tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-43501630010810363152024-03-21T12:44:11.819-07:00AwarenessAwareness is the light of human kind for their growth.
This is a blog where I post the collection of articles which I read and help me to grow and see the world in a new perspective.
In addition, post the articiles which I wrote in english.meerabharathyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06137888444336308408noreply@blogger.comBlogger26125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4350163001081036315.post-45478936143998440602019-11-08T20:20:00.001-08:002019-11-08T20:20:53.841-08:00இலங்கையின் ஜனாதிபதித் தேர்தல் 2019<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/nbLnhziMI3Y" width="480"></iframe>மீராபாரதி meerabharathyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04864604775581602269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4350163001081036315.post-66228706013427974692014-05-11T10:28:00.000-07:002014-05-11T10:29:11.964-07:00A Woman: As a Girl, Daughter, Sister, Wife, Daughter-in-law, Mother, and Grand Mother<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">A Woman: As a Girl, Daughter,
Sister, Wife, Daughter-in-law, Mother, and Grand Mother</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I went to see my mother at her
daughter’s place, where she is living. When I arrived there, she was in the
kitchen, preparing a meal. What I saw at that time was not a surprise to me
because that was her usual place since her childhood (as she told me) and as
long as I have known her. It would be a surprise to me if she was not there.
Anyway, whenever I go there she never forgets to ask, “What do you want to
eat?” and she tells me all the food she has prepared and shows me the different
food items. I also always eat something whenever I go there. Most of the time,
I never expect or ask her to serve me because I do not want to give additional
work to her. Therefore, the other day also, I got myself something to eat from
which she showed me while I told her, “I wanted to talk to you about your life.
Finish your work and come. I will wait until that.” Asking or hearing about her
life is not a new thing for me because I always wanted to write about her life
but it has not happened yet. At the same time, she also tells us about her past
once in a while whenever she feels the need. Therefore, my sisters and I know a
little bit here and there about her life. However, this time I talked with her
more purposefully. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Her name is Vas</span><span style="font-family: "Latha","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">a</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">nathadevi and she was born in Colombo, the capital city of
Sri Lanka, on May 26, 1946, after the devastated world war two. She had seven
siblings, who are younger than her. She studied only up to grade 10 because she
said that she was not good at her studies. However, she was interested in
sports like track and field, high jump and long jump. But, she married early at
age nineteen and had three children within four years. Now she is taking care
of her grandchildren, the children of her daughter and supporting them in many
ways for a better life for her daughter. However, her life has been not as
simple as I have described above. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Her childhood was hard, as usual for
all other women, particularly for eldest, especially in those days when no one
cared about women’s education, career and even their lives, not only in South
Asian countries but in other parts of the world too. Her mother, taught her how to cook. Therefore, in her
teenage years, she learned to cook as usual in this society for every girls, so
woman. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">There was an incident that she could
not forget is there was an ethnic riot that happened for the first time in Sri
Lanka in 1958 when some racist groups of Sinhala people attacked the Tamil
people. She remembers well, at that time, she ran with her siblings to pick up
food parcels dropped from helicopters. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Her father was
very strict with his children. He worked as military
personnel and then worked in Ceylon
(Sri Lankan) Railways. He also loved her very much. Whenever he was at home he
used to raise, discipline and control all his children according to the Tamil
Hindu culture and conditions. She was so obedient to him and had respect
for him and did whatever he asked and expected of her. However, her father
decided to arrange a marriage for her because she did not study well.
Therefore, she did not have a chance to be trained for a work outside the home as
a professional or worker either. She also did not have that many thoughts and
dreams about her education, career, and future life on her own other at that
time than marrying a good person who worked in a government department and had
no habits of drinking or smoking. Most of the middle class women like her in
those days had no career ideas for themselves for their future other than being
good daughters for their families, loving house wives for their husbands,
better daughter-in-laws for their husband’s families and good mothers for her
children. The lack of education made them not think or dream about their
developments, independence and future lives. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Her life entered into another stage
when her father arranged a person who was a far away relative for her father to
marry her. However, she told that, she could not even
tell about her desires and dreams about her future husband but had to just
accept her father’s choice. Hence, she got married to that person who became
her husband. He was a full time Communist Party member at that time and worked
in the Party’s paper as an editor for low wages. However, after her marriage,
her father passed away because of a heart attack and her relationship with her
family was broken and she did not tell what the cause was for this breakup. Therefore,
her life totally depended on her husband-the new man in her life. Since then,
she never saw her family except two times, first after fifteen years in 1983 and
second time after another twenty five years in 2008 except three brothers, two
of them used to visit her until 1983 and the other one have contacts until now .
However, she met her mother only in the first time with her sisters and
brothers in 1983 and in the second time met only her sisters who settled for a
long time in Europe. Now she has the contacts with everyone except one brother
because no one knows where he is. However, she has still not met her four
brothers after 1983. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Her married life had its own
difficulties. After she got married to her husband, she faced a lot of new
problems. Her husband was arrested by the Sri Lankan government because of
political turmoil at that time between 1969 and 1971 called as “chequvera
trouble” and he was in and out of jail for two and a half years. She had been
left to face her life alone with her three small children - actually babies,
one boy and two girls and without any income in her young age. Her husband was
in jail when her third daughter was born. She did not have a relationship with
her family, or any basic education or any work experience to look after her
children. The only relationship left was her husband’s side but in South Asian
countries it is really hard for women who have no money and education to go and
live in their husband’s place and depend on them especially without their
husband. On top of this, women like her face more problems because her
husband’s family had a chance to blame her that because of her fate, her
husband went to jail.<b> </b>Therefore, she decided to live alone and did some
house work for neighbours and also went to the Party office to get some
financial help. In those days she faced many problems as a young mother with
three children, without any income and without any help. On the other hand, she
tried hard to get her husband out from jail by going to jail and talking to
army officers and Party leaders. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She
used to tell that some army personals like to help her because of her colour
which is yellowish but South Asian people call it as white colour and women
with that colour has lots of demand. Most of the South Asian men are
affectionate with that “white” colour woman. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">She had gone through another level
of life experience after her husband got out from the jail because he was
expelled from the Party since it had internal political conflicts. As a result,
he was without a job but became addicted to alcohol and smoking. How he became
like this is a question because, it was reported that he used to be a joint
secretary for youth organization of communist party (Chinese wing) with Rogana
Vijaweera who was the leader of JVP and led the 70’s uprising against Sri
Lankan government but he? This is another story to write about. However, she
had a terrible time in those days without money, proper food and housing. Since
then most of the time she lived in a very small place, actually one room which
can accommodate only five people that is her family members and also moved
place to place and had food one or two times day because of lack of food and
money and never had a house of her own. Even though, she did her best to feed
her children and keep her family alive. However, later, after 1990, at least
for some time, her life recovered from these day to day life problems.
But it never lasted for a long time because in 1994, her husband was
killed by an unknown person in front of her and children when they prepared to
have their dinner. This incident happened because of another political conflict
and conflict political situation. This might be a small incident compare to
what happened in Northern Sri Lanka between April and May 2009. Because of this
she got a chance to migrate to Canada in 1996. Therefore, she decided to adopt
her husband’s sister’s daughter who has been with her since she (husband’s
sister’s daughter) has born and then she left the country with her children.
Since then she has been taking care of her adopted daughter and her daughter’s
three kids. Now, she is sixty five but still has more energy and is still
working hard like young girl/women. She is still young in her mind and she can
take better care of any child up to five years of age. After that she does not
know how to handle this new generation of kids because of her traditional mind
and lack of knowledge about child rearing in this developed country. She likes
to cook and eat different food items especially hot and sweet foods and after
long time it is available in her life but having lot of health problems, she
has been prohibited to eat them. However, her only expectation is to see that
her children are living happy with their family and if there is a chance, she
would like to meet all her sisters and brothers in her parent’s home where she grow
up some time in Sri Lanka, before she dies. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> I said good bye while I began
preparing myself to leave. She went back to the kitchen to finish the rest of
the work for the day. This is what she has been doing all her life. Born as a
girl and has been grown up as a female, she cooked as a daughter for her
parent’s family. Same time, as an elder sister helped her siblings, as a
obedient daughter listened to her father to marry someone whom he arranged,
then, had been a lovely wife and served for her husband, had been a good
daughter-in-law by respecting her husband’s family. After that, has been a
caring mother by taking care of her children, actually husband’s children
because that is how it is defined in this andocentric society and mother’s duty
is to take care and raise his children for his heritage. That is why they
prefer children as boys than girls. Finally, being a caring grandmother looking
after her grandchildren and also serving as a mother-in-law. Since her
childhood, her duties and social and gender roles has been changing according
to others needs, expectations and situations but no one ever asked her what she
likes and her needs and expects. No one cares about those matters as long as
she follows whatever she has been assigned to as a duty as a social role that
was/is fine with everyone because she fulfills her responsibilities/ duties.
