For The Wild - ANDREW HARVEY on Confronting Crisis with Divine Dignity ⧸30

00:00:00.000 Hello, this is Ayanna Young, and I welcome you to Unlearn and Rewild, where we explore

00:00:16.620 radical ideas relating to earth renewal.

00:00:19.860 Today we're speaking with Andrew Harvey.

00:00:22.700 Andrew is founder-director of the Institute of Sacred Activism, an international organization

00:00:28.560 focused on inviting concerned people to take up the challenge of our contemporary global crises

00:00:34.680 by becoming inspired, effective, and practical agents of institutional and systemic change

00:00:42.240 in order to create peace and sustainability. Sacred activism is a transforming force of

00:00:49.380 compassion and action that is born of a fusion of deep spiritual knowledge, courage, love,

00:00:56.060 and passion with wise radical action to preserve and heal the planet and its inhabitants.

00:01:03.840 Andrew was born in South India in 1952, where he lived until he was nine years old.

00:01:10.080 It is this early period that he credits with shaping his sense of the inner unity of all

00:01:15.040 religions and providing him with a permanent and inspiring vision of a world infused with

00:01:20.700 the sacred. He left India to attend private school in England and entered Oxford University in 1970

00:01:27.480 with a scholarship to study history. At the age of 21, he became the youngest person ever to be

00:01:34.480 awarded a fellowship to All Souls College, England's highest academic honor. By 1977, Harvey had become

00:01:43.180 disillusioned with life at Oxford and returned to his native India, where a series of mystical

00:01:48.780 experiences initiated his spiritual journey. Over the last 40 years, he has plunged into

00:01:54.800 different mystical traditions to learn their practices, including Hinduism, Buddhism,

00:02:00.740 Christianity, and Sufism. He has synthesized these mystical explorations with a deep environmental

00:02:06.960 and humanitarian ethic in the practice of sacred activism. And he is the author of over 30 books.

00:02:14.480 Hello, Andrew.

00:02:16.340 Hello.

00:02:17.540 I'm delighted to be speaking with you and to share your work with our audience.

00:02:24.480 Just to lay some groundwork, can you begin by addressing why activism alone is not enough

00:02:30.280 and why religion and spirituality alone are not enough to truly confront the current state of Earth?

00:02:36.380 I think the deepest answer to that is that the nature of the divine is both being and becoming.

00:02:49.760 It's both timeless peace and pure awareness and passionate energy that is endlessly creative.

00:03:00.340 And if you and I are made in the image of the divine, as all the mystical traditions tell us, then our duty, our responsibility, our destiny, our ecstasy is to marry the great transcendent peace with the wild, holy, sacred passion in sacred action.

00:03:24.660 divinely inspired action

00:03:27.860 creative action

00:03:29.200 at the core of our lives

00:03:30.880 what this marriage

00:03:33.760 makes possible is the birth of a new

00:03:35.860 kind of human being

00:03:37.400 someone who is

00:03:39.660 illumined

00:03:41.620 by divine awareness

00:03:43.940 whose mind

00:03:45.700 is transformed, whose heart is

00:03:47.980 absolutely naked

00:03:49.740 and open and whose whole

00:03:51.680 life is spent as

00:03:53.680 a prayer to transform the planet, to help the planet

00:03:59.200 be the birthing ground of our new way of being and doing everything.

00:04:06.860 So sacred activism is the only real response

00:04:11.300 to the great evolutionary challenge that we are being faced with.

00:04:16.880 Because sacred activism, that is the fusion of the two noblest passions of the human soul,

00:04:22.920 the passion for God, the passion for unity with reality, and the passion for justice.

00:04:30.120 So the two greatest passions of mystic and activist are fused in sacred activism,

00:04:36.320 and both the narcissism of the mystic that is an obsession with the light and transcendence and mystical experience,

00:04:43.660 that narcissism is healed by the mystic being united with the activist,

00:04:48.600 and the narcissism of the activist that is an obsession with doing,

00:04:53.460 with endless doing and being the agent of righteous change

00:04:58.140 and is very often a narcissism that is obsessed with heroism

00:05:03.580 and the hero ideal and burnout.

00:05:07.200 That narcissism is healed by mystic knowledge, mystic truth, mystic passion.

00:05:12.740 And out of this fusion comes this great healing of the two most sensitive kinds of people in our world, but two kinds of people that are clearly not being able, in the current situation, to effect the depth of transformation that's needed.

00:05:28.960 It's clear the spiritual movement is totally incapable of the new age, or as a friend of mine calls it, the new cage movement, is totally incapable of addressing the exploding horrors of the real extinction crisis that we're in. 0.98

00:05:44.560 So it's creating a kind of refugee la-la land for people who don't want to do the authentic work of facing where we are, let alone reacting to it. 1.00

00:05:55.380 And it's very dangerous. 0.98

00:05:57.880 And it's also clear that the activists,

00:06:01.040 motivated that they are by deep, righteous indignation

00:06:05.280 and motivated by very noble intentions,

00:06:09.080 it's clear that they too aren't mobilizing the world

00:06:12.200 because there's something too judgmental in the way they're doing it

00:06:16.300 and there's something in their ferocity that intimidates

00:06:21.100 and doesn't invite and enchant people to change.

00:06:25.200 that both the mystic

00:06:28.420 refugism

00:06:30.600 and the activist 1.00

00:06:32.520 ferocity can be healed

00:06:34.540 by the marriage of the mystic peace

00:06:36.400 and passion with the activist

00:06:38.400 hunger for justice and a new kind

00:06:40.660 of being created

00:06:42.420 and it's to this

00:06:43.740 evolutionary new being

00:06:46.460 which I call the divine human

00:06:48.060 that all my work

00:06:50.500 is dedicated because

00:06:52.000 I'm experiencing this birth

00:06:54.440 in myself, and in many, many different kinds of people, and I feel at this time in my life,

00:07:04.180 I know that this birth is the next stage potentially open to humanity, and the only way that we

00:07:13.800 can survive, let alone thrive, the crisis that we've created out of our insanity of

00:07:21.640 separation from truth and love. So that would be one way of answering that beautiful question.

