Beware sour-faced gurus

You know what really gets my goat?  Sanctimonious spiritual people.  Po-faced gurus.  Judgmental New Agers.  Well,  okay, there are more but that'll do for now.  See, what gives anyone the right to tell you (or me) what to do?  There’s a lot of wisdom out there, for sure, but once someone starts believing they’re the only one who’s right, that there’s only One Way and that way just happens to be theirs, I start whistling and examining my toenails.  You know how I feel about religion but, to be fair, there’s an awful lot of crap being spouted in ‘New Age’ or holistic circles too. 

Which is why Barbara Ford-Hammond delights me.  I met her on Twitter (at least I think so, I forget) and she describes herself as ‘a holistic therapist and muse’ which would, under normal circumstances, make me narrow my eyes and pick up my foot.  But she’s alright, is Barbara.  She doesn’t take herself too seriously; she has a good sense of humour (and, see, I rather think a real guru would have a blasted good – if not nigh-on evil – sense of humour). She’s just published a book called The Psychic Way – Fine-tuning your Intuition and, if you’re remotely interested in a world beyond cupcakes and shoes – it’s well worth reading. ‘I believe that we all have natural but often hidden or ignored abilities and talents that are tucked away in our psyches,’ she says.
‘You are responsible for what goes on in your mind. Only you. Others might try to influence you but unless drugs or brain-washing are involved you have the ultimate control of you. When you accept full awareness of yourself and the power within your own mind, practically anything is achievable. The only limitations are those imposed by you.’

Read that again, will you?  See, I agree with that wholeheartedly.  I really do. Whether you do or not is, of course, entirely up to you..  ;)

I actually think the title of this book is a little misleading or maybe it’s just a little offputting.  Psychic sounds alarm bells for a lot of people but really it’s only science we can’t quite measure yet.  As Barbara says, reassuringly (bless her): ‘We will remove the weird, the wacky and the woo-woo without losing the magic and charm available to you in your inner and outer world.’

If you’ve ever wondered about chakras or auras; hypnosis or meditation; clairvoyance and its cousins; spirit guides and angels; cosmic attraction; past life regression or even future life progression, this is your primer.  It doesn’t preach and it doesn’t patronise. Just gives you a matter-of-fact lowdown on the airy-fairy stuff.  Well, that's my feeling.

I gulped this book down like a long cool glass of water.  Yes, I already knew most of the stuff in it, but I like the slant Barbara gives to familiar material.  I’m now slowly re-reading it, trying out some of the meditations, pausing to let some of the images and thoughts settle in my head.  My only gripe about this was that it didn’t come with a CD of the meditations. But then it was pointed out to me that you can get downloads of a fair few of Barbara's meditations at her website: here.
And you can read her blog here...
Let's end with some quotes from the book.  If these please you, or inspire you or irritate the hell out of you, you would probably like to read this book!  If they just leave you cold, then move on...

'It's all make believe, isn't it?'  Marilyn Monroe

'Sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.' Lewis Carroll in Alice in Wonderland.

'Since everything is in our heads, we had better not lose them.' Coco Chanel.

'All serious daring starts from within.'  Joan Baez

'Life is like an ever-shifting kaleidoscope - a slight change, and all patterns alter.' Sharon Salzberg.

'It's a poor sort of memory that only works backward.' Lewis Carroll.

'Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.' Niels Bohr.

Pondering World Peace with Shari Arison (and James)

'Um, if you wanted to achieve world peace, how would you go about it?’ I asked James as we took the SP for his walk.
‘Eh what?’ he said, giving me his best 'Mum's going mad again' look.
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Turn it round. Why isn’t there peace?  Why don’t people just get along with each other?’
He stopped and bit a chunk off his licorice bar. 
‘Difference.’
‘Go on.’
‘People get chewed up about being different.  Like having different coloured skin or wanting different bits of land or believing in different gods.’

Couldn’t argue with that.
‘Or you get nutjobs like Gaddafi who wreck it cos they have to be the big boss.  They think they’re the only one who can do it right.’

Couldn’t argue with that either.  But then, ain’t it true of all politicians, to greater or lesser degrees?

‘But why do people care?’ I said. ‘Why does it bother them that people are different colours or worship different gods? I mean, if you strip off the skin we’re all the same bone and muscle and tendons.’

