For The Wild - Homebound： Confronting Crisis with Divine Dignity with ANDREW HARVEY ⧸178

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00:00:30.000 Welcome, for the wild community, to another edition of Home Bound.

00:00:37.140 Carter Liu here.

00:00:38.540 In light of the personal and global impacts of the COVID-19 outbreak,

00:00:42.760 our team has been drawing on wisdom from the archives to anchor us

00:00:46.560 and help us to navigate this new reality.

00:00:49.900 We understand that while society appears ripe for transformation,

00:00:53.580 we are also being inundated with information that may feel paralyzing

00:00:57.720 and that also perpetuates a culture of fear.

00:01:01.760 As a response, we offer this series that explores physical, emotional, and spiritual preparedness,

00:01:08.600 self-reliance, and community sovereignty.

00:01:11.940 I'm so glad you've joined us again today, and as we come together during this time of crisis

00:01:16.720 to explore how to face this thing with ease, grace, and a little bit of magic.

00:01:23.440 Today we're hearing from Andrew Harvey on how to confront crisis with divine dignity,

00:01:28.840 which feels like an important message for today, about resilience and tapping into deep wells of community and the great mystery.

00:01:37.760 Originally airing in January of 2016, Andrew's message gives us a map of mystical teachings to help us navigate the dark night of the soul and to emerge empowered.

00:01:49.700 Andrew invites us to remember that throughout history,

00:01:52.340 we have seen that in the very heart of chaos,

00:01:55.780 an extraordinary lineage of ordinary people

00:01:58.460 who have fused deep spiritual knowledge, experience, and practice

00:02:03.080 with wise, incessant action for justice and peace rise up,

00:02:09.360 emerging against all odds to accomplish the unimaginable,

00:02:14.200 and that we can too,

00:02:16.200 especially if we're willing to ask ourselves,

00:02:18.700 Where are we feeling small and helpless right now?

00:02:22.900 How can we creatively renew our spirits to ward off apathy?

00:02:27.640 What is the one thing we could do today to let our spirits lead us into positive action?

00:02:34.060 We welcome you to continue to tune in on Fridays as we work through the grief and fear that

00:02:39.680 accompany this perplexing time with the wise support of our guests on Homebound.

00:02:45.100 Thanks so much for being here.

00:02:48.700 Hello, this is Ayanna Young, and I welcome you to Unlearn and Rewild,

00:03:07.680 where we explore radical ideas relating to earth renewal.

00:03:12.140 Today we're speaking with Andrew Harvey.

00:03:15.000 Andrew is founder-director of the Institute of Sacred Activism,

00:03:18.700 an international organization focused on inviting concerned people

00:03:23.400 to take up the challenge of our contemporary global crises

00:03:26.960 by becoming inspired, effective, and practical agents

00:03:31.960 of institutional and systemic change

00:03:34.540 in order to create peace and sustainability.

00:03:38.580 Sacred activism is a transforming force of compassion and action

00:03:42.940 that is born of a fusion of deep spiritual knowledge,

00:03:46.260 courage, love, and passion with wise radical action to preserve and heal the planet and its

00:03:54.180 inhabitants. Andrew was born in South India in 1952 where he lived until he was nine years old.

00:04:02.380 It is this early period that he credits with shaping his sense of the inner unity of all

00:04:07.340 religions and providing him with a permanent and inspiring vision of a world infused with the

00:04:13.140 sacred. He left India to attend private school in England and entered Oxford University in 1970

00:04:19.760 with a scholarship to study history. At the age of 21, he became the youngest person ever to be

00:04:26.780 awarded a fellowship to All Souls College, England's highest academic honor. By 1977,

00:04:34.740 Harvey had become disillusioned with life at Oxford and returned to his native India,

00:04:39.220 where a series of mystical experiences initiated his spiritual journey.

00:04:44.900 Over the last 40 years, he has plunged into different mystical traditions

00:04:48.340 to learn their practices, including Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Sufism.

00:04:54.940 He has synthesized these mystical explorations

00:04:57.720 with a deep environmental and humanitarian ethic in the practice of sacred activism.

00:05:03.140 And he is the author of over 30 books.

00:05:07.020 Hello, Andrew!

00:05:08.040 Hello!

00:05:09.880 I'm delighted to be speaking with you and to share your work with our audience.

00:05:16.820 Just to lay some groundwork, can you begin by addressing why activism alone is not enough

00:05:22.560 and why religion and spirituality alone are not enough to truly confront the current state of earth?

00:05:28.660 I think the deepest answer to that is that the nature of the divine is both being and becoming.

00:05:42.040 It's both timeless peace and pure awareness and passionate energy that is endlessly creative.

00:05:52.620 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.

00:06:16.960 divinely inspired action

00:06:20.140 creative action

00:06:21.480 at the core of our lives

00:06:23.160 what this marriage

00:06:26.060 makes possible is the birth of a new

00:06:28.140 kind of human being

00:06:29.680 someone who is

00:06:31.940 illumined

00:06:33.920 by divine awareness

00:06:36.220 whose mind

00:06:38.000 is transformed, whose heart is

00:06:40.260 absolutely naked

00:06:42.040 and open and whose whole

00:06:43.980 life is spent as

00:06:45.980 a prayer to transform the planet, to help the planet be the birthing ground of a new

00:06:55.060 way of being and doing everything.

