We know that we are in the midst of personal,
cultural, and
planetary transformation
when chaos permeates our lives.
--Nancy Schreck, OSF
When we look closely at what is happening in the individual lives of many people, they are going through much turmoil. Many are afraid to leave their homes for fear of some injury befalling them. When we look at what is happening to the planet in reference to the climate, there is a real question about our physical security and the future of the planet. Massive fires, torrential rains producing floods, heat waves killing people and extending draughts, and melting permafrost in Alaska are common news highlights today. When we look at what is happening globally between nations, war is the answer to all the problems that arise. We see almost a million people forced from their homes because of wars and weather changes. Politically, when we look at home, we see partisanship and animosity prevailing, causing even family members to fight with each other over political beliefs.
We see major caring institutions like schools, universities, hospitals, churches, and police departments struggling to provide security, health and well-being to many people. The health of many people is declining due to chronic illness. Healthy food is becoming more and more challenging to find at prices that most can afford.
Our personal lives, our culture in general, and our planet as a whole are in chaos on many levels. Things seem to be breaking down. Even mental stability is a hard for our children and families to find.
What does all this mean? According to Thomas Hubel, there is a blessing in the crises. “People wake up during crises,” he says. “When the crises expose the cracks in our society, something new comes through the cracks.” In the natural world when cracks appear in the concrete or asphalt parking lots, the dandelion seed or quack grass sees the light and grows. The light shines through the cracks.
To the yogi and the Christian, it means that the old is dying and the new world is beginning to rise. Catholic Christianity call this the “Paschal Mystery,” the movement of life from death to resurrection. The Sankhya Yoga Tradition calls this “OM.” Sociologists call this “transformation,” a dramatic change that will bring a new life totally different from our past life experience. With all these crises, we are in the midst of transformation. We will no longer be able to hope for the “Great America Again” until we go through much dying of the Old America. Then a New Great America emerges, totally different from the Old America.
Academically, the process of moving to a new world is simply stated as moving from Order to Disorder to Reorder. We are in that process now. That is the world we are in—a world that is not just constantly changing, but a world that is massively changing all of its major institutions and life situations.
Our job, as Margaret Wheatley says, is to navigate these “white water rapids.”
We will need some important skills to make it through in one piece without drowning or losing our sense of ourselves and our peace of mind. One of the greatest skills, besides communicating about our experience of the chaos while remaining curious about why it is happening, is to live fully in the present, yet mindful of the past and while moving into the future. All these skills can be summed up in the practices of contemplation and meditation.
All the spiritual traditions, especially the yoga tradition, can provide us with these necessary skills. I have experienced these saving practice many times and have found that meditation has saved me during many of the crises in my life. I have not succumbed to the crises’ powerful waves.
More and more people need to flow with the current of these massive personal, cultural, systemic and planetary changes and meditation provides that ability for us to flow into the new resurrected life.
I bow to the divinity within you!
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