‘Ewww, Mum.  Do you have to?’  He paused.  'It’s kinda mad really but it’s like you get two people talking and getting on fine and then one says, ‘I support Arsenal’ and the other one says ‘I support Spurs’ and then they’re, like, ‘you’re a total arsehole’ at each other.’

yes, it's bog roll...

‘Tribe stuff.’

‘I dunno.  Or it’s like school bullies I suppose.  They don’t feel good in their own skin so they take it out on other people. You know, self-esteem shit.’

Okaay.  Hold that thought.

Shari Arison. Pic by Sally Whittle

In Tel Aviv we went to visit Mahuti, the visitor centre for the Essence of Life organisation, founded by Shari Arison.  Arison is Chairperson of the Ted Arison Family Foundation and apparently the richest woman in the Middle-East.  When she inherited an empire she decided, not just to make more money but to work on a broader, wider, far tougher mission.  In fact, really, it doesn’t get much bigger than world peace, does it?  And the irony was inescapable, that she was talking about peace in a country that is surrounded by enemies on the outside and disputes inside and on its borders.  But then, I suppose, there’s nothing like that kind of situation to concentrate the mind.

‘If we want peace in the world, we have to find it in ourselves first,’ she said. ‘We have to take responsibility for our selves and for our actions.  The first step always begins inside us.’

Her belief is that if we learn to listen, to respect one another, to act with compassion and open our hearts lovingly, then we may have a glimmer of a hope of achieving a more harmonious society.  It sounds woolly and New Age but actually it’s tough, inner warrior work.  Both as individuals and as societies we project our fear and loathing outside, onto other people, onto other races and creeds.  Learning to look in the mirror and take back those projections is bloody hard work, a lifetime’s work.  It takes commitment and awareness and humility and self responsibility.

Arison is relentlessly upbeat about this vast task. ‘If we focus our speech and our hearts on bad, bad will grow,’ she said. ‘If we focus on good, good will grow.  The way we think and act shapes our reality.’

Essence of Life runs workshops, has its own radio station and its own visitor centre (with everything spelled out in Hebrew, Arabic and English).  But its most interesting aspect is its work with children.  The Let’s Join Together programme is running in Israeli schools, from kindergarten to senior school and, interestingly, it has already been shown to reduce significantly the level of violence amongst children and teenagers.

It’s all about fostering solid self-esteem. About teaching children to become aware of their emotions and to realise that they are okay in themselves; they’re just fine.  And that, fundamentally, we are all the same, we are all one.  That’s a hard one for our ego-led society but, logically, you can’t escape it.  Like it or not, we are all one.

I like the concept of Arison’s work.  I would love to see children, from a very early age, learning to respect and approve of themselves so they can, in turn, respect others.   Is it pie in the sky?  Is it pissing in the wind?  Well, Arison is a firm believer in the hundredth monkey effect (in which learned behaviour spreads instantaneously from one group to others once a critical mass is reached).  And, you know what?  Where’s the harm?  If all schools taught these principles from a very early age, who knows?  It’s easy to be cynical; easy to think that the system will find a way of subverting the message (and indeed it may).  But you have to try, right?  

My main practical concern is that the programme’s image and delivery is too woolly, too New Age, too fluffy.  It’s the same issue I have with the Steiner system of education.  It’s  beautiful, it’s dolphins and rainbows and bunny rabbits and fluffy kittens.  But it doesn’t have the balance – it's all up in its head somehow; it isn’t terribly grounded.   And, because of that, it runs the risk of alienating the very people it needs to attract. 

I'd also love to see the programme reach out beyond the Jewish world.  Arison has the money and the clout to take this trans-global, trans-cultural, trans-faith. There seems to me a huge irony that Essence of Life with its message of 'We are One' is - at present - so insularly Jewish .

But hey, it’s a start.  And I cannot help but applaud anything that teaches people (and in particular children) to listen, to understand, to love.

So.  What do you reckon?  Should we have classes in self-esteem and self-awareness at nursery?  Would children grow up more balanced and happy if they learned meditation, yoga, self-questioning at school?   If we put peace right in the heart of our children, might we kick off a seismic reaction that could permeate society?  Or is that just hippy-shit?  Is it just being a dreamer?