felt' like picking up. So 5 mangoes came up with me to the cashier!

This is the story of that 5th mango!

After I came out of the store, I was debating within myself whether to go after my husband shopping in another nearby store or wait in the car. As I stood there unsure of what to do next, I noticed a girl of about 13 looking at me. She was part of a small family at what seemed their old paper mart / kabadi shop. ( For those who cant figure what it is - it is about 10ft x2 ft shop stacked with old newspapers bought from ppl like us and sold for a few rupees profit to recycling orgs). In her seemed to be an old, empty jewellery box from some jeweler, no doubt discarded by somebody better off. She was caressing the velvet where a necklace would have been. Her father and younger brother around busy with other 'junk'.

Seeing me and touching the velvet, she seemed to be looking at a fantasy .. She was seeing me right in front of her. Yet I seemed to be a fantasy just like necklace she would never have. I seemed to be a metaphor for the person she could never be. Short hair, jeans, confident walk, in a car....

I was a bit uncomfortable under her gaze. At that time, I was aware only of a young girl staring at me. A thought stuck me of giving her a mango from my stash. But then the pros and cons followed. A debate raged in me ...

She will be surprised... It will seem like charity...She might be offended....Am I trying to help her or what .Really, a mango? Whats that going to do for her?... Career guidance, coaching all that is helpful, but mango? What are you going to achieve?.....Well this is what I would be doing to a friend's daughter - Share a delicious mango..... She did look a bit like a friend's daughter.....She could have been one had she been born in in diff circumstance. .... But how do I go up there and do it. .. It seems wrong..I will seem like a weirdo...What will I tell Sampath.... Oh I wish Sampath would come back soon, so I dont have to deal with this....What is he doing there for so long! .....He ought to have come by now!....

Thought cycles in which our minds run - based on Patanjali

On a normal day this conversation would have gone on with no action happening. Today, before I could debate and decide within, I found myself stepping up to the girl, picking a mango  and offering it to her.( you guessed right the 5th mango!). No words flowed in the beginning. Only eye contact! All that was there in me was a wildly beating heart! She was startled. Obviously so. She looked around at her father for direction. While he was busy, she knew she could take the mango from me. She turned around and smiled. Took the mango.

I almost ran.( I ran in my mind, on the outside, I was carefully keeping up the pretense of a strong, confident woman). I went to the shop where Sampath was still there. This time thankful that I can be somewhere other than the car for sometime. Then after a couple of min, as we walked back, we passed her again. We exchanged smiles. As we drove off  , she waved at me with a cheerful smile and I waved back.
This time it was the wave of a friend. No charity here. It was acknowledgement of being lifted to hope, wonder and something different in operating in both of us now.

Suddenly I realised that an invisible barrier between two worlds were broken. You could look at this in different ways - 2 classes, 2 patterns within both of our minds.
For both of us, it was a shift from what was to what can be. I was no longer fantasy, I was real. Somehow, it seemed to bring back her confidence as if now she knew that she could be what she wanted to be.
For me too, I was no longer a prisoner of notions I held within, I could do, I could act on what I truly 'felt'.

I do not know whether they fought over who would get how much mango, or whether she should have accepted it or ......
But I know it changed her and it changed me. Boundaries built deep into us by unknown, unseen people was broken by a mango. Boundaries so deep , that they cannot be known by us, only their impacts on our decisions understood when we are out of them.

The Challenge of Living Life from Self

Finding the inner self and operating from it continually is at the same time a very easy and a very difficult task.

Easy because, the person you are trying to be is actually you. You do not need to acquire anything new. On the other hand the bounty of nature becomes more available to you when you are yourself. Just think of the times like first time seeing your new born - the moment, feeling its magnitude, the miracle of having been part of creation and holding something whose potential future is a mystery ... All this can be felt by us with no effort from our side in terms of acquiring skill, planning. It is there for us to feel whenever we wish to. 

Even a young puppy can evoke love in us, strong enough to make us commit to take care of it through thick and thin, rain and sunshine, work and vacation!

The beauty of nature, the twilight sky, the flow of water  -- their capability to mesmerise  us is because we have the ability to fall in sync with our inner selves in their presence. 

By the time you come to this line of text, a portion of your mind, will be calling this idea bull s***. Birthing a baby is no easy task, neither is raising it. It does require a hell of a lot of work. Nature is fine, but getting to  a place of nature needs a lot of work! All that joy is only to be wished for, practical life is to work hard to make it even. Exactly! The impossibility in Living from the Self starts coming in the minute we use this critical mind to dismiss the possibility of living from the Self.  And this Critical Mind is also very much part of us, just like our Self. Our critical mind (you can use different names for this, our Ego mind is one ) can bring out hundreds of reasons why not to think of living like this. It says it is IMPOSSIBLE. Loose weight? IMPOSSIBLE! Find Love? IMPOSSIBLE! Be joyful all the time? IMPOSSIBLE!

Well without it life loses its point! There is no point to live life without these. There is no point in life if you dont live out in the external life the richness of the inner Self. It may be tough, but in the struggle for it, becuase if its toughness if you loose sight of this  Inner Self, you loose sight of the Beautiful picture that is your life's attempt to create. 

Thus the challenge always is to keep in touch with the Self within, even in the most depressing times, and then to keep alive the beautiful vision that the Self has given us even while we navigate through the business of Life  to manifest this vision.