00:06:59.160 So sacred activism is the only real response to the great evolutionary challenge that we

00:07:06.960 are being faced with, because sacred activism, that is the fusion of the two noblest passions

00:07:13.940 of the human soul, the passion for God, the passion for unity with reality, and the passion

00:07:20.800 for justice. So the two greatest passions of mystic and activist are fused in sacred activism

00:07:28.400 and both the narcissism of the mystic that is an obsession with the light and transcendence

00:07:33.820 and mystical experience. That narcissism is healed by the mystic being united with the activist and

00:07:41.320 And the narcissism of the activist that is an obsession with doing, with endless doing and being the agent of righteous change and is very often a narcissism that is obsessed with heroism and the hero ideal and burnout, that narcissism is healed by mystic knowledge, mystic truth, mystic passion.

00:08:04.980 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.

00:08:21.260 It's clear the spiritual movement is totally incapable. 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.

00:08:36.680 And 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. 0.99

00:08:47.660 And it's very dangerous. 0.99

00:08:49.680 And it's also clear that the activists, motivated that they are by deep, righteous indignation and motivated by very noble intentions,

00:09:00.520 it's clear that they too aren't mobilizing the world

00:09:04.500 because there's something too judgmental

00:09:07.500 in the way they're doing it

00:09:08.600 and there's something in their ferocity

00:09:12.120 that intimidates and doesn't invite

00:09:14.580 and enchant people to change

00:09:17.500 but both the mystic 0.72

00:09:20.720 refugeeism and the activist

00:09:24.820 ferocity can be healed by the marriage

00:09:27.600 of the mystic peace and passion

00:09:29.280 with the activist hunger for justice and a new kind of being created.

00:09:34.720 And it's to this evolutionary new being, which I call the divine human,

00:09:41.180 that all my work is dedicated because I'm experiencing this birth in myself

00:09:47.720 and in many, many different kinds of people.

00:09:51.840 and I feel at this time in my life

00:09:56.420 I know that this birth is the next stage

00:10:00.900 potentially open to humanity

00:10:03.160 and the only way that we can survive

00:10:07.220 let alone thrive

00:10:09.080 the crisis that we've created

00:10:11.480 out of our insanity of separation from truth and love

00:10:16.120 so that would be one way of answering

00:10:21.420 that beautiful question. Wonderful. And can you speak more about what self-transcendence means

00:10:29.900 and what embodiment means within your framework of sacred activism?

00:10:35.980 Self-transcendence can only come from being made aware that you are already realized,

00:10:46.140 that you are already not two with the one,

00:10:50.000 that your consciousness is the consciousness.

00:10:54.720 And that experience,

00:10:58.920 which is the essential experience in awakening,

00:11:04.520 initiates you into your immortality,

00:11:07.240 the divine self that is the wellspring of the whole creation,

00:11:12.360 of all the universes,

00:11:13.340 and of the mind itself that creates your understanding of yourself as a person.

00:11:22.280 Without that recognition, you will never be able to connect with the divine peace

00:11:32.540 and be saturated by it in every cell.

00:11:36.160 So life will terrify you at various levels.

00:11:43.340 Without that recognition, because it's only in the end when you know that your essential you is the I am of the universe and so was never born and can never die.

00:11:55.740 It's only when you know that, not just read it or believe it, but know that, that you can truly stand in your full divine dignity and turn up in great alertness and awareness and peace and joy in all the different situations, sometimes amazing, sometimes tragic, that unfold.

00:12:18.780 So, embodiment is the exact opposite of the experience of being essentially light consciousness.

00:12:32.800 because if that experience of being essentially light consciousness

00:12:38.740 is taken by grace to its flowering goal,

00:12:44.100 what you experience is the whole of the universe

00:12:47.560 being a manifestation of that light consciousness,

00:12:51.320 so all of matter being congealed light, crystallized light energy.

00:12:57.780 So that leads to an experience of your own being,

00:13:02.440 your own personhood, your own body, as a holy temple, as a vibrating holy temple of

00:13:12.560 crystallized light energy.

00:13:16.120 And that leads to a totally different understanding of the infinite sacredness of every single

00:13:25.800 thing that is, because every single thing that is, is child of the father-mother, child

00:13:32.840 of this great marriage between light and matter, that is the dance of the universe.

00:13:39.340 And that matter is just as sacred as the light.

00:13:42.980 Once the light has opened your eyes to the light's dance in and as matter, heaven and

00:13:51.220 earth become one living experience, and body and soul become married, so you live consciously

00:14:01.960 as an ensouled body and an embodied soul, having a unified experience with the whole

00:14:09.740 of reality as the endlessly flowering dance of the light.

00:14:16.040 and how this deeply relates to sacred activism is this

00:14:23.040 the situation that we're going into is infinitely serious

00:14:27.540 and everything depends upon how we meet it

00:14:30.600 with the fullest and most embodied consciousness

00:14:32.900 because we're truly in danger of destroying ourselves

00:14:37.480 so what's required

00:14:40.440 is the bringing together in ourselves

00:14:44.920 of the deepest wisdom of all of the traditions

00:14:47.920 of the journey into God,

00:14:50.900 the deepest mother wisdom of being

00:14:53.100 one with the whole of this gorgeous reality

00:14:57.600 and the deepest father wisdom of being one with the one light,

00:15:01.700 bring them together

00:15:02.980 so that we can be as fully embodied as possible

00:15:07.260 and as fully fearless in our transcendent origin as possible

00:15:11.000 so that we can truly come forward

00:15:14.120 in this vast, explosive, paralyzing, horrific crisis

00:15:18.160 which is going on on every level of our civilization

00:15:21.700 so that we can truly come forward

00:15:24.240 and give our lives calmly and joyfully

00:15:27.840 as prayers of sacred activism,

00:15:32.600 as prayers of sacred transformatory action.

00:15:36.280 So that would be how I would link

00:15:38.480 the experience of divine consciousness

00:15:42.960 which is self-transcendence, to the living and gorgeous process of embodiment

00:15:48.100 that is the discovery of matter as the dance of light consciousness

00:15:53.960 so that you enter life and enter your body and enter the world

00:15:58.440 with rapture and with profound joy.

