Dear Sisters and Brothers in Babaji – BBKJ ! I hope this Season finds you well and hopeful. I send Happy Solstice, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year !! I am writing after the December full moon, before the winter solstice and Christmas. It is a moment in between – but striking for its’ high drama. Mr. Trump looks to be impeached. Boris Johnson will lead England out of the EU. Climate activist Greta Thunberg (in stark contrast to the climate denying people) was named time magazines’ “Person of the Year” – the youngest in history. Participants in the climate summit in Madrid struggle for agreements. An environmental report on the Arctic details a “ feed back loop” that is accelerating our world wide climate crises. All of this feel very big but just a small slice of our global crises . Living in the midst of it sometimes feels overwhelming and hopeless . The things that help sustain me are community, practice and learning. Staying in touch with our Babaji community and other communities and projects around the world that strive to do good is inspiring. My near daily yoga and meditation practice assures me of some sense of agency. As does singing bits of the Aarti in the shower. Learning and staying curious about teaching coming out of other communities is energizing. A big discovery for me has been in systems thinking and practice. It is a way of looking at the world and events in a more spiritual and less personal way than feeling like a victim . The basic idea is that systems are sets of things – people, cells, molecules or whatever – interconnected in such a way that they produce their own pattern of behavior over time. Every person we encounter, every organization, every animal garden, tree, and forest is a complex system. Ever since the Industrial revolution, Western society has benefited from science , logic and reductionism over intuition and holism. Psychological and politically we would much rather assume that the cause of a problem is “ out there” rather than “ in here”. It’s almost irresistible to blame something or someone else , to shift responsibility away from ourselves and to look for the control nob, the product, the pill, the technical fix that will make the problem go away. . . . “( Our problems ) will yield only as we reclaim our intuition, stop casting blame, see the system as the source of its own problems and find the courage and wisdom to restructure it. organizations.” ( Donella Meadows – Thinking in Systems) I hope all of this finds some resonance of interest in you . Be Happy
Om and love -Loknath.
+++++++++++ There is news from India. During the annual Paduka Puja gathering, our beloved Alok Banerjee resigned his office as Chairman of the Indian Samaj. Following is his note to our Samaj. Dear Loknath, I Trust this finds you well and in good spirits. Thank you and the members of the American Samaj for your kindness expressed through your mail. As you might be aware that lately I had been facing some health challenges which made me decide to move on and make space for the new regime. Accordingly on 5th December I gave up my responsibility as Chairman of the Samaj and passed on the baton to Dr Arvind Lal. I will be always grateful to Babaji to let me serve the Samaj and His family for 36 years and grateful thanks to you and American Samaj for your support and cooperation during my tenure. Bhole Baba Ki Jai Wishing you all a Blessed Christmas & Happy New Year. With Much Love & Good Wishes, -Alok.
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