Living/Dancing on a Threshold: Covid 19 as an instrument of spirit.  

The supreme mind of the universe has taken over.  And it is forcing us to live on that threshold between the old manipulative world as we knew it and a new world where each of us lives not to profit from other but to be in service to humanity.

If you analyze the numerology implicated in Corvid-19, the numbers 1 and 9 carry connotative meanings. ONE stands for standing and walking on our own two feet to get to our destination.  Forget manipulation!  NINE stands for Transcendence to universal love and spiritual laws that govern us, such as karma, spiritual enlightenment, and service to humanity.  Forget self-centeredness!

Based on this analysis it stands to reason that the pandemic is working with us, not against us.  Disturbing thought?  Yes, but necessary.  The pandemic and its relentlessly increasing infection rate stands in front of our eyes as a magnified representation of one of the worst symptoms that show our culture has been ill for centuries.  We have been infecting one another, unfortunately not with virtues but with vices.  Is it a surprise the supreme mind of the universe sends a plague to demonstrate by example what has been taking place all along?  

We are told the droplets travel 27 feet, but perhaps they only they travel that far to infect the ones that need the experience, the ones who need to look at themselves in retrospections, self assess themselves, their human value, their vices, and their virtues, or lack thereof. 

The result is that we are all witnessing the steady and steadfast murder of a culture by its own hand.  It’s not easy to watch the extinction of a culture whether you participated in its errors and vices or not.  Parents suffer when heir children are in pain.  But pain is necessary.  It reminds people of the existence of the human heart.  And this reminder is much needed, for it will be up to the people with the biggest hearts to reconstruct businesses not for a lucrative purpose but for the purpose of service to others, not with business in mind, but with compassion and solidarity in their hearts.  

Seen from this point of view, the virus is an instrument of spirit.  

We live at the threshold of a new world, a threshold that demands that we resist the pull from the past and the going back to what life used to be before.  We didn’t learn with the First Wave!  So here comes the Second Wave!  The truth is that earth is no longer flat.  The sun no longer revolves around the earth, and money no longer fuels power.  We are graduating from a world where most people were accustomed to be ruled by circumstances.  Our new world will be peopled by women and men or character who have the inner power to bend circumstances to their will for the betterment of everybody’s human condition.  These are people who can defy the elements to see change take place.  What is most important, is that these are people who can defy their own baser nature to see that their ideals come alive before their eyes.  (Julius Caesar.)

Now more than ever we women need to exercise the qualities of warriors.  Once I heard a shaman say: “A warrior knows no fear, strikes like lighting, flies off like a thunderstorm, is smart as a fox, is brave like a leopard, and shows his enemy no mercy.”  Our enemy is our old ways.  Yet we have the opportunity to say good by to the world as we knew it, the chance to turn the tragic into magic, and a pretty good chance to win this fight.  And we can do it only if we become part of something bigger than ourselves.  YET  if we women approach the reconstruction of our culture or the creation of a new world with a sales in mind, we are bound for disaster again.  For a new world that is founded on copying the wrong that others did in order to get ahead cannot and will not get ahead.  It will get buried deeper instead.  Does anybody want a Third Wave?  

When we are instruments of spirit, life is magnified.  A flu wouldn’t have any impact.  A deadly virus, on the other hand, has a deadly impact. 

COVIT 19 had to come magnified for us to see in it our own capacity to infect ourselves morally.  It needs to be grotesque, like Auschwitz needed to be grotesquely shocking for the world to see what evil forces in humans were capable of.  In a world run by manipulative forces, another form of evil, Corvid 19 pushes everyone’s buttons and demands that manipulation cease to be the number one method of achieving what people want in this world.  

A pandemic can move mountains, and so it seems with Corvid 19.  Changes have already begun to take place. Giving has increased, compassion, serendipity, concern for the fellow men, women, and children.  That a virus had to come to make us all get going with our own human growth!

Maybe in disguise 2020 will be our year after all.  Everybody’s year! It is my belief that  COVIT 19 will make of enemies friends. 

On Women as Spiritual Warriors

Published 2020/04/24

The world is unjust…the rich crush the poor, the whites crush the blacks, and yellow, the powerful crash the powerless.  It’s the class struggle.  You have to choose your side.  Either you defend the rich or you defend the poor.  There is no in-between.  And the historical process is that one day the poor will win, and they will make a just world, where life will be good.  Where none will be cast aside.   Pablo Neruda

Neruda was a Latin American poet who organized a heroic resistance that lit the path for the workers of the world.  We women are assuming a similar role today.  A role of leaders and of warriors.  In the midst of this pandemic we are in charge of lighting the path for those who have been left behind.  But first that requires some cleaning up.  However, we have been blessed with a good place to get started.  The streets have never been so clean and crime has never been so low; violence has dropped dramatically and solidarity and neighborly love have increased exponentially with the crisis.  It took a virus to push us to this threshold from where our only course of action is to work towards the betterment of everybody’s human condition.  

Lately we have been coming face to face with the spoils of war in the form of thousands of deaths.  But not all is lost.  In the history of mankind previous plagues have brought social change.  In the 13th century, after the Black Plague that devastated Europe, it took the society decades to implement changes, and for those changes to manifest themselves in everyday life.  I certainly hope that seven centuries have been long enough for us to have learned, and that this time we women will work steadily and steadfastly to expedite the healing of our culture.  If we don’t, 700 years have gone by in vain.

Each culture is different.  Ours being relatively young has not had the privilege of being founded on the legends of warriors.  Japan, to cite an example, is grounded on such legend, its samurai tradition. If you understand devotion, you will understand Japan.  This is a crucial message in the film The Emperor.  Japan runs on an ancient warrior code and obedience, it is explained in the film.  The Samurai as warrior is ingrained in that culture, and the culture is imbued with that tradition.  