00:16:03.740 And bringing together the rapture and the passion and the joy with the great peace,

00:16:07.720 that births you into a strength which enables you to turn up

00:16:11.180 as a midwife love warrior of the new,

00:16:15.720 this divine human being that's able to really experience

00:16:21.860 the depths of what sacred activism means in the core of your being,

00:16:25.980 but also the depths of what's possible

00:16:29.200 when groups of people unified in that way,

00:16:34.340 inspired in that way, energized in that way,

00:16:37.240 strengthened in that way,

00:16:38.440 turn up together to pull those sacred embodied energies in radical service to radical action

00:16:46.600 that can radically transform our situation.

00:16:50.440 Andrew, you have just the most beautiful, flawless way of speaking about such challenging

00:16:58.900 subjects.

00:17:00.360 Thank you so much.

00:17:01.820 Yeah, of course.

00:17:03.300 going back to when you were speaking about the new age it's interesting because it's part of

00:17:10.500 the american ethos to be happy and we're constantly self-conscious of our personal fulfillment so

00:17:19.020 this bliss seeking mentality is partially programmed but also partially a reaction to

00:17:27.660 a dreary wage slave culture that devours life force and serves up hollow and predictable

00:17:35.440 entertainment. So it can seem that following one's bliss is the only enjoyable escape out of

00:17:43.040 this system. Yet you write about the importance of spiritual rigor and stages of darkness in order

00:17:50.800 to feel true joy so i'm wondering if you could expand on this what a wonderful and profound

00:17:59.240 question i think there's a tremendous distinction permanent distinction really between happiness

00:18:07.440 and joy happiness is a wonderful grace but it comes and goes the kind of joy that i am speaking

00:18:18.660 of, that the Upanishads are speaking of, that Jesus is speaking of, that Ramakrishna

00:18:23.800 is living, that Rumi is celebrating, that kind of joy, the Ananda, is the permanent

00:18:33.580 nature of reality.

00:18:35.800 And connecting with that permanent nature, that permanent, tender, sublime, peaceful

00:18:43.360 ecstasy at the core of reality

00:18:46.820 is awakening, is enlightenment. And living

00:18:51.240 it as a constant

00:18:54.420 secret presence

00:18:57.080 is what gives you the strength to go

00:19:03.300 through the storms of suffering that you need

00:19:07.260 to go through to be purified and emptied

00:19:11.420 enough so that the great joy that is the ultimate nature of Godhead, that joy that is announced

00:19:22.040 in the Upanishads as the ultimate reality when in the Taitiri Upanishad, Bhrigu Baruni's

00:19:29.640 son says, Pram, Ananda, all things are born, in Ananda, all things are sustained, and to

00:19:36.860 and under all things return, that great joy, that fundamental birthing of the divine in

00:19:46.140 every part of you, arrives when you are empty and the role of suffering, the role of the

00:19:56.000 different storms of suffering is to purify and empty you enough so that the joy that

00:20:03.640 is your essential nature can then be revealed in you

00:20:07.860 and poured into you because at last you've

00:20:11.660 created a container that is empty enough to hold its

00:20:15.640 power. And that's why

00:20:19.740 the New Age is a kind of

00:20:23.320 frightening disaster because

00:20:26.200 the New Age's vision of happiness

00:20:31.560 is an entirely narcissistic one.

00:20:35.000 It's your happiness, which the New Age tells us is dependent on what we can manifest,

00:20:43.360 our desires, our loves that we need, our Malibu mansions, our cars.

00:20:52.160 So what the New Age is, is a celebration of all of those narcissistic forces of the unhealed,

00:21:00.420 separate ego that are creating

00:21:03.240 the crisis to begin with

00:21:04.740 so it cannot be a source of healing

00:21:06.780 of this crisis, of transformation

00:21:08.380 of this crisis

00:21:09.500 the real path

00:21:13.180 has nothing whatever to do

00:21:15.020 with narcissism

00:21:16.700 it is in fact the crucifixion

00:21:18.700 of narcissism

00:21:20.020 and narcissism is crucified

00:21:22.480 on the authentic

00:21:24.560 mystical path

00:21:25.740 through two important powers

00:21:28.600 the first power is

00:21:30.340 shadow work, because if you truly look at your own personal shadow, if you look at the

00:21:37.700 collective shadow of an insane culture dedicated to exploiting and destroying the earth, if

00:21:44.440 you look at the shadow of a crisis that is actually threatening us with extinction while

00:21:49.900 we're in total denial, disbelief, and dread, if you look at that, you're going to go through

00:21:58.080 a death experience of your narcissism because you're going to suddenly realize that you're

00:22:04.800 living in a very endangered situation in your own psyche, in a very endangered situation

00:22:12.300 in your own culture and in the world, and that solutions are few and shrinking as the

00:22:20.940 crisis grows. So that kind of shadow work is exactly what the New Age doesn't want to do,

00:22:31.920 but that kind of shadow work is actually essential to the depths of the embodiment process because

00:22:38.100 that's what hollows you out, destroys the narcissism of the full self so that the divine

00:22:44.260 and pour grace into you and reveal you to yourself

00:22:47.360 as both far more limited and far more powerful

00:22:52.480 than you could ever imagine.

00:22:55.580 The second great power of annihilation of narcissism

00:23:02.900 is the power of revelation on the past

00:23:10.560 Because the more your you disappears, the more the great I am that you truly are appears. The more you concentrate on the silence and on the deep passion of the sacred heart and on marrying them, the more the whole universe reveals itself as your essential self.