00:07:31.480 Wonderful. And can you speak more about what self-transcendence means and what embodiment

00:07:39.500 means within your framework of sacred activism? Self-transcendence can only come from being

00:07:48.200 made aware

00:07:50.620 that you are already

00:07:53.060 realized, that you are already

00:07:55.380 not two with the one

00:07:57.500 that your consciousness

00:07:58.840 is the consciousness

00:08:00.700 and

00:08:02.860 that

00:08:05.080 experience which

00:08:06.960 is the

00:08:09.060 essential experience in awakening

00:08:11.220 initiates you

00:08:13.080 into your immortality

00:08:14.960 the divine self that is

00:08:16.940 the wellspring of the whole creation, of all the universes, and of the mind itself that

00:08:23.220 creates your understanding of yourself as a person.

00:08:30.040 Without that recognition, you will never be able to connect with the divine peace and

00:08:40.440 be saturated by it in every cell.

00:08:43.840 So life will terrify you at various levels without that recognition

00:08:52.540 because it's only in the end when you know that your essential you is the I am of the universe

00:09:00.320 and so was never born and can never die.

00:09:03.440 It's only when you know that, not just read it or believe it, but know that,

00:09:08.140 that you can truly stand in your full divine dignity

00:09:14.340 and turn up in great alertness and awareness and peace and joy

00:09:20.420 in all the different situations, sometimes amazing, sometimes tragic, that unfold.

00:09:29.500 Embodiment is the exact opposite of the experience

00:09:35.800 of being essentially light consciousness.

00:09:41.500 Because if that experience of being essentially light consciousness

00:09:46.460 is taken by grace to its flowering goal,

00:09:52.120 what you experience is the whole of the universe

00:09:55.260 being a manifestation of that light consciousness.

00:09:58.740 So all of matter being congealed light, crystallized light energy,

00:10:04.300 So that leads to an experience of your own being, your own personhood, your own body as a holy temple, as a vibrating holy temple of crystallized light energy.

00:10:22.400 and that leads to

00:10:25.800 a totally different understanding

00:10:28.980 of the infinite sacredness

00:10:31.640 of every single thing that is

00:10:34.560 because every single thing that is

00:10:36.580 is child of the father-mother

00:10:40.120 child of this great marriage between light and matter

00:10:43.520 that is the dance of the universe

00:10:46.000 and that matter is just as sacred as the light

00:10:50.540 once the light has opened your eyes

00:10:52.840 to the light's dance in and as matter

00:10:57.440 heaven and earth become one living experience

00:11:02.100 and body and soul become married

00:11:07.380 so you live consciously as an ensouled body

00:11:12.080 and an embodied soul

00:11:13.980 having a unified experience with the whole of reality

00:11:18.100 as the endlessly flowering dance of the light.

00:11:26.200 And how this deeply relates to sacred activism is this.

00:11:31.580 The situation that we're going into is infinitely serious

00:11:35.260 and everything depends upon how we meet it

00:11:38.320 with the fullest and most embodied consciousness

00:11:40.600 because we're truly in danger of destroying ourselves.

00:11:45.980 So what's required is the bringing together in ourselves

00:11:52.640 of the deepest wisdom of all of the traditions of the journey into God,

00:11:58.600 the deepest mother wisdom of being one with the whole of this gorgeous reality

00:12:05.300 and the deepest father wisdom of being one with the one light.

00:12:09.060 Bring them together so that we can be as fully embodied as possible

00:12:15.000 and as fully fearless in our transcendent origin as possible

00:12:18.700 so that we can truly come forward

00:12:21.820 in this vast, explosive, paralyzing, horrific crisis

00:12:25.860 which is going on on every level of our civilization

00:12:29.580 so that we can truly come forward

00:12:31.940 and give our lives calmly and joyfully

00:12:35.540 as prayers of sacred activism,

00:12:40.300 as prayers of sacred transformatory action.

00:12:42.900 so that would be how I would link

00:12:46.200 the experience of divine

00:12:48.400 consciousness

00:12:50.660 which is self-transcendence

00:12:52.320 to the living and gorgeous

00:12:54.540 process of embodiment

00:12:55.820 that is the discovery of matter

00:12:58.660 as the dance

00:13:00.620 of light consciousness

00:13:01.680 so that you enter life

00:13:03.780 and enter your body

00:13:04.880 and enter the world

00:13:06.140 with rapture

00:13:08.320 and with profound joy

00:13:10.720 and bringing together the rapture

00:13:13.040 and the passion and the joy

00:13:14.300 with the great peace

00:13:15.440 that births you into a strength

00:13:17.240 which enables you to turn up

00:13:18.880 as a midwife love warrior of the new

00:13:23.180 this divine human being

00:13:26.380 that's able to really experience

00:13:29.580 the depths of what sacred activism means

00:13:31.880 in the core of your being

00:13:33.680 but also the depths of what's possible

00:13:36.900 when groups of people

00:13:39.960 unified in that way, inspired

00:13:42.520 in that way, energized in that way

00:13:44.800 strengthened in that way, turn

00:13:46.640 up together

00:13:47.880 to pull those sacred embodied

00:13:50.440 energies in radical

00:13:52.600 service to radical action

00:13:54.300 that can radically transform our situation

00:13:56.840 Andrew

00:13:58.860 you have just the most

00:14:00.380 beautiful

00:14:02.380 flawless way of speaking about

00:14:04.780 such challenging

00:14:06.600 subjects and going

00:14:08.440 thank you so much

00:14:09.560 Yeah, of course.

00:14:11.940 Going back to when you were speaking about the new age,

00:14:15.280 it's interesting because it's part of the American ethos to be happy.

00:14:21.460 And we're constantly self-conscious of our personal fulfillment.

