The World is Bleeding ... and we are part of it...both bleeding and healing...
(I dedicate this post to all my students for the past 46 years...)
Jacob Obrecht
I am listening to his Missa Maria Zert...Beautiful and tranquil...Lifts my spirits up and transports me where I always wanted to be...At St. Benoit Du Lac in Quebec - an hours drive from Montreal. Ross, my friend, who recently passed away to heaven, always mentioned that I will love the experience...The peaceful tranquility of the abbey...He advised me to stay there for a week...with the monks and the chants and my thoughts.....
This is St. Benoit Du Lac from a distance
This is St. Benoit Du Lac close up
This is the peaceful interior of the abbey
...and here it is a magical experience to mediate...by yourself...alone...and get in touch with heaven...
Whenever I accompanied the students to the school chapel...I remembered St. Benoit Du Lac...I did not tell them that...I registered their serene faces and their quiet reflection...and again it was getting in touch with heaven...as if I was in St. Benoit Du Lac...
Earlier today I listened to Mozart's Requiem...and my day developed into a peaceful oasis...But of course I cannot isolate myself from the events around me...I cannot isolate myself and remain in St. Benoit Du Lac...in peace and tranquility...
Recently I received a not from a young friend...(Read the box)...
Thank you for
your e-mails :)
It has been very difficult lately to keep up with all the messages I've been receiving from family and friends. It is so nice to feel so loved by so many people.
I'm as slow as I can be, when I slow down too much, I get sick. Also, my life just does not allow for that. I have, however, resigned from student council this year, so that will be one less thing on my plate.
Thank you so much for keeping up with my blog, I've been looking at yours as well, I have it saved as a favourite on my links. A lot of what you post makes people stop and think. Much of it is quite sad though, and I can't read too much at one time.
As horrible of a situation my accident was, there are so many things I can be grateful for. I'm lucky I wasn't on the highway. I'm lucky I was at a red light. I'm lucky no one was hurt. I'm lucky that my parents were able to come to the hospital. I'm lucky I have family and friends who can help me out in this time that I can't drive myself anywhere...and so much more.
Please keep me in your prayers as I go through my tests in the next couple of weeks. I'm hoping that my low blood pressure (which I've always had) just plummeted and forced me to pass out. Since I was sitting in my car, I wasn't able to fall horizontal, allowing blood to flow back to my brain, and keeping me unconscious until the paramedics lay my seat back and the blood was able to flow to my brain again. I am praying every day that that was the case, not a cardiac problem or seizures.
I hope you had a great weekend
.....................xxxxxx...............
It has been very difficult lately to keep up with all the messages I've been receiving from family and friends. It is so nice to feel so loved by so many people.
I'm as slow as I can be, when I slow down too much, I get sick. Also, my life just does not allow for that. I have, however, resigned from student council this year, so that will be one less thing on my plate.
Thank you so much for keeping up with my blog, I've been looking at yours as well, I have it saved as a favourite on my links. A lot of what you post makes people stop and think. Much of it is quite sad though, and I can't read too much at one time.
As horrible of a situation my accident was, there are so many things I can be grateful for. I'm lucky I wasn't on the highway. I'm lucky I was at a red light. I'm lucky no one was hurt. I'm lucky that my parents were able to come to the hospital. I'm lucky I have family and friends who can help me out in this time that I can't drive myself anywhere...and so much more.
Please keep me in your prayers as I go through my tests in the next couple of weeks. I'm hoping that my low blood pressure (which I've always had) just plummeted and forced me to pass out. Since I was sitting in my car, I wasn't able to fall horizontal, allowing blood to flow back to my brain, and keeping me unconscious until the paramedics lay my seat back and the blood was able to flow to my brain again. I am praying every day that that was the case, not a cardiac problem or seizures.
I hope you had a great weekend
.....................xxxxxx...............
In isolation, in the school chapel or at St. Benoit Du Lac, I will meditate and reflect and be happy...But once I am out of the chapel, when I come out of the abbey...the world becomes a "sad" place, as my young friend refers to...
Ukraine is real...and the killings are tragic...Outside powers making Ukrainians kill each other for their benefit...is a sad thing...
Syria is surreal...A civil war for three years...again to satisfy the whims and profit of the outside powers...
The Armenian Genocide is real...I feel its consequences every single day... I remember my grandparents and their deportation from their homes...and it happened twice...withing six years... and I remember the horrors of being raped as they related me...by Turkish gendarmes...