We unfortunately have not lived based on a code of devotion, but on a code of greed.  The emigrants who populated this country came here in search of fortune, to make a dollar.  And that dollar idol took prevalence and grew roots.  Lacking a tradition of benevolence our culture anchored itself on the fleeting power of the word.  As we see in advertisement, political campaigns, and what not.  And vane attempts to fight against greed via speech and sermons have plagued our mass media,  but they have for the most part proven ineffective.  The film, The Great Dictator, in which Charlie Chaplin portrays a dictator is a parody of this. Here is an excerpt of the speech.

I don’t want to be an emperor.  That is not my business.  I don’t want to rule or conquer anyone.  I should like to help everyone if possible…We want to live by each others’ happiness not by each other’s misery.  We have lost the way.  Greed has poisoned men’s souls.  We think too much and feel too little.  [But] Do not despair.  The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed. The bitterness of men who fear the wave of human progress… Let us fight to free the world.  To do away with international barriers, to do away with greed, with hate and intolerance.  

Let us fight for a world of reason, the Dictator screams in a film that was made in 1940, almost a century ago.  Look what reason brought about as a result.  The Great Dictator’s speech ends up telling us to  Look up.. the soul of men have been given wings, and at last he is beginning to fly… he is flying into the rainbow, into the light of hope into the future, a glorious future that belongs to you, to me and to all of us.  But were we ever really given wings?  Did we ever take flight?  In 80 years our culture has chained us to the floor up on corporate skyscrapers.  In Japan, however, history ran a different course.  In 1945, Emperor Hirohito, renounced his status as a God at the end of WWII, for a warrior is devoted to his people, and seeks his people’s wellbeing above his.

We women are now staring at a possible new blue print of life, and it is up to us to transform this blue print into reality.   And for that purpose we must become warriors.  Today I say let us fight for a spiritual world!  

On the Celebration of Being Alone: Playing at a theater very near you!

Published 2019/08/05

Bertolt Brecht’s theatre of alienation claims that everything that happens on stage is affected by one question: Who does what to whom and for what reasons? Therefore all theater is political, and as such it affects human relations, it makes audiences think, it gets them involved, not empathically, but rationally, and it can even motivate them to action.

With On The Celebration of Being Alone, one of three one-act plays by Ed Ballou playing now at the 13^thStreet Repertory Theater in New York City, I sought to apply Brecht’s theatrical principles.  Far from giving us a straightforward slice of life in realistic terms, Paul Loper, who brilliantly plays the hero, a man named 46, gives us two dimensions of the character.  46, the man in the past who leads an unrecognized life and suffers with the realization that the system only feeds crumbs to him and to humanity and 46, the man in the present, who despite that past is able to have his celebration after all because he hasn’t been erased, as he demonstrates by closing the play with a victorious laughter.  He also plays the Narrator, who invites the audience to follow 46’s life path and ponder: 

“How many 46’s do we know? Do we even care to know them?”  

Having been away from directing theater for about seven years, I chose to apply the following Brecht’s theatrical principles to On The Celebration of Being Alone: characters in dialectical contradiction with themselves creating a divided hero, episodic action creating discontinuity through the use of repetition, songs, movement, written word, and the use of a narrator explaining and interrogating the dramatic material.  All these techniques disrupt empathy in the audience, alienates them, and invites an examination of the plays’s theme, crucial in Brechtian theatre.  Ultimately I sought to emulate a director as Brecht envisions that role: the director as a facilitator, not as visionary; the director as catalyst for new ways of thinking, not as promoter of the status quo; the director as an advocate of a collective creative process, not as the supporter of the work of a single artistic director; and the director as an invisible force, not ever present.  

Coincidentally enough, I directed this piece entirely on line, remotely, removed from the stage and the traditional ways of rehearsing actors, and in so doing I gave the stage entirely to the performer.   This complete removal, this self-dethroning of the director grants freedom to the actors, and to us the directors, grants us the opportunity to exercise humbleness and grow spiritually.  In the words of Brecht scholar David Barnett, it also helps to undermine the hierarchies that can exist in the theater systems and leads a shift in its power relations, thus contributing to the much-needed spiritual advancement in the theater arts.   

On Giving and Receiving

Published 2019/04/11

To be giving is a quality of the human heart.  At times in our lives we give; later invariably there will be moments when help will come our way and it is our turn to receive.  There is nothing bad in receiving, but what we do with it does matter, for there is a great difference between Receiving to give and Receiving to accumulate wealth.”  

RECEIVING to give creates a cycle of solidarity in the community.  These are spiritual communities that honor both giving and receiving, like in the case of ashrams where this cycle or giving-receiving-giving is never broken and sustains and supports the community.  We too have excellent examples of giving-receiving-giving cycles in the dance world: after school dance programs and scholarships for promising dancers.  At the moment of training they receive, but those same dancers will undoubtedly give when the opportunity comes because it is a basic psychological fact that we do to others what was done to us.  If we received plentifully; we will give plentifully.  And so we are planting and nurturing a crop, which in Mahatma Gandhi’s words, is made of innumerable seeds, leaves and fruits of giving which are the fullest possible nutrition to mankind.

Unfortunately this beautiful cycle of giving can be broken, particularly in capitalist societies where naturally the gain is the game.  In capitalist circles people receive to use it for their gain and the result is using solidarity to make profit.  What is worse, once the cycle is broken then it can become a manipulation and hoarding game that feeds greed. Then the seeds, leaves, and fruits of greed will follow, and these, alas, are the emptiest possible nutrition to mankind.   Mankind, man + kind = Giving.  How come this so transparent equation became mercenary?  Giving is simple and openhearted.  Giving is not selfish giving, interested giving, nor manipulative giving.  We don’t give to claim because to give means to love, and here I quote Gandhi once again.  Love never claims; it ever gives.  

In our dance and particularly ballet circles let’s give the wanting-to-be dancers dance power and dance freedom and their dance will flourish. Their hearts will dance as much as their bodies, or even more so.  Let’s give this new generation of ballet dancers the knowledge of dance: technique, history, choreography, for certain, but even more crucial is to give them the truth of dance, that truth that says dance is for the spirit of all of humankind.  Then we will have truly given them freedom.  And beyond that the greatest gift we can give them is to banish fear from their hearts,  the fear that what is given to them has a price and the time will come for them to pay, or even worse yet, expect them to pay before they receive.  

