The Cahanas: Keeping the Faith in the Worst of Times

Keeping the faith, as we are collectively paralyzed in dark and turbulent times, is very difficult. We are in the third year of a pandemic, marked by vast losses of lives, economic crises, homelessness, and food insecurity. The senseless genocide of people in  Ukraine  perpetrated by the Russian army is horrendous, blood curling and chilling. It is incomprehensible to most human beings on the planet. If you are someone like Job depicted in the Bible, who was tested with pestilence, disease and waves of losses and gut- wrenching suffering, you can keep the faith without much struggle. However, for people like myself, who are not Jobs of the world, we question where is God in this dark chaos. How can a loving God allow such intense suffering in the world? How does one keep the faith in God in such turbulent times? Where is the human capacity to love, give, share, heal and honor each other? The most difficult test on the spiritual path is keeping the faith in God or Higher Power in the face of darkness and adversity. Even more challenging is spreading the goodness in the middle of intense suffering.

Pondering these questions, I came across a short film, called, “Perfecting the Art of Belonging” directed by Kitra Cahana in 2020.   This short film is a collaboration between Kitra and her father, Rabbi Ronnie Cahana. The film portrays Rabbi Cahana’s circumstances and commentary when placed in lockdown during the pandemic in a long term nursing facility in Canada. Deeply moved by Rabbi Cahana’s holiness, keeping the faith and practice of tikkum olan (Jewish tradition of doing good and social justice), I started doing research about the Rabbi. I discovered his remarkable family members.

Rabbi Cahana is a powerful spiritual teacher in our times. His ministry  is much needed in our world. This post is not just about Rabbi Cahana. The post also includes the remarkable Alice Lok Cahana, Ronnie Cahana’s mother and Kitra Cahana, the Rabbi’s daughter. The story of the Cahana family portrays how the family kept the faith during very trying and painful times and engaged in the practice of  “tikkum olan” which led to the transformation of deep suffering, which cannot be adequately captured in words, to create spaces of healing in the world. Tikkum Olan is a practice in the Jewish tradition for Jewish people to work hard in repairing the broken world. Please forgive me as this is a very simplistic explanation of tikkim olan as I am not a scholar of Judaism. However, I believe that our collective humanity is called to engage in this practice of repairing the world, as it is very broken.

ALICE LOK CAHANA

The Fritzer Ascher Society website has a powerful article, which describes three generations of artists in the Cahana family, Alice Lok Cahana, Ronnie Cahana and Kitra Cahana. Alice grew up in a Jewish family in Hungary. She was very close to her grandfather, a community leader and president of a local synagogue. At the age of 15, the Nazi army deported Alice,  her sisters, brother and mother to concentration camps. She survived  the Auschwitz-Birkenau, Guben and Bergen-Belsen camps as a teenager. She was the only survivor of her family in the Holocaust. She escaped to Sweden and then, immigrated to the US. Alice Lok grappled with the question of how an omniscient, omnipotent, God of Agape Love can permit  indescribable suffering, such as the Holocaust, where  human dignity was destroyed and people were labeled with numbers, stripped of their names, and executed. Alice’s work focused primarily on the Holocaust.  Alice Lok developed multiple powerful pieces of art, memorializing the lives and voices unheard and destroyed in the Holocaust. Alice’s art is a spiritual monument to not forget precious lives and vibrant communities lost in the Holocaust.  Alice also engaged in tikkun olan. Her pictures honored the dead in the Holocaust and serves as a reminder that this should never happen. According to  Georgetown University’s Center for Jewish Civilization website(2021) post, “Alice defeated Hitler in three ways: she survived; she ended up turning the destructive processes of her Holocaust experience into creative expression–extracting rainbows from the ashes; and she and her husband produced three children (both sons becoming rabbis) and nine grandchildren”.  Alice’s artwork is a powerful reminder of the urgency in addressing the genocide in Ukraine.

RABBI RONNIE CAHANA

Rabbi Ronnie Cahana was a pulpit rabbi for 25 years before he had a stroke in his brain stem which left him as a quadriplegic patient. In her TED TALK in 2014, Kitra talked about  Rabbi Cahana’s journey of healing after a stroke.   The stroke  impaired all his body movement  with the exception of his capacity to blink his eyes.  His brain is fully functioning and alive. His speech consists of sublime spiritual meditations on love, connection and buoyancy of the human spirit, mind and body.

Rabbi Cahana is a brilliant philosopher and gifted poet. He demonstrates the remarkable capacity of the human condition for joy and resiliency when touched by the Divine Force even in the most challenging circumstances. Like Alice Lok who repaired the world through images, Rabbi Cahana uses words and poetry to practice tikkum olan. In the 2014 TED TALK, Kitra Cahana  states her shock when finding that her father is locked in his body due to paralysis. Kitra Cahana discovers that the Rabbi has the capacity to blink to letters and the Rabbi’s first communication was to tell her not to cry because this injury is a “blessing”. Amazing. Stunning. Kitra Cahana describes her father’s healing, and use of adaptive technology to communicate. I am astounded by the Rabbi’s comment that he refused to play the part of a “quadriplegic patient”. He states that despite his paralysis, he soars, dances and twirls in his dreams above the city. He discusses how at  one point, he was very low and his “Father” pulled him upwards. Kitra Cahana makes the astounding point that as the outside world shuts down for the Rabbi, he travels inward to touch the core of his spiritual self, “Higher Self” which may be instrumental in  transforming his experiences of suffering into mystical states.

Rabbi Cahana eventually goes home and ministers to his congregation. His poetry, a reflection of the incredible spiritual wisdom and strength in his soul, is found on his blog. In the short film produced in 2022, “Perfecting The Art of Longing”, Rabbi Cahana very powerfully points out that holiness exists in this world. He points out holiness is when the body is loved. He celebrates holiness in asking for help and receiving help to meet bodily needs. He discusses the holiness in his dreams about the deep love for his wife, Karen. His dreams of dancing manifest holiness. He defies his physical condition as he dances in joy in his dreams. He does not seem angry. His spiritual gift is in transforming his bodily wounding experience to a sacred experience of learning about the holiness in the human condition. His goal is to live fully. He sees holiness in love, relationships and connections which bind us to our families and communities. His family’s love and care for him is beautiful to watch. He also tells his daughter, Kitra, after his injury not to cry because there is much work which needs to be done to repair a broken world. Tikkum Olan.

KITRA CAHANA

Kitra Cahana is a photographer, videographer,  director of films and documentaries.  She is a very accomplished woman and created  documentaries,  films and other projects. She received numerous prestigious prizes for her work. Her devotion to her father and compelling images of her father highlight the importance of honoring human dignity. Her work explores the inner world of her father’s soul. She is sharing the gift of her father’s poetry and meditations on love to uplift humanity in our current bleak times. While her father is in long term nursing facility, Kitra Cahana developed documentaries on nurses and doctors in the middle of the pandemic. She discusses that due to her role as a caregiver for her father, she has become an advocate for medical professional and staff in nursing homes.  Kitra also creates documentaries for vulnerable people in long term nursing homes, as they are at high risk for COVID. In an interview on caregiving in the era of COVID-19, for the podcast, Conversation with a Rabbi, Kitra talks about story telling as a form of social activism because it destroys the blindness of society to the pain and suffering of marginalized groups, such as elderly and disabled people in nursing home. Story-telling through video photography allows the world to see the current state of affairs and creates momentum for change. In Canada, the statistics for COVID related fatalities for people in nursing homes is 69%, yet, 1% of Canada’s population live in nursing homes. Kitra founded the organization, Artists-4-Long-term care. She is also involved in the Strength Based Nursing Home movement.

 

CONCLUSION

The central first question, why does a loving God allow suffering in the world, remains unanswered to me.  Different religious and spiritual traditions have different theories about this.  The second question is how to keep the faith in God or Higher Power in dark times of adversity. I do not know for sure. Each individual’s test of faith is unique.  But I do know that the astounding stories of Alice Lok Cahana, Rabbi Ronnie Cahana and Kitra Cahana depict how they kept the faith and practice tikkum olan despite intense adversity. They demonstrate strength and buoyancy of the human spirit to transform suffering and transcend to healing actions to repair our broken world.   Alice Lok Cahana honored and memorialized the dead in the Holocaust through her art. The Rabbi Cahana is healing a broken world through his ministry of words and poetry about love and demonstrating the spiritual force to transcend suffering in the human condition. Kitra Cahana is a social activist and video photographer , with the soul of a poet, in advocating for vulnerable people and channeling her father’s work. Incredible people.

Rabbi Cahana ministered to my soul in these dark times because he shows the remarkable spiritual wisdom and strength that is embedded in the human condition. He is an embodiment of the statement, that human beings are eternal spiritual beings in a temporary human experience . He gives me peace that we can endure to better times. He gives me peace that not all is lost. That is an immense gift to me. He is a powerful teacher of maintaining the faith, optimism and all that is good in the world. I believe that God places people, like Rabbi Cahana, in the middle of storms as a reminder of the best in humanity. I hope that readers also receive the ministering of this incredible Rabbi Cahana in the dark times we live in.

I also am a firm believer in the ideology of tikkim olan. Each one of us has the responsibility to repair the broken world. In repairing a broken world, a key priority is that the genocide in Ukraine  needs to end.

 

 

Rabindranath Tagore: His Literature and Spirituality

           Rabindranath Tagore was born in the Bengali section of north Calcutta (now
Kolkata) on May 7, 1861. He was a man of many talents: writer, poet, composer, painter, social reformer, essayist, and novelist. Tagore was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913, after which he became a revered, worldwide literary phenomenon. With my roots in West Bengal, India, I grew up listening to Rabindranath Tagore’s songs. As I read Tagore’s work, I find his writing haunting, mesmerizing and soul-stirring. The vivid visual imagery, nuanced character development, varied pacing or rhythm and tone in his writing crystallize his stories in my mind.  Tagore was a literary genius. He was also a wise and compassionate observer of the human condition. Tagore’s work demonstrated his depth in understanding the nimble and complex workings of the human mind.  Tagore’s writings also contain spiritual themes, such as intellectual and spiritual freedom, and love for humanity, which are very relevant to our modern world.

            In this post, I am very excited to present my interview with Dr. Fakrul Alam. Dr. Alam is a highly accomplished academic, scholar, and professor with many publications. He is also a leading translator of the Bengali language. I read The Essential Tagore, edited by Alam and Radha Chakravarty. I loved the book. I am very grateful to Dr. Alam for his generosity in sharing his wisdom and depth of knowledge about Tagore. He is very astute and brilliant in his observations about Tagore’s work, having extensively studied Tagore’s prolific work. Hope readers enjoy the interview.

INTERVIEW WITH DR. FAKRUL ALAM: RABINDRANATH TAGORE

Dr. Anindita Ganguly (A.G.): Namaste Dr. Alam. Welcome to the blog. An Honor to have you, Sir.

Dr. Fakrul Alam (F. A.): Thank you very much and namaste.

A.G.: Please tell me about yourself and what drew you to Tagore’s work.

F.A.: I grew up in Dhaka, Bangladesh. My father loved Tagore’s songs and three of my
sisters were schooled in Tagore’s music. However, as my formal education was in
English medium schools, I did not encounter Tagore’s work in Bengali till later in life. I
completed my master’s degree in English literature at Simon Fraser University and doctorate at the University of British Columbia. I taught many courses and led different
programs in the English Department at Dhaka University from 1975. I retired in 2017, but I still teach a course at Dhaka University. I am also the Adviser of the East
West University’ English department and teach 2 courses there. 

I grew up, so to speak, listening to Tagore’s songs. I unconsciously absorbed Tagore’s work as it was part of my growing up in Dhaka. I should add that there was a Tagore revival in our part of Bengal at that time and that his centenary year was being widely celebrated when I was entering my teens. However, my work as a translator began
when I was attracted to the works of the legendary Bengali poet Jibanananda Das and
felt that I had to translate him. I discovered then that I could translate from Bengali to
English reasonably well. Then, I teamed up with Dr. Radha Chakravarthy in translating
Tagore’s work after getting an offer from Visva Bharati’a Granthana Vibhage to publish
an anthology of Tagore’s work for his sesquicentenary. Soon after we met Sharmila
Sen of Harvard University Press who wanted to co-publish the book for them. Thus it was that The Essential Tagore was born.

A.G. You have an incredible career and accomplishments. Please tell us who Rabindranath Tagore was.

F.A.: Tagore wrote extensively in different genres: poetry, prose, short fiction, novels,
essays, letters, plays, and songs. He was also a painter, a composer and an
educator—a polymath. As well, he was a world traveler who has left behind some vivid
accounts of his travels at home and abroad. In short, Tagore was an amazing person
with indefatigable energy and abundance of curiosity which took him everywhere and
anywhere in the spaces of the imagination. Indeed, he was given the title of “Viswa
Kobi” or “poet of the world” by his people. He won the Nobel Prize for his work,
Gitanjali, (Song Offerings) in 1913. Tagore’s song offerings were dedicated to God and
the people of the world. After the Nobel Prize, his works were translated into different
languages. Multitudes of people met him in print due to his books  traveling across the world. Tagore also traveled worldwide. Tagore interacted well with all sorts of people he met in his travels. He was known and revered worldwide by the second decade of the 20 th century.
If readers are interested in learning more about influences which shaped Tagore’s work,
I highly recommend Satyajit Ray’s documentary on Tagore.

A.G.: Do you have any one favorite Tagore’s work you would recommend?

F.A.: Not a particular work, but I would urge people to read as well as listen to his
songs. I myself listen to Tagore’s songs daily but also read many of his other works
Tagore whenever I can. Tagore wrote over 2000 song-lyrics; I have translated about 400
of them in Gitabitan: Selected Song-lyrics of Rabindranath Tagore, a book which is available in Bangladesh but unfortunately has not been marketed internationally yet.
Tagore’s compilation of his song-lyrics is to be found in the Bengali anthology titled
Gitabitan. It contains songs of devotion, patriotic songs related to the Swadeshi
movement, songs of romantic love, and miscellaneous songs from his plays and for all
sorts of occasions such as marriage or death.

A.G.: What is the Swadeshi movement?

F.A.: Tagore was in a movement for a few years to prevent the British colonial
government from partitioning Bengal. You could translate the word “as for one’s
country”. He later became disillusioned with the movement but his love for Bengal only kept increasing afterwards.

A.G.: Tagore referred to God as “Lord of Life” in his writings. How did Tagore
conceptualize God?

F.A.: Tagore viewed God as infinite and limitless, the One we need to seek, meditate
on, and discover again and again

A.G.: Is that referred to as sadhana?

F.A.: Yes. You must strive to seek God. Work hard on it. Tagore’s work consisted of his
meditations on his encounters with nature too, such as sunrise and sunset and the six
seasons of Bangladesh:  summer (grisma), monsoon (barsa), autumn (sharat), late
autumn (hemanta), winter (sheeth), and spring (basanta). He was also a seeker of
beauty.

A.G.: What are some of the different influences which shaped Tagore’s work?