00:14:26.520 So this bliss-seeking mentality is partially programmed,

00:14:31.600 but also partially a reaction to a dreary wage slave culture

00:14:38.240 that devours life force

00:14:40.260 and serves up hollow and predictable entertainment.

00:14:44.740 So it can seem that following one's bliss

00:14:47.700 is the only enjoyable escape out of this system.

00:14:52.120 Yet you write about the importance of spiritual rigor

00:14:55.420 and stages of darkness in order to feel true joy.

00:15:01.160 So I'm wondering if you could expand on this.

00:15:04.600 What a wonderful and profound question.

00:15:08.240 I think there's a tremendous distinction, permanent distinction, really, between happiness and joy.

00:15:17.400 Happiness is a wonderful grace, but it comes and goes.

00:15:23.780 The kind of joy that I am speaking of, that the Upanishads are speaking of, that Jesus is speaking of,

00:15:30.220 that Ramakrishna is living, that Rumi is celebrating, that kind of joy, the Ananda,

00:15:38.240 is the permanent nature of reality and connecting with that permanent nature,

00:15:46.340 that permanent, tender, sublime, peaceful ecstasy at the core of reality is awakening, is enlightenment.

00:15:57.240 and living it as a constant secret presence

00:16:04.780 is what gives you the strength to go through the storms of suffering

00:16:13.620 that you need to go through to be purified and emptied enough

00:16:19.720 so that the great joy that is the ultimate nature of Godhead

00:16:26.120 that joy that is announced in the Upanishads

00:16:30.880 is the ultimate reality

00:16:32.460 when in the Taityari Upanishad

00:16:35.200 Bhrigu Baruni's son says

00:16:38.120 from Ananda all things are born

00:16:41.420 in Ananda all things are sustained

00:16:44.100 and to Ananda all things return

00:16:46.320 that great joy

00:16:49.140 that fundamental birthing

00:16:51.980 of the divine in every part of you

00:16:55.120 arrives when you are empty

00:16:59.360 and the role of suffering,

00:17:02.600 the role of the different storms of suffering

00:17:05.960 is to purify and empty you enough

00:17:09.180 so that the joy that is your essential nature

00:17:12.620 can then be revealed in you

00:17:15.560 and poured into you

00:17:17.380 because at last you've created a container

00:17:20.820 that is empty enough to hold its power.

00:17:25.120 And that's why the New Age is a kind of frightening disaster, because the New Age's vision of happiness is an entirely narcissistic one.

00:17:42.700 And it's your happiness, which the New Age tells us is dependent on what we can manifest,

00:17:50.920 our desires, our loves that we need, our Malibu mansions, our cars.

00:17:59.860 So what the New Age is, is a celebration of all of those narcissistic forces of the unhealed,

00:18:08.940 separate ego that are creating the crisis to begin with.

00:18:12.440 and so it cannot be a source of healing of this crisis, of transformation of this crisis.

00:18:19.560 The real path has nothing whatever to do with narcissism.

00:18:24.400 It is, in fact, the crucifixion of narcissism.

00:18:28.700 And narcissism is crucified on the authentic mystical path through two important powers.

00:18:36.300 The first power is shadow work, because if you truly look at your own personal shadow,

00:18:44.220 if you look at the collective shadow of an insane culture dedicated to exploiting and destroying the earth,

00:18:52.000 if you look at the shadow of a crisis that is actually threatening us with extinction

00:18:57.220 while we're in total denial, disbelief, and dread,

00:19:00.860 If you look at that, you're going to go through a death experience of your narcissism

00:19:09.040 because you're going to suddenly realize that you're living in a very endangered situation

00:19:16.540 in your own psyche, in a very endangered situation in your own culture and in the world,

00:19:22.340 and that solutions are few and shrinking as the crisis grows.

00:19:30.860 So that kind of shadow work is exactly what the New Age doesn't want to do,

00:19:39.540 but that kind of shadow work is actually essential to the depths of the embodiment process

00:19:45.500 because that's what hollows you out, destroys the narcissism of the full self

00:19:50.900 so that the divine can pour grace into you and reveal you to yourself

00:19:55.060 as both far more limited and far more powerful

00:20:00.180 than you could ever imagine.

00:20:03.320 The second great power of annihilation of narcissism

00:20:10.600 is the power of revelation on the past

00:20:18.260 because the more your you disappears,

00:20:22.400 the more the great I am that you truly are appears,

00:20:26.300 the more you concentrate on the silence

00:20:31.020 and on the deep passion of the sacred heart

00:20:37.080 and on marrying them,

00:20:39.660 the more the whole universe reveals itself as your essential self.

00:20:45.960 The whole of reality reveals itself as your essential self.

00:20:49.540 But that revelation no longer has your ego in it, because you cannot have that revelation as long as you're in a fantasy of separation and identification with the very small person that houses this vast being that you truly are.

00:21:11.620 that

00:21:15.260 revelation

00:21:16.920 and this is

00:21:20.160 the other side of the second power

00:21:22.720 is always accompanied by

00:21:24.540 suffering because

00:21:25.900 every new stage

00:21:28.480 of revealing to

00:21:30.560 you

00:21:31.140 of your own illusion

00:21:34.520 creates a

00:21:36.520 tremendous disorder in

00:21:38.440 the you that you were before

00:21:40.320 you had that revelation. So the light coming in creates

00:21:44.360 a necessary new process of

00:21:48.300 purification. And that necessarily

00:21:51.800 involves sometimes very extreme forms of suffering

00:21:56.000 until you come to the great, great test of the real

00:22:00.360 path, which is not

00:22:03.300 the test of how you embrace

00:22:08.320 your glory, but the test of dying into life through allowing the whole process of the

00:22:18.700 dark night to unfold in you, the whole process of being personally torn apart by the divine

00:22:24.780 so that you can die into you, you can die into life.