We must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of ocean are dirty, the entire ocean does not become dirty. Mahatma Gandhi.

On Admiration vs Envy

Published 2019/02/04

We go to the ballet to admire beauty, talent, artistic genius.  However, admiration often masks envy, and the seats of the theater welcome indiscriminately both a public that either admires or envies, or both.  The admirers radiate love towards the stage while the second group exudes jealousy. Yet we all have a role in the community, and we must acknowledge that envy masks admiration as well, and so the two sides of the coin spin on its edge.

The most important learning experience during our lives is not to learn how to get rid of our vices, but how to transform them into virtues, which is a lot easier than to get rid of them.  This is the power of transformation. To transform envy into admiration we need to evolve.  It requires moving the source of our reactions up the chakra scale, which is achieved through yoga. Yoga allows the awakening of the supreme energy that resides in all of us (Kundalini Awakening) and lets it rise up, removing the debris accumulated in the chakras, allowing the energy to spin freely and rise unencumbered.

Someone said to me: If you must make a mistake, don’t make the same mistake!  Make a new one!  Even better would be not to make another one at all, I say.  We can stop ourselves from committing the same errors of the past if we change the source of our reactions.  Envy is born in our guts; it’s an instinct that is triggered when we feel threatened because at the bottom of every emotion is fear.  The thought I don’t dance as well as she does allows fear to set in, fear not to ever be as good, fear not to be chosen for the role, fear to look less accomplished, etc.  Profound admiration, on the other hand, emanates from the heart.  How gloriously she moves!  There is no other underlying feeling in such a statement.  It is pure, sheer admiration.  The transformation requires striking off one’s own ego.  The ego is so busy seeking and envying external beauty that it neglects developing and nurturing its own internal beauty.  But once that personal beauty is awakened, there is only place for admiration in our hearts.

On Renunciation from Attachment

Published 2019/02/17

In The Life Divine, Sri Aurobindo opened an immense realm of spiritual experience to man, the expansion of consciousness or Supermind.  However, still today man’s blind attachment to his desires, impulses, passions, ambitions, greed and ego makes of him a slave of his physical body.  He is still concerned with raising his “standard of living” based on material progress instead of on spiritual progress.

One must first become aware of the problem before taking the next step: solving it by aspiring to ascend to a higher plane, above one’s mundane physical reality.  To see the need for change is primordial to rise to the Supermind, yet we get attached to life, get enamored of it, and submit to the demands of physical life, acting as if satisfying those demands of life, its impulses, desires, passions, greed and ambitions, were the highest goal of man.  The universe comes to the individual with one question, with one demand—that we should know and master it.  But instead of understanding and mastering life people go on playing with it, submitting themselves to it and generally go round and round.

There is great truth in the ideal of renunciation from attachment to these impulses and desires.  It proves that inner spiritual progress is more important than material possessions, that self-control is greater than self-indulgence, that Spirit is greater than physical existence.  This drive for progress, for amelioration changes man’s consciousness, widens his awareness, expands his being.  Man’s progress no longer lies in moving towards fulfillment of his vital desires, mental ideas and his emotional needs but in growing, ascending to a universal consciousness, and from there to the transcendent consciousness.  That is the real line of progress of the individual. And it is possible. The capacity to give up things is always found in those who have attained greatness, who break away from the downward gravitational pull of desires and ambition.

It is necessary for man to accept the truth that Spirit is the ultimate Reality.                 And when the spirit calls one has to recoil from matter.

(From Sri Aurobindo’s lectures The Life Divine, 1966 (pp. 28-33.)  Sri Aurobindo was an illuminated  philosopher, who formulated thoughts about the control of the mind over material energies, the conquest of matter by the Spirit.  In Sri Aurobindo’s philosophy of integral yoga, Supermindis the intermediary between the Spirit and the physical world, that which enables the transformation of common beings into Divine beings.)

On Yoga as a Foundation for Children’s Artistic Expression

Last Modified 2019/03/22

From a physical point of view, yoga impact the practitioners` body in terms of muscular strength, tendon/ligament efficiency, balance control, and overall physical health.  However, beyond its physical benefits, the transformative effects of yoga are even more powerful and relevant.  For those who aspire to develop movement self-awareness and expression through dance, know that yoga has the ability to awaken the dancer who lives dormant within us, but also be aware that such awakening is the result of a personal daily yoga practice that focuses not only on physical asanas but, more importantly, on introspection, personal growth and a change of consciousness. The result is a high level of artistic expression, which in turn, in due time, will bring healing as we, a New Generation of Dancers, will help create a world where power seeking, envy and the fostering of vanity will have no place.

But that is for adult dancers in the Western world, where that change of consciousness is required.  But what about children, who are being instructed in the art of ballet and who unless taught differently will become adults who would also have to go through that change of consciousness.  What if that change would not be necessary, because the right consciousness was always there?  At the Aurobindo Ashram in India, where I have done volunteer work, guiding dance teachers on how best approach the teaching of ballet and the choreography for their annual programs, the educational emphasis is spirituality.  Within that context, children are taught   At the ashram dance is taught as a celebration of light.  

On Beauty and Grace

Published 2019/02/04

I dance under the banner of God’s grace.  This means excellence of character takes priority over excellence of achievement.  There is for everyone a time to weep, and a time to laugh, a time to mourn, and a time to dance.  (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8) This is my time to dance now (not a counterfeit dance, something that looks like dance but isn’t, like counterfeit money, which looks real but isn’t) but truly dance, free from any restraints.  For when a dancer is in spiritual bondage, then joy and dancing are lost and we are left with nothing but tricks: high extensions, multiple pirouettes, etc.