F.A: There were many. His father influenced him spiritually. Tagore was influenced by Brahmoism, which goes back to the ancient roots of Hindu philosophy and is for spiritual upliftment. He came from a musical family. But it was also a family of zamindars or landlords. At the bidding of his father, he moved away from his elite and privileged Calcutta-based life to rural areas to manage his estates. In the process, he met ordinary men and women who also impacted on his works, such as, the man we meet in his short story, “Postmaster”. When he moved to Kushtia, a district in East Bengal, he was
heavily influenced by the mystical Baul singers. He wrote the song, “Sonar Bangla”
(“Golden Bengal”) out of patriotic instincts nurtured by his closeness to the land of
Bengal. His encounters with nature in Bengal as well as his world travels shaped his
writings in innumerable ways.
As a student of American literature, I can’t help telling you that I believe that he was
heavily influenced by the tenets of the American transcendentalist movement and Unitarianism.

In short, Tagore was never limited by anything. He was dynamic, enlightened and a life- long learner. He saw life as a long quest to traverse different realms to find God and the Beautiful. His position is best embodied in a line of his Bengali poem “Balaka” (or “A
Flock of Geese”) which I have translated thus: “not here, not there, somewhere else,
somewhere far away” in his poem.

A.G.: One of the themes that I notice in The Essential Tagore is the individual versus
society. I can see him as something of a feminist in his depiction of complex and
nuanced female characters and in his denouncement of caste and religious discrimination, anticolonialism and nationalism.

F.A.: This also reveals his open-mindedness, intellectual growth and lifelong devotion to
learning. Tagore valued freedom—both spiritual and intellectual freedom. Despite
growing up in an aristocratic family, he contributed creatively to the freedom movement against the British. For example, although the British monarch had conferred the knighthood to him in 1915, after hearing about the massacre in Jallianwala Bagh,
Tagore registered his protest by renouncing his knighthood and returned the title to the
British monarch. We must remember too that he had established Visva-Bharati
University in Shantiniketan, West Bengal earlier to nurture intellectual and spiritual
freedom and to promote international exchanges. He was very much a humanist. In his book, The Religion of Man, he reveals his deep love for humanity and reverence for a
religion that unites people. He was totally committed to international amity, good-will
and friendship among the peoples of the world.

A.G.: That is incredible. How is Tagore’s work relevant to the modern world?

F.A.: To take only one example by way of an answer, he was sensitive to the degradation of the environment. In his play, Roktokhorobi, he discussed how extracting minerals at any cost was impacting on indigenous as well as poor people. He was concerned about how the Industrial revolution separated people from nature. His thoughts on humanism, international amity and goodwill are invaluable. His philosophy of seeking intellectual and spiritual freedom is very important.

A.G.: Very true. We need to increase awareness and implementation of these principles now more than ever before. Is there anything else that we did not cover which is
important?

F.A.: The most important thing for people to do is read his works. The Essential Tagore is a convenient place to begin but there are many other anthologies and books in print
representing his life and ideas they can access and read.

A.G.: Thank you very much for your powerful and informative interview. Much
appreciation and gratitude to you. Let me conclude by saying I loved reading The Essential Tagore edited by you and Radha Chakravarty.

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
Rabindranath Tagore was a key figure in the Bengali Renaissance, impacting on
literature, spirituality, sociocultural and political movements. He produced a vast body of works. I just started my journey of reading Tagore’s works, and I am deeply moved. Tagore’s beliefs in international amity, goodwill, humanism and freedom (intellectual,
spiritual) are more relevant than ever. 

Thích Nhất Hạnh: Embodied Peace in Uneasy Times.

“The mind can go in a thousand directions, but on this beautiful path, I walk in peace”. Thích Nhất Hạnh

     There is much unease in the world with all the changes. Feelings of anxiety, nervousness, anger and frustration  related to uncertainty and unpredictability arise at times. This catapulted me to start thinking about peace. When I think about peace, my mind goes to the writings of  Thích Nhất Hạnh, the late Buddhist Vietnamese monk, famous peace activist, prolific writer, spiritual leader, teacher and scholar. I have read his profound books and watched his interviews. He embodied peace and calmness.   He is described as ‘living peace’. Yet, as a young Buddhist monk, Thích Nhất Hạnh faced a world on fire with horrendous violence, bombings and destruction in his homeland because of war in Vietnam.    In introducing Thích Nhất Hạnh’s (1967) book, “Vietnam: Lotus in the Sea of Fire”, Kosen Gregory Synder wrote that Thich Nhat Hanh, known as “Thay”, to his students and friends, developed practices of peace in the fires of war. I am deeply puzzled and baffled by how Thích Nhất Hạnh learned to transform his experiences of pain and suffering into peace. One explanation for this is provided by Synder. Synder described Thay as a manifestation of an awakened “bodhisattva in our time”. In Mahana Buddhism, a bodhisattva is an enlightened being, who can reach nirvana, but delays it so that he/she can help suffering beings. Thay’s books have certainly helped me profusely.

     Thay, like other monks, had to grapple with helping people and protesting the war, as well as, practicing the contemplative life during the war in Vietnam. He did both and formulated the movement of “Engaged Buddhism”, which highlights inner transformation to help individuals and communities. Thus, in following the principles of engaged Buddhism, one must eliminate violence, hatred and anger in one’s consciousness, before one tries to reduce these elements in society. Socially engaged Buddhism refers to applying the Buddhist teachings to contemporary situations, (economic, political, cultural etc.)   to reduce suffering. According to Synder, Thay (1967) noted that socially engaged Buddhism is highlighted by a villager’s statement, “The Buddha no longer sits in the temple all the time. The Buddha goes out to the people” (p.xvi).

     In places of conflict, our priority is to seek safe places externally. Then, we must think about cultivating spaces of safety within. Internal places of peace, rest and restoration. In this post, I will be writing some thoughts on cultivating inner peace by examining the writings of Thay. Thay is credited with introducing the concepts of Buddhist mindfulness to the west. Western psychology has integrated mindfulness techniques in evidence-based treatment protocols, like Mindful Based Stress Reduction (MBSR).  In addition to mindfulness, I will look at other psychological concepts in cultivating peace, like regulation and Internal Family Systems. As socially engaged Buddhism postulates, one has to transform one’s inner violence, anger and hatred before changing social issues. One cannot have seeds of consciousness marked by hatred and anger and hope to positively impact social issues. I believe that Thay’s peace activism was so powerful because he utilized principles of engaged Buddhism.  

 

Thích Nhất Hạnh

     Who was Thay? Thay started out as a Buddhist monk at the age of 16 and was one of the first monks to study secular topics at university in Saigon.  Thay’s writing is elegant and profound. He was fluent in Vietnamese, English, French and very familiar with classical Chinese, Pali and Sanskrit.   In 1961, Thay came to the United States to study comparative religion at Princeton Theological Seminary and then taught and did research on Buddhism at Columbia University. He also taught at Union Theological Seminary. He lobbied with western leaders to end the war in his country. Thay came to the west as a humanitarian asking for the ending of the suffering of people in Vietnam. Among his many accomplishments, he founded the La Boi Publishing House, the Van Hanh Buddhist University, the School for Youth for Social Services (Buddhist peace workers, who rebuilt clinics and schools throughout villages) and the international Plum Village community. In nominating Thay for the Nobel Peace Prize, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. referred to him as “Apostle of peace and nonviolence”

     Thay’s views on cultivating peace is summarized by his words, “the way out is in”.  Thay’s views are consistent with the concept of change from the inside out.  I love Thay’s quote “The mind can go in a thousand directions, but on this beautiful path, I walk in peace”. So, what are some tools to walk in peace when facing changes and the mind is bombarded with thoughts and feelings, colored by uncertainty, fear of the unknown, anger, hatred, frustration, and exhaustion? One such tool is the practice of mindfulness, which, Thay is credited with bringing to the west.

MINDFULNESS: “COOKING OUR POTATOS”

     Peaceful states of consciousness are regulated states, meaning that everything is flowing in balance and harmony. All is calm. Our nervous systems are not activated abruptly, and we do not sense any immediate threats. Peaceful states of consciousness are associated with love and compassion, energies which regulate and heal.  Peaceful states are “hate free” zones. When people hate, they use the same intense energy as love, but the dysregulating and destructive “hate” energy is directed against the object of hate. One of my mentors once told me that the opposite of hate is indifference. I agree.

     Unlike regulated states, dysregulated states of consciousness are defined by turbulence, lack of harmony, peace or balance, where things do not seem to be flowing evenly. Dysregulated states are marked by the activation of the nervous system, such as when a threat has been detected. In dysregulated states, obtrusive and unyielding things remain, such as sticky thoughts, ruminations, heavy unprocessed emotions and unresolved issues. There are many strategies to regulate dysregulated states, like exercising, listening to music, dancing, reading, praying, chanting, and doing yoga. Mindfulness practice is one strategy to regulate and facilitate peaceful states of consciousness.

     In his book, “Peace is Every Step”, Thay (1991) talked about “cooking our potatoes” as an analogy of mindfulness practice. I love Thay’s analogy, where the raw potato is a difficult emotion. We cannot eat raw potatoes just as it is difficult to process difficult emotions. However, boiling the potato makes the potato edible. Thay (1991) wrote that “we cannot eat raw potatoes, but we don’t throw them away just because they are raw” (p.62). He added that we put our potatoes in a “pot of water, put a lid on, and put the pot on the fire” (p. 62).   Thay (1991) refers to the fire as the practice of mindfulness where we are engaging in deep breathing and consciously attending to the dysregulated states, like feelings of anger, fear, sorrow.   Thay describes the lid of the pot as our “concentration”. Just as the lid of the pot does not allow the steam to escape, we need to concentrate deeply on the dysregulated states, such as anger, to observe, describe into words and sit with the feelings to get an understanding of where the feelings are coming from. In mindful practices, we engage in deep listening to our dysregulated states to understand the roots, contributing factors and context of the dysregulated state. Some questions to address in dysregulated states maybe: 1) Where there activation of past emotional wounds which contribute to our feelings? 2) Were our assumptions and rules about life violated that are leading to certain feelings? Management of painful emotions means understanding their origin and context, “feeling the feelings” without judgement and developing helpful, loving and compassionate self- soothing strategies. Our connections to caring and loving people can help us deal with negative feelings.

     In his book, “Living Buddha, Living Christ”, Thay (1995) wrote that “mindfulness, the capacity to be here, to witness deeply everything that happens in the present moment, is the beginning of enlightenment” (p. 182). He also described practices of mindfulness as lighting the “lamps with us” to gain a deeper understanding of our worlds so that we can work towards enlightenment. Thay wrote that the seeds of mindfulness are in all of us, just as “Buddha nature” described in Buddhism or “Kingdom of God within our hearts” in Christianity.

INTERNAL FAMILY SYSTEMS

     In the book, “Vietnam: Lotus in a Sea of Fire”, one chapter contains a letter that Thay wrote to Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1965.  Thay pointed to “intolerance, fanaticism, dictatorship, …hatred and discrimination which lie in the heart of” people, as the real enemies (p.148). He was referring to the notion that people have parts which may be marked by intolerance and discrimination against others, which are the enemies, not the individual human beings.  Thay highlighted that we need to look at parts of ourselves that are intolerant of others and attempt to heal these parts. I find it fascinating that Thay’s concept of inner transformation as peace practice is very consistent with psychologist,  Dr. Richard C. Schwartz ‘s Internal Family System (IFS).

     The IFS paradigm is rich and complex. I am simplifying a few of the concepts of IFS.  In IFS, subpersonalities or “parts” of an individual’s psyche relate to each other like members of a family system. Schwartz and Sweeney (2020) describe our inner parts as inner people. One person may have a multitude of parts. Parts develop and take on extreme roles because the person has faced a very stressful experience. The parts have noble intentions but due to their extreme and rigid roles, they do not engage in behaviors which contribute to the well- being of the person. In IFS, a person has at least three types of parts, exiles, firefighters and managers. Exiles are often parts created from difficult and painful childhood experiences where the person was rejected, abandoned, or marginalized by other people or external systems.  Exile parts may label themselves as “bad” and carry feelings, like shame, guilt, anger, resentment etc. When a person is “blended with” an exile part, he/she is often flooded with these feelings of shame, guilt and fear etc. Thus, the manager part (administrative part who runs the day-to-day routine of the person) keeps the exiles out of mind and the person does not experience negative feelings.  The role of manager parts is to control situations so that exile parts are protected and not triggered. When manager parts are unable to carry out their roles, firefighter parts are activated. Unlike the manager part, who uses rational thinking and planning in socially acceptable strategies to keep exiles out of mind, the firefighter parts react with extreme impulsive, reactive and socially unacceptable behaviors (e.g. excessive drinking) to keep exiles out of mind.

     In addition to parts, Schwartz and Sweeney (2020) also discussed that we are also born with a “Self” or seat of consciousness, which cannot be damaged. In IFS, our access to our individual “Self” or seat of consciousness, contributes to a balance, and harmony.  Schwartz and Sweeney (2020) draw parallels between the “Self” and other spiritual traditions, such as, Quakers who refer to a person’s core as “inner light”, Buddhists call it “Buddha nature, Hindus call it “atman”, and Sufis call it “the Beloved or God within”.  I think of the “Self” as infinite, expansive love and compassion. Schwartz and Sweeney (2020) describe the “Self” as characterized by “curiosity, compassion, calm, confidence, courage, clarity, creativity, connectedness and kindness” (p.45).

     Unlike the parts, the “Self” is not attached to identities, needs or problems that need fixing. It can remove judgement and moral meaning. Exile parts of a person do come up when the manager and firefighter parts are ineffective. For example, an exile part in an adult, who experienced terrible hurt and suffering as a vulnerable child, may carry feelings of anger, sadness, and hatred. When the exile part of the person is activated with a current stressor (e.g. the person encounters another individual who is aggressive to him/her), the person will be flooded with anger, rage, shame and hatred.  The person is “blended” with the exile part. Healing happens when the individual becomes aware of the exile part and connects the part with the “Self”.  The part can tell its story, unburden its negative feelings and receive love and compassion from the “Self”. The part is heard, seen and understood by the “Self”.  As the person has access to the “Self”, the person “un-blends” from the exile part, feelings of the exile part are processed, and the person looks beyond the raw feelings for constructive intentional action and not reactive action.  Options for peace are explored.

     For me, Thay’s quote, of walking in peace despite the mind scattered in different directions, means that when our parts are activated, we need to become aware of the parts, and connect parts with “Self”. Many practices, like mindfulness, walking in nature, praying, singing, reading can help us access the “Self”. States of peace are when actions are decided through “Self” leadership, where the “Self” manages the parts. I believe that “Self” led social actions and advocacy is powerful and has longstanding effects. I wonder whether Thay was so successful in his peace activism because he was leading from the “Self”. Grounding ourselves with “Self” is critical for inner calmness and this can also lead to effective advocacy and activism for social causes we care about. I believe that tapping into the “Self” and awareness of parts helps us develop a superpower: to know, love and trust ourselves.

CONCLUSION.

Thay’s peace practices and western psychological concepts have a lot to teach us in terms of cultivating inner states of peace. I will end with a quote from Thay, “peace in oneself, peace in the world”. As indicated by socially engaged Buddhism, once we are in states of peaceful consciousness, our activism to change social structures is effective. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) confirmed Nov 26th as the “World Olive Tree Day”, celebrating peace and harmony among  human beings and human-beings  and nature. For me, peace practice is a daily activity as I value and love peace.