00:23:37.500 the whole of reality reveals itself as your essential self

00:23:41.840 but that revelation no longer has your ego in it

00:23:46.060 because you cannot have that revelation

00:23:48.840 as long as you're in a fantasy of separation

00:23:51.660 and in identification with the very small person

00:23:57.640 that houses this vast being that you truly are.

00:24:03.920 that

00:24:07.540 revelation

00:24:09.220 and this is

00:24:12.460 the other side of the second power

00:24:15.000 is always accompanied by suffering

00:24:17.420 because

00:24:18.180 every new stage

00:24:20.780 of revealing to you

00:24:23.420 of your own

00:24:25.800 illusion

00:24:26.820 creates a tremendous disorder

00:24:30.040 in the you that you were

00:24:32.260 before you had that revelation.

00:24:33.960 So the light coming in creates a necessary new process of purification.

00:24:42.560 And that necessarily involves sometimes very extreme forms of suffering

00:24:48.300 until you come to the great, great test of the real path,

00:24:54.040 which is not the test of how you embrace your glory.

00:25:02.260 But the test of dying into life through allowing the whole process of the dark night to unfold in you,

00:25:12.640 the whole process of being personally torn apart by the divine so that you can die into you, you can die into life.

00:25:25.760 That's the great test on the path.

00:25:28.220 That's the doorway into embodied divine life.

00:25:31.800 But it's a door where you cannot get through as you, because going through that door, you're cut to pieces by a thousand knives in the dark night.

00:25:43.120 You have to die to get to the next room.

00:25:48.340 And without this process being deeply at the heart of the whole evolutionary enterprise at the moment, we're simply not going to be able to embody the divine in sufficient strength.

00:26:01.800 So without summoning these two powers of shadow work and revelation that leads to suffering

00:26:10.020 and enduring the different stages of that suffering so that the revelation can be installed,

00:26:17.020 without those two working together, the craziness of human narcissism will not be dissolved

00:26:26.340 and the fullness of what we can be cannot arrive.

00:26:31.800 Wow. Well, I think about the dying of the self and the ego and this shattering of the conditioned identity that sometimes we cling so intensely to.

00:26:47.840 and I'm wondering if we choose to dedicate ourselves to this type of transformation

00:26:54.460 is it important to seek the guidance of a teacher or a guru to help focus us with the spiritual

00:27:04.980 rigor and secondly with so many individuals claiming spiritual superiority how can we

00:27:12.540 navigate trusting our inner intelligence while balancing wisdom from others while we go through

00:27:18.560 this transformation? Wonderful questions. For me, and I can only speak personally,

00:27:28.880 I think it's essential for people to claim, first of all, and most of all, and always,

00:27:35.000 their direct connection with the divine

00:27:39.060 to really say at the depths of themselves

00:27:42.260 I am responsible for turning up

00:27:47.060 in a direct, naked, authentic relationship

00:27:50.500 with what is already here

00:27:52.700 all around me and in me

00:27:55.120 when you claim the direct connection in that way

00:28:00.740 and it is a moment of tremendous

00:28:02.560 and awesome power in your life,

00:28:06.040 then you see very clearly the distinction

00:28:10.180 between guru and teacher.

00:28:16.780 For me, and again I'm speaking personally,

00:28:19.460 the guru tradition is over.

00:28:22.780 What are needed on the earth

00:28:25.000 are humble, experienced, mentor-teachers

00:28:30.300 who are living the divine transformation,

00:28:34.000 this process of being born into the divine human,

00:28:37.560 and who share what they are learning

00:28:41.100 in a spirit of very great equality with everybody.

00:28:48.420 This is the kind of teacher that I've been privileged myself to have

00:28:53.380 because this is the teacher that I found in Father Bede Griffiths,

00:28:57.220 who was a very great Christian mystic, and who was, in the end of his life, experiencing the direct divine birth,

00:29:05.440 and who shared his knowledge, not as an omnipotent, omniscient, authoritarian figure,

00:29:11.400 but as a beloved speaking to other beloveds, as someone awestruck by what he was discovering,

00:29:19.640 privilege to give his awareness to others, and infinitely respectful and tender and humble

00:29:27.880 towards the others to whom he was giving himself. That's a new kind of teacher,

00:29:36.860 and there aren't many of them in the current ghastly spiritual circus. So you truly have to

00:29:46.020 practice discernment

00:29:48.120 radical discernment

00:29:50.740 first claim your direct connection

00:29:54.320 and then pray to be guided

00:29:57.680 to those sources of wisdom

00:30:00.420 books and paintings and music

00:30:03.260 and people and encounters

00:30:06.760 that you truly need to flower

00:30:09.620 and be patient and be discerning

00:30:13.660 and you will come across

00:30:15.860 through grace, one of those rare, humble, experienced, evolutionary pioneers

00:30:24.980 who are not claiming to be totally enlightened

00:30:28.040 because they know that there is no such thing,

00:30:30.440 that there is only an endless expansion in this great adventure,

00:30:34.920 and who are approaching how they are doing what they're doing

00:30:38.580 with very great knowledge of their own shadow,

00:30:41.880 very great ethical responsibility, and an absolute refusal of any kind of manipulative

00:30:49.280 power over you. If, I would say, when you do find someone like that, really allow the

00:31:02.660 relationship to be as beautiful and as empowering as possible. But never give up your own sense

00:31:10.920 of your own divinity.

00:31:12.940 Realize that one of the greatest dangers

00:31:14.980 that you can be put in

00:31:16.460 when you discover someone

00:31:18.340 who amazes you by the beauty of their nature

00:31:20.880 is that you can project onto them

00:31:23.340 what I call your golden shadow.

00:31:25.800 They become the most beautiful thing in the world,

00:31:28.400 holy, wonderful, compassionate.