Dance is a means to communicate and demonstrate, a means to motivate and liberate.  It motivates people to a place where they can receive god and frees them form the physical bondage.  Dance is prophetic: it originated with god communicating through a dancer to the people and it served to bring edification, exhortation and comfort.  Provided it seeks to see the audience turn their eyes in God’s direction dance honors its name, because dance begins in the heart, and not in the feet. It is an instrument of God’s purposes and visions.  Dance is Grace, of the divine kind. The Beauty is in the Grace.

When we dance under the banner of God’s Grace, we, in a Zen-like way, are unashamed of our abilities. We look forward, develop a goal, believe in our ability to reach that goal and work to achieve it.  We remain independent and do not let others dominate us.  At the end of the day we leave the results to God and eventually everything falls in its place.

Let us carry our torch of Beauty and Grace with humbleness and light the way as we march!

Unconditional Love

Published 2019/02/11

We live our lives to learn the lesson of Love.  Not romantic love but unconditional love.

If we are looking for someone to love us, we are missing the point because we should be looking for someone to love.  If we only want to love those who are beautiful, rich, successful, etc. then we are also missing the point because that is not selfless love.  If we insist on having the person we love next to us, we are really missing the point because that love is tainted with selfish attachment.  If we have an EX whom we no longer love but we still call “my EX” then we definitely missed the point, for true love is eternal and not possessive.  (Besides, if it is my “EX,” it is definitely no longer MINE.) Ultimately, to love means accepting all virtues and flaws, all perfections and imperfections, all strengths and weaknesses, in other words, being able to love the way the verb to love requires, unconditionally!  The lesson of love does not consist in being able to say “someone has loved me,” but being capable of saying “I have loved.” And if I loved deeply, uninterestedly, irrevocably, then I have loved wisely.

On Renunciation from Attachment

Published 2019/02/17

In The Life Divine, Sri Aurobindo opened an immense realm of spiritual experience to man, the expansion of consciousness or Supermind.  However, still today man’s blind attachment to his desires, impulses, passions, ambitions, greed and ego makes of him a slave of his physical body.  He is still concerned with raising his “standard of living” based on material progress instead of on spiritual progress.

One must first become aware of the problem before taking the next step: solving it by aspiring to ascend to a higher plane, above one’s mundane physical reality.  To see the need for change is primordial to rise to the Supermind, yet we get attached to life, get enamored of it, and submit to the demands of physical life, acting as if satisfying those demands of life, its impulses, desires, passions, greed and ambitions, were the highest goal of man.  The universe comes to the individual with one question, with one demand—that we should know and master it.  But instead of understanding and mastering life people go on playing with it, submitting themselves to it and generally go round and round.

There is great truth in the ideal of renunciation from attachment to these impulses and desires.  It proves that inner spiritual progress is more important than material possessions, that self-control is greater than self-indulgence, that Spirit is greater than physical existence.  This drive for progress, for amelioration changes man’s consciousness, widens his awareness, expands his being.  Man’s progress no longer lies in moving towards fulfillment of his vital desires, mental ideas and his emotional needs but in growing, ascending to a universal consciousness, and from there to the transcendent consciousness.  That is the real line of progress of the individual. And it is possible. The capacity to give up things is always found in those who have attained greatness, who break away from the downward gravitational pull of desires and ambition. 

It is necessary for man to accept the truth that Spirit is the ultimate Reality.  And when the spirit calls one we recoil from matter.

(From Sri Aurobindo’s lectures The Life Divine, 1966 (pp. 28-33.)  Sri Aurobindo was an illuminated  philosopher, who formulated thoughts about the control of the mind over material energies, the conquest of matter by the Spirit.  In Sri Aurobindo’s philosophy of integral yoga, Supermindis the intermediary between the Spirit and the physical world, that which enables the transformation of common beings into Divine beings.)

Yoga and Ballet: Know Thyself

Published 2017/03/11

Who am I? Whence? Whither?  Ancient questions.  Yet these questions of ages find their answer in the calm silence of the yogi’s heart.  Self-Knowledge cuts ignorance, ego and desire because we are not the gross physical body of the senses.  We live in the subtle body; we move with the inner instruments, the mind, intellect, and the emotive mind that records all past impressions.  Yoga reveals that we are devoid of self-sufficient ego, attachment, desire, and self-seeking.  Yoga brings us to an Inner communion with the Divine, and through it we can attain Atman, the flame of Divinity in all of us, which brings us eternal peace.  When we discover this peace in the core of our being, we find our inner self.  Then we know ourselves, because we free ourselves from the bondage of the senses, we throw away all that is non-self, and the Divine’s presence manifests itself in us.

Let the Divine mould you, move you, and fulfill Itself in you.  Open yourself pure and clean to the divine influence.  This is what it tells you to do:

Aspire; you can have. Call; help shall come. Seek; you shall find. Love; love shall embrace your heart. Surrender; and  be rich in equanimity. Meditate upon that which you really are, the Atman.

Wise thoughts from Yoga, Sadhana, and Samadhi, by Dr. Pranab Bandyopadhyay which can guide all of us humans, and all of us dancers to the fulfillment of our dreams.

YOGA REVOLUTION AND DANCE

Published 2016/07/03

First came the theater revolution, then followed the dance revolution, and now we live in the midst of the yoga revolution.  We finally got to the core of it all!  If theater, the most external of the three, evolved from the mind, dance, as bodily expression, surfaced from the body pushing it beyond thinkable limits.  Now with yoga the spirit, fueled by inextinguishable inner forces which work hand in hand with powerful cosmic forces, are at work and will result in collective transcendence to a higher plane of existence.

The surging of the arts was a step stone, it prepared the ground, so to speak.  Yet throughout the centuries during which the arts have been flourishing, the pervasive presence of the critic belittling  theater productions for what they do not accomplish, or dancers for the less than perfect pointed feet, we must make certain we yogis do not provide more fuel for their criticism.  We don’t want to be accused of falling far behind, brandishing yoga certificates but carrying on without sufficient compassion and empathy.  Let us not forget that yoga finally arrived to teach us that is not our role to criticize and point the finger (though pointing it at ourselves is perfectly appropriate) but to help each other ascend to this higher level of  evolution.