REFERENCES

Hanh, Thich Nhat (1967). Vietnam: Lotus in a Sea of Fire. Parallax Press.

Hanh, Thich Nhat (1991). Peace Is Every Step. Bantam Books.

Hanh, Thich Nhat (1995). Living Buddha and Living Christ. Riverhead Books.

Plum Village. The Life Story of Thich Nhat Hanh. https://plumvillage.org/about/thich-nhat-hanh/biography

Schwartz, R. C. & Sweeney, M. (2020). Internal Family Systems, second edition. The Guilford Press.

 

 PLEASE NOTE: This is not a therapy site. Please consult medical and mental health professionals as needed

LALON FAKIR, HUMANISM AND THE BAUL TRADITION

 

 

Lalon Fakir’s philosophy is relevant to all ages and times. Lalon was a mystic, social reformer, songwriter, and a Baul singer in Bengal in the late 18th to early 19th century. Baul singers are wandering minstrels who originated in the land of Bengal, which during the era of the British empire, consisted of both, now sovereign nations, Bangladesh, and West Bengal (part of India). The Baul tradition integrates elements from Hinduism, Sufism, and tantric Buddhism. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) originally approved Baul songs as “ Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity”  in 2005. Harding (2010) wrote that Baul songs are “mystical, poetic and multilayered…(such that) underneath the obvious meanings of words, lie deep meanings that cannot be understood by a person who does not practice sadhana” or spiritual practice. Harding (2010) discussed that there is diversity among Baul clans, ashrams or akhras and one cannot place them in strict categories. Harding (2010) noted that despite the diverse types of Bauls, like Vaishnava Hindu Bauls, Muslim Fakirs, grihasta (householder) Bauls or sannyasin Bauls, “all Bauls believe that love for man is the path leading to love for the Divine”.  The Baul tradition demonstrates inclusivity and acceptance of different people, regardless of people’s religion, caste, and creed. Thus, humanism is a core element of the Baul tradition and Lalon Fakir’s songs. Additionally, due to my exposure to humanistic psychology in my training as a clinical psychologist, I am particularly drawn to Lalon and the Baul singers due to their philosophy of humanism, which I have discussed in detail below.  As a graduate student in clinical psychology, I was fascinated by the humanistic psychologist, Carl Rogers, and his client centered therapy paradigm. By studying Roger’s work, I learned the importance of understanding and honoring the unique phenomenological experience of a person. Phenomenology refers to the unique subjective experience of the human being, where everyone’s unique history, narrative, meaning systems, values and sense of purpose contributes to how they perceive and interact with the world. 

As I was reading about Lalon Fakir and the Baul tradition, I connected with Dr. Milly Sil, who is now a good friend of mine. This post includes my interview with Dr. Sil. She speaks and reads Bengali fluently and is passionate about Lalon Fakir’s philosophy and ideology of the Baul Tradition. She completed her master’s in economics at Kalyani University in West Bengal, India. At Mumbai, she completed her master’s in philosophy and doctorate in Social Sciences at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences. After coming to the United States, she has taught as a part time lecturer at Rutgers University and conducted research at Princeton as an independent researcher. She is a deep thinker, scholar, and published various articles in journals. She is an incredibly wise, kind, witty and knowledgeable person and I am profoundly pleased to be her friend. Thank you Dr. Sil for your tremendous generosity in doing the interview. Additionally, the need for cultivating humanism, as valued by Lalon Fakir and the Baul tradition, is very critical in our era of geopolitical conflict and a polarized election process. As we face tremendous conflicts between deeply divisive forces in our modern world, I hope that humanism rises and helps us recognize the beautiful, precious and tender human beings negatively impacted and scarred by the results of deep- seated conflicts and wars. The humanistic movement advocates and points to the critical need for beneficence in actions towards human beings. 

 

INTERVIEW WITH DR. MILLY SIL

Contact email for Dr. Milly Sil: palmilly@gmail.com

I have condensed the interview for length purposes.

Dr. Anindita Ganguly (AG): Namaste Dr. Sil! What an honor to have you for this interview on Lalon Fakir. I am in so much admiration for Lalon as I read about him. I enjoyed my conversations with you so much about Lalon, especially as you described your passion for learning about Lalon. I have learned so much from you, not just about Lalon and the Baul tradition, but, also about Bengali culture, as roots of my Indian American heritage start in West Bengal also. 

Before we begin the interview, please tell me about yourself.

Dr. Milly Sil (MS): I was born in Kuwait in a Bengali family. My grandfather was a doctor. In 1988 before the Gulf War, my mother, sister, and I moved from Kuwait to Calcutta, and I started learning about Bengali culture and my native land. I listened to songs by Rabindranath Tagore, Nobel Laureate, and I was fascinated by Tagore’s songs, short stories, and other literature. The celebration of Durga puja and the memories I made with my friends and family during those years in Kolkata, left an indelible mark on my soul. After I completed graduation, I got married and moved with my husband to Mumbai, the economic capital of India and home to Bollywood, a very cosmopolitan and multicultural city. I celebrated different festivals: Janmashtami (Lord Krishna’s birth), Ganesha Chaturthi (celebration of Lord Ganesh), Navaratri and Durga Puja. I love Mumbai because it’s a melting pot of various cultures and I got to learn a lot about other communities within India and abroad

I completed my Master’s in Philosophy and PhD in Social Sciences at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Mumbai. Then, I moved to the US in 2011 with my husband. In the US, I taught as a part time lecturer at Rutgers University and did some research at Princeton university. Right now, I work with NYC government as an Economist.

Throughout my life, I have pondered questions like: 1) what are we, as human beings?, 2) if there is a benevolent God, why is there so much suffering in the world?, 3)why are people fighting over religion, like Hindu versus Muslim, 4)why do religious institutions distrust science, and 5) are religious institutions too involved in power? Then, one day during a lazy afternoon, I watched the movie “Moner Manush”, which was based on the life of Lalon Fakir and it made such a powerful impact on my perception of religion, life, humanism and God. I began listening to Baul songs and tried to find meaning in the life and philosophy of the Bauls, especially Lalon Fakir. I learned how  Baul songs are passed through generations via the oral tradition. Lalon’s songs are full of powerful metaphors which challenged the existing psychosocial order, like religious division and hatred, caste division and promoted progressive ideals, like humanism. I was amazed how Lalon, an unlettered man, had such profound ideas. To a large extent, Lalon’s philosophy and messages in his songs resonated with my own existential questions and belief systems. Thus, I took a deep interest in Lalon because I discovered that I finally came across a personality with whom I felt a deep philosophical connection and an uncanny like-mindedness. Lalon’s philosophy embodied what I genuinely believed. 

 

AG: What are some examples of his songs?

MS: Lalon’s famous song, “Jaat Gelo,” is about losing caste status. This song is said to be linked to his own story. Lalon was born in a Hindu family and then he went on a pilgrimage at age 16 and contracted small- pox. Presumed dead, Lalon’s Hindu family left him on the banks of the river to die. However, a Muslim woman found Lalon and nursed him back to health. When Lalon healed and attempted to return to his Hindu family and community, his family and community rejected and ostracized him. This experience caused him to renounce his previous beliefs.

AG: In the movie, “Moner Manush”, his own Hindu mother and wife rejected him because he lived with Muslims. As a mother myself, it is unbelievable and beyond shocking. Any experiences of rejection and abandonment by one’s family is very traumatic and painful. 

MS: Yes, it is shocking, especially as I am also a mother. Also, a very interesting part in the movie was when Lalon was asked by Jyotirindranath Tagore (Rabindranath Tagore’s brother)  if he believed in reincarnation, he answered that he does not know about reincarnation but for himself,  he had two separate lives within this very own life. With this, he referred to the time when he almost lost his life due to smallpox and how his life changed after smallpox.

AG: These very painful personal experiences in his youth shaped Lalon Fakir. What different philosophical traditions influenced Lalon’s songs and thinking?

MS: There are many legends about Lalon Shah with numerous variations. One of them tells the tale of how after his mother and wife denounced him, he was left devastated. Shiraj Shai, a folk singer in the village, became Lalon’s mentor. Shiraj Shai helped Lalon heal from the wounds of rejection and abandonment by his mother and wife. He also deeply influenced Lalon spiritually and philosophically. 

After Lalon was rejected by his family and community, he lived in a forest, where he and his followers enjoyed singing songs in the “akhara” (stage) which is now known as Chheuriya village in Bangladesh’s Kushtia district. He developed a large following of people who lived with him in the forest. They were mostly outcastes, who, like him were denounced by different religious societies. 

Lalon’s songs highlighted hypocrisy in society. He stood up against higher caste Hindu Brahmins oppressing lower caste Hindus and people of other religious denominations. He rejected caste, creed, religious division, and hierarchy. He promoted gender equality and fought against gender discrimination, such as, practice of polygamy and sati. Sati is a historical Hindu practice where a wife is to sacrifice herself on her dead husband’s funeral pyre. Lalon believed in women’s rights to follow their social and spiritual freedom. 

AG: Lalon was a man much ahead of his time. He lived from 1774-1890. 

MS: Yes. Absolutely. 

 As per legends, Lalon lived for 116 years, although much is debated. And during his lifetime, he is said to have composed over 10, 000 songs but only 700-800 are said to have survived as they were orally transmitted among his followers. As, his songs call out against religious distinction and oppression prevalent throughout society during colonial times, he comes across as an extremely powerful and forward thinker.

AG: Why is Lalon relevant today?

MS: Lalon is known for his thoughts and philosophy involving humanism. His concept, “moner manush”, is a process of fostering a space of inclusivity, spiritual connectedness, which is free of caste, creed and religion. He had this utopian idea which he believed in and promoted, but, still it has not happened. “Moner Manush” is a psychosocial space where human beings live in harmony. He yearned for that. 

This also ties in the concept of syncretism, which means creating spaces of tolerance and inclusivity. This was particularly revolutionary in the time of Lalon because there existed much social division and oppression further ignited by the British Raj. 

Humanism is the idea that people live in harmony, loving and respecting each other’s humanity. Humanism counters current movements of fundamentalists, and terrorists. There is always potential for bias, discrimination, and division in human society.

AG: Humanism is more relevant in our current world given the conflicts that we face. As human beings, there is always room for conflict due to division and discrimination based on our differences, biases (unconscious and conscious), prejudices and stereotypes. The philosophy of humanism challenges us to strip away our biases and examine “the human being” in all of us. We need to do that more than ever given our current geopolitical conflicts and climate crisis. Humanism challenges us to understand, and respect differences in others so collaborative work can occur for the highest good of humanity.

For me, humanism also points to the Buddhist and Taoist saying, that as human beings, we have 10,000 sorrows and 10,000 joys, indicating the complexity of the human condition . This can ground us to treat each other with respect as each one of us has our own journeys in joys and sorrows.

 

AG: You discussed Lalon belonging to the Baul tradition. What is the Baul tradition? Who are the Baul singers?

MS: They are wandering minstrels, who sing folk songs throughout West Bengal (where they are known as Bauls) and Bangladesh (where they are known as Fakirs). They do not reside in one place but live their lives singing throughout villages and cities. Baul singers use the instruments “ektara” and “duggi”,a  drum tied to the Baul’s waist.

The core of Baul philosophy is “Dehatattwa”, which is the belief that the supreme lies within the human body. The belief is that people go on pilgrimages, and visit mosques and temples, but the supreme lies in the human heart and humanity. Thus, Baul songs are against caste and religious division.

AG: That is an immensely powerful practice. It is easy to see Divinity in people we love but more challenging and mind-bending to see the Divinity in people who are different from us in terms of religious beliefs, customs and traditions. That is true soul expansion and requires spiritual growth.

How is Lalon Fakir and Baul songs related to the Bengali Renaissance? 

MS: The Bengal Renaissance is a period in  Bengal during British rule from 1700 to early 1900s. Bengal now is composed of the sovereign nations of Bangladesh and West Bengal (part of India). The Bengal Renaissance was a period of social, cultural, political, spiritual, and artistic movement which led to anti colonial and nationalist movements. The movement of Bengal Renaissance challenged the caste system, idolatry, and sati. This period included a radical transformation of Indian society towards liberty, progressive values, and modernity. It was partly led by Bengali Hindu elites, who were well educated and had socio-economic advantages. For example, Raja Rammohan Roy, a social reformer, abolished the Sati movement and reformed Hinduism. Another prominent person was Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, an Indian educator and social reformer, who legalized the right for widows to remarry. He also modernized Bengali prose. 

Other prominent figures included Michael Madhusudon Dutta, who is known for his contributions to Bengali literature during the Renaissance. Himanshu Rai and his wife Devika Rani were significant figures in film and cinema during the Bengali Renaissance.

Rabindranath Tagore, who won the Nobel Prize, is another key figure in the Bengali Renaissance. He was a philosopher, social reformer, and prolific author of poems, novels, short stories, and songs. Tagore never met Lalon, but Tagore had ancestral property close to where Lalon lived. Thus, Tagore was heavily influenced by Lalon and Baul traditions.  

One of Tagore’s major literary contributions was his nuanced and complex psychological depictions of female characters in his work. Tagore portrayed the desires, hopes, yearnings, cares, and fears of his female characters in a manner which was revolutionary. The readers get a peek into the mind and soul of his complex female characters. He humanized his female characters with multiple facets rather than stereotypical characters of a patriarchal society. Some of Tagore’s famous women characters were Charulata in the movie, “Charulata”, Bimala in “Ghare Baire”, and Binodini in “Chokher Bali”. Satyajit Ray was a prolific director, documentary filmmaker, essayist, screenwriter, who directed Tagore’s films, such as, “Charulata”, “Ghare Baire”, and other cinemas, like, “Pather Panchali” series. He received prestigious awards in India and internationally, including an Honorary Academy Award (Oscar) in 1992. 

Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda were also prominent religious personalities in the Vedanta philosophy movement during the Renaissance.

I will add that in addition to Bengali Hindus, there were also Bengali Muslims associated with the Bengal Renaissance movement, such as, Kazi Nazrul Islam, Ubaidullah Al Ubaidi Suhrawardy, and Rokeya Sakhawat Hussain. 

Kazi Nazrul Islam, known as the national poet of Bangladesh, was a writer, journalist, and musician. He wrote about social justice, activism, anti-imperialism, religious devotion, and rebellion against oppression.  Rokeya Sakhawat Hussan was a feminist thinker, educator and writer who focused on equality and liberation for women. She advocated that education for women is a requirement for their liberation. She worked hard to open the first school for Muslim girls in Calcutta. Ubaidullah Al Ubaidi Suhrawardy is a Bengali Islamic scholar, writer, and educator. He studied Arabic, Persian, English and Islamic studies. He is known as the father of modern Islamic education in Bengal.

AG: Before we end, I want to mention a fascinating article that I recently read, where the author, Harding (2010) discussed that the Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi told Swami  Arupananda that Sri Ramakrishna, a great Bengali saint,  said he would like to be reborn as a Baul. Harding (2010) described some of the similarities between the philosophies of the Baul tradition and Sri Ramakrishna’s ideology. I found a striking similarity in Harding’s (2010) article in that both the Baul tradition and Sri Ramakrishna’s philosophy emphasized  the spiritual practice of detachment or the idea of “living in the world but not being of the world”. 