00:22:31.720 that's the great test on the path

00:22:35.780 that's the doorway into embodied divine life

00:22:39.500 but it's a doorway you cannot get through

00:22:42.540 as you because going through that door

00:22:46.560 you're cut to pieces by a thousand knives

00:22:49.540 in the dark night

00:22:50.600 you have to die to get to the next room

00:22:54.260 and without this process being deeply at the heart

00:22:59.480 of the whole evolutionary enterprise at the moment

00:23:02.240 was simply not going to be able

00:23:04.980 to embody the divine in sufficient strength.

00:23:09.580 So without summoning these two powers

00:23:13.120 of shadow work

00:23:15.020 and revelation that leads to suffering

00:23:17.720 and enduring the different stages of that suffering

00:23:21.300 so that the revelation can be installed,

00:23:24.900 without those two working together,

00:23:27.060 the craziness of human narcissism

00:23:30.700 will not be dissolved

00:23:34.040 and the fullness of what we can be cannot arrive

00:23:37.480 Wow, well I

00:23:42.100 think about the dying of the self

00:23:46.560 and the ego and this shattering

00:23:49.340 of the conditioned identity that

00:23:52.220 sometimes we cling so intensely to

00:23:55.520 and i'm wondering if we choose to dedicate ourselves to this type of transformation

00:24:02.160 is it important to seek the guidance of a teacher or a guru to help focus us with the spiritual

00:24:12.660 rigor and secondly with so many individuals claiming spiritual superiority how can we

00:24:20.240 navigate trusting our inner intelligence while balancing wisdom from others while we go through

00:24:26.280 this transformation? Wonderful questions. For me, and I can only speak personally,

00:24:36.580 I think it's essential for people to claim, first of all, and most of all, and always,

00:24:42.700 their direct connection with the divine

00:24:46.760 to really say at the depths of themselves

00:24:49.960 I am responsible for turning up

00:24:54.780 in a direct, naked, authentic relationship

00:24:58.200 with what is already here

00:25:00.420 all around me and in me

00:25:02.840 when you claim the direct connection in that way

00:25:08.440 and it is a moment of tremendous

00:25:10.260 and awesome power in your life,

00:25:14.120 then you see very clearly the distinction

00:25:17.880 between guru and teacher.

00:25:24.480 For me, and again I'm speaking personally,

00:25:27.160 the guru tradition is over.

00:25:30.500 What are needed on the earth

00:25:32.720 are humble, experienced,

00:25:35.900 mentor teachers who are living the divine transformation,

00:25:41.720 this process of being born into the divine human,

00:25:45.260 and who share what they are learning

00:25:48.800 in a spirit of very great equality with everybody.

00:25:55.940 This is the kind of teacher that I've been privileged myself to have

00:26:01.080 because this is the teacher that I found in Father Bede Griffiths

00:26:04.940 who was a very great Christian mystic

00:26:08.140 and who was, in the end of his life,

00:26:10.400 experiencing the direct divine birth

00:26:13.140 and who shared his knowledge,

00:26:15.380 not as an omnipotent, omniscient, authoritarian figure,

00:26:18.960 but as a beloved speaking to other beloveds,

00:26:23.420 as someone awestruck by what he was discovering,

00:26:27.700 privileged to give his awareness to others

00:26:32.280 and infinitely respectful and tender and humble

00:26:35.600 towards the others to whom he was giving himself.

00:26:40.760 That's a new kind of teacher.

00:26:44.800 And there aren't many of them in the current ghastly spiritual circus.

00:26:51.180 So you truly have to practice discernment, radical discernment.

00:26:58.440 first claim your direct connection

00:27:02.020 and then pray to be guided

00:27:05.380 to those sources of wisdom

00:27:08.140 books and paintings and music

00:27:10.980 and people and encounters

00:27:14.460 that you truly need to flower

00:27:17.320 and be patient and be discerning

00:27:21.360 and you will come across

00:27:23.580 through grace

00:27:25.720 One of those rare, humble, experienced evolutionary pioneers who are not claiming to be totally enlightened because they know that there is no such thing, that there is only an endless expansion in this great adventure.

00:27:41.820 and who are approaching how they are doing what they're doing

00:27:46.280 with very great knowledge of their own shadow,

00:27:50.240 very great ethical responsibility,

00:27:53.280 and an absolute refusal of any kind of manipulative power over you.

00:27:59.660 If, I would say, when you do find someone like that,

00:28:05.560 really allow

00:28:09.200 the relationship to be as beautiful

00:28:12.680 and as empowering as possible

00:28:15.020 but never give up your own sense

00:28:18.620 of your own divinity

00:28:19.960 realize that one of the greatest dangers

00:28:22.700 that you can be put in

00:28:24.160 when you discover someone who amazes you

00:28:27.120 by the beauty of their nature

00:28:28.580 is that you can project onto them

00:28:31.040 what I call your golden shadow

00:28:32.860 they become the most beautiful thing

00:28:35.260 in the world, holy, wonderful, compassionate, and in that admiration, there is a kind of

00:28:42.260 corruption because you are transmitting and projecting onto them and adoring in them the

00:28:48.860 qualities that are actually latent in yourself, need to be taken back into yourself and need

00:28:56.220 to be evolved in yourself through your willingness to go through whatever you have to go through

00:29:03.200 to evolve them completely.

00:29:06.500 And if you can be responsible in all of these ways,

00:29:10.140 then you can have an exquisite and transfiguring relationship

00:29:14.620 with another being that takes you deeper

00:29:19.500 into the great mystery of your own being

00:29:21.800 and gives you the tools that you need

00:29:24.360 to continue to evolve in your own unique way.

00:29:29.260 Because one of the things that I've learned on this journey

00:29:33.180 is that this great evolutionary leap that we're being summoned to,

00:29:37.400 this great marriage of transcendence and eminence that we're being called to,

00:29:40.940 this great work of birthing the divine human through really fusing the deepest spirituality

00:29:48.340 with a radical commitment to action,

00:29:51.760 this great evolutionary birth, in other words, that is trying to take place, is taking place,

00:29:57.980 can only take place if we do claim our complete responsibility

00:30:04.640 for the flowering of our own unique self.