However, she never stops as a working woman as a cook which is an unpaid and
under-valued or “not counted” as a job until now. She has been living like this
because she has no basic education at least to do a basic level job. The same
situations have been faced by many women in many countries even in developed
countries but particularly in developing countries. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Women have been discriminated against
like this by this andocentric society, by restricting or not giving an
opportunity and encouraging for a basic education and not showing or guiding
them to be an independent individual human being for themselves in the society.
Even she as a woman and human being not only never questioned her life and
status, but also had no ideas or dreams about her future life like what she
likes to become. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Other than being a good
daughter, marrying a person and being a wife, having children and being a
mother and being totally an unpaid house worker because of her lack of
education. However, she always likes to share her experience with others,
therefore, she felt happy when I asked for an interview and wholeheartedly
participated. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>May be your mother too.
Why do not you try?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Here is some sample questions you
can asked your mother, unfortunately, if she is not alive, you can ask her
relatives. We can publish a book about our mothers’ stories for our future the
generations. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Here is some sample questions you
can asked your mother, unfortunately, if she is not alive, you can ask her
relatives.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It is not enough to provide a transcript of your interview,
you must also think analytically and reflectively about the questions. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Questions you ask her: </span></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin-left: 72.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 72.0pt; text-indent: -36.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">When and where
were you born?</span></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin-left: 72.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 72.0pt; text-indent: -36.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">What were your
parents like? (e.g., ethnic, religious, and economic background). </span></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin-left: 72.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 72.0pt; text-indent: -36.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">What were the
important influences on you as a child? </span></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin-left: 72.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 72.0pt; text-indent: -36.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">4.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">What was your
relationship like with your mother? Your father? </span></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin-left: 72.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 72.0pt; text-indent: -36.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">5.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Did you work
outside the home? </span></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin-left: 72.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 72.0pt; text-indent: -36.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">6.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">What are your
main interests? </span></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin-left: 72.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 72.0pt; text-indent: -36.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">7.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Are there some
things that you have always wanted to do but never had the opportunity?</span></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin-left: 72.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 72.0pt; text-indent: -36.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">8.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Add questions
of your own. </span></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Questions answered by you:</span></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin-left: 54.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list 54.0pt; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">What
have you learned from doing this interview? Are there areas of your mother's/mentor/wise
woman’s life experience that you have learned about for the first time? Do you
have any new understandings about your mother/mentor/wise woman now? </span></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin-left: 54.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list 54.0pt; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">How
do you feel about your mother/mentor/wise woman now? </span></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin-left: 54.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list 54.0pt; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">What
was your mother's/mentor/wise woman’s reaction to being interviewed? </span></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin-left: 54.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list 54.0pt; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">4.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Other
comments.</span></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Source:
Howe, Karen G. (1989). Telling our mother's story: Changing daughters' <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>perceptions of their mothers in a women's
studies course. In R. K. Unger <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>(Ed.),
<u>Representations: Social constructions of gender</u> (pp. 45-60).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Amityville,
NY: Baywood Publishing Company, Inc.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
</div>
மீராபாரதி meerabharathyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04864604775581602269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4350163001081036315.post-29144735057197995532011-05-27T14:59:00.001-07:002011-06-14T08:20:09.229-07:00WHAT IS AWARENESS? By osho<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><b><span style="font-family: "Verdana", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">WHAT IS AWARENESS? By osho</span></b><span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Verdana", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">There is much difference between awareness and witnessing. Witnessing is still an act; you are doing it, the ego is there. So the phenomenon of witnessing is divided between the subject and the object. </span></div><span style="font-family: "Verdana", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span><span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
Witnessing is a relationship between subject and object. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Awareness is absolutely devoid of any subjectivity or objectivity. There is no one who is witnessing in awareness; </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">there is no one who is being witnessed. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Awareness is a total act, integrated; </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">the subject and the object are not related in it; they are dissolved. So awareness doesn't mean that anyone is aware, nor does it mean that anything is being attended to. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Awareness is total -- total subjectivity and total objectivity as a single phenomenon -- while in witnessing a duality exists between subject and object. Awareness is non-doing; witnessing implies a doer. But through witnessing awareness is possible, because witnessing means that it is a conscious act; it is an act, but conscious. You can do something and be unconscious -- </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">our ordinary activity is unconscious activity -- but if you become conscious in it, it becomes witnessing. So from ordinary unconscious activity to awareness there is a gap that can be filled by witnessing. <br />
Witnessing is a technique, a method toward awareness. It is not awareness, but, as compared to ordinary activity, unconscious activity, it is a higher step</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Verdana", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Something has changed: activity has become conscious, unconsciousness has been replaced by consciousness.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Verdana", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> But something more still has to be changed. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Verdana", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">That is, the activity has to be replaced by inactivity. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Verdana", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">That will be the second step. <br />
It is difficult to jump from ordinary, unconscious action into awareness. It is possible but arduous, so a step in between is helpful. If one begins by witnessing conscious activity, then the jump becomes easier -- the jump into awareness without any conscious object, without any conscious subject, without any conscious activity at all. This doesn't mean that awareness isn't consciousness; it is pure consciousness, but no one is conscious about it. <br />
There is still a difference between consciousness and awareness. Consciousness is a quality of your mind, but it is not your total mind. Your mind can be both conscious and unconscious, but when you transcend your mind, there is no unconsciousness and no corresponding consciousness. There is awareness. <br />
Awareness means that the total mind has become aware. Now the old mind is not there, but there is the quality of being conscious. Awareness has become the totality; the mind itself is now part of the awareness. We cannot say that the mind is aware; we can only meaningfully say that the mind is conscious. Awareness means transcendence of the mind, so it is not the mind that is aware. </span><span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Verdana", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">It is only through transcendence of the mind, through going beyond mind, that awareness becomes possible. <br />
Consciousness is a quality of the mind, awareness is the transcendence; it is going beyond the mind. Mind, as such, is the medium of duality, so consciousness can never transcend duality. It is always conscious of something, and there is always someone who is conscious. So consciousness is part and parcel of the mind, and mind, as such, is the source of all duality, of all divisions, whether they are between subject and object, activity or inactivity, consciousness or unconsciousness. Every type of duality is mental. Awareness is nondual, so awareness means the state of no mind. <br />
Then what is the relationship between consciousness and witnessing? Witnessing is a state, and consciousness is a means toward witnessing. If you begin to be conscious, you achieve witnessing. If you begin to be conscious of your acts, conscious of your day-to-day happenings, conscious of everything that surrounds you, then you begin to witness. <br />
Witnessing comes as a consequence of consciousness. You cannot practice witnessing; you can only practice consciousness. Witnessing comes as a consequence, as a shadow, as a result, as a byproduct. The more you become conscious, the more you go into witnessing, the more you come to be a witness. So consciousness is a method to achieve witnessing. </span><span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Verdana", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And the second step is that witnessing will become a method to achieve awareness. <br />
So these are the three steps: consciousness, witnessing, awareness. But where we exist is the lowest rank: that is, in unconscious activity. Unconscious activity is the state of our minds. <br />
Through consciousness you can achieve witnessing, and through witnessing you can achieve awareness, and through awareness you can achieve "no achievement." Through awareness you can achieve all that is already achieved. After awareness there is nothing; awareness is the end. <br />
Awareness is the end of spiritual progress; unawareness is the beginning. Unawareness means a state of material existence. So unawareness and unconsciousness are not both the same. Unawareness means matter. Matter is not unconscious; it is unaware. <br />