MS: Yes, that is remarkably interesting.

AG: Thank you for an immensely powerful interview. I learned so much from you about Lalon, the Baul tradition and a relatively untold history of Bengal. I am grateful for your friendship.

 

CONCLUSION

I hope that readers enjoy reading about Lalon Fakir, the Baul Tradition and humanism.  Akand (2024) noted that Lalon Fakir, like many others before and after him, promoted “manabdharma”, the religion of humanity. My hope is that humanism rises and challenges us to sit with people from different backgrounds, especially spiritual/religious perspectives, and have constructive and courageous dialogues to resolve conflicts peacefully. 

 

REFERENCES  

Akand,  M. M. R. (July 1, 2024).  Relevance of Lalon and his Preaching Today. New Age. https://www.newagebd.net/post/opinion/238918/relevance-of-lalon-and-his-preaching-today

Citrus Studios (October 13, 2023). 10,000 Joys and 10,000 Sorrows:  Thoughts for Tumultuous Times. https://citrusstudios.com/10000-joys-and-10000-sorrows-thoughts-for-tumultuous-times/ 

Harding, E. U. ( August 4, 2010). At the Feet of the Mother. Elizabeth Usha Harding’s Blog. https: Ushaharding.blogspot.com

Rakshit, S. (2023). The Era of Bengali Rennaissance – A Legacy of the Hallowed Sons of Bengal. International Journal for Multidisciplinary Research, 5(3), 1-11.

Sil, M. (2016). Humanism as a Way of Life: Lalon Fakir and  the Baul Tradition of Bengal. Applied Sentience, https://applied sentience.com/2016/02/10/humanism-as-a-way-of life-lalon-fakir-the-baul-tradition-of-bengal

UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage (2008) Baul Songs. https://ich.unesco.org/en/RL/baul-songs-00107

 

INTERVIEW WITH ROB GENTILE: QUARK OF LIGHT (NDE)

There are numerous books on various people’s Near-Death Experiences (NDE). Rob Gentile’s book, “Quark of Light: Near Death Experience (NDE)” is a powerful, honest, and profoundly insightful account of Rob’s NDE after a series of frightening events:  heart attack, heart transplant, prostate cancer, and in a coma for four days and “flatlined or clinically dead for 20 minutes”. I felt like I was on a roller coaster ride as I was reading the book. It is incredible to me how Rob endured a harrowing two-year journey with his faith prevailing over his fear, his love for his family, and his encounters with the Divine Source.

In this post, I am very honored to present my interview with Rob Gentile on his book, “Quark of Light: Near Death Experience”. I have so much respect for Rob as a noble human being, father, husband and author. He talked about how his NDE led him to question and shift his belief systems.  He currently identifies himself as a Christian. He raised the point that when we are stripped of our various identities based on our personal histories, relationships, religious/spiritual backgrounds etc., we are simply “quarks of light”. He talked about his knowledge that we all come from the Divine Source, and we go back to the Divine Source. He raised the powerful point that experiences marked by adversity and great suffering can be viewed as opportunities to connect and strengthen our relationship with the Divine Source and dig deeper into the self. He talked about dealing with his feelings of betrayal by God when his prayers were not answered, especially his prayers for the healing of his special needs child. In summary, I am in awe of his endurance, strength, commitment to his faith, and love for his family.

INTERVIEW WITH MR. ROB GENTILE: QUARK OF LIGHT

Conversation has been condensed for length purposes

Anindita Ganguly (AG): Namaste Rob! I am super-excited to have you to talk about your book, “Quark of Light: Near Death Experience”. You write about your very powerful, honest and gripping near- death experience in what you call, the “ethereal world”. This shifted your life, and I believe that this will help people reflect on their beliefs and assumptions guiding their lives.

 

Rob Gentile (RG): Pleasure to be here.

AG: An honor to have you here, Sir.

RG: I was born and raised in a small steel town near Pittsburg, Pennsylvania and I am still in the steel industry. But I now live in Charlotte, North Carolina. At age 56, I had gone back to Pittsburg to get an operation with a specialist to remove bone spurs from a previous sports related injury. The procedure is simple and after one night at a Pittsburg hospital, I went back to my home in Charlotte. Unfortunately, I woke up later that night with a blood clot from the operation and a heart attack.

AG: Very scary event. This scary event marked the beginning of a tremendously painful journey…a journey with not just a heart attack, but also a heart transplant, and prostate cancer. You and your family went through a lot of stress. What kept you going on this journey?

RG: This journey took a total of 2 years. Additionally, my daughter, Maria, is a 20-year-old adult with special needs. She has Rett Syndrome, which is a specialized neurological disorder, and she cannot feed herself or talk. She also has a seizure disorder.

On the night of the heart attack, my wife heard me scream and she ran out to check on Maria and then she came to check on me. My wife later said that she saw me flopping around. I had never felt such pain before in my life. I passed away. My wife called 911. The EMT said I had a heart attack and took me to the hospital to stabilize me. Just as the nurse at the hospital said that he is stable and the cardiologist is on his way, my wife later reported that I swung up from the gurney like someone grabbed me. Then, I fell back on the gurney and flatlined. I was clinically dead for more than 20 minutes. I was told that the cardiologist rushed me through a series a of medical procedures. I was in a coma for four days. This is how this journey started.

AG: You discussed a two-year journey with dying, coming back to life with numerous medical emergencies. You talk not just about this struggle but also the difficult journey to get help for your daughter through many endeavors, but never having success with your daughter’s health struggles.

You raise some universal questions, such as, why does God answer some prayers and not others. You talk about feeling abandoned and betrayed by God… how does a loving God allow such horrible things to happen? I think that feelings of abandonment, betrayal by God and finding faith and strength to go on are universal experiences in the human condition.

RG: I grew up as a Catholic and practiced it as an insurance policy. I had a narrow view of the Creator. I now think that suffering, adversity and trauma call us to have a closer relationship with the Divine.

I have never learned anything from my success… everything I ever learned is from my failures. If you turn the suffering thing around, God pushes us into a corner and forces us to peel the onion so that we can look at the core of the self…to ask questions like Who am I? Adversity has the power to help us discover the answer to the question who am I?…we are part of a Divine Loving God.

When things are great, we do not take pauses to contemplate deeper questions. With adversity, if you are not pushed into darkness, adversity allows us to discover who we are…our light…because in regular life we are covered by the vicissitudes of life. With suffering, we have an opportunity to grow and look at things differently.

AG: You discuss the concepts of faith, fear and doubt. How did you deal with these ideas?

RG: Faith and fear are the same thing. It is like looking at the glass as half empty or half full. I choose faith, not fear. Choosing faith does not mean that we do not have challenges but that we must learn something from the challenges. If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging…climb out and find out a way to not fall back into the hole. That is how we evolve.

AG: What does faith mean for you?

RG: I am not in control of many things…the only thing that I can control are my actions daily. You can only control your actions and God has control over everything else. Freedom means that I did the best that I could do. Rest is in God’s hands. All I can do is my best.

I went through many dark nights of the soul…negative thinking…Why me? Why did it happen to me? I have a special needs child. I am 56 years old. I have lost everything. I can’t work. My arms are paralyzed. One thing begets another. Once the negative thinking starts, you become a magnet and draw unfortunate circumstances. When I took the higher road in my thoughts, while in bed waiting for the donor heart, I used to exercise to keep myself stronger. It is important to keep myself stronger before the transplant because after the transplant, all the muscles atrophy.

AG: That is incredible. In the book you discuss that one of your strongest drives to get better was to go back to your wife and daughter. I believe your wife said, “you can’t leave me”. You are married and have a special needs child that both you and your wife take care of. Was the love that you have for your family a strong factor that led you back to them?

RG: Very much so. I have so much love for my daughter. She is a beautiful spirit. She cannot talk… She has no malice, no bad intent, no ulterior motive… she is pure Divine energy. But I know that my wife cannot take care of my daughter alone because it is such a full-time job. I cannot think of putting my daughter into an institution and someone else must take care of her. That was a powerful drive to beat this thing. That is the power of love.

AG: Power of love. That came through in the book.

RG: When you are on a list for heart transplant, you need extensive pre-testing. When you receive a heart transplant, you cannot have other conditions because with immune suppressant medications which are given in a heart transplant, your immune system is compromised and you can get other diseases.

At this point in time, I was in the hospital for six months and I was a skeleton. The transplant team told me that they did all the testing and found prostate cancer in me and I was to be taken off the transplant list. At that point, I believed that I was going to die. My wife had a nervous breakdown. I was at one of the upper floors of the University of Chicago Medical center and pacing the floor, when an unbelievable storm blew up in Lake Michigan.  I experienced very negative thinking, such as, I am worthless, no good, and I remembered everything that I ever thought that I was not proud of, such as, wishing my daughter was dead while struggling to take care of her. I had high anxiety, heart pacing and thoughts that I should end my life. Then, I cried out to God “Do with me what you will because I am tired of fighting”.

AG: Wow

RG: After surrendering to the Divine, I was pulled up into the ethereal space (in between space) where I was whole and saw my body below. I remember feeling disappointed because I did not see a Divine being, Jesus Christ, angels or my parents. In that ethereal world, communication is telepathic and synchronistic. It was placed on my mind and spirit, “This is the Divine Source, and I am the foundation for everything. My power is omnipotent. This is your real identity”. I knew at that moment that I was not my body, race or religion. I was part of Divine energy. Then I became part of this magnificent web of twinkling lights… what looked like a neuron with a nucleus and intertwined tentacles which formed an interconnected  web, stretched into infinity and hung on the ceiling of the universe. It was shown to me that each of the twinkling lights, in the nucleus, was a life. The twinkling light was the building block of life…some call it photon…  I saw it as a quark. Quark is the smallest building block of life. I discovered that quarks are used to make up an infinite number of things, tree, dog, person or planet.

I learned that everything is connected…animate and inanimate objects. We are all made of the same stuff. It was shown to me that God uses light to create, heal and transform us. That is the recipe. We manifest differently.

I thought if I hurt myself, I will hurt everything connected to me, but if I love, the light will spread. That is how light is spread. In that place I thought about  all this senseless fighting and killing  that happens on earth.  We are all one, we are all connected, and we are all from the same place. I realized that I do not come from my parents… I came through my parents…I come from God. That was a huge profound NDE experience.

The other transformative experience was when my daughter, Maria, came out of web. Maria was whole and perfect. She walked up to me. In this temporal world, she cannot walk, talk or feed herself. I had a conversation with her… my first conversation in 20 years. I saw spiritual light in her, not the light we see in this world, but spiritual light which animates the world. I said to my daughter “Marina, I have never heard you say a word or that I love you daddy… your mother and I have done everything and taken you to many places to find a cure for you and ease your suffering, what do you want from us?” She said three things which transformed my life. She said, “Just love me”.

AG: Wow. That is incredible.

RG: That is when I cried out that I never wanted to leave this space.

AG: Wow. You say that God is love. All of us want to be loved in this human condition. Yet in this human world, there is conditional love. In other words, you do certain things to be loved. You talk about unconditional love.

RG: Unconditional love is important. But what we do on this planet also matters. I saw parts of the web which had no light, very dark portions.  I wondered if that was evil. I understood that in these parts of the web, God was not expressed with love and light. Divine energy was not expressed through these people.

The web reflects what we do on earth. It impacts our spiritual life and vice versa.

The struggle between light and the dark is how we evolve as humanity.

God expresses and experiences life through us. God is a spirit and so the Divine Source does not experience life like us… God cannot taste, or feel, as we can experience in the flesh.

It is very important to understand that the Divine Source wants to express through us and how do we find this. We need to find what we are created to be, what we love to do, what gets us going, and what makes us shine. We are here to express the Divinity in us and share with the world.

 

AG: So, shining the light through kindness and love is important for ourselves and others.

RG: Yes, that is important. I have one chapter in the book, called “All One”. I was very lucky because I had people of different faiths, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, who were part of my journey. I am a Christian, but I do not condemn other people for their beliefs unless they are doing harm to others. That is the ultimate line in the sand.

The essential core of all belief and religious systems is love… we as human beings screw it up and skew this core principle of love by trying to fit it in our agenda.

AG: So, the fundamental issue is to love and do no harm. Christianity’s Golden rule says its beautifully.

RG: I can talk about my daughter Maria now. For years, I was resentful because all our resources, time, and money went to help my daughter. But now I see value in my daughter. I see her as a teacher. She grounds me. She draws out the best in me.

I work full time, do diaper changes for my daughter at night and wrote from 4:30-7:30 am every morning for three years to finish this book.

The Holy Spirit told me to testify, and I had to write the book. Especially, as the government made an exception for me to get the transplant, despite prostate cancer. I have not had prostate cancer in three years.

AG: Incredible.

Please tell us what it is that the Holy Spirit wanted you to testify about. That is why you were allowed to come back.

RG: It is all very complicated. But the fundamental issue is to know and understand that we are all connected, we are all from the same place, we are loved. What we do matters, and we are all made of the same stuff. Love is the best way to connect, not destruction

AG: You make another great point which is that we do not have to die to experience the Divine.

RG: Yes, after the transplant, I was very depressed because I did not want to be on earth. I wanted to be back with the Creator and love and light. My boss brought his pastor to meet with me and I told the pastor everything. I did not care if he thought I was crazy. I told the pastor that I feel guilt that I got a heart when so many people, including younger people, died because they could not get a heart. I did not know where I belonged… I had one foot in this world and another foot in the ethereal world. The pastor reminded me that I did not need to die to experience the Divine. I started to connect with the Divine through going back to nature which I loved as a kid, showing love and kindness. Divinity is all around us, within me and you.

AG: It is important to cultivate a connection to the Divine, whether it is through exploring nature, practicing kindness or connecting with loved ones. The other part which you address is that there are dark parts of the web where people do not express God’s love and lightness and make decisions to hurt others.

RG: It is very complicated because there are so many reasons why people hurt others.

AG: Yes, it is a complicated subject.

Thank you for sharing your knowledge and wisdom.  Thank you for a wonderful interview.

 

 

Please note that this is not a therapy site. Please seek professional medical and therapy services, as needed. 

Japanese Tea Ceremony: Path of Tea

Growing up in India during my childhood, I was exposed to tea, chai, early in life. I love drinking chai. There is chai for every occasion. Drinking with friends or alone. I can drink chai for no reason at all, except that I am taking a break from a whirling life to smell the aroma of the tea through deep breaths and savor the lingering taste of the chai. It reminds me to stop and rest. In reading about spiritual and meditative aspects of drinking tea, I came across the Japanese tea ceremony.     Even though I have never participated in a Japanese tea ceremony, I am very interested in this ceremony as creating sacred spaces in daily life, which is consistent with this website’s theme of practical spirituality. Jaron (2021) noted that spiritual and religious traditions tend to focus on sacredness in non-human Divine Sources, God or Angels. However, Jaron (2021) reported that we need to also focus on the human being’s subjective definition of the sacred, especially sacred spaces, in spiritual and religious studies. This resonated with me as a psychotherapist, as people describe their unique sacred experiences which shape their values, create meaning and purpose for them. Jaron (2021) wrote that people can give meaning to their lives through realizing their “creative values, by achieving tasks” and/or experiential values, by experiencing the Good, the True, and the Beautiful, or by knowing one single human being in all his uniqueness” (p. 4). I will argue that the Japanese tea ceremony is a sacred space where participants create meaning and connection through an order of sequential tasks of tea preparation, hospitality and service.  The Japanese tea ceremony can be a space to experience the “Good, the True, and The Beautiful” in connecting and communicating with others.