Yoga with its Kundalini awakening abilities will become the fuel that will ignite a different caliber of human being, a higher caliber of artist.   Here come the actor, director, dancer, teacher who do not seek recognition for themselves but who step out of their ego trip to prepare the stage for others.  Granted, in their eyes these others may be less talented, less efficient, less deserving, but then again what is important is that we all arrive to an understanding that we are part of the cosmic plan for evolution, that without our appartently insignificant part in the equation the polishing and the asencion of this new spirituality would be curtailed.

In this acknowledgment we are all given the opportunity to become the best expressions of a human being we can possible be, an expression that differs drastically from the expression to which dancers, actors, directors and choreographers are used.  It is the expression of our humanity, based on compassion, giving opportunities but not for one’s gain, fostering of the arts in others for no other reason than to see that other person thrive and shine.  We will have arrived there when finally the name of the company is left out from the poster and in its place the dancer’s name will glow with well deserved recognition.

Similarly, performers have much growth to do, as they often sabotage themselves from this spiritual advancement, by speaking from ignorance, mixing personal with professional goals, not only judging but being eager to judge, wasting time and energy in gossip, speaking ill of others who often speak well of them  (you wonder why.) 

Unfortunately, jealousy, the most pervasive of human emotions, still looms in the wings of theaters during play productions, dance performances, and music concerts. Perhaps the day the performing arts are no longer plagued with jealousy and other weakening emotions the monopoly of the egotistic artist will collapse.

On Altruism = All True!

Published 2019/04/14

True leaders give themselves in service to others, not in coaxing or inducing others to serve them.  J. Oswald Sanders, Spiritual Leadership. 

Altruism, like so many other words that bear the same meaning, benevolence, kindness, charity, magnanimity, selflessness, humanitarianism, means to be able to think of others first, to accommodate to others, for the welfare of others not for that of our own.  It is our unselfish regard for others without expecting to be rewarded, as opposed to a self-serving attitude.  Fortunately for all of us, altruism is innate, although not instinctual, says essayist David Rakoff. Everybody is wired for it but a switch has to be flipped because it is not enough to have altruistic thoughts for humanity. There is no such thing as altruistic thoughts; there are only altruistic acts.  Two great altruistic leaders of our greatest times in history have the following to add.  

Theater Vision

Published 2016/07/03

When I think about the most compelling piece I have directed not a particular play comes to mind but a specific audience composed of homeless and corporate people who broke bread together at a dinner theater event, the premiere of Shujman’s thought provoking one-act play Stand Up and Walk.  Sitting side by side, they watched how in the play a merchant finds a homeless man sleeping in front of his music store and promptly tries to get rid of him, but the homeless man’s cunning discussion on the issue of homelessness persuades the merchant to trade clothes and roles with him, throwing the merchant in a compromising situation once a police man appears, and as it would be expected, judges the two men by the clothes they are wearing.  The implications were enormous, and the mixed audience who after the show split into their accustomed groups and left in kin company carried within themselves more than just a meal to digest at home.

Themes at the core of our spiritual evolution surface in this timely play: the judgmental attitude and spiritual poverty of the privileged class contrasted to the wealth of the homeless people, seen in their lack of attachment, their street-acquired wisdom, their survival skills measured by their freedom and their strength drawn from their nomadic nature.  (Let us not forget than in pre-historic times it was the nomads who survived, while those who stayed attached perished.  And for those who may have not noticed, we are back in nomad times.)  In this play all our prejudices and assumptions are exposed to the naked eye, leaving the property owners and law abiding citizens, mesmerized by the fragile glow of materialism, as the true “underprivileged” ones.

Ed Ballou’s The Glimmer dealt with disillusion; however, it also showed the way out of it: Teaching, mentoring, life coaching, educating, inspiring are the step stones into a new dimension of life where the denigration of our fellow men has ceased to exist giving way to the uplifting of our fellow men’s spirit.  This spiritual encounter validates the intelligence, talent, and humanity of teacher and disciple, and it opens the door to a world where two new human beings can grow within themselves.  Theater of this kind is not propagandistic; it is didactical; it has a purpose beyond entertainment; it takes audiences beyond their laughter and tears to a place within their hearts where they too see a void that can be filled by lending a hand to another fellow’s hurting heart.

I long for a theater that will be something other than what it has been for over the last two centuries.  I would like to see theater move onto a different arena, away from the “slice of life” philosophy that saw the birth of so much wonderful drama over the 19th and 20th century, which incidentally I love.  This is the 21st century, and while Williams, Albee, Miller, and Chekov along with a troupe of powerful playwrights overseas will live forever in the heart of those who love theater, including mine, times are changing, and so must we.  Whether we like it or not, we live in a dark ages all over again   Darkness is all around; at home, at work, on the streets, day and night, and surfaces most unexpectedly in places where you though brilliancy reigned. Would it not be wonderful to see the birth of a theater that would help us all on our journey from our darkness into light?” “Sun is the date, for theater and for all of us within this new paradigm we have.” For if the theater of this 21^st century is not of an uplifting nature then theater will remain in a black box, physically and metaphorically, and that would be just plain too much dark.

 On Altruism: (Continuing)

True happiness comes from a sense of inner peace and contentment, which in turn must be achieved through the cultivation of altruism, of love and compassion and elimination of ignorance, selfishness and greed. The Dalai Lama.

Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness. Martin Luther King.

Many will say that altruism is masked self-interest, with which I would partially agree, as I agree with H. L. Mencken, cultural critic, who claims: A large part of altruism…is grounded upon the fact that it is uncomfortable to have unhappy people about one.