00:31:30.900 And in that admiration,

00:31:33.700 there is a kind of corruption

00:31:35.020 because you are transmitting

00:31:36.900 and projecting onto them

00:31:39.260 and adoring in them the qualities that are actually latent in yourself

00:31:44.820 need to be taken back into yourself

00:31:47.960 and need to be evolved in yourself

00:31:50.820 through your willingness to go through whatever you have to go through

00:31:55.500 to evolve them completely.

00:31:58.940 And if you can be responsible in all of these ways,

00:32:02.440 then you can have an exquisite and transfiguring relationship

00:32:06.920 with another being that takes you deeper into the great mystery of your own being

00:32:14.100 and gives you the tools that you need to continue to evolve in your own unique way.

00:32:21.540 Because one of the things that I've learned on this journey

00:32:25.480 is that this great evolutionary leap that we're being summoned to,

00:32:29.720 this great marriage of transcendence and eminence that we're being called to,

00:32:33.240 This great work of birthing the divine human through really fusing the deepest spirituality with a radical commitment to action, this great evolutionary birth, in other words, that is trying to take place, is taking place, can only take place if we do claim our complete responsibility for the flowering of our own unique self.

00:33:03.240 and how did you relate to what i was saying how did it strike you well it was relieving that

00:33:14.120 we have this divine connection within ourselves with really no need for a guru or the guru culture

00:33:23.480 because that can lead to a lot of insecurities to also take responsibility for our projections and

00:33:30.540 to really listen and watch ourselves as we go through this process

00:33:35.740 is very powerful to take that much responsibility for ourselves

00:33:41.100 and not expect the guru to expect the government to work themselves out for us.

00:33:47.480 That's the fantasy that prevents us from really turning up

00:33:52.220 to be born into this new dimension.

00:33:55.340 Because if we continue to give our powers away to others,

00:34:00.020 and don't take responsibility for evolving them,

00:34:04.380 then we never discover how vast and rich and powerful and potent they can be

00:34:09.580 when they're transformed by grace.

00:34:12.520 So we never become the Christ.

00:34:15.680 We go on loving the Christ and admiring the Christ and worshipping the Christ,

00:34:19.960 but we never actually live this essence of the message of the Christ,

00:34:24.800 which isn't to adore the Christ.

00:34:26.440 It is to become your own unique Christ.

00:34:31.720 And you can substitute for Christ any of the great names for God.

00:34:36.960 We're here to become drops, living embodied drops of the great infinite light ocean,

00:34:46.540 and to know when we are those embodied living diamond drops,

00:34:51.500 that the whole ocean is through its own mysterious grace present within us.

00:34:57.460 The madness of this is beyond any language, even the language of Rumi to describe,

00:35:04.940 we're both poor passing facts and living eternal selves, one with the self.

00:35:14.680 and that's the experience that we're being called to

00:35:19.040 from that experience, from that dynamic experience

00:35:22.480 we can, with the help of grace

00:35:27.120 transform even this appalling situation

00:35:30.620 into the birthing ground of a new humanity

00:35:33.840 sacred activism isn't only for mystics

00:35:38.780 who want to birth the divine human

00:35:41.060 and know that it's possible

00:35:42.280 It's actually, for everyone, it is the way in which you become fully human.

00:35:49.700 You become fully human by opening to other human beings, to the creation, to animals, to the world, blessing the world,

00:35:58.900 and truly seeing what's wrong and what's distorted in you and in the world,

00:36:03.920 and truly committing yourself to do the work, inner and outer, to write it.

00:36:10.140 That's how you become a human being.

00:36:14.160 And everyone who is human is being invited to become fully human.

00:36:21.060 And as humans, we're all complicit in the destruction

00:36:27.360 by participating in the consumer economic system.

00:36:31.960 But can we all be guilty?

00:36:35.180 And I'm wondering, do you believe in divine justice?

00:36:38.520 and do you believe a societal collapse can awaken some sort of divine justice

00:36:45.020 that will benefit innocent life and reverse the gross impunity

00:36:49.940 that society has arranged for itself?

00:36:53.140 Absolutely. 0.99

00:36:55.280 One of the glories of Islamic mysticism is that it describes God

00:37:00.320 as having fundamentally two aspects.

00:37:02.440 There are so many aspects, of course,

00:37:04.340 but these are the two organizing aspects.

00:37:10.160 The first is Jamal, the great tenderness, the great peace,

00:37:13.860 the great all-embracing compassion and love, the mother side.

00:37:19.400 And the second is Jalal, it's just a change of the letter, 0.67

00:37:22.720 and that's the side of fury, of justice, of wrath, of karmic payment. 0.84

00:37:28.440 and you have to face that side of the divine

00:37:35.080 because the divine is law as well as love

00:37:39.500 and love expresses itself through these laws

00:37:43.200 which have to be known and respected

00:37:47.640 and fundamentally and finally obeyed

00:37:51.140 otherwise there will be unbelievably scary

00:37:56.040 terrifying and destructive consequences.

00:38:00.720 All of the great prophets of humanity and all of the great

00:38:04.520 sages of humanity have spoken very strongly

00:38:08.360 about this. The Buddha, after all, said in the fire sermon

00:38:12.600 the world is burning in the fires

00:38:16.660 of ignorance, greed, and

00:38:20.380 craving.

00:38:21.200 and the world is now literally burning in those fires

00:38:29.420 it's always been spiritually burning in those fires

00:38:32.080 but now it's literally burning in those fires

00:38:35.380 so this recognition of the seriousness

00:38:42.320 of moral and ethical choice of conscience

00:38:48.500 is absolutely essential, and it can be born through a recognition

00:38:54.540 of just how it's being degraded on almost every level in our world.