 

In this post, I am super excited and honored to present my interview with Ms. Keiko Nakada, a practitioner of the Japanese tea ceremony for over 45 years. Ms. Nakada practices in the “Urasenke” school. I found Ms. Nakada incredibly humble because when I initially referred to her as a tea master, she said she prefers to be known as a “tea practitioner”. She said that she likes to think of herself as continually learning and improving rather than having attained perfection in her practice, which she loves. Ms. Nakada discussed Zen Buddhist and Shinto principles, which have influenced the Japanese tea ceremony. I am grateful to Ms. Nakada for her generosity in sharing her wisdom and knowledge about the Japanese tea ceremony and the “Path of Tea”  and how this applies to living with harmony, respect, purity, and  inner tranquility  in daily life.  She talked about Zen Buddhist concepts of mindfulness and simplicity as critical in the practice so that the best intentions of hospitality, generosity and service are offered in the making and serving of tea.  Ms. Nakada also elaborated on the Shinto idea of “beautification” or purifying oneself from the “dust that one collects in the world” before participating in the tea ceremony. She also expressed the values of harmony, respect, purity and tranquility demonstrated in the external behaviors and movements in the tea ceremony. She added that the goal of the tea ceremony is for participants to cultivate these values in their internal psychological and spiritual states. She also described the goal of the Japanese tea ceremony is to calm the emotional storms and activate the rational mind so that we can access our inner wisdom to solve problems and navigate through life. I hope that readers find this interview interesting and informative. Please see below for the transcript of the interview with Ms. Keiko Nakada. Contact information for Ms. Keiko Nakada, Instructor in the Urasenke Chado tradition – email milgracias@att.net

Urasenke Tankokai of Los Angeles – website urasenkela.org

 

 

INTERVIEW WITH MS. KEIKO NAKADA: JAPANESE TEA CEREMONY

Anindita Ganguly (AG): Namaste Ms. Nakada. A big welcome to the Blog, GOD and i. Thank you so much for taking the time to do the interview. You have been involved in the Japanese tea ceremony for many years. I think you said that you have been a tea practitioner for 45 years. I am very excited to have you because I am interested in the Japanese tea ceremony, but I have never participated in this ceremony. Please tell me about yourself and how you got involved in the Japanese tea practice.

 

Keiko Nakada (KN): I am Keiko Nakada and I have been practicing the Japanese tea ceremony for over 50 years, since high school. I am practitioner of the “Urasenke” school of tea, one of the three schools of the Sen family of Tea, which originated from the style of the Sen no Rikyu.  He served Lord Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi, powerful men in Japanese history, during his time of practice. He codified the different procedures that we do in making thick and thin tea. He compiled procedures which have lasted over 500 years. 

 The way that I became involved in the practice of the Japanese tea ceremony is through my grandmother, who helped to establish a tearoom at a local temple, called Zenshuji. It is a Soto Zen sect in Los Angeles, California. My grandmother hooked me into the practice when she asked me if I liked sweets and tea. And of course, I said “Yes”:  Thus, my practice began.

 

AG: That is awesome and incredible. What exactly is the Japanese tea ceremony?

 

KN: When one talks about the Japanese tea ceremony, it usually refers to powdered matcha, which is green tea grounded down to a very fine powder, infused with hot water and whisked or kneaded together with a single piece of bamboo that has an average of 90 or so finely split tines. We have “usucha”, which is a thin consistency, whisked to a fine froth.  Then, we have thick tea, which is kneaded carefully into the consistency of melted ice cream. The Japanese tea ceremony is essentially based on principles from Zen Buddhism and Shintoism. 

 

AG: Wow, I had no idea. That is incredible. What are the principles of Zen Buddhism and Shintoism that are integrated into the Japanese the ceremony?

 

KN: The act of purification in Shintoism is very important before we come into the tea space. For example, we have a stone basin, called tsukubai (from “tsukubau” which means to squat)  before we enter the space for the tea ceremony. At the tsukubai, you squat down or crouch because there is a low height basin, called “chozubachi”, and there is pure running water which you scoop up with a “hishaku” (water ladle) to purify your hands and mouth.  Then, you dry yourself, remove your shoes and prepare to enter the tea space because you have cleansed yourself of any dust that you may have accumulated in the world. After this process, you are ready to enter the pure and sacred space of the chashitsu (tearoom).

 

AG: Is the act of stooping symbolic of humility, which is important when entering sacred spaces? 

 

 KN:   Yes, when one lowers his/her stance, it is an act of humility and respect in Japan to this day.  

 

AG: I had no idea about the Zen Buddhist and Shinto principles in the Japanese tea ceremony.  What are some of the other principles from Zen Buddhism and Shintoism, which are involved in the Japanese tea ceremony?

 

KN: The principles are embedded in the movements that we do . I was just reading an old article by Urasenke 15th Grandmaster Hounsai Sen Genshitsu, who emphasized the importance of beautification of the self. In other words, when we have good thoughts and intentions within us, it comes out in the tea and ambiance in the tea room.. whether it be the host or the guests. The host appreciates the presence of the guests. Otherwise, there will be no tea gathering. Guests appreciate all the preparation done by the host to bring everyone together for the day. The idea of simplicity in the tea ceremony comes from Zen Buddhism. There is simplicity in the utensils we use.  Clothing is very muted in a formal tea ceremony called a “chaji”, which can last up to 4 hours. Typically, we first serve “chakaiseki” – enough sustenance to sate physical and spiritual hunger before the Tea ceremony. Then, there is laying of the the charcoal to serve thick tea and then, rearranging the charcoal to make the thin tea. Kiyome (purification) refers to the actual procedure of re-cleansing utensils in front of the guests all items which will be used to serve the guests. The entire gathering can take up to half a day, where you are spending time with like -minded people.

 

AG: A sense of ritual is very important.

KN: There are fundamental rules we follow which we learn in the beginning when we start our training, such as, walking into the tearoom quietly and etiquette of participating in the tea ceremony. The rituals and procedures of making and serving tea and how participants drink the tea are very precise movements, which when done properly create harmony and peace among participants. Once the rituals and procedures of the Japanese tea ceremony – referred to as “kata” are within our practices, we can incorporate this way of life (path of tea) , or Chado, into our daily lives.  It is one way we can become more well-rounded people and polish ourselves as human beings.

AG:  Practices or the way we do something (kata)in the Japanese tea ceremony leads us to be better human beings. What are the specific values in the “chado” (path of tea) which helps us live more fully in daily life?

 KN: The four most important values are: 1)wa (harmony), 2)kei (respect), 3)sei (purity) 4) jaku (tranquility).

Wa refers to harmony with the self and the world, including the 5 or 6 essential utensils we use, such as the water jar, tea container, tea bowl, tea scoop and tea linen cloth.  It is very important for the host to facilitate harmonious relationships among guests  in the tea ceremony.

Kei refers to respect for self, others and the items that you are handling in the ceremony. We handle each item carefully, knowing that each utensil exists to serve a purpose. There is respect for the interconnection among all aspects of the tea ceremony. The utensils and practices have been handed down for generations as tea practitioners. Respect for each other is crucial as we spend up to four hours together. We choose guests who have commonalities. The tea space is quiet. We enjoy each morsel that we are consuming, and we give thanks for the bounty that we receive.

Sei refers to the theme of keeping our hearts and minds pure as we purify everything. As guests, we keep an open heart and appreciate everything that is going to happen for the day. The host’s pure and good intentions of preparing and serving the tea is symbolic of the best tea and hospitality that the host can offer.

Jaku refers to inner tranquility or peace, the highest goal that we hope to achieve by practicing the first three principles, harmony, respect and purity in the movements of the tea practice as we slow down our pace, learn to breathe within ourselves, become centered and grounded. 

You had asked me if the practices in the tea ceremony are meditative. I think it is a meditative practice.

 

AG: Wow. That is incredible. It definitely is a meditative practice because the practice includes movements which reflect certain values, harmony, respect, purity and inner tranquility, which helps us to slow down in our rushed lives, especially as we live in a digital world. This allows us to center and ground ourselves.

Do you have a studio in the Los Angeles area? Do you teach classes here?

 

KN: I am part of a network of teachers in the Urasenke Tradition of Chado in greater Los Angeles. We have about 35 teachers at this time.  I am based in the Pasadena area but there are teachers spread throughout the southland. I am going to do a plug for the organization. It is called Urasenke Tankokai in Los Angeles and it is sanctioned by the Urasenke Konnichian headquartered in Kyoto, Japan.

 

AG: Thank you for the explanation. Is there anything else that is important to talk about that I did not ask about?

 

KN: I think that one area that makes this Japanese tea practice relevant in modern times even if started over 500 years ago is that we, as human beings, tend not to communicate very well.  Nonverbal communication through the procedures in the  practice allows us to open our hearts. The word,” omoteneshi” which is used globally now, refers to the process of fully engaged hospitality on both sides. If we engage in this, this will lead to less conflict. The concept of “omoteneshi” or Japanese hospitality become globally known after the Olympics in Japan in 2020. It is more than just hospitality. It is a value interwoven in the Japanese way of life, where we serve others with the best that we have to offer regardless of the situations. It is a very powerful value in engaging with others and life.

 

AG: Are the movements of the nonverbal communication synchronously practiced in the ceremony?

 

KN: The host sets the tone as the host is focused on the movements in front of him/her. The procedures, known as “temae”, mean that we focus in front of us with our eyes and hands intentionally so that we can create the best bowl of tea. The thought process is that I am offering the best of what I have to offer. Please accept it as a gratitude for your being here with me in this moment.  It is very important to be in the moment and savor the tea deeply to satisfy not just physical thirst, but also spiritual thirst.

 

AG: So, the mindfulness practices of Zen Buddhism are so important in the tea practice. So the sentiments, thoughts and energy in preparing and serving the tea is sacred. It is a beautiful ceremony.

KN: Our Grandmaster, Zabosai, tells us that when we have practice, do not think about it as practice… think of it as a real gathering.

 

AG: One last question. Do you invite only people to the Japanese tea ceremony that you get along with or also people that you may not see eye to eye? 

 

KN: Both. You can invite people with whom you do not see eye to eye. You can invite them to find out why.  Are there things that can be discussed even prior to the meeting? If there is someone who was unkind to me, I can invite and offer him/her tea and see if the person can relax and talk about whatever prompted him or her to engage in a reactionary way. From ancient times, there was a Zen story of an old Zen master practicing  the Japanese tea ceremony and a young Zen monk rushed in and repeatedly stated the he has a problem and can the Master answer his questions. The Zen master repeatedly tells the young monk to sit and drink tea. The idea is that as the young monk calms down with drinking tea and becomes self- reflective, he will discover the answer within. He will figure it out himself.

AG: Beautiful. This reminds me of the concept of the “wise mind” in Dialectical Behavior therapy (DBT), a psychotherapy model with evidence based techniques, developed by Dr. Marsha Linehan. Dr. Linehan combined western psychological practices with principles of Zen Buddhism in formulating the DBT model.  In the DBT model, the “wise mind” is viewed as an intersection between the rational mind and emotional mind. So, through the implementation of practices of calming down the stormy and overwhelming emotions and accessing the rational mind, we can access the “wise mind”, as we all have the internal wisdom deep within us.

 

Thank you so much. You bring so much light on the meaning and wisdom embedded in the Japanese tea ceremony. I had no idea regarding the profound nature of the Japanese tea ceremony until this interview.

Many thanks and much gratitude for sharing your wisdom and knowledge with me today. I am particularly grateful to you because you made the time for the interview with a very busy travel schedule.

 

 

CONCLUSIONS

Hope readers enjoy my interview on the Japanese Tea Ceremony with Ms. Nakada. A Big Thank you for Ms. Nakada. I love the values of the ceremony: harmony, respect, purity and tranquility.

We need to cultivate these values more than ever in our current times. Wishing all the readers success on the Path of Tea.

 

 

REFERENCES

Jaron, G. (2021). Religious Studies as the study of the sacred and our response to what we consider sacred. Academia Letters, Article 1888. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL1888.

 

 

The BLACK MADONNAS OF SPAIN

The idea for pilgrimage to see the Black Madonna at the Royal Monastery of Santa Maria  in Guadalupe, Extremadura, Spain germinated after I interviewed Dr. Andrew Chesnut for a blog post on  Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City.   Dr. Chesnut discussed that Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City is said to have originated from the Black Madonna in Guadalupe, Extremadura, Spain.  I googled and did extensive research about this Black Madonna in Extremadura, Spain and pondered whether to go on this pilgrimage. However, something else finalized my decision to see the Spanish Lady of Guadalupe (Black Madonna) this summer. Deep betrayal from people.  I felt hurt, angry and powerless.  I needed healing. Some kind of transformation from this betrayal. I will not go into the details of the betrayals, except that I now understand Dr. Maya Angelou’s quote “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time”. Dr. Angelou is so right.

Pilgrimages are considered as travels to a sacred place for personal transformation.  People find the sacred in many different places, such as, walking on the beach, going out in nature, places of worship or deep conversations and connection with loved ones. Encounters with the sacred can uplift the soul, create distance from the whirlwind of life,  crystallize a new perspective on situations and create momentum to be “unstuck from sticky and messy situations”. In this post, I will share my experiences on the pilgrimage to see the Black Madonnas in Spain for healing from betrayal. Even though my original plan was for pilgrimage to the Spanish Lady of Guadalupe in Extremadura, Spain, I also saw two other Black Madonnas in Spain. However, it is estimated that there are  51 Black Madonnas in Spain. Additionally, I will also discuss the concept of the Black Madonna and God-image, a concept in psychology about our internal representation of a personal God, through which we may process information about the Divine and form our personal relationships with the Divine. I will also discuss  contextual influences on our God-images, such as themes of power and influence in social structures.

 

The Black Madonna

What is the Black Madonna?   Black Madonna typically refers to the icon, statue or painting of the Virgin Mary with the Christ child, associated with the catholic church. Michello (2020) reported that about 500 Black Madonna images, icons or paintings exist in the world.   Images of the Black Madonna are found in many places in Africa ( Ethiopia, South Africa and Rwanda), and Europe ( France, Spain, Poland and Switzerland). In her powerful and authentic voice of describing her five-week walking pilgrimage of seeing and worshipping Black Madonna icons throughout France, Cleveland (2023) described the Black Madonna in various states, such as, pregnancy, breast feeding and holding the Christ child. In her book, “God is a Black Woman”, Cleveland (2023) viewed the Black Madonna icons as strong, powerful, and majestic.

In her doctoral dissertation on Black Madonnas, Landman (2012) noted that the definition of the Black Madonna is “not straightforward” and there is not much knowledge about who created these mysterious icons and images.  Landman (2012) noted that the  images of the Black Madonna, excluding those in Africa, can be categorized as “black, dark brown or grey”. Landman (2012) discussed Sara Boss’s (researcher on Marion studies)  succinct definition of the Black Madonna:  a Madonna, whose devotees describe as “Black”.