This is the task we approach in our program  - Finding the Inner Compass in Bangalore from June 3rd to 6th 2013

Announcing - Finding the Inner Compass from June 3rd to 6th at Bangalore

WE are announcing the module one again to be done from June 3rd to 6th at Aikya Centre in Bangalore

Workshop on Shadow and Self, Bangalore

We are organising a workshop - Light from the Dark - Shadow and Self in Bangalore from February - 25th to 27th

Link to the website with details - Click here

Working on this topic and this project has been a great energy giver to us. The topic is deep and demands that we are alert, active and we persevere.

Designing a program which help participant experience it has been very tough. But the first program was a reasonable success.

One of the thoughts after the program has been not to associate ourselves and the program with Shadow alone, but to Self also. The way to deal with Shadow is to get centred with the Self. If we associate very closely with Shadow, we are running the risk of introjecting shadow elements from outside us also. Associating with Self on the other hand brings us closer to achieving our purpose. Hence this time the title of the program includes Shadow and Self.

Welcome to the program! This is an opportunity to experience it, not just talk about it!

Young girls - the knights of Queendom?

Just took a image from a facebook post of a friend! This seems the reality now! The knights of Queendom! 

Just think of the number of people whose consciousness she has touched by an action in line with her internal sense of what is right!

Young have always been the harbingers of change at every generation. They have always been more open to the change of the times. Now the women seem to be particularly potent in it. Their stance seems to indicate an intuitive knowledge of a different kind. Like a new born's sense of right to air and loud assertion of it through a cry, it seems they know something that is not yet clear and visible in the world outside. They may not be fully aware of it themselves, yet they are intuitively sure of it and it seems to reflect in their stance. An action from this sense is almost unavoidable to them and capable of challenging the foundation of the fundamentalism that is an anachronism in Queendom. Queedom here is a land whose psyche is inspired and powered by the great divine feminine, nothing more to it in terms of gender or feminism.

Women seem to be more quickly intuiting it. Other than this I think it is quite inclusive of men and women. It is just as easily accessible to man who has put effort to know his Self and be open to intuition. 

It is happening and inspiring fear in fundamentalists wanting to hold on to the values of an era that is vanishing.

Perspective of Oneness in Queendom

There will be different perspectives governing the Queendom. That will be the basic premise from which every thinking will spring forth.

Every field today is ruled by a perspective. The thoughts and concepts produced by people carry the influence of that perspective or the fundamental idea which belong to that era. Akin to the seed from which the tree sprouts.

Queendom will have such fundamental perspective which would be completely different from the current one.

Oneness...

If we have a basic belief that we are all one at a deep level and we are able to experience it as such, our perspective about every thing will change. Being one at a deep level is not to negate the obvious differences between individuals, but to experience the source to be common to all.

In describing ourselves today, the number of labels we use indicate the narrowness of our identification. We identify ourselves with a minute slice of nature and then our field of perception gets limited by this identity. We become oblivious to realities outside the domains defined by our identity. This limited perception creates limited consciousness. In our current mainstream society, this perception is heavily influenced by marketing by media, companies, other humans, institutions, etc, resulting consciousness which is very materialistic and short sighted. This short sightedness creates distinctions and limitedness in our perceptions. We start to see things as for and against us. Consider the issue of fight between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka discussed in Chitra's article about Limitedness in thought on the Cauvery issue. 

This can change when individually our consciousness extends our perception to the Common Source of all Nature, the Source of which we are all different manifestations. That is the seed of Oneness as opposed to Limitedness. This consciousness spiritual in current meaning will become a fundamental assumption of the individual human psyche in Queendom.This Psycho-spiritual consciousness will be the wide spread consciousness of Queendom. The possibilities from this consciousness will be extremely unbelievable.

For example - Queendom can then easily integrate science and spirituality and create an universe which will not question the other but will only help the other to become reality.Instead of competing and fighting with one another, people in Queendom will collaborate and co create.

It is not a fantasy that we are talking about Queendom.  We are talking about a very fundamental perspective held by people in Queendom. This perspective is seeded in them out of their living experience. What of this perspective?

They will see the oneness in every one. Even though every one will be different, people in Queendom will also see the inherent psychic reality of oneness in every one. And they will relate with this oneness aspect. Such a relationship will give them a different experience which in turn will give them a different attitude. This attitude helps them to collaborate and co create.

The Web of consciousness surrounding Queendom will carry the belief that we are all one at a deep level and will be different at a manifested, and objective level. This subjective reality and the objective fact will be integrated in every one. This will help them see the oneness aspect in every one.

Holding this perspective helps them in many ways. Currently we are wasting huge amounts of psychic energy through our feelings like jealous, anger, envy depression,etc. This is because our basic belief is we are different. This belief creates a sense of insecurity and anxiety.We need to protect out interests from the other.

But once the basic belief is changed into "we are one" perspective, the people are not gripped and cringed by fear and insecurity. This will save them a lot of psychic energy which can be used for exploring new psychic avenues.

This subjective knowledge will alter the very view that we hold about the universe and people in the Queendom. Their way of life will be totally different, which we cannot imagine right now.

Though we can not imagine, let us attempt to be mindful and see the seeds of it that are being sown in the consciousness around us.