00:38:59.580 And it's very painful, but you have to be able to stand that pain

00:39:04.820 so that it can teach you truth, the truth of what you need to obey and embody.

00:39:12.020 going back to something you mentioned earlier the crisis of the body the way this culture

00:39:20.760 treats the earth body is strikingly parallel to how many of us treat our individual bodies

00:39:26.720 and i'm wondering how does this crisis affect romantic love and sexuality and what are some

00:39:36.040 practices for repair? I think the fundamental way in which our sexuality is affected is that

00:39:44.420 it's absolutely polluted by body hatred and sex shame and rejection of matter and humiliation

00:39:53.640 in general and terribly particular ways of the sacred feminine. And that until you know, 1.00

00:40:01.840 However, consciously you may feel you are joyfully installed in your sexuality 0.95

00:40:09.080 until you know that you still carry the violation of the feminine, 0.94

00:40:15.840 the hatred of matter, the degradation of matter,

00:40:19.880 the appalling cruelty of the patriarchal religious traditions 0.94

00:40:26.940 to women and to homosexuals and to the body

00:40:30.740 until you know that you carry that within yourself, 0.94

00:40:34.600 how can you ever undergo the journey that you will need to undergo

00:40:39.340 to transmute those shadows into deep compassion

00:40:45.220 for all being struggling with those shadows

00:40:48.200 and into knowledge that can help you liberate yourself from those shadows

00:40:53.740 so that the divine love, the divine truth, the divine beauty

00:40:59.780 can reveal itself as living in your body as your consciously now sacred body.

00:41:12.560 And it's only when you know that your body is sacred

00:41:17.340 that you know that its desires, rising from that sacred body, must also be sacred.

00:41:26.760 And it's only when you know that that you can undergo the spiritual disciplines

00:41:31.100 to make those desires, to help those desires through grace become adoration and worship

00:41:39.880 and deep, deep sacred celebration of life in the other,

00:41:47.420 of the divine beauty in the other

00:41:49.080 through impassioned lovemaking that is irradiated

00:41:54.060 by the experience in your sacred body

00:41:58.540 of the sacred peace and the sacred passion

00:42:00.860 that you are one with.

00:42:04.120 So the most fundamental activity that you need to do,

00:42:09.060 First of all, is to face the shadow that your sexuality has, the shadow of rejection, the shadow of denial, the shadow of perversion, because so often the traumas of denial and sex hatred drive us into bizarre fantasies that overcompensate.

00:42:32.440 You've got to look at all of that also.

00:42:35.720 So that's the shadow work that's essential.

00:42:39.300 And secondly, you've really invited, you're challenged to take up sacred physical practices

00:42:45.820 that can initiate you into the holiness of your body. 0.80

00:42:48.940 So when you come to your bedchamber, when you face your tantric beloved,

00:42:55.400 you are facing your tantric beloved in the context of a living physical discipline

00:43:00.820 that you're pursuing, such as yoga in its true sacred sense

00:43:05.700 or sacred dance in its true sacred sense

00:43:09.620 or reiki or tai chi or qigong,

00:43:14.000 these beautiful ancient traditions

00:43:17.620 that can help you experience your body

00:43:20.500 as a living, breathing, crystallized light temple.

00:43:24.500 and i might add that the collective shadow around sexuality is very extensive too

00:43:33.320 in a patriarchal society that has largely forgotten how to honor the divine feminine

00:43:38.600 the divine mother and instead belittles her i was wondering if you could take us through a

00:43:47.040 visualization of what our world might look like in the absence of those patriarchal power structures 0.98

00:43:53.280 Do you see a return to matriarchy?

00:43:56.680 Well, let me say at the beginning that I'm not advocating a return to the matriarchy 0.56

00:44:02.780 from where we began as a human race.

00:44:06.720 What I feel is being born is a way of being that is the child of the sacred marriage,

00:44:17.080 the marriage between the divine masculine and the divine feminine.

00:44:21.340 I believe that this patriarchal adventure that we've been on, terrible and extremely dangerous, though it now appears to be, has also brought us certain very important gifts.

00:44:34.520 It's brought us the gift of the transcendent breakthrough of the Axial Age.

00:44:38.380 It's brought us the evolution of an extraordinary and miraculous way of knowing the universe that is science.

00:44:46.260 It's brought us tremendous capacities in technological power. 0.87

00:44:52.420 Its problem is that it's deranged and psychotic.

00:44:55.720 But that derangement and that psychosis can be healed and must be healed by a return and restoration of the full beauty and splendor and magnificence and ferocity and clarity and revelation of the Divine Feminine, both in her light and dark aspects,

00:45:16.660 Both as the tender, sublime, bliss presence of the light that is manifesting everything, that is birthing everything, and as the tremendous processes of evolution that happen to create the creation and happen within the creation.

00:45:35.260 and these ferocious processes of death and rebirth 0.96

00:45:39.040 that are the province of the dark feminine, 1.00

00:45:44.360 the natural, wild, dark feminine. 0.99

00:45:47.480 And when you merge the great wisdom of the father 0.99

00:45:51.440 with the great wisdom of the mother,

00:45:53.380 when you experience your father as the transcendent godhead

00:45:58.060 and your mother as the embodied godhead,

00:46:00.620 as the whole creation and everything that lives in it,

00:46:03.280 all the processes of the creation

00:46:05.680 when that happens within you

00:46:08.260 you're born as a different kind of human being

00:46:11.560 you're born at once divine and completely human

00:46:14.880 you're incarnate, you're embodied

00:46:16.740 and from that consciousness

00:46:19.960 which is at once one with your deathless transcendent origin

00:46:24.120 and absolutely alive in every moment

00:46:27.300 and connected with divine tenderness and sensuality

00:46:30.960 to every living thing

00:46:32.460 And from that consciousness, all forms of radical creativity flow, forms of understanding of economics, forms of understanding of politics, forms of understanding of the true nature of the arts, the true purpose of the arts, new forms of scientific understanding also will be born from this consciousness.