Animal existence is an unconscious existence; human existence is a mind phenomenon -- ninety-nine percent unconscious and one percent conscious. This one percent consciousness means you are one percent conscious of your ninety-nine percent unconsciousness. But if you become conscious of your own consciousness, then the one percent will go on increasing, and the ninety-nine percent unconsciousness will go on decreasing. <br />
If you become one hundred percent conscious, you become a witness, a sakshi. If you become a sakshi, you have come to the jumping point from where the jump into awareness becomes possible. </span><span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Verdana", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In awareness you lose the witness and only witnessing remains: you lose the doer, you lose the subjectivity, you lose the egocentric consciousness. Then consciousness remains, without the ego. The circumference remains without the center. <br />
This circumference without the center is awareness. Consciousness without any center, without any source, without any motivation, without any source from which it comes -- a "no source" consciousness -- is awareness. <br />
So you move from the unaware existence that is matter, prakriti, towards awareness. You may call it the divine, the godly, or whatever you choose to call it. Between matter and the divine, the difference is always of consciousness.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Verdana", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">osho-Path of meditation</span><span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div></div>மீராபாரதி meerabharathyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04864604775581602269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4350163001081036315.post-78598743337746195552011-05-26T07:53:00.002-07:002012-03-10T07:30:57.414-08:00Two Nationalisms: Women Bodies are Caught up In-between<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Two Nationalisms (Oppress and Being Oppressed): </span></b></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Women Bodies are Caught up In-between</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">The recent war in Sri Lanka illustrates how human bodies particularly women's bodies are turned into objects. On the one hand, the Sri Lankan military tortured and killed the Tamils and raped many women to invade the land where Tamil speaking humans are majority. On the other hand, the raped and dead bodies of Tamil women were used by the Tamil diaspora in their online media to further their nationalist propaganda. Both of them used women’s bodies as sexual objects and as a representation of Tamil nation. This shows that even though </span><span lang="EN-CA" style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Sri Lankan and Tamil nationalist movements</span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">differ in their nationalist perspectives, their entire gaze is based on a patriarchal, heterosexist and racist standpoint which dominate these </span><span lang="EN-CA" style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">nationalist movements. The hegemonic power of these ideas constructs women as objects, secondary human beings and sexualized bodies. Following this argument, my</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> paper shows how</span><span lang="EN-CA" style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> Tamil women have been reduced to and used as objects, in particular as sexualized objects, by both nationalist movements. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5rOIsCUQc29FzXW07T4GbjPNzp2s0XkUb__MXgfyehn1PqSb43rGe47BszR2kYLdbgBe8IhIusfK3m9SCddSpxeb_KKBcj8YpKwOcD7RqTZ81QxT7hcJGV_C9Kk3o7ZBuloUze2Q4FSRH/s1600/images.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="149" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5rOIsCUQc29FzXW07T4GbjPNzp2s0XkUb__MXgfyehn1PqSb43rGe47BszR2kYLdbgBe8IhIusfK3m9SCddSpxeb_KKBcj8YpKwOcD7RqTZ81QxT7hcJGV_C9Kk3o7ZBuloUze2Q4FSRH/s200/images.jpg" t8="true" width="200" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">The motivation for this essay was an uncensored YouTube clip </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 200%;">(<span style="color: blue;">http://youtu.be/DMKJaJH9BR8</span>)</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> and other war pictures which show the killing of Tamils by the Sri Lankan military. This clip and the pictures urge the discussion of how women’s bodies are gazed and used. In the book, <i>Imperial Leather</i>, Ann McLintock ( ) argues that white women are “ambiguously complicit,” in a complex social status as both oppressors and oppressed, privileged and restricted, and acted upon and acting (6). As a South Asian diasporic brown man, I also exist in a similar complex and conflict situation much like white women in their societies. The exception for me is that I am not a colonizer; rather I am colonized as a patriarchal heteronormative man. This is what </span><span lang="EN-CA" style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Kimberle</span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> Crenshaw ( ) <span style="color: black;">defines as </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">intersectional identity (202)</span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> which is the multiple identities<span style="color: black;"> of a person who is privileged, underprivileged, oppressor and being oppressed. For example, I have many identities based on sex, gender, class and sexual and racial identity which are imposed by the society. I also have my own identity which I define for myself. However, in general, on one hand, as a man, I am privileged, particularly in the Tamil societies. But on the other hand, as a Tamil in Sri Lanka or as a brown diasporic human being in a North American white society , I am underprivileged. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">With my intersectional identity, as a human, man, Tamil and feminist, </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">I have some questions: does the person who was taking the video, and do I, as an observer, have the same gaze when looking at the dead and nude body of the female? Arguably, the person who took this video was a Sri Lankan military personnel and certainly the person was a man who gaze at this woman’s body from a patriarchal and racist standpoint. Then I looked at within myself and asked how am I looking at this woman’s body and is there any difference from the army person’s? I understood that, as both of us as men, we have a similar patriarchal standpoint of viewing a nude woman’s body, even though it was a dead body. However, both of us as different races or ethnic group have different feelings about the woman. Having been born and growing up in Tamil society, I identified myself with her race and her ethnic group and therefore, felt that she was part of the </span><shapetype coordsize="21600,21600" filled="f" id="_x0000_t75" o:preferrelative="t" o:spt="75" path="m@4@5l@4@11@9@11@9@5xe" stroked="f"><stroke joinstyle="miter"></stroke><formulas><f eqn="if lineDrawn pixelLineWidth 0"></f><f eqn="sum @0 1 0"></f><f eqn="sum 0 0 @1"></f><f eqn="prod @2 1 2"></f><f eqn="prod @3 21600 pixelWidth"></f><f eqn="prod @3 21600 pixelHeight"></f><f eqn="sum @0 0 1"></f><f eqn="prod @6 1 2"></f><f eqn="prod @7 21600 pixelWidth"></f><f eqn="sum @8 21600 0"></f><f eqn="prod @7 21600 pixelHeight"></f><f eqn="sum @10 21600 0"></f></formulas><path gradientshapeok="t" o:connecttype="rect" o:extrusionok="f"></path><lock aspectratio="t" v:ext="edit"></lock></shapetype><shape alt="imagesCAFPOFWQ1" id="Picture_x0020_2" o:allowoverlap="f" o:spid="_x0000_s1026" style="height: 116.45pt; left: 0px; margin-left: 319.5pt; margin-top: 112.3pt; position: absolute; text-align: left; visibility: visible; width: 154.95pt; z-index: -11;" type="#_x0000_t75"><imagedata blacklevel="13107f" gain="10" o:title="imagesCAFPOFWQ1" src="file:///C:%5CUsers%5Cosho%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_image001.jpg"></imagedata><wrap type="square"></wrap></shape><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Tamil society. Hopefully, Sri Lankan army personal felt differently since he was a Sinhalese with a domination of Sinhala racist nationalist hegemonic ideology. In addition, as a feminist, I should question how Tamil nationalists are using these dead bodies, unconsciously from a patriarchal point of view, against the Sri Lankan government (</span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">GOSL</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">) for the crimes they committed during the war. Why we as men gaze at women like this or as invaders rape and kill them, or as nationalist use them?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Patriarchy and nationalism, in general, represent and reduce “other” bodies, particularly women’s bodies, as matters and objects and also use them to represent a nation and its culture. Social scientists and feminists argue that human bodies and their sex, gender and sexual identities have been socially constructed as binary oppositions as a result of patriarchal heterosexual ideology (King, 275; Vance, 30). In public spaces, for example, in a war situation or in a factory, all the human bodies including men’s and women’s are used and reduced to objects by the people who have power over them . However, in both public and private spaces women are typically used and reduced to objects. The reason for this is that the hegemonic power of patriarchal heteronormative male gaze is common all over the world. However, it does not matter whether they are the oppressors or being oppressed, men (and women) see human bodies, particularly women’s bodies, as “other”, and as objects that they can also used. These men’s gazes and attitudes can be seen in the recent war which ended without any solution in Sri Lanka two years back. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><shape alt="http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQUyzpOCBw7LOkNv_DEywQxfXU0upv3pXPakj9czX4jSjacjBEj" id="Picture_x0020_1" o:spid="_x0000_s1038" style="height: 171.85pt; left: 0px; margin-left: 11.25pt; margin-top: 7.8pt; position: absolute; text-align: left; visibility: visible; width: 105.75pt; z-index: -1;" type="#_x0000_t75"><imagedata o:title="ANd9GcQUyzpOCBw7LOkNv_DEywQxfXU0upv3pXPakj9czX4jSjacjBEj" src="file:///C:%5CUsers%5Cosho%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_image003.jpg"></imagedata><wrap type="square"></wrap></shape><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Sri Lankan societies are divided by nationality, ethnicity, race, language, culture, caste and religion. In addition, it is also divided by sex and gender. The main conflict is that Sinhalese and Tamil societies (f.n.1) </span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">are divided as two nations in a single country, Sri Lanka. As Cynthia Enloe argues, they “have been shaped by a common past and destined to share a common future…and nurtured by a common language</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">…and nationalism fostering those beliefs…” (222). </span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Nira Yuval-Davis (2006)</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> extends this argument by stating that this “hegemonic national collectivity” constructs a particular ethnic group that is different and </span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">distinguishable</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> from the “other.” (217). However, as she argues, some communities are not part of the “hegemonic national community” (</span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Yuval-Davis, </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">1997, 7). Similarly, Tamil communities have been not recognized as a part of Sri Lankan Sinhala Buddhist hegemonic national community. Even Tamil communities do not want to identify themselves under the Sinhala Buddhist hegemonic national identity. This created ethnic conflict in the country. Therefore, Tamils have been fighting for their self determination right, political aspirations, and dignity and respect for their race and ethnical identity. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">In Sri Lanka, as </span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Enloe </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">argues, both groups are victims of colonization. The country had many kingdoms but after the colonization, it was united and ruled under one administration. It led to construct Sinhala Buddhist hegemonic ideology in the country after colonizers had left. Symbolically the name of the country was changed from Ceylon to Sri Lanka. The result of this, as she argues, one of them [Sinhala Nationalists] have been the </span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">perpetrator of [Sinhala] racism while others [Tamils] have been its victims (Enloe, 222). </span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Since then, Tamil speaking human beings have been discriminated against and affected by this Sinhala racist state and its government. On the other hand, this does not mean Tamils do not exhibit racism. Even though Tamils are minorities and have less power within the supremacy of Sinhala nation, Tamil nationalists not only have racist attitudes against Sinhala people, but they also discriminate against other minorities such as Muslims within the Tamil communities. However, these difference does not give the right to anyone to oppress or carryout a war against Tamil-speaking human beings. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">The differences between these two nations, cultures, or ethnic groups have nonetheless been used to legitimize the ethnic conflict and war against Tamil societies. Therefore, the ethnic conflict between the Sinhala and Tamil societies became predominant. Sri Lankan governments have perpetuated this conflict through acts of racial discrimination, oppression, violence and war against Tamil-speaking societies in Sri Lanka. This discrimination and oppression led the Tamil youth or “boys” to begin an armed struggle against the Sri Lankan military in the late 1970s (</span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Ismail, 1678)</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">. As a witness to the uprising of Tamil struggle, I knew, it included many Tamil armed groups, mostly men, from the middle and lower classes and also from various castes with different ideological backgrounds, at least in their political manifestos. Therefore, it is difficult to agree with Qadri </span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Ismail’s claim that the Tamil boys were only from the upper class and upper caste which is a contradiction to my own experience (1677)</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">. However, in the struggle, as </span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Enloe points out that, </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">“When a nationalist movement becomes militarized… male privilege in the community usually becomes more entrenched” (225). This was no exception for the Tamil national liberation struggle also because Tamil people believed in the beginning that “our boys” or “movement’s boys” were going to fight and get freedom for them. Even though, there were few girls in the liberation movements but no one referred them as “our girls” or “movement girls” </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><shape alt="images" id="Picture_x0020_4" o:spid="_x0000_s1027" style="height: 145.5pt; left: 0px; margin-left: 263.25pt; margin-top: -322.15pt; position: absolute; text-align: left; visibility: visible; width: 195pt; z-index: 2;" type="#_x0000_t75"><imagedata o:title="images" src="file:///C:%5CUsers%5Cosho%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_image005.jpg"></imagedata><wrap type="square"></wrap></shape><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Some of the rebel groups were not only conscious about caste and class struggle, but also about women’s struggle and they had their own women’s wings in their groups. It was reported by EPRLF that first female (child) combatant (</span><span class="ft"><span lang="EN" style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Shobha alias Mathivathani ) </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">was killed when attacking the Sri Lankan navy camp in Karainagar in 1985. However, in the beginning, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE/Tigers) were reluctant to recruit girls and women since they were dominated by patriarchal ideas and respected its cultural values more than other Tamil groups. However, there was a need of human power for the movement and the availability of women led them to recruit many girls and women into their armed groups. The Tigers group was one of the last groups to recruit them. There were many reasons for the recruitment, but it was not necessarily out of concern for women’s liberation or because of a feminist standpoint. Moreover, LTTE was neither a terrorists nor a Marxist group, as some intellectuals such as Georegina </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Nieves assert </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">(9). </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border: medium none; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><shape alt="http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01397/female-tamil-tiger_1397282c.jpg" id="il_fi" o:spid="_x0000_s1028" style="height: 145.5pt; left: 0px; margin-left: 217.5pt; margin-top: 77.9pt; position: absolute; text-align: left; visibility: visible; width: 232pt; z-index: 3;" type="#_x0000_t75"><imagedata o:href="http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01397/female-tamil-tiger_1397282c.jpg" src="file:///C:%5CUsers%5Cosho%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_image006.jpg"></imagedata><wrap type="square"></wrap></shape><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">One of the reasons that the LTTE recruited women could be similar to what happened during the First and Second World War in the West: there were many men who went to fight, which led to a shortage of laborers to work and produce goods for use in the war, and women were used to fill that vacuum. In the same way, the Tigers also lacked men, but were aware of many women who were there with an urge to fight and an awareness of women’s freedom (</span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Ismail 1768)</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">. </span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Feizal Samath, Qadri Ismail, Georgina </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Nieves</span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> reported that the reason women participated in the movement might be because they believed that the rebels would give them freedom and respect their equality (ipsnews.net, 2010; 1678; 12). Therefore, w</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">omen were willing to participate in the struggle as combatants. </span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> As a result, Samath write<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4NH78lQ2D1wE3koyOfZgRs06ki2Sw33MSoaxsjE53GVcowaITqB1uInmspQVtfTyH7WenXR1QKNhSre-qaLFz4Ar3FjV0FhEiXgt7dIS4W2Qp2CHmlxIwDpKn6HC_ST8SAt7KXDL899Ql/s1600/imagesCAQJU1QW.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="129" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4NH78lQ2D1wE3koyOfZgRs06ki2Sw33MSoaxsjE53GVcowaITqB1uInmspQVtfTyH7WenXR1QKNhSre-qaLFz4Ar3FjV0FhEiXgt7dIS4W2Qp2CHmlxIwDpKn6HC_ST8SAt7KXDL899Ql/s200/imagesCAQJU1QW.jpg" t8="true" width="200" /></a>s, “females were welcomed into the Tiger fold; young, shy village girls turned into spirited young women, dressed in trousers and shirts, and carrying guns with authority” (ipsnews.net, 2010). </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">However, Feizal Samath supports this by providing the example of Adele Balasingham, who was a British white woman married to Anton Balasingham, who was the spokesperson for the Tigers. She was seen seated along with her husband speaking as an equal. Samath also adds that this kind of scene could not be seen in Tamil society and therefore, Tamil women were attracted by this and believed in it (ipsnews.net, 2010). However, Samath’s argument is patronizing and he forgets two things. First, he was not aware of Tamil women’s own awareness of their liberation and participation in the struggle, even before Adele Balasingham came onto the scene. Second, he lacks critical scrutiny and sees her only as a woman but forgets to see as a representative of whiteness and has privilege in these colonized societies. However, this criticism of Samath does not negate his insight that she made a contribution for the struggle. As <span style="color: black;">Ruth Frankenberg points out, </span>whiteness has a particular place in the social structure and has its own privileges even though location varies (2-3). Because of this representation of whiteness, Adele Balasingham has some kind of respect and power compared to not only Tamil women but Tamil men as well. This is because of the unconscious mind of Tamil society which is still being colonized and therefore respecting their former masters. This is similar to Fanon’s arguments about whether a black man or a white woman enjoys more power in a colonized society. However, Samath agrees that what Tamil women were imagining or expecting was an illusion within Tamil national liberation (ipsnews.net, 2010).</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><shape alt="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_JgUEIpjyu4c/TUl6CgarayI/AAAAAAAAGqE/FPdPXqvUP4k/s1600/isaipriya_k.jpg" id="Picture_x0020_6" o:spid="_x0000_s1029" style="height: 180.75pt; left: 0px; margin-left: -7.5pt; margin-top: 0.75pt; position: absolute; text-align: left; visibility: visible; width: 198.75pt; z-index: 4;" type="#_x0000_t75"><imagedata o:href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_JgUEIpjyu4c/TUl6CgarayI/AAAAAAAAGqE/FPdPXqvUP4k/s1600/isaipriya_k.jpg" src="file:///C:%5CUsers%5Cosho%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_image008.jpg"></imagedata><wrap type="square"></wrap></shape><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Nimmi Gowrinathan points out that it is difficult to say what motivates women to participate in the rebel movements even though the increase of their participation globally is from 20% to 40% in the last decade. Women participants cannot easily be reached directly to confirm the reasons for their participation (37). However, </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Alisa </span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Stack-O'Connor says that there were many reasons influenced the Tigers’ decision to recruit women into the group such as “tactical advantage against the GOSL, demographics, completion with other groups, and women’s demand for more active involvement in the group” (47-49 ). </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">More important than all of these, the Sri Lankan government and their military’s brutality also intensified and, as </span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Stack-O'Connor (49) points out, women became fearful of rape and sexual assault (49). Rape, torture and sexual assault against women have been sexualized tools regularly used in patriarchal wars.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> For these reasons, women were ready to participate in the struggle as combatants, even though, as </span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Enloe argues, “most women’s past experiences and strategies for the future are not made on the basis of the nationalism, they are urged to support</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">…” (222). It means that women’s liberation is not part of the nationalist struggle and which is not strategized based on feminism or women’s issues. As a result, Enloe’s argument was supported since women have been facing many problems during the Tamil national struggle: before the war, during the war, at end of the war, and in the war’s aftermath. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> Mclintock argues that race and gender have an intimate relationship (4). She continues that there are five major ways in which women have been implicated in nationalism: “as biological reproducers; as protectors of the boundaries of the nation; as active transmitters and producers of the national culture; as symbols of national difference and as active participants in the national struggle” (355). Inaddition, Nira Yuval-Davis argues that nationalism constructs “us” and “them” and uses women as symbolic “border guards” (219). In a war against another country or nation, women are one of the important targets, even before the land is occupied, they were raped and killed and this shows that oppressors have taken the control of “others” property. In addition, the nationalists also call their land as motherland which shows, as Edward Said argued, that “land is feminized” (Mclintock 14). Moreover, “women” are as the boundary markers of ethnic/ racial community in the “host” of a nation (Mclintock 70; Gopinath 18). Furthermore, “women are…threshold figures. They facilitate the male plot… but they are not the agents of change. Nor are they conceivable heirs to political power” (Mclintock 70). This is how heteronormative patriarchal society not only constructs sex, gender and sexuality in a society with the hierarchal order and power but also women as objects by comparing to their land; as a representation of the nation and their responsibilities and status in a society. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border: medium none; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><shape alt="http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQoPhHRGLSyAH2iNqVuPKDYrj9qxMbNbgDdM35LHXnjvob3Dwcz" id="Picture_x0020_7" o:spid="_x0000_s1033" style="height: 110.25pt; left: 0px; margin-left: 293pt; margin-top: 364.7pt; position: absolute; text-align: left; visibility: visible; width: 147.75pt; z-index: 6;" type="#_x0000_t75"><imagedata o:title="ANd9GcQoPhHRGLSyAH2iNqVuPKDYrj9qxMbNbgDdM35LHXnjvob3Dwcz" src="file:///C:%5CUsers%5Cosho%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_image010.jpg"></imagedata><wrap type="square"></wrap></shape><group coordorigin="1528,3111" coordsize="4493,2124" id="_x0000_s1030" style="height: 106.2pt; left: 0px; margin-left: 6.65pt; margin-top: 117.45pt; position: absolute; text-align: left; width: 224.65pt; z-index: 5;"><shape alt="http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSZAQGpmn0yLkJqVQC-v0JhYl-tvuUu8FgjkiYDU8sqXZMPpLOC4w" id="Picture_x0020_5" o:spid="_x0000_s1031" style="height: 1942px; left: 1528px; position: absolute; top: 3186px; visibility: visible; width: 2567px;" type="#_x0000_t75"><imagedata o:title="ANd9GcSZAQGpmn0yLkJqVQC-v0JhYl-tvuUu8FgjkiYDU8sqXZMPpLOC4w" src="file:///C:%5CUsers%5Cosho%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_image012.jpg"></imagedata></shape><shape alt="http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSEN5StczfDt2Ailyq1BKKcEw8Sy0AM2XWLC_fQzXN7eFZ2KxFB" id="_x0000_s1032" style="height: 2124px; left: 4270px; position: absolute; top: 3111px; visibility: visible; width: 1751px;" type="#_x0000_t75"><imagedata o:title="ANd9GcSEN5StczfDt2Ailyq1BKKcEw8Sy0AM2XWLC_fQzXN7eFZ2KxFB" src="file:///C:%5CUsers%5Cosho%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_image013.jpg"></imagedata></shape><wrap type="square"></wrap></group><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> In general, the patriarchal gaze makes men to see women in a sexualized and objectified way. Therefore, men fantasize about women in terms of these men’s needs or wants. In addition, </span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Audre Lorde says that because of the domination of sexist ideology, men, think that they can dominate women (115). </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">That is why, on the one hand, as</span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> Yuval-Davis argues, </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">“women … symbolize the national collectivity, its roots, its sprit, its national project. Moreover, … collective “honour” … [and they] can also </span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">signify ethnic and cultural boundaries</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">” (219). On <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiT2mV2HDaiTlz_grjyRXUoY_lO_0tGe2-gl4pjU2dXqh3xaVx0izNj0EDGXJllwB5idQ6tSha93RKrR9JiJWRO89pyVt3Rnes6jqwQxjUywoVV5olu-BUY397srQrIkFmQ1YnvNWsfFXrt/s1600/images-sara+part.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiT2mV2HDaiTlz_grjyRXUoY_lO_0tGe2-gl4pjU2dXqh3xaVx0izNj0EDGXJllwB5idQ6tSha93RKrR9JiJWRO89pyVt3Rnes6jqwQxjUywoVV5olu-BUY397srQrIkFmQ1YnvNWsfFXrt/s1600/images-sara+part.jpg" t8="true" /></a>the other hand, as Stuart Hall argues how Saatijt (Sarah) Baartman’s body was reduced to an object and her sexual body parts were used in exhibitions by colonizers in early 1800s (42-43). Still, even 200 year later, (Tamil) women’s bodies have been similarly sexualized, objectified and exhibited as mentioned earlier in the YouTube video and other picture depictions. That is why not only when women are alive but even after death, they are gazed upon, used, and treated as (sexualized) objects in patriarchal societies. In addition, McClinntock argues that women in general are reduced as reproducing machines because of hegemony of bio-power over women’s bodies (4). This shows that these women’s bodies are considered second class which is lower to men and they are also racialized. This encourages violence against women and makes it socially acceptable. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTK_9tBvjAKulkmdlX5itBuv57mgDyhtuLK4e4x_4c0qOgkAP_00PeP2Tu0_cg0MOzmxgOvSTaDSnDaQ0dyd7_swj0kdrCmLKZzQ_dN43A4Yr9xiTQ6XmBeGMdkfGjeRjemT6PsbfrPxyr/s1600/imagesCAUDE3RX.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTK_9tBvjAKulkmdlX5itBuv57mgDyhtuLK4e4x_4c0qOgkAP_00PeP2Tu0_cg0MOzmxgOvSTaDSnDaQ0dyd7_swj0kdrCmLKZzQ_dN43A4Yr9xiTQ6XmBeGMdkfGjeRjemT6PsbfrPxyr/s1600/imagesCAUDE3RX.jpg" t8="true" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">The depictions of dead bodies show that human bodies are used as objects and representations of a nation. It does not matter whether they, who kill the people, are Sinhalese or American, or Taliban or even Tamil militants, all have similar view and attitude towards the human body. As Stuart Hall argues, visual images and popular representation have been and continue to be deeply political. They do not simply reflect reality (428, 259). The video clip and pictures show that they are not just human bodies but they are racialzed as Tamil bodies, sexualized as women’s bodies and depicted as representation of the Tamil nation. That is why they were humiliated by Sri Lankan military. In addition, it also shows Tamil men’s patriarchal view about women’s bodies when they used it for their political propaganda. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">The Sri Lankan military and Tamil (diasporas) media both see women and their bodies from a patriarchal stand point, but from different perspectives. Both of them see these women as representatives of the Tamil nation. In addition, both gaze at and represent (Tamil) women as objects and also reduce them to soulless matter and use them. Nevertheless, they use them in different ways for their specific patriarchal and nationalist purposes. Therefore, Tamil women continue to be used as objects by both sides in the name of nationalism. As a result, women become the literal and figurative battleground on which ethnic nationalist ideologies play out (Gopinath 175).</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaqE8vSuB-FCm0Fney8QYPAsZcDtDEfhUgbjtKJmbEZ0hd3p0-Euwku5gKhWacjlTsgQqxHh4CbjdES_Xx1qsU40M6xXSgwu24dyT6w2fx0oWI0EghcvLI-3fyd3VnCAgYWvLygi85PCSe/s1600/war+women+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaqE8vSuB-FCm0Fney8QYPAsZcDtDEfhUgbjtKJmbEZ0hd3p0-Euwku5gKhWacjlTsgQqxHh4CbjdES_Xx1qsU40M6xXSgwu24dyT6w2fx0oWI0EghcvLI-3fyd3VnCAgYWvLygi85PCSe/s1600/war+women+1.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">The Sri Lankan military tortured, raped and killed Tamil women to show that they had occupied Tamil land, the motherland, by controlling their women. In addition, they represent Tamil women as sexualized and racialized bodies. Therefore, they also have used Tamil women to be gazed upon, killed, tortured, and raped as sexual objects and as representatives of the Tamil </span><shape alt="RAPE-T~1" id="Picture_x0020_10" o:spid="_x0000_s1034" style="height: 97.5pt; left: 0px; margin-left: 316.5pt; margin-top: 5.25pt; position: absolute; text-align: left; visibility: visible; width: 133.9pt; z-index: 7;" type="#_x0000_t75"><imagedata blacklevel="3932f" gain="9175f" o:title="RAPE-T~1" src="file:///C:%5CUsers%5Cosho%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_image015.jpg"></imagedata><wrap type="square"></wrap></shape><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">nation. For example, one of the Sri Lankan military personnel says pointing to the vagina of the dead woman’s body that “it is a good stuff” and another one says “shoot on the breast” (see the youtube) and another one says, the dead body “is still warm”. This show how Sri Lankan military men gaze at Tamil women as racialized and sexualized body during the war.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg27MFrXsjlr9e7vhKaCrLh_x61gBorVo_382-qLyE1BHJE4iN5TyoXxFfz3q8gGvYJt8r7hNPO6DdJIr3DqYcuAS9pyxP7OlnVO27oaprTYCZym71haxVcqf_PmRqGi5Kgu1XVchMnMP30/s1600/war+women.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg27MFrXsjlr9e7vhKaCrLh_x61gBorVo_382-qLyE1BHJE4iN5TyoXxFfz3q8gGvYJt8r7hNPO6DdJIr3DqYcuAS9pyxP7OlnVO27oaprTYCZym71haxVcqf_PmRqGi5Kgu1XVchMnMP30/s1600/war+women.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">On the other hand, what the Tamil nationalists did was not much better (f.n.2). They also used these nude pictures and YouTube without censoring them when they were released first time to propagandize for their own course of punishing the Sri Lankan government for their war crimes (</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="color: blue;">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QckiYi_N6rQ</span>)</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">. (However, later everyone censored them). Tamil societies, particularly Tamil nationalist men, have the control of Tamil media and used and treated these women and their dead bodies as objects to represent their Tamil nation in their media. This shows as Gayatri Gopinath point outs that the diasporic nationalism is predicated on the notion of women’s bodies as communal property (163). However, it is not limited to diasporic nationalism even though they have more concern about their cultural values but in their country of origin too. During the Tamil nationalist struggle and war time, the dead bodies whether they were Tamils or Sinhalese were used to represent their nation and humiliated or respected according to their space and nation. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Tamil nationalists who are fighting for their freedom have a double standard when it comes to women’s issues. On the one hand, they have to fight for their freedom and use these images to punish the people who are responsible for this genocide. On the other hand, they are also using these images at least unconsciously from a patriarchal gaze and reducing women to objects. Therefore women particularly oppressed women suffer more by wedged between two men and their hegemonic patriarchal nationalistic standpoints.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">In addition to being racist, both Sinhala and Tamil societies are typically traditional, patriarchal, heteronormative, and sexually repressive societies and have a conservative standpoint, particularly with regard to </span><shape alt="http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQQ_l5mkBF9y3W6ncWZyMiXKXRp8F53gJuJWu9ZOhg6PzzgzloY" id="_x0000_s1037" style="height: 129.75pt; left: 0px; margin-left: 295.5pt; margin-top: 11.25pt; position: absolute; text-align: left; visibility: visible; width: 150pt; z-index: 10;" type="#_x0000_t75"><imagedata o:title="ANd9GcQQ_l5mkBF9y3W6ncWZyMiXKXRp8F53gJuJWu9ZOhg6PzzgzloY" src="file:///C:%5CUsers%5Cosho%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_image017.jpg"></imagedata><wrap type="square"></wrap></shape><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">sex, gender and sexuality issues. Therefore, they are characterized by sex, gender and sexual discrimination and assign gender roles based on each sex like other societies (</span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">De Alwis, 676)</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">. As Edward Said (Eng, 2001, 190) figured out, one hand, women are agents of biological reproduction to cultural reproduction. On the other hand, women are expected to be reproductive because of their cultural values which they must follow and respect. It is as if they are in a recycle system. In addition, in a South Asian society, male children are preferred over female; girls must be virgins before they marry; chastity is only required for women, but not for men. Brides’ families have to give dowries if their daughter wants to marry a man. However, the values of dowry depend on the man’s status in the societies. Furthermore, women who cannot conceive or who are widows are not respected and also not given important place in most social and family functions. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Therefore, in a national liberation struggle, women are stuck between both men oppressors and the oppressed (</span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Ismail 1677)</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">. In the oppressed nationalistic standpoints, women are responsible for producing children, particularly male, to continue the national struggle and they are also responsible for representing their nation in the name of tradition and culture which are mostly based on patriarchal standpoints. Therefore, in the gaze of oppressors who have hegemonic nationalistic racist standpoints, women are the main and first targets when they invade the other nation. That is why, </span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Enloe argues that for women “</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">living as a nationalist feminist is one of the most difficult political projects in today’s world” (223). </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">In addition, Nira Yuval-Davis argues that gender roles play an important role in cultural </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">representation and mostly women are implicated with patriarchal nationalistic standpoints (218). Even though most nationalist liberation struggles are not class struggles, they are democratic struggles. However, (at least for Tamil liberationists) the struggles have been led mostly by patriarchs. Therefore, women are used as combatants and for other services, but have been limited in their power and space and cultural values which are mostly patriarchal and fundamentalist. Because of this conflict and the lack of proper empowerment about women’s issues in the Tamil society, former women rebels face many problems when they come back to normal life. Like all other societies which struggled for a national liberation, Tamil society also did not welcome and accept former Tamil women rebels after the end of the war. The evidence for the patriarchal standpoints of the Tamil Nation over women fighters can be seen through the ways in which these women have been treated by Tamil society since the so called end of the war. One of the UN reports says that it is difficult for them to get a job or adapted to society again, even when they are willing to do so, because of the patriarchal social stigma against them (2011). The reason is, Tamil societies and their culture function as a barrier for the former women rebels to come back to normal life. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">The societies follow traditional customs according to which women are not equal to men in every ways. These rebel women are considered as undisciplined and disobedient women who are not suitable for family life. In addition as Nira Yuval-Davis argues that it is also related to their sexual behavior (220) because these women are not going to be obedient and always be in passive and listen to their men as they were before or like their mothers or the way society expect them to live. Therefore, these former rebels, once up on a time rebel hero’s of liberation struggle, are degraded to lower level than other Tamil women in the society. To wrap up, the construction of a human body as a matter without soul and the social construction of the “other,” make it easy for people to kill. In addition, the construction of “other” makes it easier for people not only kill but also torture and rape the “other”. </span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Judith Butler argues that</span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> </span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">‘sex’ is an ideal construct which is forcibly materialized through time… [and]…</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">achieve this materialization through a forcible reiteration of those norms” (1,2) She continues that </span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">“as a process of materialization that stabilizes over time to produce the effect of boundary, fixity, and surface we call matter” (9). </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">In the picture, we can see a person with a weapon in his hands ready to kill the person. In the video they repeatedly killed many people </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">without any hesitation. The people in both video and picture belong to a particular group, race or ethnicity or nationality who can be an American, Taliban, Indian, or Sri Lankan or even Tamils. In these ways, the video and photos might represent what has been happening until now around the world. For example, if it is viewed in a global context as, it can be, before 1950s the person who has the weapon might be a colonizer from Europe and the “other” might be a colonized person somewhere in Africa or Asia, or since the 1960s, an American or NATO soldier in Vietnam, Iraq, or Afghanistan, or Soviet soldier in Eastern European countries, or after 1983 Sri Lankan soldier and a Tamil rebel, or Tamil militant and a Tamil civilian or a rebel from a different rebel groups and so on. Why is this </span><shape alt="http://www.uruknet.info/pic.php?f=23lynndie-england450.jpg" id="_x0000_s1036" style="height: 143.2pt; margin-left: 253.45pt; margin-top: 399.8pt; position: absolute; visibility: visible; width: 217pt; z-index: 9;" type="#_x0000_t75"><imagedata o:href="http://www.uruknet.info/pic.php?f=23lynndie-england450.jpg" src="file:///C:%5CUsers%5Cosho%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_image019.jpg"></imagedata><wrap type="square"></wrap></shape><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">happening? Just a simple reason is that the construction of “other” by the people who have the power. This construction of “other” has been rooted deeper within ourselves in different forms such as civilized and uncivilized or primitive, white and black, Tamils and Sinhalese, men and women and heterosexuality and homosexuality and so on.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">In conclusion, we fight for our freedom and on the other hand we also deny or oppress at least unconsciously “others.” This particular essay may be relevant to the Tamils and Sinhalese and their men and women, but can be read by white men and women, black men and women and so on. Every one of them who read it, are on the one hand oppressed on many levels for many reason in many spaces and a time. On the other hand, they are also oppressors in many spaces and levels in their societies. Most of us are concerned only about the oppression which we are facing, but are not aware or care about the oppression we are responsible for. For example, as Tamil men, we blame the Sri Lankan government for their oppression, but we “forget” or are not aware of what we are doing to the women in the Tamil societies or so called lower caste people. These same behaviors we can see in Sinhala people, white people even in Black people, and so on too. What we are not aware of is our intersectional identity of being oppressors and oppressed. Therefore, developing more awareness is one of the ways to get rid of these conflicts. To end, Rajini Thiranagama once argued that, “if nationalism is a type of aggressive patriotism, then a concept of women’s liberation would be working against the inner core of such a struggle” (</span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Ismail </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">1678). In addition, </span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Cynthia Enloe points out that</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> “if… [women are critical of patriarchal practices and attitudes and] a gendered tension will develop within the national community. This could produce a radically new definition of “the nation” (</span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Ismail </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">1678). Therefore, this essay is not to blame who are responsible for the negative actions in the struggle or war but to interrogate our past actions and thoughts for the future struggle in better, developed and progressive standpoints. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Works Cited</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Crenshaw, K. (2006). Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and violence </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">against women of colour. <i>An Introduction of Women’s Studies: Gender in a Transnational World. </i>Ed. Grewal, I and Kaplan. New York: McGraw-Hill Publishers, 2006 (SECOND EDITION). pp.200 – 206.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">De Alwis, M. (2002)</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">The Changing Role of Women in Sri Lankan Society. Social Research. 69 </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">(3), 676 – 691.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Enloe, C. (2006). Nationalism and Masculinity. <i>An Introduction of Women’s Studies: </i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><i><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Gender in a Transnational World. </span></i><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Ed. Grewal, I and Kaplan. New York: McGraw-Hill Publishers, 2006 (SECOND EDITION). pp. 222 -228.<i></i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Frankenberg, R. (1993). Introduction. Points of Origin, Points of Departure.<i> White Women: Race </i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><i><span lang="EN-CA" style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Matters. On the Social Construction of Whiteness.</span></i><span lang="EN-CA" style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> </span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.pp.1-18.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Gowrinathan, N. (2010). Why Do Women Rebel? Understanding State Repression and Female</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Participation in Sri Lanka. <i>CSW Update Newsletter</i>, Los Angeles. pp. 34 – 40.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Ismail, Q. (1992). 'Boys Will Be Boys': Gender and National Agency in Frantz Fanon and LTTE.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><i><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Economic and Political Weekly</span></i><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">, 27(31/32), pp. 1677-1679.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">King, C. (2006). Making Things Mean. <i>An Introduction of Women’s Studies: </i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><i><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Gender in a Transnational World. </span></i><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Ed. Grewal, I and Kaplan. New York: McGraw-Hill Publishers, 2006 (SECOND EDITION). pp. 273 -275.<i></i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Lorde, A. (1984). Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Mclintock, A. (1996). <i>Imperial Leather: Race, Gender and Sexuality in the Colonial </i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Contest. </span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Routledge. New York.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Nieves, G. (2006). Gender Inequality, the Desire for Political Self-Determination, And a</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Longing for Revenge: Three Main Causes of Female Suicide Bombers. History. 496 (1).</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Samath, F. (2010). <span class="googqs-tidbit1">How the War Gave Tamil Women More Space.<span style="color: #996600;"> </span><i>Inter Press Services</i>.</span> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=51132. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Stack-O'Connor, A. (2007). Lions, Tigers, and Freedom Birds: How and Why the Liberation </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Tigers of Tamil Eelam Employs Women. <i>Terrorism and Political Violence</i>. 19 (1), 43 – </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">63.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Yuval-Davis, N. (2006). Gender and Nation.</span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> </span><i><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">An Introduction of Women’s Studies: Gender in a </span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><i><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Transnational World. </span></i><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Ed. Grewal, I and Kaplan. New York: McGraw-Hill Publishers, </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">2006 (SECOND EDITION). pp. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> 217 – 221.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Yuval-Davis, N. (1997). </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Women, Citizenship and Difference.<b> </b><i>Feminist Review</i>, 57,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Citizenship: Pushing the Boundaries. (Autumn, 1997), pp. 4-27.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoFooter" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">f.n: 1- Not considering Sinhala and Tamil people are one society but as many societies. </span></div><div class="MsoFooter" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> 2. even there was a Sri Lankan soldier covered the nude bodies. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br />