Some theorists  have argued that the Black Madonna is related to pre-Christian Goddess images. According to Lydia Ruyle (2005), different names for the Dark Mother image in pre-Christian times have been “Isis of Egypt, Diana of Ephesus, Crow Mother of the Hopi, Aumakua of Hawaii, Kali of India and Palden Lhamo of Tibet” (p.3). Michello (2020) noted that the image of the primordial Black Divine mother, as the creator from darkness and chaos, stems from African indigenous beliefs, which have influenced different world religions, such as, Abrahamic religions (Islam, Judaism and Christianity) and Hinduism. Like the Black Madonna, feminine faces of God in Hinduism, Goddesses, such as Kali and Durga (often called “Ma”), are characterized by their tremendous “shakti”, referring to their sheer strength, power, fierce endurance, conquering battles and protecting their devotees.

There seems to be different views about the catholic church’s acceptance of the Black Madonna images. Michello (2020) cited scholarship  that the  catholic church has been hesitant in accepting these Black Madonnas due to race and gender issues. The Black Madonna is black and female, presenting an intersectionality of social identities, which are marginalized in the leadership hierarchy of the traditional catholic church. Cleveland (2023) described the predominantly white male images of Divinity in traditional Christianity, as ‘whitemalegod”. Cleveland (2023) posits that these images have been used by patriarchal societal power structures to oppress marginalized groups, including legitimizing slavery. Delp (2021) noted the longstanding systemic restriction of females in the catholic church leadership throughout history. Delp (2021) reported that just recently the catholic church is discussing if women can be called to serve as deacons. Theorists, like Michello (2020) highlight that the catholic church’s reticence maybe linked with the cult of the black virgin’s  advocacy for equal representation for women.

However, according to the University of Dayton website, Druicy wrote that many of these Black Madonna  “images have received approval from ecclesiastical authority in light of the divine approval manifested by well-attested miracles (subsequently approved by Church leadership)”. Landman (2012)  noted that progressive female spirituality movements have also embraced the Black Madonnas.

 

The Black Madonnas of Spain

 Santa Maria (Black Madonna) in Guadalupe, Extremadura, Spain.

 

In my view, the Spanish Black Madonna in Extremadura knows betrayal, inside and out. She is tough, survived burial for hundreds of years and remerged triumphantly. She is also known as the “Lady of Silence”. For me, this “silence” refers to the critical phase of finding safe places to heal from the wounds of betrayal and integrate the painful experience in our narratives for deeper meaning and wisdom. To come out transformed and whole again. Maybe even better and stronger. Even before I started my pilgrimage, I had an odd experience at my local library, when I requested to check out Cleveland’s (2023) book, “God is a Black Woman”.  As the librarian checked for the book, someone, who had heard the conversation between me and the librarian, came up to the library desk and said “God cannot be a Black woman because He is a Spirit”. With a grimace on her face, the  librarian rolled her eyes at the stranger and stated to me, “I do not have the book in the system, but I will order it for you so that I can read it after you”.  This librarian and I were in solidarity that this book is important.  The librarian and I seemed to implicitly agree that books are not to be banned.  I think that the librarian’s frustrated and aggravated looks scared this person away.   I was somewhat shocked by this intrusion. I never had any random person lecture to me about what books I need to read or not read. I thought “God is a spirit. I agree. But why such a fuss on divine image of God being a Black woman”.  So, I read Cleveland’s (2023) powerful and beautifully written book voraciously before my pilgrimage. As a social psychologist, theologian and professor, Cleveland (2023) discussed receiving emails from people inquiring whether she is a witch when she was writing her book, “God is a Black Woman”. Cleveland (2023) made a great point: images which are deemed sacred  and profane illustrate powerful dynamics of power and privilege in social power structures. Rozette (2022), for example,  noted that one would expect “African Madonnas and Jesuses to be black, and yet they often are not” . Rozette (2022) reported that in many African Bibles, Jesus is painted as a white man with long blonde hair and blue eyes.

My pilgrimage to see the Spanish Black Madonna of Guadalupe, Extremadura, Spain, started at the beautiful and vibrant city of Madrid. After reaching Madrid, my husband, son and I did a fair amount of research about how to reach the monastery in Extremadura, Spain. The monastery is rather remote and distant from the heart of Madrid. The Extremadura region is often referred to as “old soul of Spain”, with Roman ruins and medieval castles. The car drive from Madrid to the monastery is about three hours and 15 minutes. We were very blessed to find someone who drove us to the monastery. The drive allowed us to see different landscapes:  farm regions with  cattle, horses, sheep, then,  miles of open green  fields, under the blue sky, scattered with purple, lavender and yellow colored wild flowers and the winding roads through gorgeous mountainous regions.   After traveling through mountainous areas, we reached the quaint and picturesque town of Guadalupe, which sprung up around the monastery.

The Royal Santa Maria Monastery in Guadalupe, Extremadura, Spain is an UNESCO World Heritage site. The monastery is large with ornate architecture, and numerous museums. The monastery tours are in Spanish. The Spanish Lady of Guadalupe is dressed in royal garments, with her face uncovered. I prayed to her for protection and healing. She felt familiar to me. She knew my heart and soul. It was like I was visiting my mother. I found her eyes having the same intensity as the Hindu Divine Mother image of Kali that my mother worshipped. The Virgin of Guadalupe in Spain  personified Shakti : power, strength and perseverance. At the Spanish monastery, I also saw the painting of Our Lady of Guadalupe, whose basilica is in Mexico City.

Cleveland (2023)  noted that the correct translation of the Biblical line in Song of Songs  is  “I am Black and I am Beautiful” and not “I am Black but Beautiful” (p.159).  The Spanish Virgin of Guadalupe is black and beautiful.  After seeing the icon of the Virgin, there was discussion of the theory in our tour group that  the Madonna  was not originally black, but, darkened due to her age or grime. I found myself rather irritated and frustrated with this discussion. To me, she is majestic:  black, beautiful, loving, compassionate, and powerful.

Peterson (2014) noted that the actual sculpture of the Spanish Virgin  is “two feet in height (59 cm)” but looks bigger “once dressed and on her pedestal”.  The original Virgin of Guadalupe statue is said to be sculpted by St. Luke and associated with many miracles, such as, ending an epidemic in Rome.  Christopher Columbus reportedly prayed to the Virgin to save his ship and crew in a fierce  storm and then, named an island, Guadalupe, to honor her. Peterson (2014) wrote that due to the Muslim invasion of the Iberian peninsula, the Spanish Black Virgin of Guadalupe image was “buried in a cave for safekeeping (in the Extremadura), only to be discovered 600 years later by a humble shepherd”. The shepherd is said to have had a vision from the Virgin about uncovering her icon and building a church at the site.

 

The Black Madonna at Montserrat

 

Even though, I did not get to travel to the monastery of the Black Madonna at Montserrat,  I saw her image at the church called, Saint Vicens De Sarria in Barcelona. She is also referred to as the “The Virgin of Montserrat” and “La Moreneta”. She is black, beautiful and radiated shakti. She holds a sphere (symbolic of the universe) in one of her hands.

According to the foreverbarcelona.com website,  Jesus asked Saint Luke in Jerusalem to carve a status of the Virgin Mary. After St. Luke carved the statue, he gave it to Saint Paul, who traveled to Barcelona and gave the statue to the Christian community in Barcelona. The statue was hidden in a cave in the mountain of Montserrat in 718 when Barcelona was attacked by the Moors. The miracle is said to have happened 80 years later when a group of shepherds saw light and music in a cave and found the Virgin Mary singing and playing instruments with angels.

 

The Santa Maria de la Alhambra in Granada

The church of Santa Maria de la Alhambra is located in Granada, in southern Spain. Santa Maria de la Alhambra is known as the “Lady of Anguishes”. We saw her in a procession. She is greenish grey in complexion. She suffered one of the greatest betrayals ever, the death of her son, God-man, Jesus Christ, by the  very people that He came to offer salvation.

Landman (2012) discussed Sara Boss’s scholarship on “green Mariology”,  which suggests that Mother Mary is also known as the mother of earth and the cosmos. She is seen as protector of not just her human children, but, the earth ecology. Landman (2012) noted that Black Madonna images are also important in ecological awareness and advocacy. I interpreted “the Lady of Anguishes” in distress about the escalating climate crisis, faced by humanity.

 

 God Image and the Black Madonna

 Aslan (2017) discussed two very important processes of the mind, Theory of Mind and Hypersensitive Agency Detection Device (HADD), which shape how human beings create images of Divinity or God image. The theory of mind suggests that we use ourselves as the primary model or paradigm through which we conceptualize other phenomenon, including Divinity.  The cognitive theory of HADD suggests that we are biologically programmed to detect human agency or human cause to understand unexplained phenomena. Since Divinity is such a vastly unexplainable phenomenon, which is difficult for the human brain to comprehend, we may lean towards images of God in human form and with human attributes to develop emotional relationships with a personal God in theistic belief systems.  God-images refer to our internalized psychological representations of  God, impacted by our personal history, parental figures, relationships, life experiences and families, and communities.  Hall and Fujikawa (2013 ) talked about the development of the explicit (conscious) and implicit (unconscious) aspects of our God-images. Hall and Fujikawa (2013 ) discussed that God-images may change during a person’s spiritual development.

God images may include our working model of our relationship with our personal God. We may attribute traits to our God-image. Some people, for example,  describe their Gods as loving, forgiving,  kind and a source of protection, whereas, others view their God images as punitive, angry, vindictive and harshly critical. Hall and Fujikawa (2013 ) reviewed research and delineated that positive images of God are related with more empathy, better self esteem and less personality pathology in individuals.

Hall and Fujikawa (2013) described there needs to be more research on contextual influences on God images. They discussed how racial minorities and culturally diverse people may have difficulty relating to white male images of divinity, defined by dominant power structures in social contexts. Authors, such as, Cleveland (2023) and  Galland (2007) have written about their spiritual journeys impacting their  God images. Cleveland (2023) reported that due to her extensive and very painful experiences of discrimination as an African American woman,  she did not connect with white male images of Christ.  She encountered many different Black Madonnas in France, such as the Black Madonna of Moulins, Our Lady of the Sick, (described as “She Who Cherishes Our Hot Mess”),  Our Lady of the Fountain, Our Lady of the Good Death (helps us loose our false selves to embrace authenticity), Virgin Warrior is the Go Consent (who loves by letting go), and Black Virgin of Saint-Gervazy (helps us to find home).  I particularly love Cleveland’s (2023) relationship with the Lady Who cherishes Our Hot Mess. That is what mothering is. Cleveland (2023) wrote about her encounters with the holy Black Madonna as liberating during her pilgrimage in France. She wrote that  “Sacred Black Feminine helped me relax into my body because I was able to relax into Her diverse and inclusive body…Her body is infinitely relatable and always expanding to include Her precious children. There is enough room for all of us” (p. 155). Additionally, Galland (2007) described her aloneness in relating to the male Buddha in her practice of Buddhism. Thus, she started her spiritual journey in connecting with Tara, female Buddha in the Tibetan tradition. Galland (2007) also wrote about her aloneness and difficulty connecting with male images of Divinity in the Roman Catholic church and thus, began searching for the Black Madonna.

In the movie, “The Secret Life of Bees”, adapted from the best selling book of Sue Monk Kidd, the character, Lily,  asked August, an African American mother figure in her life, about why she placed images of the Black Madonna on the jars of honey. August replied that people may need a God that resembles them or “looks like them”.  This points to the powerful notion that August and her sisters, known as Daughters of Mary, see the Divine in the Black Madonna and have a personal relationship to the Sacred Black Feminine . They know they are precious children of the Divine One and carry the Divine spark in them.

Black Madonna and Healing

The topic of betrayal is complex. People betray for different reasons. There are different degrees of betrayal.  Each individual’s recovery from betrayal varies. In terms of my own pilgrimage for healing from betrayal, my “human self” still struggles with anger, hurt and sadness at times. The experience of betrayal sucks. However, this pilgrimage helped me create some distance from this experience. My higher self reminds me that I need to process my anger, sadness, grief and  let go. The Black Madonnas of Spain remind me of the Divine Mother’s strength and grace to sustain me.  The Black Madonnas of Spain remind me that the actions of betrayal are all about the betrayer. The betrayer is responsible for his/her karma, and I am responsible for my karma. The Black Madonnas of Spain  seem to whole heartedly agree with the lyrics of my favorite Taylor Swift song, “Shake It Off”.  I love Swift’s lyrics,  “And the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, Baby, I’m just gonna shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, I shake it off, I shake it off”. I  listen to that song frequently and groove to the music.  The Black Madonnas  remind me to heal from the wounds of betrayal, shake it off and not become bitter. Faced with betrayal, the Black Madonnas challenge me to figure out who I am, such as, my core values and dig deeper into self discovery, self-compassion and self acceptance. They remind me to practice gratitude for the good people and things in my life and still look for the good in the world. The Black Madonnas remind me of Michelle Obama’s powerful statement, “when they go low, we go high”. They  remind me to live my best life, keep moving forward, trust and love myself even more.  They remind me to stand in my own truth. The Black Madonnas of Spain got my back. They remind me that this too shall pass. I take great comfort in this.

I will end with a full circle moment. After the pilgrimage, when I went to return Cleveland’s (2023) book, “God is a Black Woman” to the library, the same librarian, who had ordered the book, saw me and recognized the book. It is an odd experience because I see different librarians every time that  I go to the library’s front desk. I thanked the librarian for ordering the book. She said “I order many books but I remember ordering this book”. She smiled and took the book from me.

 

REFERENCES

Aslan, R. (2017). God: A Human History. Random House

Galland, C. (2007). Longing for Darkness: Tara and the Black Madonna. Penguin Books

Cleveland, C. (2023). God Is a Black Woman. HarperCollins Publishers

Delp, Christine ( September 23, 2021). Gender, Cultural Change and the Catholic church. https://thesocietypages.org/trot/2021/09/23/gender-cultural-change-and-the-catholic-church/

Duricy, M. Black Madonnas: Origin, History, Controversy. https://udayton.edu/imri/mary/b/black-madonnas-origin-history-controversy.php

Hall, T. W., & Fujikawa, A. M. (2013). God image and the sacred. In K. I. Pargament, J. J. Exline, & J. W. Jones (Eds.), APA handbook of psychology, religion, and spirituality (Vol. 1): Context, theory, and research (pp. 277–292). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/14045-015

Kidd, S. M. (2022). The Secret Life of Bees. Penguin Random House LLC.