00:46:56.700 because there are whole realms that can only be explored by science

00:47:03.000 when science accepts the foundation of consciousness as the reality of everything.

00:47:08.620 And once that's been accepted by living experience by scientists,

00:47:13.480 God knows what discoveries can await humanity to be able to heal even the terrible wounds

00:47:19.940 that we've inflicted on our environment

00:47:21.920 or the appalling diseases

00:47:24.400 that we've created

00:47:27.160 through our greed and exploitation of nature.

00:47:32.020 So we're on the threshold

00:47:34.540 of a whole set of unbelievable possibilities

00:47:38.020 through this sacred marriage. 0.98

00:47:41.880 What this restoration of the feminine must mean,

00:47:46.000 and let's look at it practically now,

00:47:48.560 is that all of the ways in which we're acting in the world have to change. 1.00

00:47:56.520 There needs to be an equal representation of women in every political assembly. 1.00

00:48:03.820 There needs to be a radical look at the destruction of the sacred feminine 0.97

00:48:09.400 and all of the religions and a fundamental apology to the feminine and to women 0.99

00:48:16.120 for the terrible ways in which women have been treated and continue to be treated

00:48:20.920 and the terrible ways in which women's bodies have been policed in all of the religions.

00:48:27.860 That has to happen, and that will happen from this new consciousness.

00:48:32.960 Then there has to be a new way of doing business, 0.91

00:48:38.860 because when you bring into the deranged masculine of business the transfiguring feminine, 0.88

00:48:45.600 then the real masculine and the real feminine come together in creating a new vision of enlightened business.

00:48:52.640 There must be profit and there must be growth, but it must be sustainable and it must be in harmony with larger ethical concerns

00:48:59.240 and a larger understanding of the interconnectedness of everything.

00:49:04.060 This is the only way in which we can have sustainability.

00:49:09.660 and you can see how a consciousness that is embodied

00:49:15.800 and divine can transform the arts, the sciences, politics, everything

00:49:21.480 but the most important thing is that this consciousness should be born

00:49:25.420 and then its being born will guide us in the most extraordinary ways

00:49:31.020 to invent organic, holistic possibilities

00:49:35.160 that can help us overcome and survive

00:49:41.280 what is going to be the most dangerous passage of our history,

00:49:46.140 what already is the most dangerous passage of our history,

00:49:49.520 but is only beginning to reveal the full horror and intensity

00:49:55.480 of what we now have to face.

00:49:59.440 Would you expand on what you mean by that,

00:50:02.680 the dangerous passage in our history?

00:50:06.200 Well, there are scientists and there are reputable scientists

00:50:10.200 who believe we've already gone far past the point of no return

00:50:17.220 as far as the environment is concerned.

00:50:20.300 When you consider that we are now registering the carbon emissions of 40 years ago

00:50:29.560 because it takes 40 years for them to seep into the atmosphere completely

00:50:35.380 and to start working on the whole Gaia system,

00:50:39.320 then you have to consider that we still have to,

00:50:42.300 even if we stop everything,

00:50:44.180 even if we follow the regulations that have been created in the Paris Accord,

00:50:48.460 we still have to face all of the emissions of the last 40 years,

00:50:53.580 which has been a massive orgy of consumption.

00:50:56.060 So we are in great danger, whatever we do at this moment, first point.

00:51:04.300 And the second point is that some scientists believe that the global warming process is going to release

00:51:11.060 and is already releasing so much methane gas, which is so much more powerful.

00:51:18.220 I think it's 40 times more powerful than CO2, so so much more dangerous.

00:51:22.940 and that the release of this methane gas almost certainly ensures extinction soon.

00:51:31.920 And these scientists are saying that this could happen within the next 15 and 40 years.

00:51:38.160 This is not a joke. This is not something that we could postpone.

00:51:43.480 This is something that potentially is staring at our face.

00:51:46.700 My own position isn't as drastic as that.

00:51:49.140 I believe that we still have a very, very small window, which we need to go through with great calm, but with great decisiveness.

00:52:00.360 I believe that we will go through a massive collapse of this culture, and there will be terrible suffering and massive death and great disaster.

00:52:11.620 but that remnants will survive

00:52:14.300 and that it's very important

00:52:15.780 that we birth the divine human

00:52:18.340 in sacred activism now

00:52:20.080 to install if you like

00:52:22.420 in the DNA of those remnants

00:52:24.800 the forms of the new

00:52:29.300 that will need to be lived

00:52:31.360 for the new humanity that emerges

00:52:34.700 from this chaos

00:52:37.100 shattered and traumatized

00:52:39.300 but also inspired, our job is to provide that inspiration

00:52:46.160 so that it will be there when it is so needed.

00:52:51.040 It will be needed like oxygen.

00:52:54.320 So that's how I live my life, to try and model as far as I can

00:53:00.280 with all my flaws and follies and shadows.

00:53:02.340 I want to try and model what it is to be a humble, divine human being

00:53:07.520 in sacred activist service

00:53:10.380 so that new language can be learnt

00:53:13.640 by as many people as possible in their own unique ways

00:53:16.980 so that the grammar of that language

00:53:19.860 will be available to those who come

00:53:22.460 after the great shattering that is coming

00:53:25.340 well I really appreciate your

00:53:28.860 truth telling and

00:53:31.360 as overwhelming

00:53:34.560 as it is that we are going through

00:53:37.500 the sixth mass extinction, losing species and forest and every ecosystem is under attack at

00:53:46.000 this moment. I think it's extremely important to not leave this out of the narrative of what's

00:53:52.160 going on, even if it seems so big and daunting. And I would really like if we could just share a

00:54:00.980 few tangible sacred activist practices, how we can start to rigorously practice sacred activism

00:54:11.340 amidst all this, you know, the chaos of climate disruption, so that we can model

00:54:18.600 this for generations to come. Well, let me answer in a general sense,

00:54:24.800 at the end of our talk.