00:30:11.920 How did you relate to what I was saying?

00:30:14.880 How did it strike you?

00:30:17.320 Well, it was relieving that we have this divine connection within ourselves

00:30:26.740 with really no need for a guru or the guru culture

00:30:31.200 because that can lead to a lot of insecurities.

00:30:34.580 To also take responsibility for our projections

00:30:37.500 and to really listen and watch ourselves

00:30:41.020 as we go through this process

00:30:43.440 is very powerful to take that much responsibility for ourselves

00:30:48.800 and not expect the guru to expect the government

00:30:51.460 to work themselves out for us.

00:30:55.180 That's the fantasy that prevents us from really turning up to be born into this new dimension.

00:31:02.540 Because if we continue to give our powers away to others and don't take responsibility for evolving them,

00:31:12.020 then we never discover how vast and rich and powerful and potent they can be when they're transformed by grace.

00:31:20.220 So we never become the Christ.

00:31:23.280 We go on loving the Christ and admiring the Christ and worshipping the Christ,

00:31:27.780 but we never actually live the essence of the message of the Christ,

00:31:32.460 which isn't to adore the Christ, it is to become your own unique Christ.

00:31:39.420 And you can substitute for Christ any of the great names for God.

00:31:44.660 We're here to become drops, living embodied drops

00:31:50.600 of the great infinite light ocean

00:31:53.460 and to know when we are those embodied living diamond drops

00:31:59.180 that the whole ocean is through its own mysterious grace

00:32:03.160 present within us.

00:32:05.180 The madness of this is beyond any language,

00:32:10.020 even the language of Rumi to describe,

00:32:12.640 we're both poor passing facts

00:32:14.720 and living eternal selves.

00:32:20.600 One with the self.

00:32:23.220 And that's the experience that we're being called to

00:32:26.740 from that experience, from that dynamic experience.

00:32:30.940 We can, with the help of grace,

00:32:35.100 transform even this appalling situation

00:32:38.340 into the birthing ground of a new humanity.

00:32:43.280 Sacred activism isn't only for mystics

00:32:46.480 who want to birth the divine human

00:32:48.780 and know that it's possible.

00:32:49.980 It's actually, for everyone, it is the way in which you become fully human.

00:32:57.420 You become fully human by opening to other human beings, to the creation, to animals, to the world, blessing the world,

00:33:06.600 and truly seeing what's wrong and what's distorted in you and in the world,

00:33:11.620 and truly committing yourself to do the work inner and outer to write it.

00:33:17.840 That's how you become a human being.

00:33:21.860 And everyone who is human is being invited to become fully human.

00:33:28.740 And as humans, we're all complicit in the destruction

00:33:35.060 by participating in the consumer economic system.

00:33:39.660 But can we all be guilty?

00:33:42.820 And I'm wondering, do you believe in divine justice?

00:33:46.220 and do you believe a societal collapse can awaken some sort of divine justice

00:33:52.720 that will benefit innocent life and reverse the gross impunity

00:33:57.640 that society has arranged for itself?

00:34:00.840 Absolutely. 0.99

00:34:02.980 One of the glories of Islamic mysticism is that it describes God

00:34:08.040 as having fundamentally two aspects.

00:34:10.140 There are so many aspects, of course,

00:34:12.060 but these are the two organizing aspects.

00:34:17.840 The first is Jamal, the great tenderness, the great peace,

00:34:21.560 the great all-embracing compassion and love, the mother side.

00:34:27.100 And the second is Jalal, it's just a change of the letter, 0.67

00:34:30.440 and that's the side of fury, of justice, of wrath, of karmic payment. 0.84

00:34:36.140 and you have to face that side of the divine

00:34:42.800 because the divine is law as well as love

00:34:47.220 and love expresses itself through these laws

00:34:50.900 which have to be known and respected

00:34:55.360 and fundamentally and finally obeyed

00:34:58.840 otherwise there will be unbelievably scary

00:35:03.760 terrifying and destructive consequences

00:35:06.560 all of the great prophets

00:35:10.320 of humanity and all of the great sages of humanity

00:35:13.620 have spoken very strongly about this

00:35:17.080 the Buddha after all said in the fire sermon

00:35:20.320 the world is burning in the fires

00:35:24.380 of ignorance, greed

00:35:26.920 and craving

00:35:28.900 and

00:35:31.400 the world is now literally

00:35:35.400 burning in those fires

00:35:37.120 it's always been spiritually burning in those fires

00:35:39.780 but now it's literally burning

00:35:41.420 in those fires

00:35:43.080 so

00:35:45.160 this recognition

00:35:47.300 of the seriousness

00:35:50.020 of

00:35:51.400 moral

00:35:53.340 and ethical choice

00:35:55.260 of conscience

00:35:56.180 is absolutely essential

00:35:58.920 and it can be born

00:36:00.660 through a recognition of just how it's being degraded

00:36:04.880 on almost every level in our world.

00:36:07.660 And it's very painful, but you have to be able to stand that pain

00:36:12.540 so that it can teach you truth,

00:36:15.820 the truth of what you need to obey and embody.

00:36:21.700 Going back to something you mentioned earlier,

00:36:24.920 the crisis of the body, 0.99

00:36:27.300 the way this culture treats the earth body

00:36:29.620 is strikingly parallel to how many of us treat our individual bodies.

00:36:35.460 And I'm wondering, how does this crisis affect romantic love and sexuality?

00:36:42.520 And what are some practices for repair?

00:36:46.740 I think the fundamental way in which our sexuality is affected

00:36:51.500 is that it's absolutely polluted by body hatred and sex shame

00:36:56.860 and rejection of matter and humiliation in general 1.00

00:37:03.080 and terribly particular ways of the sacred feminine.

