Sadhguru’s Huffington Post piece from last week, If the Feminine Ruled This Planet, Life Would Be About Living, really struck a chord with me. Firstly, a caveat:

When I say feminine, I am not talking about it in terms of male-female; I am talking about it in terms of masculine-feminine.

Yes, but women certainly are implicated. The feminine is under threat, not just by patriarchy and social norms, but from women ourselves. We are not choosing to speak out against the systems which suppress the feminine.

So today, there is a danger that the female is giving up the feminine because survival has once again become the dominant factor. Survival has been pushed up to a demanding scale like never before. In earlier times, survival meant just gathering the day’s food. But today, survival means a BMW, the latest technological gadgets for your children, a summer home, etc. That is very challenging. So as this happens, as the demand for this type of life increases, there will ultimately be no room for the feminine to find any place in society.

There is so much pressure on women to compete like men in the workplace, and then still maintain the household. When I was growing up, my mom worked, but I had friends whose moms were housewives and I envied them. However, nowadays it is a rare luxury if families can afford to have a stay-at-home mom.

So something needs to happen for the feminine to flower within each human being. The feminine should be nurtured right from the start. As many children go into science and technology, the same number should also go into music, art, philosophy and literature. This must happen. If this does not happen, there will be no room for the feminine in the world. So celebrating the feminine is very essential. It is not about “woman,” but rather the “feminine.”

I struggled with the division of disciplines as I was younger. I enjoyed most of the subjects, but found math really challenging. I longed to pursue music, dance, and theater, but it was difficult to accommodate everything. When it came to college and professional choices, it was obvious that intuitive, artistic pursuits could only serve as hobbies, whereas my career would have to be based in the logical aspects of life. A lot of feminist research has been about quantifying the “care economy,” and calls for better remuneration of the jobs that women typically fill.

The very nature of this continual quest for survival is masculine. The masculine is always about conquering something. The feminine is not about conquest. The feminine is about flowering, about relaxing, about living – not about getting. So what’s needed is a shift. If that shift does not happen, we will exhaust the planet too fast. If the feminine ruled this planet, there would be no ecological problems because it would not be one mindless, endless conquest – it would be about living.

What do you prefer: conquering or relaxing?

Here’s a little story from my husband which he loves to tell but can’t take credit for because I’m sure he got the story from somewhere else. It goes like this:

A man who was about to enter the pearly white gates of heaven was greeted by an angel. The angel said, “I will grant you one wish. Anything you want will be yours. What is your wish sir?” The man knew exactly what he wanted and didn’t even hesitate to answer the question. He said, “I want zillions of dollars.” The angel looked at the man and smiled and said, “Your wish is granted.” Then, poof, she disappeared and the man was left all alone in heaven with zillions of dollars for eternity.

Be careful what you wish for. Do you really want zillions of dollars, or do you want what zillions of dollars can buy you. The pursuit of money for the sake of it only will lead you down a dead end street. There’s nowhere to go after that.

The post came at a good time, as we are trying to do some financial planning for our future goals. I used to want to completely avoid thinking & planning, it made me so anxious. My fears have subsided and I’m more able to think practically.

I didn’t necessarily think of money as dirty, but I saw so many really messed up wealthy people and I associated the two as inseparable. Instead, I saw myself as having values which didn’t coincide with the pursuit of money.

The only problem with this is the danger of resentment which sometimes creeps up on me. I can’t understand how some people in India can have so much while most have so little… But this is a global issue which can only be solved through a complete shift in consciousness.

I have been doing tons of research on how non-profits can use social media, thanks largely to Beth Kanter’s wealth of resources on the subject, with the aim of seeing what Isha Foundation can do with these tools. The workshop was an opportunity to apply what I’ve already learned, and of course see it in a new light. Gaurav put things in quite a different perspective, for example by highlighting the theoretical underpinnings of the tools (whereas I’ve been focusing more on the practical uses and tactics).

He started with the question: “What are social technologies and why are they important?” and showed how they are changing people. For example, the focus is shifting from content to people, and people themselves are shifting from consumers to creators.

However, I would like to ask: if technologies are changing people, why are we not any more joyful or loving? Surely if we could engineer ourselves the way we would want to be, we would choose bliss over blogging. If the tools enable us to be more “connected”, why can we not experience this connectedness on a deeper level? If anything, social media has tended to exaggerate our individuality (to the point where we feel the need to broadcast our every thought and action). So, how is this change beneficial?

As an inner technology, Isha Yoga creates the transformation from the inside out. Without fancy gadgets, it enables an individual to experience life in a more enhanced way–feeling more in tune with others, with one’s surroundings, with life! Having experienced this myself, it was only natural that I looked to social media as a way to express and share my joy with those in my network.

The workshop report will be available on the Foundation’s site soon. Gaurav’s post on Everything You Need To Know About Social Media Marketing In Seven Short Steps is a good summary, as is this article/interview on Why and how nonprofits should use social media. Slides are below:

of cars, thoughts and rats.

Continuous comparison,

city life of crowds and competition

no space to hear yourself think

others breathing down your neck

the heat grit smoke dust

choking all life around.

The seat of government and diplomacy,

madness and no mercy.

To thrive: a miraculous task;

most just barely survive.

The dream and drive of making it big,

the unbeatable will to stay alive.

Against all odds the craze continues

rewarding few

crippling many.

Delhi, do you have any idea

of where you’re leading the country?

You are an unsettled head

in an aching body.

You are trying too hard to keep up,

to prove yourself to the world,

and leaving too much behind.

Delhi, in my belly, on my mind:

are you aware of what you’re doing?