I remember all the genocides...
I know that 1 out of 3 kids in Toronto are hungry when they arrive at school in the mornings...
The world is a sad place to be...and I cannot stay in the school chapel or at St. Benoit Du Lac abbey forever...My temporal sojourn will be absurd and meaningless if it is devoid of the community that I am part of...Without the community I maybe will enjoy my blessings better...But I cannot isolate myself...That is how I am...I see things...I hear things...and I speak my mind... and,
I write about it in the blog...and I hope for the better...I hope the youth will listen...
... and I hope tomorrow will be a better day....
***
...And another experience
Parmarth Niketen, on the banks of the holy
Ganges river in Rishikesh
Sivananda Ashram
The guesthouse of the Omkarananda Ashram Himalayas
Sadhana Mandir and Swami
Rama Sadhaka Grama Ashram
Anand Prakash Ashram was
founded in 2007 by husband and wife team Chetana Panwar (a Canadian woman) and
Yogirishi Vishvketu (who's studied Hatha and Raja yoga, and the Vedic healing
arts, in northern India since childhood). They offer their own style of yoga
called Akhanda Yoga, which has holistic, non-sectarian teachings.
Beatles in Rishikesh, India
John Lennon and Paul McCarthy in Rishikesh
***
Like the Beatles we can visit Rishikesh and meditate and reflect in the peaceful tranquility of an ashram...under the watchful eyes of the Himalayas... We can communicate with the spirits high up there in the snow covered peaks of the mountains...But like the Beatles, we have to come back and be part of the larger world...We have, like Lennon, to "Imagine all the people..."
***
In my last AP Calculus class...I lived and relived and experienced the Rishikesh over and over again...when I looked into the eyes of Kummar...I communicated with the spirits of the Himalayas...when I encountered the face of Moturu I relived the peace of the ashram...and in the AP classroom I relived the resurrection of Rishikesh...and embraced Ganga in all her glory and holiness...
This is what I am...and this is what I will be...I am concerned about the global village and I am sad when the world bleeds...and I cannot feast without remembering the person who is starving while picking the fruits that I am enjoying...
The world is a sad "stage" ... and I want to "imagine all the people living in harmony..."and hope the youth will make a difference and change things for the better...
I hope, but I will never hold by breath ... but again I will not cocoon at St. Benoit Du Lac...and I will return back from Rishikesh and share my experience in the ashram... I not remain in the chapel while the global village is bleeding...
I hope...and I hope...and I will imagine...the world ...living in harmony...
Meditate...Reflect...and rebel...and change...
Static mode leads to stagnation...and stagnation stinks...
Kick the elders, the hypocrites, the selfish egocentrics, the narcissist and the greedy, the insatiable materialists out of the Temple and reclaim the Global Village. After all, it belongs to you... and not to them.
Dip in Holy Ganges and hug Mother Ganga
But I could not cocoon myself in the AP classroom and sheath myself from the rest of the real world... The AP classroom was wonderful, but the rest of the school was real and I had to face it...and the reality brutalized my happiness... After all, the students were gossipy and at times very mean and selfish ... The teachers were after the crumbs of the feast and at times outright petty... and the admin was haplessly mediocre and at times extremely egocentric and ignored the fact that they were there for the kids ... and outside the school the world was reeling with wars and misery...The West and the East were in a deadly competition...and because of their greed people were dying in Kiev and in Damascus and Darfur and in Istanbul ...Because of human greed people were starving in Africa...and I could not (I can not) divorce myself from the reality...This is what I am...and this is what I will be...I am concerned about the global village and I am sad when the world bleeds...and I cannot feast without remembering the person who is starving while picking the fruits that I am enjoying...
The world is a sad "stage" ... and I want to "imagine all the people living in harmony..."and hope the youth will make a difference and change things for the better...
I hope, but I will never hold by breath ... but again I will not cocoon at St. Benoit Du Lac...and I will return back from Rishikesh and share my experience in the ashram... I not remain in the chapel while the global village is bleeding...
I hope...and I hope...and I will imagine...the world ...living in harmony...
Meditate...Reflect...and rebel...and change...
Static mode leads to stagnation...and stagnation stinks...
Kick the elders, the hypocrites, the selfish egocentrics, the narcissist and the greedy, the insatiable materialists out of the Temple and reclaim the Global Village. After all, it belongs to you... and not to them.
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