</div></div>மீராபாரதி meerabharathyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04864604775581602269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4350163001081036315.post-36789419293800780042011-05-16T14:39:00.001-07:002011-05-26T18:52:22.482-07:00The Need for Chaotic Methods - osho<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><strong>Traditional methods are systematic</strong> because the people in earlier times for whom they were developed were different. Modern man is a very new phenomenon. No traditional method can be used exactly as it exists, because modern man never existed before. So, in a way, all traditional methods have become irrelevant.<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 20px;">For example, the body has changed so much. It is not as natural now as it was in the days when Patanjali developed his system of Yoga. It is absolutely different. It is so drugged that no traditional method can be helpful.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 20px;">In the past, medicine was not allowed to Hatha yogis, absolutely not allowed, because chemical changes will not only make the methods difficult but harmful. But the whole atmosphere is artificial now: the air, the water, society, living conditions. Nothing is natural. You are born in artificiality; you develop in it. So traditional methods will prove harmful today. They will have to be changed according to the modern situation.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 20px;">Another thing: the quality of the mind has basically changed. In Patanjali’s days, the center of the human personality was not the brain; it was the heart. Before that, it was not even the heart. It was still lower, near the navel. Hatha Yoga developed methods which were useful, meaningful, to the person whose center of personality was the navel. Then the center became the heart. Only then could Bhakti Yoga be used. Bhakti Yoga developed in the Middle Ages because that is when the center of personality changed from the navel to the heart.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 20px;">A method has to change according to the person to whom it is applied. Now, not even Bhakti Yoga is relevant. The center has gone even further from the navel. Now, the center is the brain. That is why teachings like those of Krishnamurti have appeal. No method is needed, no technique is needed — only understanding. But if it is just a verbal understanding, just intellectual, nothing changes, nothing is transformed. It again becomes an accumulation of knowledge.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 20px;">I use chaotic methods rather than systematic ones because a chaotic method is very helpful in pushing the center down from the brain. The center cannot be pushed down through any systematic method because systemization is brain work. Through a systematic method, the brain will be strengthened; more energy will be added to it.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 20px;">Through chaotic methods the brain is nullified. It has nothing to do. The method is so chaotic that the center is automatically pushed from the brain to the heart. If you do my method of Dynamic Meditation vigorously, unsystematically, chaotically, your center moves to the heart. Then there is a catharsis. A catharsis is needed because your heart is so suppressed, due to your brain. Your brain has taken over so much of your being that it dominates you. There is no place for the heart, so the longings of the heart are suppressed. You have never laughed heartily, never lived heartily, never done anything heartily. The brain always comes in to systematize, to make things mathematical, and the heart is suppressed.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 20px;">So firstly, a chaotic method is needed to push the center of consciousness from the brain toward the heart.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 20px;">Then catharsis is needed to unburden the heart, to throw off suppressions, to make the heart open. If the heart becomes light and unburdened, then the center of consciousness is pushed still lower; it comes to the navel. The navel is the source of vitality, the seed source from which everything else comes: the body and the mind and everything.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 20px;">I use this chaotic method very considerately. Systematic methodology will not help now, because the brain will use it as its own instrument. Nor can just the chanting of <i>bhajans</i> help now, because the heart is so burdened that it cannot flower into real chanting. Chanting can only be an escape for it; prayer can only be an escape. The heart cannot flower into prayer because it is so overburdened with suppressions. I have not seen a single person who can go deep into authentic prayer. Prayer is impossible because love itself has become impossible.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 20px;">Consciousness must be pushed down to the source, to the roots. Only then is there the possibility of transformation. So I use chaotic methods to push the consciousness downward from the brain.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 20px;">Whenever you are in chaos, the brain stops working. For example, if you are driving a car and suddenly someone runs in front of you, you react so suddenly that it cannot be the work of the brain. The brain takes time. It thinks about what to do and what not to do. So whenever there is a possibility of an accident and you push the brake, you feel a sensation near your navel, as if it were your stomach that is reacting. Your consciousness is pushed down to the navel because of the accident. If the accident could be calculated beforehand, the brain would be able to deal with it; but when you are in an accident, something unknown happens. Then you notice that your consciousness has moved to the navel.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 20px;">If you ask a Zen monk, “From where do you think?” he puts his hands on his belly. When Westerners came into contact with Japanese monks for the first time they could not understand. “What nonsense! How can you think from your <i>belly</i>?” </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 20px;">But the Zen reply is meaningful. Consciousness can use any center of the body, and the center that is nearest to the original source is the navel. The brain is furthest away from the original source, so if life energy is moving outward, the center of consciousness will become the brain. And if life energy is moving inward, ultimately the navel will become the center.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 20px;">Chaotic methods are needed to push the consciousness to its roots, because only from the roots is transformation possible. Otherwise you will go on verbalizing and there will be no transformation. It is not enough just to know what is right. You have to transform the roots; otherwise you will not change.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 20px;">When a person knows the right thing and cannot do anything about it, he becomes doubly tense. He understands, but he cannot do anything. Understanding is meaningful only when it comes from the navel, from the roots. If you understand from the brain, it is not transforming.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 20px;">The ultimate cannot be known through the brain, because when you are functioning through the brain you are in conflict with the roots from which you have come. Your whole problem is that you have moved away from the navel. You have come from the navel and you will die through it. One has to come back to the roots. But coming back is difficult, arduous.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 20px;">Kundalini Yoga is concerned with life energy and its inward flow. It is concerned with techniques to bring the body and mind to a point where transcendence is possible. Then, everything is changed. The body is different; the mind is different; the living is different. It is just life.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 20px;">A bullock cart is useful, but it is no longer needed. Now you are driving a car, so you cannot use the technique that was used with the bullock cart. It was useful with the bullock cart, but it is irrelevant with the car.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 20px;">Traditional methods have an appeal because they are so ancient and so many people have achieved through them in the past. They may have become irrelevant to us, but they were not irrelevant to Buddha, Mahavira, Patanjali or Krishna. They were meaningful, helpful. The old methods may be meaningless now, but because Buddha achieved through them they have an appeal. The traditionalist feels: “If Buddha achieved through these methods, why can’t I?”</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 20px;">But we are in an altogether different situation now. The whole atmosphere, the whole thought-sphere, has changed. Every method is organic to a particular situation, to a particular mind, to a particular man.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 20px;">The opposite extreme is that of Krishnamurti. He denies all methods. But to do that, he has to deny Buddha. It is the other aspect of the same coin. If you deny the methods then you have to deny Buddha, and if you do not deny Buddha then you cannot deny his methods.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 20px;">These are extremes. Extremes are always wrong. You cannot deny a falsehood through taking an extreme position to it, because the opposite extreme will still be a falsehood. The truth always lies exactly in the middle. So to me, the fact that the old methods don’t work doesn’t mean that no method is useful. It only means that the methods themselves must change.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 20px;">Even no-method is a method. It is possible that to someone only no-method will be a method. A method is always true in relation to a particular person; it is never general. When truths are generalized, they become false. So whenever anything is to be used or anything is to be said, it is always addressed to a particular human being: to his attention, to his mind, to him and no one else.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 20px;">This too has become a difficulty now. In the old days there was always a one-to-one relationship between a teacher and a disciple. It was a personal relationship and a personal communication. Today it is always impersonal. One has to talk to a crowd, so one has to generalize. But generalized truths become false. Something is meaningful only to a particular person.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 20px;">Any person who has been talking in general can be consistent, but then the truth becomes false, because every statement that is true is bound to be addressed to a particular person. Of course, the truth is eternal — it is never new, never old — but truth is the realization, the end. The means are always relevant or irrelevant to a particular person, to a particular mind, to a particular attitude.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 20px;">As I see the situation, modern man has changed so much that he needs new methods, new techniques.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 20px;">Chaotic methods will help the modern mind because the modern mind is, itself, chaotic. This chaos, this rebelliousness in modern man is, in fact, a rebellion of other things: of the body against the mind and against its suppressions. If we talk about it in yogic terms we can say that it is the rebellion of the heart center and the navel center against the brain.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 20px;">These centers are against the brain because the brain has monopolized the whole territory of the human soul. This cannot be tolerated any further. That is why universities have become centers of rebellion. It is not accidental. If the whole society is thought of as an organic body, then the university is the head, the brain.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 20px;">Because of the rebelliousness of the modern mind, it is bound to be lenient toward loose and chaotic methods. Dynamic Meditation will help to move the center of consciousness away from the brain. Then the person using it will never be rebellious, because the cause of rebellion becomes fulfilled. He will be at ease.