On Compensatory Ballet

Published 2019/04/21

We all have had a compensatory behavior at least once in our lives, that is we have done something to compensate for what we have not been able to live or achieve in our lives.  Most compensatory behavior is a positive experience, like Adult Ballet is for many dancers.  In committing to the pursuit of technique that will allow them to actually “do” it someday, even if the movements look more butohesque than balletic today, they feel redeemed somewhat for a past that they could not live or was denied to them. 

It is important to notice that when adult ballet dancers “dance” the compensation will not take place in a future that is to come, they compensate right there and then. The connecting body, mind, and spirit tap into that ephemeral reality that transcends their physical bodies and at that very moment of dance they are elevated to a higher plane. They cease to be the lawyers, doctors, researchers, etc. and they become dancers. Little matters that tomorrow they will be back at court, the clinic or the laboratory. When they dance they are transported to a spiritual platform. At that moment they identify themselves with the dance, ephemeral as it is, not with the ‘role’ of dancer, which would pull them back into their material reality with all the expectations and judgements attached to it.

Compensatory behavior can also be a negative experience, which also takes place as a response to unachieved dreams. People allow themselves to be influenced negatively by others because they feel they have failed in their efforts to be who they wanted to be or do what they wanted to do, and they compensate for that lack anyway they can.  Everybody needs a place to belong, and for the person who needs to heal that spot of unachieved reality sometimes any place where they can achieve some level of compensation is better than none.

Unfortunately, being in the wrong place at the wrong time may lead people into violence, for violence is a classic type of compensatory behavior. We see it every day, close and away from home. We must keep present, however, that our current challenging times do not justify additional violence. We live in times when people can barely keep with so much psychic activity; they are often alarmed, scared even, and they are taken beyond their limits, which invariably results on a less than desirable conduct. At times like we live today we don’t come to one another to create more problems; we come to each other with solutions. There is no need for orchestrated accidents to save the day. Nobody really needs to be injured or eliminated; we all just need to be tamed.

Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrewd comes to mind. I see a woman may be made fool, If she had not a spirit to resist.   

And how do we resist? With the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. 

Adult Ballet

Published 2019/01/05

The Adult Ballet phenomenon that has taken the stage over the last four decades questions more than anything our understanding and conception of aesthetics and beauty.  The mirror does not lie, and technology has provided us with more than enough gadgets to record what we can or cannot do; what we look like in the physical world while spiritually we feel that we soar through the sky like eagles.  The phenomenon brings us face to face with the issue of transcendence of our physical reality in order to advance towards a spiritual realm, where the True-Self reigns, not the tricks a physical body can or cannot do.

A ballet teacher said once to me:  “My classes are full of monsters.”  If that which stands in front of us is a mirror to our nature, then he should have understood, or at least I hoped so at that moment, that all these “amorphous dancers” who crowded the studios were needed to bring about a much needed transformation in the dance world.  For many ballet teachers it must have felt like a dance version of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray.  The darker the teachers’ nature, the uglier the “monsters” parading in front of them, attempting to execute with untrimmed and untrained bodies movements which had obviously meant for the Gods.

I speak with no derision towards adult dancers, having been for many instructors a “monster” myself throughout my years of training.  Yet I have seen myself progress from “monster” stage to something more, let’s say “palatable” for the instructors, while simultaneously I have seen the instructors transcend their limited perspective on what makes and/or does not make dancer.  Our era of spiritual transformation points us both, adult dancers and instructors, in the right direction.  We all understand our limitations: physical limitations for the dancers, and spiritual limitations for the instructors.  It is thanks to this interplay that the ballet world is changing.  So hurray for all those adult ballet dancers who found it in themselves the strengths it takes to look ridiculous and know it, to look at themselves in the mirror with all their physical limitations and yet go on, and to develop the discipline it takes to live their life dreams not focusing on the finish line but on the journey that brings them closer to it, one class at a time.

On Complacency in the Face of Change

Published 2019/06/10

Problem-solving skills, which are very much in demand today, come in very handy, but it is not enough to have those skills, we have to exercise them.  Needless waiting only resolves into inaction; inaction brings stagnation, and stagnation only reinforces the status quo.

Problem-solvers are driven by a desire, a need for improvement in their environment. That drive is coated with the courage, the energy and the discipline to tackle the problem, plus the ability to focus and get the job done.  Yet, problem-solvers are rare in the performing arts world, and the question raises: How do we make problem-solvers out of complacent people?  The very nature of the performing arts builds up their ego.  In addition, so many aspects of our culture foster complacency. Fashion, the selfie craze, and all video technology that fosters self-adulation create distractions that result in a needless postponement of action. 

Complacency + Distractions = Procrastination

In addition, distractions by way of electronic gadgets, tech games, etc. consume the vital energy needed for action.  Focus goes out the window because technology encourages scattered thinking, and all texting, emailing, connecting efforts only contribute to a disconnection from the self.  And add to that keeping up with our psychic connections.  Talk about a waste of time!  

Procrastination + Tech Games + Time Waste = Disconnection from Self

My readings have taken me lately to David Barnett’s discussion of one of Bertolt Brecht’s characters, the Philosopher in Buying Grass.  “ …many factors…prevent people from learning (i.e. becoming wiser) through experience.  For instance, when certain changes in a situation come about too gradually – so gradually as to be imperceptible.” (p. 41.)   Barnett gives the example of two nations with the same problem.  “New Zealand was the first nation to give women the vote in 1893 and why did Switzerland only bring in such legislation nationwide in 1991? Values that may seem obvious to one group of people may not be so to others.” (p. 74)

Dragging Along + Cultural Differences = Lack of Learning = Lack of Wisdom

To complete the equation comes Compliance.  We feel we have to comply with job regulations, beliefs, demands, and times goes in endless pondering while inaction settles in.  Compliance is fearfulness, because change exposes aspects of our social make-up, and we would prefer to leave them unspoken. 

Status quo + Compliance + Fear of Change = Inaction

Brecht proposes in his play Buying Grass to clear our mind of distraction, so we can produce those thoughts and feelings that will help transform the field itself so that change might take place after all.  We must transform our feelings of resignation into anger. (Correctly placed anger that motivates us to action, as opposed to misplaced anger that results in unnecessary violence towards innocent others.) 