00:37:07.040 And that until you know, however consciously you may feel

00:37:12.760 you are joyfully installed in your sexuality, 0.97

00:37:16.980 until you know that you still carry the violation of the feminine, 0.92

00:37:23.560 the hatred of matter, the degradation of matter, the appalling cruelty of the patriarchal religious traditions to women and to homosexuals and to the body,

00:37:38.560 until you know that you carry that within yourself, how can you ever undergo the journey that you will need to undergo

00:37:47.060 to transmute those shadows into deep compassion for all being struggling with those shadows

00:37:55.940 and into knowledge that can help you liberate yourself from those shadows

00:38:01.460 so that the divine love, the divine truth, the divine beauty

00:38:07.480 can reveal itself as living in your body

00:38:12.520 as your consciously now sacred body.

00:38:20.260 And it's only when you know that your body is sacred

00:38:25.060 that you know that its desires rising from that sacred body

00:38:31.860 must also be sacred.

00:38:34.340 And it's only when you know that

00:38:36.000 that you can undergo the spiritual disciplines

00:38:38.800 to make those desires, to help those desires

00:38:42.880 through grace become adoration and worship

00:38:47.580 and deep, deep sacred celebration of life in the other,

00:38:55.140 of the divine beauty in the other

00:38:56.800 through impassioned lovemaking

00:38:59.440 that is irradiated by the experience

00:39:04.840 in your sacred body of the sacred peace and the sacred passion

00:39:08.560 that you are one with.

00:39:12.020 So the most fundamental activity that you need to do, first of all,

00:39:17.820 is to face the shadow that your sexuality has, 0.82

00:39:23.360 the shadow of rejection, the shadow of denial, the shadow of perversion,

00:39:30.120 because so often the traumas of denial and sex-hatred

00:39:34.580 drive us into bizarre fantasies that overcompensate.

00:39:40.360 You've got to look at all of that also.

00:39:43.420 So that's the shadow work that's essential.

00:39:47.000 And secondly, you've really invited, you're challenged

00:39:50.880 to take up sacred physical practices

00:39:53.520 that can initiate you into the holiness of your body.

00:39:56.520 When you come to your bedchamber, when you face your tantric beloved, you are facing your tantric beloved in the context of a living physical discipline that you're pursuing, such as yoga in its true sacred sense, or sacred dance in its true sacred sense, or reiki, or tai chi, or qigong.

00:40:21.500 these beautiful ancient traditions

00:40:25.320 that can help you experience your body

00:40:28.200 as a living, breathing, crystallized light temple.

00:40:34.700 And I might add that the collective shadow

00:40:38.500 around sexuality is very extensive too

00:40:41.020 in a patriarchal society that has largely forgotten

00:40:44.440 how to honor the divine feminine, the divine mother,

00:40:48.400 and instead belittles her.

00:40:51.500 I was wondering if you could take us through a visualization

00:40:55.180 of what our world might look like

00:40:57.500 in the absence of those patriarchal power structures. 1.00

00:41:01.120 Do you see a return to matriarchy? 0.98

00:41:04.500 Well, let me say at the beginning 0.88

00:41:06.280 that I'm not advocating a return to the matriarchy

00:41:10.480 from where we began as a human race.

00:41:14.300 What I feel is being born is a way of being

00:41:20.400 that is the child of the sacred marriage,

00:41:24.780 the marriage between the divine masculine

00:41:27.440 and the divine feminine.

00:41:30.060 I believe that this patriarchal adventure

00:41:32.820 that we've been on, 0.98

00:41:34.040 terrible and extremely dangerous,

00:41:36.340 though it now appears to be,

00:41:38.480 has also brought us certain very important gifts.

00:41:42.380 It's brought us the gift

00:41:43.380 of the transcendent breakthrough of the axial age.

00:41:45.960 It's brought us the evolution

00:41:48.800 of an extraordinary and miraculous way of knowing the universe that is science.

00:41:53.980 It's brought us tremendous capacities in technological power. 0.96

00:42:00.100 Its problem is that it's deranged and psychotic.

00:42:04.620 But that derangement and that psychosis can be healed and must be healed

00:42:10.160 by a return and restoration of the full beauty and splendor

00:42:15.120 and magnificence and ferocity and clarity

00:42:18.380 and revelation of the divine feminine

00:42:21.720 both in her light and dark aspects

00:42:24.380 both as the tender, sublime, bliss presence of the light

00:42:30.200 that is manifesting everything, that is birthing everything

00:42:33.460 and as the tremendous processes of evolution

00:42:37.660 that happen to create the creation

00:42:41.260 and happen within the creation

00:42:42.960 these ferocious processes of death and rebirth 1.00

00:42:46.760 that are the province of the dark feminine 1.00

00:42:50.740 the natural, wild, dark feminine

00:42:54.480 and when you merge the great wisdom of the father

00:42:59.140 with the great wisdom of the mother

00:43:00.900 when you experience your father as the transcendent godhead

00:43:05.760 and your mother as the embodied godhead

00:43:08.260 as the whole creation and everything that lives in it

00:43:11.000 and all the processes of the creation

00:43:13.380 when that happens within you

00:43:15.960 you're born as a different kind of human being

00:43:19.260 you're born at once divine and completely human

00:43:22.600 you're incarnate, you're embodied

00:43:24.440 and from that consciousness

00:43:27.680 which is at once one with your deathless transcendent origin

00:43:31.840 and absolutely alive in every moment

00:43:35.020 and connected with divine tenderness and sensuality

00:43:38.680 to every living thing

00:43:40.180 from that consciousness

00:43:41.900 all forms of radical creativity flow

00:43:46.980 forms of understanding of economics

00:43:50.640 forms of understanding of politics

00:43:52.420 forms of understanding of the true nature of the arts

00:43:57.160 the true purpose of the arts

00:43:58.640 new forms of scientific understanding

00:44:01.920 also will be born from this consciousness

00:44:04.380 because there are whole realms

00:44:07.740 that can only be explored by science

00:44:10.700 when science accepts the foundation of consciousness

00:44:14.400 as the reality of everything.