Landman, M. R. (2012). Doctoral Thesis: Investigation in to the Phenomenon of the Black Madonna. University of Roehamptom, London. chrome-extension://hbgjioklmpbdmemlmbkfckopochbgjpl/https://pure.roehampton.ac.uk/portal/files/445689/Melanie_Landman_PhD_11_Jan_2013.pdf

Michello , J. (October 10, 2020)   The Black Madonna: A Theoretical Framework for the African Origins of Other World Religious Beliefs, Religions:   https://www.academia.edu/60331901/The_Black_Madonna_A_Theoretical_Framework_for_the_African_Origins_of_Other_World_Religious_Beliefs

Peterson, J.F. (2014) “The Virgin of Guadalupe, Extremadura, Spain.” Object Narrative. In Conversations: An Online Journal of the Center for the Study of Material and Visual Cultures of Religion . doi:10.22332/con.obj.2014.22

Rozette, E. (2022). The Madonna and the Child of Soweto, The Black Madonna. https://www.interfaithmary.net/black-madonna-index/soweto

 Ruyle, L (June 18. 2005). Goddess Icons of the Dark Mother Around the Globe. https://www.academia.edu/12028983/Goddess_Icons_of_Dark_Mothers_Around_the_Globe?rhid=28520978496&swp=rr-rw-wc-24439000

 

Veciana, M. L., Who is the Black Madonna Our Lady of Montserrat?https://www.foreverbarcelona.com

 

 

 

 

 

OUR LADY OF GUADALUPE

Apparitions of the Virgin Mary have been reported in many places, such as, (Lourdes) France, (Fatima) Portugal, Kibeho (Rwanda) and Yuzawadai Akita (Japan). Our Lady of Guadalupe is a highly revered Marianne apparition that occurred in Mexico almost 500 hundred years ago and her basilica is in Mexico City. She is referred to as “the Mother of Love and Compassion to all who call her name”.  Nabhan-Warren (2023) referred to her as the “the Indigenous Virgin Mary”, as a symbol of inclusive love, who “loves her children no matter what”. Ayala (2021) discussed her “many names: Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe, La Virgin de Guadalupe, Empress of the Americas, Our lady of Tepeyac”. According to Gorny and Rosikon (2016), the shrine of the Lady of Guadalupe is the most visited pilgrimage place in the world, with over 20 million people visiting her basilica in Mexico City every year.  Ayala (2021) also addressed the popularity of the Lady of Guadalupe with “Catholics, non-Catholics and …non-believers”. Ayala (2021) wrote that Our Lady of Guadalupe is not just on an altar or church but also “emblazoned on a pair of dangling earrings or on a muscular forearm”.

Our Lady of Guadalupe means many things to different people.  She speaks to people all over the world. I am 100% “Guadalupan”, but not Catholic. I do not identify with a particular religious affiliation. However, the three religious traditions that have influenced me heavily are Hinduism, Catholicism and Buddhism. I grew up for the first ten years of my life in India where I was exposed to images of the Divine Mother in Hinduism.  I attended catholic elementary and high schools and the figure of Mother Mary stood out to me.  My search for the feminine face of the Divine started after I lost my mother 12 years ago. In my search for the face of the Divine Mother, Our Lady of Guadalupe resonated in my heart. She is an anchor for me in my faith life. I pray to Our Lady of Guadalupe regarding the details of my life. For me, she is interested in both the mundane humdrum and significant matters in my life. Just as my mother was. I recently watched a beautiful movie about relationships, “Past Lives”, brilliantly directed by Celine Song (2023). Song (2023)  explores a semi-autobiographical, powerful and poignant story of relationships between two childhood friends, lost loves and the Korean Buddhist concept of “in-yun”, or” inyeon”, related to reincarnation, which is very intriguing.  Son (2023) described the concept of “inyeon”, through the dialogue of Nora, Korean American protagonist of the movie “Past Lives”. Nora stated “It’s an inyeon if two strangers even walk past each other in the street and their clothes accidentally brush, because it means there must have been something between them in their past lives. If two people get married, they say it’s because there have been 8,000 layers of inyeon over 8,000 lifetimes”. I wondered how many layers and lifetimes of inyeon must occur for a mother daughter relationship.

My devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe also led to my reflections about attachment theory of John Bowlby (1969), a British psychiatrist.   Attachments can be viewed as anchoring relationships in our lives, which help us navigate through the complexities of life. John Bowlby talked about the attachment between the primary caregiver and the infant as essential for the survival and development of the infant. Wilson-Ali and colleagues (2019) differentiated between primary attachment with the caregiver and secondary attachments that the child may form with other people in their lives. This refers to the different anchoring relationships that people have in their lives. Both primary and secondary attachments shape our stories.

According to Bowlby, the primary caregiver is attuned to the needs of the infant and takes care of the infant. This attachment relationship is the matrix through which the child develops socio-emotionally, physically, and neurobiologically. This attachment shapes the fundamental aspects of the developing child’s self-image, relationships with others and the environment. Mary Ainsworth (1971, 1978) was one of the first researchers who studied different types of attachment styles. In secure attachment, the developing child views the caregiver as a secure base and safe haven from which to explore the unknown, learn to manage feelings (regulating feelings) and learn about love. Our caregivers can be our first teachers of how to love, learn, experience joy, and live with wonderment, experience awe and manage negative feelings, like fear and uncertainty.  A neonate does not have a developed sense of self. Heinz Kohut, a self- psychologist, discussed the concept of emotional attunement of a primary caregiver to the infant’s needs and mirroring or reflecting to the developing child about who he or she is. Through the mirroring process of the primary caregiver in infancy and other significant people in the child’s life, the developing child answers fundamental questions:  Am I good? Am I loveable? Am I smart? Am I creative? etc.  Through the primary attachment relationship, the child learns different identities, such as “I am a worthy and loveable person, who can trust myself to make wise decisions” .Through the empathic attunement and mirroring of the primary caregiver  to the infant and other significant people in the child’s life,, the developing child learns about others and the world at large :  Are people safe? Is the world a safe and kind place? Can I trust others?

Researchers, like Granqvist (1998), have applied attachment theory to God and proposed two different hypotheses of attachment to God:   compensation hypothesis and correspondence hypothesis.  The compensation hypothesis states that with insecure attachment histories in childhood, there is a greater need for a stable compensatory attachment figure, like a Divine figure. The correspondence hypothesis suggests that early relationships influence future relationships and thus, if there was a secure attachment with a parent figure, then there is most likely a secure attachment to God. Thus, according to correspondence hypothesis, if one had a very conflictual relationship with a mother figure, the person may have difficulty with a secure attachment with a Divine Mother figure. If there is secure attachment with a mother figure in childhood, one may view the Divine Mother  as an anchoring or stabilizing relationship from which to navigate life.  I see Our Lady of Guadalupe as a secure and safe anchoring relationship in my life. Our Lady of Guadalupe’s blessings have profoundly impacted me. For that, I have much love and gratitude towards Her.

Thus, I am very honored to present my interview with Dr. Andrew Chesnut regarding Our Lady of Guadalupe. Dr. Chesnut is Professor of Religious Studies and holds the Bishop Walter F. Sullivan Chair in Catholic Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University. He completed his doctorate in Latin American history at University of California, Los Angeles. Dr. Chesnut’s specialty is in the religious landscape of Latin America. He is a scholar, researcher, prolific author, and professor. He eloquently discussed the various aspects of Our Lady of Guadalupe: her historical roots, cultural, religious, and political aspects, and the mysteries of the tilma, which first showed her image. A big thank you to Dr. Chesnut for taking the time to do the interview for the blog and sharing his knowledge and expertise. Also, much gratitude and appreciation to Mr. Ryan Corcino for editing the video.

VIDEO LINK: OUR LADY OF GUADALUPE

Please note that the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe in the video is from unsplash.com (free image) by Antonia Felipe

 

Contact information for Dr. Chesnut:

https://vcu.academia.edu/AndrewChesnut

https://worldstudies.vcu.edu/directory/chesnut.html

Follow AndrewChesnut1 on Twitter.com

 

Contact information for Ryan Corcino:

Corcino Productions: www.corcinoproductions.com

 

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

Mary is the only person who was present with Christ from His birth to His death. Some theologians argue that Mary was the first person to see the resurrected Christ. She represents the unconditional love that a mother has for her son. She is also a representational image of the Divine Mother to many people as indicated by the  line “When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me” in the famous Beatles song, “Let It Be”.

I will end with a quote from Hetzel’s (2023) article which indicated what Our Lady of Guadalupe reportedly stated to Juan Diego:

“Listen, put it into your heart, my youngest and dearest son, that the thing that frightens you, the thing that afflicts you, is nothing: do not let it disturb you…Am I not here, I who am your Mother? Are you not under my shadow and protection? Am I not the source of your joy? Are you not in the hollow of my mantle, in the crossing of my arms? Do you need something more? Let nothing else worry you or disturb you.”

 

 

REFERENCES

Ayala, E. (2021, December 10). “500 years later, Our Lady of Guadalupe still consoles millions with her message: God has not forgotten us”. America: The Jesuit Review. https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2021/12/10/our-lady-guadalupe-feast-day-texas-242016

Chesnut, A. & Kingsbury, K.  (2018, December 8). 15 Fascinating Facts About the Virgin of Guadalupe.  The Global Catholic Review. https://www.patheos.com/blogs/theglobalcatholicreview/2018/12/15-fascinating-facts-about-the-virgin-of-guadalupe/

Gorny, G & Rosikon, J. (2016) Guadalupe Mysteries: Deciphering the Code. Ignatius Press.

Granqvist, P. (1998). Religiousness and Perceived Childhood Attachment: On the Question of Compensation or Correspondence. Journal of the Scientific Study of Religion, 37(2), pp.350-367. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1387533

Hetzel, W. (2023, August 8).  “Am I Not Here, I Who Am Your Mother?” Words From Our Blessed Mother. Good Catholic.  https://www.goodcatholic.com/am-i-not-here-i-who-am-your-mother-words-from-our-blessed-mother/

Nabhan-Warren, K. (2023, December 8). VIVA Guadalupe! Beyond Mexico, the Indigenous Virgin Mary is a powerful symbol of love and inclusion for millions of Latinos in the US. The Conversation.  https://research.uiowa.edu/news/2023/12/viva-guadalupe-beyond-mexico-indigenous-virgin-mary-powerful-symbol-love-and-inclusion

Son, S. A. (2023, September 12). Past Lives: inyeon is a Korean philosophy of how relationships form over many lifetimes. The Conversation.  https://theconversation.com/past-lives-inyeon-is-a-korean-philosophy-of-how-relationships-form-over-many-lifetimes-213289

 Song, C. (2023). Past Lives. CJ ENM Killer Films 2AM

Wilson-Ali, N., Barratt-Pugh, C & Knaus, M. (2019) Multiple perspectives on attachment theory: Investigating educators’ knowledge and understanding. Australasian Journal of Early Childhood, 44(3) https://doi.org/10.1177/1836939119855214

 

 

 

 

 

HEROIC HOPE: CAMPHOR TREES WHICH SURVIVED ATOMIC BOMB IN NAGASAKI.

This post is a follow up to the last blog post, “Essential Hope”.  In the last post, I discussed the phenomenal book by Jane Goodall, Douglas Abrams, and Gail Hudson’s (2021)  “The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times”.  In the book, Dr. Goodall  discussed the amazing resiliency of nature as a powerful reason for hope.  I was awe struck by Dr. Goodall’s account of the survival of the camphor trees after the atomic bombing in Nagasaki. 

These are pictures of the camphor trees from Shannon Lefebvre’s  website .  Please see pictures below. A Big Thank you to Shannon for giving me permission to post the pictures of the camphor trees. As you can see in the pictures, the two camphor trees, surrounding the Sanno Shinto shrine, were destroyed in 1945 by the blast of the atomic bomb in Nagasaki. However, they regenerated and and continue to grow magnificently. An incredible testament to the resiliency of nature and strength of hope. 

One of the pillars of the Sanno Shrine was destroyed but one remains. There is also a plaque honoring the loss of lives that day in Nagasaki.

REFERENCES

Discover Nagasaki: The Official Visitors’ Guide. Sanno Sign and the One- Legged Tori Sign.  https://www.discover-nagasaki.com/en/sightseeing/117

Shannon, F. (2011). Restored Camphor Trees: Nagasaki. https://www.tour-nagasaki.com/2011/07/nagasaki-camphor-trees_26.html,

ESSENTIAL HOPE

I recently came across a study that blew my mind.  Matthew A. Killingsworth and Daniel T. Gilbert (2010), Harvard psychologists,  found that participants in their study reported their “minds wandering” almost 47 percent of their waking hours. The term, “mind wandering” refers to thinking about stuff that is not in the present moment. Researchers concluded that a wandering mind is not a happy mind. In the Buddhist tradition, the untrained human mind is referred to as the “monkey mind”. I have become increasingly familiar with my own monkey mind. The combination of a wandering mind and given recent turbulent times can be a toxic combination.   Ruminations of past negative events and projections of future disaster may lead to feelings of hopelessness.   Mindfulness, intentional living with goals for a better future and practices of positive psychology, including cultivation of positive emotions,  such as hope, can be a powerful remedy for the wandering, unhappy and hopeless mind.

Given the current state of the world rife with crises, such as, frequent mass shootings, geopolitical turmoil, racially based violence, political divisiveness and mental health crisis,  I am more curious than ever about the hope factor. In my readings on hope,  I came across a phenomenal book, Jane Goodall, Douglas Abrams, and Gail Hudson’s (2021)  “The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times”. This book makes a compelling case for hope and activism for a positive future. Dr. Goodall, a renowned researcher of animal behavior, founder of the Jane Goodall Institute and United Nations Peace Ambassador, defined hope as a desire for a better future and “a human survival trait” when faced with adversity. She stated that without hope we perish. She also added that we need to work intelligently and diligently to optimize the occurrence of positive outcomes  (our hopes or visions) for a better future. I agree with Dr. Goodall, especially in terms of active hope fueled action as very  powerful. I prefer hope fueled and focused action rather than being stuck in the quagmire of the  wandering “monkey” mind.

This post will look at Dr. Goodall’s powerful invitation to humanity for hope. As a 90-year-old woman who lived through World War II and the cold war, Dr. Goodall stated she has hope for a better future in the face of numerous crises, ecological, economic, racial violence, religious discrimination, and geopolitical turmoil. This post will include reflections on her compelling reasons for hope. It will also examine some of the correlates of hope found in scientific studies.  Additionally, this post will explore  hope through the noetic paradigm.  The noetic paradigm includes the mysterious nature of hope, where hope is sometimes the only thing that arises out of our souls and occupies our hearts and minds when nothing else remains.  Dr. Goodall argued hope is for both people of faith who believe in a Supreme intelligence behind the Universe, as well as, for secular people.  She described hope as having both aspects: logical versus illogical. I agree.

 THE HOPE FACTOR

Dr. Goodall argued that the “amazing human intellect” when utilized wisely is a powerful reason for hope. She stated that wisdom is when we use the powerful human intellect in actions with awareness of consequences of our actions and thinking about what is good for the whole. Wisdom integrates the sharp intellect with the compassion of the human heart in deciphering what is the best course of action to actualize visionsor hopes for a better future . Wisdom is the opposite of narcissism, where actions are based out of undiluted selfishness.

After reading Dr. Goodall’s reasons for hope, I took a deeper dive into what does psychology has to say about hope. The two most common theories of hope in psychology are Charles Synder’s hope theory and Kaye Herth’s hope theory.

Synder (2002) described hope theory as having three key components:

  1. Setting goals which can be achieved for a better future.
  2. Pathways of working towards the goal
  3. Agency or determination in utilizing resources to move forward on the pathways for goal achievement.