For my dissertation at LSE, I wrote about a UNICEF project for girl’s education and questioned its assumption that education was automatically empowering. A contact of mine currently at the LSE, Layla, has posted some very interesting research–conducted by the LSE, no less–that again brings these questions to my mind:  Cleverest women are the heaviest drinkers

Those with degrees are almost twice as likely to drink daily, and they are also more likely to admit to having a drinking problem.

“Reasons for the positive association of education and drinking behaviours may include: a more intensive social life that encourages alcohol intake; a greater engagement into traditionally male spheres of life, a greater social acceptability of alcohol use and abuse; more exposure to alcohol use during formative years; and greater postponement of childbearing and its responsibilities among the better educated,” says the report.

The article doesn’t mention stress–and that alcohol happens to be society’s most acceptable and easiest available antidote. What would be helpful to look at is how women’s involvement in “traditionally male spheres of life” is inherently stressful; even more helpful would be examining methods to eliminate stress so that this kind of abuse need not happen.

Granted, this research is from the UK with notoriously high rates of alcohol consumption. But still, it’s quite tragic to think that the most educated and qualified women are wasting their potential by getting sloshed.

Is it because they cannot handle the pressure of being in such high positions in society and conforming to roles with which they are not comfortable? Is inebriation a more empowering alternative?

Mr. Geithner has his work cut out for him, economists and policy analysts in both India and the United States say. Reaching economic agreements between the two countries has traditionally been an arduous task.

“On principle, they both agree on everything,” said Jahangir Aziz, chief India economist at J. P. Morgan in Mumbai. “It always comes down to the nitty-gritty and that’s where things get stuck. Part of the problem is neither of them wants to give the other side an inch.”

Shouldn’t the US go a little easier on India, given the size of its market?

It took nearly 20 years for the United States to lift a ban on imports of Indian mangoes, for example, and a deal to allow energy-strapped India access to American nuclear technology, agreed to in principle four years ago, still has not cleared all the legal hurdles that would let American companies sign contracts here. The two countries remain far apart on American farm subsidies and India’s unwillingness to open its markets to foreign farmers, because they both want to protect their agricultural sectors. The countries’ disagreements there helped to scuttle global trade negotiations in 2008.

A funny & relevant tweet from Sadhguru’s public talk yesterday:

When you start thinking only I am right and everybody else is wrong, this is the first step towards madness.

Surely the US qualifies?

India as a culture has invested more time, energy and human resource toward the spiritual development of human beings for a very long time. This can only happen when there is a stable society for long periods without much strife. While all other societies were raked by various types of wars, and revolutions, India remained peaceful for long periods of time. So they invested that time in spiritual development, and it became the day to day ethos of every Indian.

The world looking towards India for spiritual help is nothing new. It has always been so in terms of exploring the inner spaces of a human being-how a human being is made, what is his potential, where could he be taken in terms of his experiences. I don’t think any culture has looked into this with as much depth and variety as India has. Mark Twain visited India and after spending three months and visiting all the right places with his guide he paid India the ultimate compliment when he said that anything that can ever be done by man or God has been done in this land.

So definitely as humanity, today we have reached many peaks in terms of science, economics or technology but if we do not heal the inner damage then all the power that technology has given us will only be used destructively. We are already on the verge of threatening the extinction of the planet. If human beings are not tempered from inside there will always be conflict.

I don’t know about the other gurus traversing the globe, but my endeavor is and theirs should be also, to aim at the political, economic and other areas of leadership. If some element of spirituality enters the life of these leaders, it could change the complexion of the world in a very short time. It is a priority and is beginning to happen but not significantly.

From Kavita Chhibber’s interview with Sadhguru.

India

She wore a raiment of so many a hue An unfamiliar eye would think she is madness true Her children are such multi-flavored stew This amalgamation of culture a heady brew Isn’t man just an outcrop of the land that his forefathers slew It’s antiquated history of blood & beauty knew A faraway visitor here saw what man or god could ever do Now it is time that you & me blow life & breath anew. –Sadhguru

At the tail end of a panel discussion on women’s participation in environmental policy, held in conjunction with the 54th United Nations Commission on the Status of Women meeting earlier this month, Polk uttered a word often considered wise to avoid in women’s advocacy: population.

“The population is at nearly 7 billion right now. We’ve eaten just about everything we can eat out of the ocean and off the land,” Polk told about 60 women at the gathering, hosted by the New York-based interfaith organization Temple of Understanding. “We can forget about any rights-based approaches if we have too many people, because we’ll all lose all our rights.”

Sadhguru puts it a lot simpler:

The biggest disaster is that human beings have multiplied irresponsibly like never before on this planet.

“Individual transformation is the way to global transformation.”–Sadhguru

For those of you who may not recognize this icon, it was popularized by Obama during his campaign for ‘change’ in America. Sadhguru has said, though, that change is temporary whereas transformation is permanent.

“If I show you a seed and say, this will become a great tree, if you don’t know the connection between a seed and a tree you will only see it as an insignificant little seed that can never transform into a huge and strong tree. Disbelief is all you will feel. But if you nurture it, you will see the seed transform itself into a strong tree.”

From a Q&A session posted on Kavita Chhibber’s site.

Check out the below video, “Sacred Seed”:

All of us are given a seed that has the possibility of boundlessness. You are very careful and good, so you preserve the seed. I destroy the seed and make it into a tree.–Sadhguru

If you want a sacred seed to sprout and prosper you have to weed the place, cultivate the land, manure it, and you have to make sure enough water and sunlight finds its way. If you are afraid of the harshness of the sunlight and avoid it, you will also avoid the life-nourishing warmth of the sunlight. In your enslavement to the instinct of self-preservation you would like to avoid the sunlight; go stand in the shade. But you will miss the warmth of the life-nourishing light, too. That which is the basis of life is also that which ends life. That which burns also bakes. If you’re a good cook, you bake. If you’re a bad one, you burn.–Sadhguru