00:54:27.380 To become a sacred activist

00:54:28.820 is not rocket science.

00:54:31.280 It's simply bringing together

00:54:33.040 five forms of service

00:54:34.580 in the core of your life.

00:54:37.360 And I'm sure that in many ways

00:54:38.800 many of you are already doing

00:54:40.480 parts of all of this service.

00:54:42.160 But being conscious of these five forms

00:54:44.300 will help you so much.

00:54:46.720 The first form of service

00:54:48.320 is service of the divine

00:54:50.520 through praise and thanksgiving

00:54:52.140 and gratitude and prayer

00:54:54.040 and meditation. The divine doesn't need your praise and gratitude. You need to be in that

00:55:01.720 relationship so that the divine can guide you and fill you with wisdom and joy and purpose and

00:55:09.560 clarity and strength. The second kind of service is really service to yourself, realizing that

00:55:16.840 You are now in training, evolutionary training, for a huge adventure.

00:55:23.000 And this means five kinds of practice, cool practices that calm you down.

00:55:29.740 And these are breathing practices, practices of saying the name in the heart, practices of meditation that can initiate you into your essential great peace, and then heart practices.

00:55:42.460 It's a heart practice that keeps your passionate mother heart alive and juicy and vibrant.

00:55:49.000 Prayer practice that enables you to intercede at deep levels for others,

00:55:55.380 to pray for the healing of others on every level.

00:55:59.780 Real physical practice that enables the energies of your body to taste their divine origin.

00:56:07.020 And shadow work.

00:56:08.620 The third kind of service is service to everyone in your life and everyone around you and all the animals around you to realize that you are here to be an agent of love and compassion and justice and to make a commitment to really represent that in the way in which you treat everyone, in the way in which you honor animals.

00:56:37.200 and in the way in which you act in all the circumstances as far as possible of your life.

00:56:44.740 The fourth service is really turning up in your local community

00:56:49.900 and turning up with a global heart and global perspective,

00:56:56.040 realizing that you're being called not to necessarily go out to Kolkata and become Mother Teresa,

00:57:04.860 but to turn up in your local community

00:57:08.120 which will reflect all of the problems of the world

00:57:11.020 and start creating what I call a network of grace

00:57:16.840 a group of between 6 and 15 people

00:57:20.320 who meet together to pray together

00:57:22.500 to speak about what's happening

00:57:24.500 to speak about what needs to be done in the local community

00:57:27.820 and then to start acting to see that certain issues get addressed

00:57:33.000 issues that are chosen because they really mean something to the

00:57:36.940 people in the group. This is the way in which you can

00:57:40.700 bring a small community together to be enthused

00:57:45.040 by, to be inspired by, to be helped by, to be supported by.

00:57:49.220 And the fifth kind of service

00:57:51.460 is really trying to make your sexual, emotional, political,

00:57:57.320 social and economic choices all

00:58:00.740 reflect your fundamental ideals and conscience

00:58:04.140 so that you truly make your life congruent with your

00:58:08.840 ideals. If you bring these five kinds of service

00:58:12.640 together in the core of your life, you will experience a wholly new level

00:58:16.960 of joy, a wholly new level of meaning, and a wholly new level of power.

00:58:21.760 And if you want to go deeper into this map

00:58:25.060 that I'm offering, I would just humbly ask you to read

00:58:29.020 the book that has launched the sacred activism movement

00:58:32.880 all over the world.

00:58:34.520 It's The Hope, A Guide to Sacred Activism.

00:58:38.060 I wrote it five years ago,

00:58:40.260 and in these five years it's gotten all over the world

00:58:44.060 and seems to be helping a lot of people

00:58:46.500 get clear about the situation,

00:58:48.300 but also about the tools that are needed,

00:58:51.900 the simple but very powerful tools that are needed

00:58:54.800 to help us all become grounded and strong

00:58:57.720 and are passionate enough to do the great work

00:59:00.060 that we're all called to do.

00:59:02.340 So it's my attempt to offer real practical guidance

00:59:06.380 and I would love to beg you

00:59:08.840 if anything that I've said has inspired you

00:59:11.140 to turn to that book and to truly, truly study it

00:59:15.000 because it's the distillation of my whole lifetime's work

00:59:19.120 and the testimonies of the mystics of all the traditions

00:59:22.420 and also the experience of the great sacred activists

00:59:26.600 such as Gandhi and Desmond Tutu and His Holiness and Dalai Lama

00:59:30.820 who have really given us the keys to how we now can claim our direct connection with the divine,

00:59:38.900 claim the truth of this crisis that is a potential birthing ground of a new humanity

00:59:45.180 and be part of that new humanity humbly but with great faith and great commitment.

00:59:50.420 thank you Andrew so much for this banquet of wisdom and all your invaluable work in delivering

01:00:00.060 a vision for our times and for ages yet to come my very great pleasure thank you so much for your

01:00:07.960 beautiful serious questions such a privilege to be interviewed by somebody who

01:00:12.920 asks such deep and probing questions thank you thank you Andrew

01:00:18.800 Through the mountains like a river

For The Wild - May 01, 2020

Homebound： Confronting Crisis with Divine Dignity with ANDREW HARVEY ⧸178

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