Our past actions were product of a time and place; our present actions will be the product of our current time and place.  The time is Now, and the place is the Workplace.  Once we allow ourselves to transcend our limitations (complacency, compliance, fear, etc.) we can start moving towards change.  Change begins to stir inside of us first; it gestates inside, and later moves outward into the community, but only if we act upon it. We have choices: to let change be imperceptible and risk that it will coagulate into a nothingness that will perpetuate darkness, or we let it surface and manifest itself into perceptible action that will bring further change and will let the light in.

I dream of a day when every dancer will wish to experience, not the triple pirouette or the highest jeté, but experience a drive for inner growth, for action, because the world gets better by fixing it, not by talking about its problems.  Fear will always stand in the way of change because fear stands at the bottom of all human emotions.  And what do we do with fear?  We face it.  

David Barnett.  Brecht in Practice:  Theatre, Theory and Performance. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing Co, 2015.

Ballet: How Adults Learn.

Published 2019/04/09

Michael Knowles, creator of Andragogy, a science of adult learning, insists that there are qualitative differences in the way children and adults learn.  For the purpose of this article I will base my discussion on his findings and also on the discussions by Consuelo Undurrage Infante in her book How do adults Learn?since she lists a series of experts whose knowledge can guide us to help adult ballet students be successful in their learning process.

To discuss the learning process of adults it is necessary to take the following relevant information into consideration.  Adults can be grouped in three stages, which affect learning: young people between 20 and 40, mature people between 40 and 65, and late adulthood after 65 (Erick Erickson.)  We have to distinguish also between the concepts of Pedagogy(children) and Andragogy (adults) and distinguish two types of intelligence, fluid and crystallized.  What is important here is that this crystallized intelligence, which includes the development of language, oral and written, instead of deteriorating with time increments as the years go by.  This knowledge can have an enormous repercussion on dance, since is considered by many to be a form of language.

A teaching situation implies the creation of a right atmosphere and an adequate human relationship in order to facilitate learning, which is achieved by reinforcing a conduct.  Acceptance, approval, love, and the language used are powerful reinforcements of human learning.  The bigger the positive reinforcement the more we learn, and an immediate and continuous reinforcement makes the learning even more substantial.  Punishment, on the contrary, because it inhibits, reduces the probabilities that learning will take place.  We must not forget that adults come to ballet classes with numerous experiences, they use more abstract thinking, have a definite self concept and a self esteem that allows them to act as independent people, as a result, it is always more efficient to use a positive reinforcement that a punishment because it affects positively their self esteem and their feeling of competence, a crucial element in adult education.

The adult learning situation must be an educative situation, not a lucrative or a social situation. Here motivation is crucial because it plays a central role in learning.  Adults arrive at a learning situation intrinsically motivated. It is their motivation to achieve and their hope to be successful that propels them forward while fear of failure inhibits them.  The ideal situation consists of strong hope for success with a low fear of failure.  And in the measure they observe others be successful this augments vicariously their feeling of self efficiency and motivation, based on the belief that if others are successful they will be, too.  Adults who believe in themselves are capable and competent; those who projects into the future learn.  Besides they know they must act with certain urgency because time does not wait for anybody.

It is also necessary to take into account that in spite of a high level of motivation, after 40 years of age two great changes affect learning:  1. Auditory and visual receptors slowly loose precision, which lowers and affects negatively the quality and the quantity of the basic information necessary for learning.   2. The speed of the nervous system responses diminishes due to the drop in energy level.  Also it is essential to understand that when we learn under pressure these two conditions intensify because of the anxiety this pressure produces.  Consequently, in an open adult ballet class where the instructor’s voice is barely audible and where pressure and tension are the norm the learning process is not being facilitated but rather prevented.  It is not the lost of agility that implies loss of ability, rather it is the slowing down of the response under pressure, which can become even slower due to the anxiety that interferes with learning.  It is true that stress and anxiety can energize the teaching process but they can also paralyze it.  Adults in a ballet class may feel vulnerable and in a rather precarious situation, which makes learning even more difficult, and they can appear to the instructor as childish and immature.  We must also add that if the pressure causes frustration and this in turn causes a feeling of shame the level of anxiety will invariably increase.

Anxiety is a stress response or a fear towards something in the exterior world.  It is an alert signal (Brundage and MacKeracher.) In an adult ballet class, where many groups of people are represented (those who look for new options, former dancers who look for another place to belong, and those who are there to compensate for the lack of an childhood experience) feeling anxiety is normal. Aggravating it will result in incompetence because anxiety affects thinking, perception and learning.  Anxiety tends to produce confusion and perception distortions. Anxiety diminishes concentration; it reduces memory and alters the capacity to make associations. (Kaplan and Sadock.)

Adulthood does not imply an intellectual deterioration, only the psychic functions develop differently.  Superior functions of intelligence and affectivity translate into a spiritual progress, into wisdom and maturity.  And since dance is meant to be for the spirit, and since the spirit is superior to matter, isn’t this spiritual progress beneficial for learning ballet?  Isn’t ballet the classic example of the supremacy of the spirit over matter?

Raja Yoga: Path for Spiritual Progress

Published 2016/08/22

A vast majority of people still associate yoga with a mere physical discipline that promotes rapid weight loss, pushes flexibility beyond its limits, and includes some sort of meditation. Perhaps the more informed public with a deeper understanding is aware of the spiritual transformation that results from disciplined yoga practice and may even know of the rather long list of possible yoga types available to assist them in their path of spiritual transformation. (See previous posting for a comprehensive list.)