00:44:16.300 And once that's been accepted by living experience by scientists,

00:44:21.180 God knows what discoveries can await humanity

00:44:24.700 to be able to heal even the terrible wounds

00:44:27.640 that we've inflicted on our environment

00:44:29.620 or the appalling diseases that we've created

00:44:34.860 through our greed and exploitation of nature.

00:44:39.680 So we're on the threshold of a whole set of unbelievable possibilities

00:44:45.740 through this sacred marriage.

00:44:49.600 What this restoration of the feminine must mean,

00:44:53.460 and let's look at it practically now,

00:44:57.040 is that all of the ways in which we're acting in the world have to change. 0.99

00:45:03.620 there needs to be an equal representation of women 1.00

00:45:07.580 in every political assembly 1.00

00:45:11.340 there needs to be a radical look at the destruction 1.00

00:45:16.060 of the sacred feminine and all of the religions 0.96

00:45:18.520 and a fundamental apology to the feminine and to women

00:45:23.840 for the terrible ways in which women have been treated

00:45:27.000 and continue to be treated

00:45:28.620 and the terrible ways in which women's bodies have been policed 0.97

00:45:33.340 in all of the religions, that has to happen

00:45:36.880 and that will happen from this new consciousness

00:45:39.640 then there has to be a new way of doing business

00:45:46.540 because when you bring into the deranged masculine of business 1.00

00:45:51.640 the transfiguring feminine

00:45:53.300 then the real masculine and the real feminine come together 0.55

00:45:57.160 in creating a new vision of enlightened business 0.99

00:45:59.620 there must be profit, there must be growth

00:46:02.260 but it must be sustainable and it must be in harmony with larger ethical concerns

00:46:06.960 and a larger understanding of the interconnectedness of everything.

00:46:11.780 This is the only way in which we can have sustainability.

00:46:19.220 And you can see how a consciousness that is embodied and divine

00:46:24.640 can transform the arts, the sciences, politics, everything.

00:46:29.200 But the most important thing is that this consciousness should be born, and then its being born will guide us in the most extraordinary ways to invent organic, holistic possibilities that can help us overcome and survive what is going to be the most dangerous passage of our history,

00:46:53.380 what already is the most dangerous passage of our history,

00:46:57.360 but it's only beginning to reveal the full horror and intensity of what we now have to face.

00:47:07.100 Would you expand on what you mean by that, the dangerous passage in our history?

00:47:13.780 Well, there are scientists, and there are reputable scientists,

00:47:17.900 who believe we've already gone far past the point of no return

00:47:24.940 as far as the environment is concerned.

00:47:28.480 When you consider that we are now registering the carbon emissions of 40 years ago

00:47:37.260 because it takes 40 years for them to seep into the atmosphere completely

00:47:43.080 and to start working on the whole Gaia system,

00:47:45.960 then you have to consider that we still have to

00:47:49.760 even if we stop everything

00:47:51.300 even if we follow the regulations that have been created in the Paris Accord

00:47:56.160 we still have to face all of the emissions of the last 40 years

00:48:01.180 which has been a massive orgy of consumption

00:48:03.760 so we are in great danger

00:48:07.860 whatever we do at this moment

00:48:10.340 first point

00:48:11.320 and the second point is that some scientists believe

00:48:15.300 that the global warming process is going to release

00:48:18.760 and is already releasing so much methane gas,

00:48:22.900 which is so much more powerful.

00:48:25.940 I think it's 40 times more powerful than CO2,

00:48:29.360 so so much more dangerous.

00:48:31.420 And that the release of this methane gas

00:48:34.080 almost certainly ensures extinction soon.

00:48:39.000 And these scientists are saying that this could happen

00:48:42.440 within the next 15 and 40 years.

00:48:46.000 This is not a joke.

00:48:49.100 This is not something that we could postpone.

00:48:51.160 This is something that potentially is staring at our face.

00:48:54.400 My own position isn't as drastic as that.

00:48:56.860 I believe that we still have a very, very small window

00:49:02.860 which we need to go through with great calm

00:49:05.340 but with great decisiveness.

00:49:08.180 I believe that we will go through a massive collapse

00:49:11.000 of this culture, and there will be terrible suffering

00:49:14.960 and massive death and great disaster,

00:49:20.080 but that remnants will survive, and that it's very

00:49:22.940 important that we birth the divine human in sacred

00:49:26.820 activism now to install, if you like, in the DNA

00:49:30.840 of those remnants the

00:49:33.920 forms of the new that will need to be lived

00:49:39.080 for the new humanity that emerges

00:49:42.420 from this chaos, shattered and traumatized

00:49:47.000 but also inspired.

00:49:51.120 Our job is to provide that inspiration

00:49:53.860 so that it will be there when it is so needed.

00:49:58.460 It will be needed like oxygen.

00:50:02.040 So that's how I live my life

00:50:03.960 to try and model as far as I can

00:50:08.000 with all my flaws and follies and shadows,

00:50:10.320 I want to try and model what it is to be

00:50:12.900 a humble divine human being

00:50:15.240 in the sacred activist service

00:50:18.080 so that new language can be learned

00:50:21.320 by as many people as possible

00:50:23.240 in their own unique ways

00:50:24.680 so that the grammar of that language

00:50:27.560 will be available to those who come

00:50:30.160 after the great shattering that is coming.

00:50:34.300 Well, I really appreciate your truth

00:50:37.880 telling and as um overwhelming as it is that we are going through the sixth mass extinction

00:50:47.800 losing species and forest and every ecosystem is under attack at this moment um i think it's

00:50:56.200 extremely important to not leave this out of the narrative of what's going on even if it seems

00:51:01.560 so big and daunting. And I would really like if we could just share a few tangible sacred activist

00:51:11.740 practices, how we can start to rigorously practice sacred activism amidst all this,

00:51:20.960 you know, the chaos of climate disruption, so that we can model this for generations to come.

00:51:29.300 Well, let me answer in a general sense at the end of our talk.

00:51:35.100 To become a sacred activist is not rocket science.