Tomasulo (2023) stated that goal setting needs to focus on what we can control. I am a big believer in visualizing goals, like creating vision boards, or writing goals down concisely. Another strategy is to think about macro goals (long term) versus micro goals (short term) to help you achieve macro goals.  Tomasulo (2023) described effective micro goals as “brief”, reasonable” and “present focused”. Tomasulo (2023) also discussed the importance of maintaining a “positive outlook”. A key factor in maintaining a positive outlook is to cultivate the growth mindset, discussed by researcher, Carol Dweck. In a growth mindet, it is Ok to make mistakes because we can learn from our mistakes and become better. The growth mindset fuels the phenomenon of “fall forward”. The growth mindset is different from the fixed mindset, where the expectation is perfection at first attempt, which is unrealistic and often leds to stagnation and unproductivity.

Flexibility is also critical: as one pathway closes, we need to explore new ones. Positive emotions, self-confidence, social, emotional, and spiritual support always fuel our energy to work on pathways to achieve goals. Disappointment, failure, and negative emotions are inevitable on the road to achieving goals.  Negative emotions may be processed in safe relationships, including spiritual resources, for new pathways to progress towards goals. In Herth’s theory of hope, there is a “affiliative-contextual” dimension of hope, which is very  cool. This refers to people’s perceived social, emotional, and spiritual support, and sense of belongingness. The affiliative-contextual dimension speaks to the gift of hope that we may get from supportive people in our lives and spiritual resources. The gift of hope is what we give to each other. It is like one glowing candle lighting another candle. The actions of one candle lighting a multitude of other candles does not diminish the strength or beauty of the original candle. This highlights the notion that hope, like other positive emotions, is contagious. Hope spreads rapidly, often fueling movements.

Persistence is  critical in the achievement of goals. Pathak (2020) wrote that when Thomas Edison was asked about his numerous failures before his invention, he stated “I didn’t fail 1000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1000 steps.” Interestingly, Pathak (2020) wrote that Thomas Edison, as a four year old boy with partial deafness, came home and gave his mother  a note from his teacher. The teacher wrote  “ Your Tommy is too stupid to learn, get him out of the school.” Edison’s mother responded “ My Tommy is not stupid to learn, I will teach him myself.” This highlights affiliative and contextual dimension of Herth’s theory of hope and Tomasulo (2023)’s point that an important aspect of cultivating hope is to “stick to positive people”.

Hope begets hope. As we reach our goals, we tend to develop self- efficacy or belief that we can accomplish things we were unable to do before. Hope births new hope. Like other positive emotions, hope generates itself, expands the range of possibilities, increases problem solving skills and allows us to see old problems through new lens, where solutions appear more readily.

Research on Hope

Psychologists have studied correlates of hope. Barbara L. Fredrickson, a psychologist, did phenomenal work in studying positive  emotions, such as, hope,  love, and joy. Fredrickson’s theory, called Broaden and Build theory, refers to positive emotions permitting us to build more intellectual, social and physical resources.   Cuncic (2023) pointed out that positive and negative emotions often co-exist and the goal is not to replace negative emotions with positive emotions. Cultivation of positive emotions can create an upward spiral which can help us create more coping and problem solving skills, greater resilience and gain perspective in the midst of negative emotions. Positive emotions can lead to more psychological flexibility, whereas, negative emotions, like fear and anger, are constrictive and narrow our ability to view different possibilities for problem solving, growth and well-being.

Day and colleagues (2010) followed first year undergraduate students over three years and found that their hope levels (agency and pathways) were more powerful predictors of their academic achievement than their intelligence, previous academic performance, and personality styles.  Reichard and colleagues (2012) reviewed 45 different studies and identified a 14 percent increase in  successful work performance when employees report higher hope levels than random chance.

Stern and colleagues (2001) found that hopelessness is a significant predictor of mortality in middle aged and older adults, such that, twice the number of adults who reported hopelessness died compared to their counterparts who reported feeling hopeful. Hopelessness was also a significant predictor of adults with cardiovascular or cancer.

Hope and the Indomitable Human Spirit

There are mysterious and illogical aspects of hope, difficult to decipher by the human mind, which can perhaps be better accounted for by the noetic paradigm. Peter M. Rojcewicz (2021) noted that in the noetic paradigm, phenomena are explored through the modalities of   mind/body/spirit and transcendent dimensions. The human spirit conjures hope in remote, barren places. To hope is to dream. To dream is to live.

Dr. Goodall argued that a powerful reason for hope is the “indomitable human spirit”. She described that this is the inner courage and strength to fight for goals despite tremendous adversities, like scorn, ridicule, hopelessness, discrimination,  and the ultimate cost of one’s life. She discussed people, like, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Gandhi and Ken Saro-Wiwa, a Nigerian who led nonviolent demonstrations against pollution by the Royal Dutch Shell and was executed by his government. She discussed  the critical role of Sir Winston Churchill, who inspired Britain to fight against Nazi Germany, in the face of many European nations facing defeat. I love Winston Churchill’s quote “If you’re going through hell, keep going”. No point stopping in hell. Walk through it to the other end.

 

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

The topic of hope is complex and nuanced, an area of intersectionality between psychology and spirituality. Hope is powerful, and a necessity for survival, resiliency and critical in thriving and flourishing. Resiliency is human beings in overcoming adversity is demonstrated by the vast research in Post Trauma Growth (PTG). Dr. Goodall talks about the resiliency of nature as a powerful reason which makes her hopeful. I was particularly struck by Dr. Goodall’s story of seeing two five-hundred-year-old camphor trees which survived after the explosion of the atomic bomb in Nagasaki at the end of World War 2. She described the city in ruins, tremendous loss in human lives but the lower part of the tree trunks of these two trees survived. Unbelievable. Each spring the tree grew leaves and continues to grow. Remarkable. She described how Japanese people consider these trees as holy and symbols of “peace and survival”. She stated that “spiritual power exists in all of life”. We, as human beings define this spiritual spark as “the soul”. She added that this spiritual spark exists in nature. I agree.

On another note, one needs to be careful of false hope: goals not realized with repeated pathways and agency. Trapped in false hope can be a miserable and dismal experience. Grief and loss issues may need to be processed in letting go of false hope and old visions.

I will end with the remarkable comment about hope by the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu, human rights activist, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, and Anglican Bishop of South Africa. In an interview in the film, “Mission:  Joy (Finding Happiness in Troubled Times)”,  the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu described himself as a “prisoner of hope” when it came to his difficult struggles for an apartheid free South Africa.   Nelson Mandela, the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and his collaborators were successful in ending apartheid.

“Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.” Archbishop Desmond Tutu

WISHING EVERYONE A FRUITFUL AND HOPEFUL 2024 YEAR.

 

 

 

REFERENCES

Cuncic, A. (2023). An Overview of Broaden and Build Theory. Verywellmind. https://www.verywellmind.com/broaden-and-build-theory-4845903#:~:text=Barbara%20Frederickson%20first%20proposed%20the%20broaden-and-build%20theory%20as,in%20psychology%20on%20negative%20emotions%20and%20psychological%20maladjustment

Day, L., Hanson, K., Maltby, J., Proctor, C., Wood, A.  (2010) Hope uniquely predicts objective academic achievement above intelligence, personality, and previous academic achievement. Journal of Research in Personality, 44, 550-553.
https://doi:10.1016/j.jrp.2010.05.009

Goodall, J., Abrams, D & Hudson, G. (2021). The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times. Celadon Books (Division of Macmillan Publishers), New York

Killingsworth, M. A. & Gilbert, D. T. Gilbert (2010). A Wandering Mind Is an Unhappy Mind.
Science 330, 932 DOI: 10.1126/science.1192439

Pathak, I. R. (2020). What Thomas Edison can Teach you about Perseverance. Illumination. Medium.com.  https://medium.com/illumination/what-thomas-edison-can-teach-you-about-perseverance-3c6d05caa57d

Pursuit of Happiness (2023). Barbara Fredrickson .https://www.pursuit-of-happiness.org/history-of-happiness/barb-fredrickson/

Reichard, R. J., Avey, J. B., Lopez, S & Dollwet, M (2013). Having the will and finding the way: A review and meta-analysis of hope at work.    The Journal of Positive Psychology. 8(4).    292-304 https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2013.800903

Rojcewicz, P. M. (2021). Existential Intimacy of Learning: A Noetic Turn from STEM. Academia Letters. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL2873

Stern, S. L.,  Dhanda, R, & Hazuda,H. P. (2001). Hopelessness Predicts Mortality in Older Mexican and European Americans. Psychosomatic Medicine, 63(3), 344-351

Snyder, C. R. (2002). Hope Theory: Rainbows in the Mind. Psychological Inquiry , 13 (4). 249-275. Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1448867

Tomasculo, D. J.  (2023). The Power of Hope. Psychology Today. Dhttps://www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/202305/the-power-of-hope

 

 

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS IS NOT A THERAPY SITE. PLEASE SEEK PROFESSIONAL MEDICAL AND MENTAL HEALTH THERAPY SERVICES, AS NEEDED.

Conversations with Dr. Jean MacPhail: A Spiral Life, Spirituality and The Divine Mother

During the months of September or October (depending on the Hindu calendar), Durga Puja, worship of a manifestation of the Divine Mother (“Ma” or “Devi”), is the one of the grandest Hindu festivals in West Bengal, India. New clothes, sweets, attending puja (worship service), giving Pushpanjali (offering flowers to the Divine Mother after chanting mantras), and singing during Arati (worship through fire). Growing up in the first ten years of my life in Asansol, West Bengal, this festival, over four days, was the highlight of the year. Sri Gyan Rajhans (2019) described Durga (Sanskrit word for fortress) as a manifestation of the Divine Mother, who protects her children against evil. She has ten arms, multitasker as most moms I know, rides a lion (demonstrating tremendous strength or “shakti’), embodies compassion in eliminating suffering in the world and grants resiliency in the inner and outer lives of her children.  I find it fascinating that Ma Durga carries a lotus, not yet in full bloom, in one of her hands. Sri Gyan Rajhans wrote that the word lotus in Sanskrit translation means “born of mud”. This indicates that spiritual awareness and enlightenment in human beings, symbolized by the magnificent lotus,  often arises from the struggles, hardships, sweat, blood, and tears, in the human condition (referring to the mud from which the lotus arises).

Given the patriarchal underpinnings of many cultures, religious and spiritual traditions tend to depict God or Divine Consciousness with masculine energies and features. However, the concept of the Divine Mother, God depicted with feminine energies and features, is also discussed in some religions and spiritual traditions. Jaya (2021) wrote an article, ” The Many Faces of The Divine Mother”, where he described the different manifestations of the Divine Mother, such as, Durga in Hinduism. Images of the Divine Mother include Kali, Saraswati, Lakshmi, Parvati, Chamundi in Hinduism.  Tara  is viewed as the Mother of Liberation in Buddhism. Dr. Sherry Ruth Anderson discussed the feminine faces of God in Judaism and Christianity. Dr. Sherry Ruth Anderson used the terms: “Shekinah” (feminine face of God in Judaism) and “Sophia” (feminine face of God in Christianity).  The Virgin Mary is an  embodiment the Divine Mother in some cultures.

In light of spirituality and the Divine Mother, I am very honored to introduce Dr. Jean MacPhail to the readers. She is my good friend, and an elder of immense wisdom, sharp intellect, wit, bold and fearless in expressing her thoughts and feelings.  She is an artist, physician, medical researcher, prolific author,  philosopher, and a nun in the Vedanta Society. I attended her presentation at a conference. I read her book, “A Spiral Life”. I am still working on her book, “Swami Vivekananda’s History of Universal Religion and its Potential for Global Reconciliation”.   Dr. MacPhail discussed that she worships Ma Kali, a form of the Divine Mother. She stated that her exposure to Celtic tradition of Goddesses led her to find refuge in Ma Kali. She also described being a big fan of the saint, Sri Sarada Devi, wife of Sri Ramakrishna.

In my opinion, Dr. MacPhail is a fully bloomed lotus, demonstrating magnificent spiritual growth despite her personal tragedies. She has studied the philosophy of Swami Vivekananda extensively and completed her doctoral thesis on Vedanta philosophy. Swami Vivekananda gave his brilliant and groundbreaking speech on Hinduism’s focus on tolerance and universal acceptance of all religions at the Parliament of World’s Religions at Chicago in 1893 (artic.edu).  He addressed his speech to the American audience with the endearing words, “Sisters and Brothers of America”, which led to a standing ovation by the audience.

This post consists of my interview with Dr. MacPhail, which is rich and fascinating, as she discusses her life cycles or “spirals” through a developmental perspective, each cycle consisting of disruptive stressors and healing relationships with teachers and the sacred. She discusses many facets of her spiritual journey and experiences of the sacred through Christianity, Buddhism, Celtic wisdom, relationship with the Divine Mother (Ma Kali) and Vedanta philosophy of Sri RamaKrishna and Swami Vivekananda.

Here is the link to my interview with Dr. Jean MacPhail:

Conversations with Dr. Jean MacPhail: A Spiral Life, Spirituality and the Divine Mother

The video was edited by Mr. Ryan Corcino.

Many thanks to Dr. Jean MacPhail and Ryan Corcino.

 

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

Spiral imprints are powerful symbols occurring repeatedly, ranging from the microcosm of one individual life to the macrocosm of galaxies in the universe. Dr. Brenner (2015) discussed the “spiral process” and particularly the  cycles in the spiral imagery as  stages of life where our consciousness experiences transformation, birth, death and rebirth of the self. She also discussed the spiral imagery as demonstrated in many facets of nature, such as the solar system, galaxies, and the flow of water.  Dr. MacPhail’s discussion of the spirals or life cycles and her relationship with Ma Kali (Divine Mother) was very rich, powerful and intriguing.  Dr. MacPhail’s interview was very timely as I just came back from the Durga Puja festival yesterday.

Dr. MacPhail’s interview led me to reflect of my own life cycles and their impact on my biological, psychological and spiritual development.  Hope this post inspires readers to reflect on their own “spirals” or life cycles as we come closer to the end of this year and start of 2024.

 

 

 

FOR CONTACT INFORMATION for Dr. Jean MacPhail:

https://independent.academia.edu/JeanMacPhail
 It can be accessed by anyone who has academia membership.
https://jeanmacphail.academia.edu/
This is for anyone who is not a member of Academia.
FOR CONTACT INFORMATION For Ryan Corcino:

 

 

 

REFERENCES

Art Institute of Chicago. Swami Vivekananda and His 1893 Speech. https://www.artic.edu 

Brenner, A. (2015). Shape of your Life: The Spiral Process. Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/in-flux/201501/the-shape-your-life#:~:text=Within%20the%20spiral%20form%20%E2%80%9Cthe%20potential%20for%20movement,evolution%2C%20humanity%E2%80%99s%20developmental%20climb%20to%20realize%20heightened%20consciousness.

Jaya, N. (2021). Many Faces of Divine Mother. Ananda India. https://anandaindia.org/blog/many-faces-of-divine-mother/

MacPhail, J. C. (2010) A Spiral Life. Xlibris Corporation.

MacPhail, J. C. ( 2020) Swami Vivekananda’s History of Universal Religion and its Potential for Global   Reconciliation. Cook Communication.

Rajhans, S. G. (2019). Goddess-Durga. https://www.learnreligions.com

 

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS IS NOT A THERAPY SITE. PLEASE SEEK PROFESSIONAL MEDICAL AND MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES, AS NEEDED.