What remains elusive to the public, however, is the means by which we can still the mind, quiet it, and domesticate it, so to speak, in order to provide a virgin soil on which the spirit can grow. For the mind has metamorphosed into a wild beast as a result of the stressful existence in sensory centered cultures that invite materialism and excess as means to accomplish happiness. Mind Cultivation, then, the taming of the mind, stands as the foundation for all ulterior spiritual growth to take place. Think of it as the tilling of the land before planting the seeds and the maintenance of the soil and crop before the harvest. Regaining our spirituality (for we were born with it but lost track of it along the way) is undeniable a Herculean task, but only in the measure we make it our mission in life will we accomplish it, and with it a new level of consciousness that will arm us with the right powers to unveil unfounded myths, depose false leaders, and rid us from the burden of corrupt politicians. As C.W. Leadbeater states in Man Visible and Invisible, The political mission of our century has becomes our spiritual mission now.

Raja Yoga, also known as Mind Yoga, Royal Yoga or the Eight-fold Path Yoga, uses Mind Cultivation (Quieting and Taming of Mind) as foundation on which the eight limbs of spiritual transformation are erected, much like a skyscraper is constructed on an unshakable foundation.  These eight limbs are: 1.Yama (Self Restraint or abstensions from untruth, stealing, greed,) 2. Niyama (Commitment to purity,contentment, austerity,) 3. Asanas (Physical Poses or postures) 4. Pranayama (Control of vital energy through Breathing,) 5. Pratyahara (Withdrawal of Senses,) 6. Dharana (Mind Concentration,) 7. Dhyana (Meditation,) and 8. Samadhi (Enlightenment or Union with the Divine.)

YOGA:  Mind Cultivation

Published 2016/09/04

In What is Karma? Traleg Kiabgon defines Mind Cultivation as the means to strive to be calm and observant to minimize the impetus of our unthinking behavior.  The first approach to mental cultivation, he explains, is the pacification of unbridled thinking, which will reduce negative habits, ‘unthinkingness,’ and distractions.

To pacify unbridled thinking and disengage the mind from its usual thought patterns, use the following Root Chakra Chart.  First, inform yourself on the Muladhara Charka, its functions and issues resulting from the poor functioning of this energy center.  If any of those functions or issues rings a bell, choose this chakra as the object of your meditation.  Meditating on the Muladhara chakra benefits all of us, as we are social beings seeking harmony in relationships, and we invariably derive stress from conflicts with relatives, friends, coleages, sometimes even with whole communities.

Before beginning your meditation find a quiet place where you can enjoy solitude.  Choose a time of day or night when you will not be disturbed.  Prepare the space: adjust light, temperature, music, burn incense if you wish.  Assume Sabasana position on a bed, mat, or blanket, close your eyes and breathe normally.

To conduct the meditation focus the mind on the symbolic image associated with it.  Close your eyes and fix that image in your mind.  Let go of all distracting thoughts that may interfere with your concentration on that mental image.  If the mental image vanishes, maintain the focus on the color associated with that chakra.  You may add the mental sound associated with it to maintain your focus.  Do not invite nor dwell on personal issues related to the first chakra.  Doing so would defeat the purpose of the meditation which aims at bringing deliverance from the burden of such thoughts.

In conducting this or similar meditations involving the other six chakras (check future postings) you will be exploring other types of yoga, explained in a previous posting.  Focus on the Chakra Symbol: Yantra Yoga.  Focus on the Chakra Name:  Mantra Yoga.  Focus on the Syllable Sound by repetition:  Yapa Yoga.  Exploring various types of yoga will bring you closer to an understanding of the immense scope of this spiritual discipline, which will contribute to the cultivation of your mind and to the ultimate transformation yoga brings forth:  A superior human being.

Theater: On The Artist’s Role

Published 2016/08/08

Excerpt from “Reports of my Death,” which unlike Mark Twain’s, have not been greatly exaggerated.

(Lights come up in the midst of an interview with the press. ANNIE is in the light. The voices of the reporters come from the back of the audience in the dark.)

REPORTER ONE

Ms. Moreale. Is it true you are writing a new play about your experience with the CIA?

ANNIE

I am just wooing the material.

REPORTER TWO

Will you tell the true story, or will you bend it a little?

ANNIE

If the writer is an artist, he can’t be a liar.

REPORTER ONE

Would you say you’re writing Reports of my Death because you’re upset with the CIA?

ANNIE

A play is nothing if it isn’t somebody on fire. And I am a woman on fire, a woman against a fear of art and ideas in a country where the free exchange of ideas should be encouraged, not hidden in secret files kept by a paranoid immigration service.

REPORTER TWO

Ms. Moreale. Wouldn’t it be easier if artists would stay out of politics? Their fate would be less problematic.

ANNIE

Artists are provocative by nature. They can’t help it, and so their fate is often unenviable. Artists, in unveiling the corruption of our leaders contribute to an evolution from what I call the aesthetics of terror to the aesthetics of hope. 

REPORTER TWO

Ms. Morealle, you live a very eccentric life. Would you say that your experience with the CIA contributed somewhat to your eccentricity?

ANNIE

Talent goes with eccentricity. And as they  say, every genius grew up bitter and misunderstood. For me, the smell of carnage and gunpowder is still in the air. I have gunpowder under my skin, you may say. And yes! I owe that to the CIA.

REPORTER ONE

Aren’t you afraid to expose your personal life publicly like that?

ANNIE

Writing is a personal business, but there is a dignity about revealing yourself. The author of a play is also a character; he’s almost the hero.

REPORTER ONE

And after all is said and done, then what? Why even bother?

ANNIE

Because a culture is as great as its dreams, and its dreams are created by artists. Assuming that if artists are allowed to do their job. Which they not always are. They are silenced more often than you want to believe, right here, under your own nose. 

REPORTER TWO

Why did you choose to live in the United States.

ANNIE

Because I thought that only where there is liberty art can succeed. But I was wrong. About the liberty, I mean.

REPORTER ONE

Aren’t you afraid of the obstacles you will encounter along the way?

ANNIE

When a woman has something to say and passion enough to say it, the obstacles are far from insurmountable. I’ll make it all come back from the echoes of the past. You shall see! The sun will rise at midnight.

(Copyright 2000)