00:51:38.760 It's simply bringing together five forms of service in the core of your life.

00:51:45.080 And I'm sure that in many ways many of you are already doing parts of all of this service.

00:51:49.880 But being conscious of these five forms will help you so much.

00:51:53.280 the first form of service

00:51:56.020 is service of the divine

00:51:58.220 through praise and thanksgiving

00:51:59.840 and gratitude and prayer

00:52:01.760 and meditation

00:52:02.780 the divine doesn't need

00:52:05.300 your praise and gratitude

00:52:06.940 you need to be in that relationship

00:52:10.120 so that the divine can guide you

00:52:12.300 and fill you

00:52:14.160 with wisdom and joy

00:52:16.080 and purpose and clarity

00:52:17.740 and strength

00:52:18.840 the second kind of service

00:52:21.500 is really serve this to yourself,

00:52:23.680 realizing that you are now in training,

00:52:26.600 evolutionary training,

00:52:28.440 for a huge adventure.

00:52:30.480 And this means five kinds of practice,

00:52:34.960 cool practices that calm you down.

00:52:37.680 And these are breathing practices,

00:52:40.440 practices of saying the name in the heart,

00:52:43.780 practices of meditation

00:52:45.020 that can initiate you into your essential great peace,

00:52:48.360 and then heart practices.

00:52:50.180 It's a heart practice that keeps your passionate mother heart alive and juicy and vibrant.

00:52:56.720 Prayer practice that enables you to intercede at deep levels for others,

00:53:03.080 to pray for the healing of others on every level.

00:53:07.480 Real physical practice that enables the energies of your body to taste their divine origin.

00:53:14.720 And shadow work.

00:53:16.380 The third kind of service is service to everyone in your life

00:53:22.440 and everyone around you and all the animals around you

00:53:25.080 to realize that you are here to be an agent of love and compassion and justice

00:53:33.800 and to make a commitment to really represent that

00:53:39.920 in the way in which you treat everyone,

00:53:42.820 in the way in which you honor animals,

00:53:44.900 and in the way in which you act in all the circumstances as far as possible of your life.

00:53:52.460 The fourth service is really turning up in your local community

00:53:57.620 and turning up with a global heart and global perspective,

00:54:03.740 realizing that you're being called not to necessarily go out to Kolkata

00:54:11.280 and become Mother Teresa

00:54:12.580 but to turn up in your local community

00:54:15.820 which will reflect all of the problems of the world

00:54:18.720 and start creating what I call a network of grace

00:54:24.560 a group of between 6 and 15 people

00:54:28.020 who meet together to pray together

00:54:30.200 to speak about what's happening

00:54:32.240 to speak about what needs to be done in the local community

00:54:35.520 and then to start acting

00:54:37.820 to see that certain issues get addressed

00:54:40.720 issues that are chosen because they really mean something to the

00:54:44.640 people in the group. This is the way in which you can

00:54:48.400 bring a small community together to be enthused

00:54:52.740 by, to be inspired by, to be helped by, to be supported by.

00:54:56.940 And the fifth kind of service

00:54:59.160 is really trying to make your sexual, emotional, political,

00:55:04.480 social and economic choices all

00:55:08.420 reflect your fundamental

00:55:10.420 ideals and constants

00:55:11.840 so that you truly make

00:55:14.580 your life congruent with your

00:55:16.540 ideals. If you

00:55:18.500 bring these five kinds of service

00:55:20.320 together in the core of your life,

00:55:22.860 you'll experience a wholly new

00:55:24.400 level of joy, a wholly new level of

00:55:26.360 meaning, and a wholly new level of power.

00:55:29.460 And if you want

00:55:30.380 to go deeper into this

00:55:32.400 map that I'm offering,

00:55:34.340 I would just humbly ask you to

00:55:36.340 read the book that has

00:55:37.680 launched the sacred activism movement all over the world.

00:55:42.220 It's the hope, a guide to sacred activism.

00:55:45.760 I wrote it five years ago, and in these five years

00:55:50.020 it's gotten all over the world and seems to be helping a lot of people

00:55:54.220 get clear about the situation, but also about the tools

00:55:58.400 that are needed, the simple but very powerful tools that are needed

00:56:02.560 to help us all become grounded and strong and passionate enough

00:56:06.560 to do the great work that we're all called to do.

00:56:10.040 So it's my attempt to offer real practical guidance,

00:56:14.460 and I would love to beg you if anything that I've said has inspired you

00:56:18.860 to turn to that book and to truly, truly study it,

00:56:22.760 because it's the distillation of my whole lifetime's work

00:56:26.840 and the testimonies of the mystics of all the traditions,

00:56:30.140 and also the experience of the great sacred activists,

00:56:34.320 such as Gandhi and Desmond Tutu and His Holiness and Dalai Lama

00:56:38.520 who have really given us the keys to how

00:56:42.460 we now can claim our direct connection with the divine

00:56:46.360 claim the truth of this crisis that is

00:56:49.680 a potential birthing ground of a new humanity and be part of that

00:56:54.260 new humanity humbly but with great faith and great commitment

00:56:58.120 Thank you Andrew so much for

00:57:02.360 this banquet of wisdom and all your invaluable work in delivering a vision for our times and

00:57:09.780 for ages yet to come. My very great pleasure. Thank you so much for your beautiful, serious

00:57:16.940 questions. Such a privilege to be interviewed by somebody who asks such deep and probing

00:57:23.500 questions. Thank you. Thank you, Andrew.

00:57:32.360 You've been listening to Andrew Harvey on Unlearn and Rewild, and I'm Ayanna Young.

00:57:38.340 Please visit unlearnandrewild.org to sign up for our new mobilized newswire.

00:57:44.540 And please consider making a donation to keep this volunteer programming on air.

00:57:49.600 Our theme music is by Kate Wolfe, and our producer is March Young.

For The Wild - January 27, 2016

ANDREW HARVEY on Confronting Crisis with Divine Dignity ⧸30

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