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 20px;">So to me, meditation is not only a salvation for the individual, a transformation for the individual; it can also provide the groundwork for the transformation of the whole society, of the human being as such.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 20px;">Man will either have to commit suicide, or he will have to transform his energy.</div><div align="center">Osho, <i>The Psychology of the Esoteric</i>, Talk #4</div></div>மீராபாரதி meerabharathyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04864604775581602269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4350163001081036315.post-70842266094117809762011-05-14T08:37:00.000-07:002011-05-26T19:04:35.500-07:00The Importance of Expression of Emotions and Osho’s Active Meditation: A Research Proposal<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The Importance of Expression of Emotions and Osho’s Active Meditation: </span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">A Research Proposal.</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Abstract </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Stress is one of the main psychological problems everyone faces around the globe. Meditation is one of the alternative treatment modality to reduce or cure it. However, people face difficulties in practicing meditation, particularly passive techniques. Therefore, Osho created a new method of meditation, active mediation techniques. This paper tries to compare these two different methods of meditation techniques and shows the importance of expression of emotions before sitting for a silent passive meditation. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-language: TA;">Katya Rubia (2009), professor at King’s college in London, England, in</span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> reference to World Health Organization and other research studies</span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-language: TA;"> such as Mathers and Loncar (2005), argues that </span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">in the next decade, the world is going to face more psychological and mental health problems. Already, people in all fields are affected by stress, depression and post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) which are some of the important mental health issues the world now faces. Moreover, there are many life events which have negative impacts in their life. In addition to Counselling & Disability Services at York, the University Health Network (2010, 2011), The Canadian Mental Health Association (2011) and many other social services organizations are concerned about the issues related to stress. Therefore, all of these organizations and others promote at least six ways to reduce stress and raise relaxation. These are meditations techniques, </span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-language: TA;">progressive muscle relaxation, autogenic training, breathing exercises, yoga stretching, and imagery (</span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Gillani & </span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-language: TA;">Smith, </span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">2001</span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-language: TA;">). However,</span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> one of the most promoted is meditation for stress release and relaxation (Gillani & </span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-language: TA;">Smith, </span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">2001; </span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-language: TA;">Shao & Skarlicki, 2009</span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">). There are many meditation methods which have many different techniques and most of them are either passive or active. However, not much is known in the academic field about Osho’s active meditation techniques and whether it is better than passive techniques. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to argue that the importance and usefulness of the expression of emotion which is part of Osho’s active meditation before sitting for a silence passive meditation in order to release stress and raise relaxation and awareness. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">It is regret to see that there has not been much research done in Osho’s meditation except two. One exception is Anthony D’Andrea’s (2007) anthropological study about Osho’s active meditation method and </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: TA;">Avni Vyas (2007) pilot study for his Phd. thesis</span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">. </span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-language: TA;">D’Andrea (2007)</span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> and </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: TA;">Vyas (2007) </span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">state that Osho alias Rajneesh who is an Indian mystic created new method of active meditation by incorporating eastern and western philosophies and therapeutic techniques. Unfortunately, in the Western and Eastern therapeutic world, they have been following either active or passive methods separately without combing them. That is why, Osho (2003, 2010) argues that doing only traditional passive meditation is not very helpful because it is too difficult for most people who live now. However, he continues that it was suitable for people in those times when Buddha was alive. These traditional methods have been followed for a long time even before Buddha, Gowdhama Siddhartha. However, this method became popularized after his contribution to this work (Osho, 1974, 2010). Since then, it has been widely used even now in the academic field.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">There are many different traditional meditation methods and techniques used to reduce stress which have long and short term benefits (</span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-language: TA;">Weiss, Nordlie & Siegel, </span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">2005). However, passive meditation methods such as Vipassana, Zen, Mindfulness or </span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-language: TA;">T</span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">ranscendental Meditations (TM), are followed by most people who practice meditation or do study or research on it (</span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-language: TA;">Rubia, 2009; Osho, 1974, 2003)</span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">. These methods usually involve sitting silently and watching one’s own breath and thoughts, or scanning the body with closed eyes without any judgment </span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-language: TA;">but it begins with concentrating on a particular word or thing</span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> (</span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-language: TA;">Rubia, 2009)</span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">. </span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-language: TA;">Noori B. Gillani and Jonathan C. Smith </span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">(2001) also argue that TM by Mahes Yogi </span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-language: TA;">(Shao & Skarlicki, 2009) </span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">and Zen Meditation methods have been widely shown in academic research to reduce stress and to solve other psychological issues.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These traditional meditations, like mindfulness meditation, are also very helpful for identifying symptoms of stress in its beginning stages. Its conscious breathing helps distract the thought patterns and reduce their affects (</span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-language: TA;">Toneatto & Nguyen, 2007</span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">). </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Osho (2003, 2010) however has criticized TM method because it is just like a mother helping a child to sleep by repeating a mantra and good for people who have sleep problems but not for reducing stress or other psychological problems. </span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-language: TA;">Rubia (2009)</span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> also says that this method is commercialized and just repeating any mantras like “ram…or rama”. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One hand, traditional methods are more disciplined and systematic which do not help to break the old disciplined and conditioned mind even though help some to relax (Osho, 2003, 2010). On the other hand, Osho (2003, 2010) argues that now people are not attached to and less aware of their bodies, and live a fast and mechanical life with more disciplined minds and lives. In addition, they have suppressed their emotions and feelings because of their social conditioning and culture. Also, people have full of unnecessary knowledge and thoughts because there has been an easy access to all kinds of information since the revolution in information technology. Therefore, it is difficult for them to sit, relax and watch their breath or thoughts because everyone is so tense (Osho, 2003, 2010). That is why there has been always a modification in meditation methods and techniques.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Gillani and </span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-language: TA;">Smith</span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> (2001) also argue that Zen meditation is not that useful for non-meditating participants. Therefore, the </span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-language: TA;">Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) method </span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">was created by </span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-language: TA;">Kabat- Zinn. This new method</span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> incorporates different kind of techniques like yoga, breathing and other techniques including Zen for stress reduction and enhances performance </span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-language: TA;">(2001). Since this was created, it </span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">has been widely used to study, particularly in the academic field in North America and Europe, in order to reduce stress and also other psychological issues and have shown proven results. Therefore, this method has an accepted validity and reliability as well (2001).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even though, these techniques are famous, whether these are useful for everyone or just only for particular gender and personalities is an ongoing study. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-language: TA;">Shao and Skarlicki (2009) are some of the few who have studied the effects of MSBR on a group of MBA students to examine their performance. They found out that mindfulness meditation improved their performance. However, they found that there was a difference in results between genders because women improved more than men. They support their result based on neuroscience research studies because, mindfulness meditation activated both left and right hemispheres (Shao & Skarlicki, 2009).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>fMRI showed females used both left and right hemispheres but males used only their left hemisphere. Therefore, they concluded that women do better in their performance. However, even though passive meditation helps men to activate both sides of their brain simultaneously, male brains inhibit their performance since they use one side of the brain which competes with the other side, therefore not improve their performance (2009). This shows that MBSR is also, like a traditional passive meditation techniques even though it incorporates different techniques, not much helpful for everyone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Therefore, these passive meditations show some inadequacies in their techniques.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">In addition, people who are new to meditation say that it is difficult to practice meditation because it is very hard to sit quietly and free the mind from thoughts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Another reason is, during meditation, many people are aware of many thoughts, a lot of new thoughts than normally when they sit down and doing nothing (Osho, 2003, 2010).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Therefore, most of the people find it is difficult to reach a state of “no mind.” That is why Osho (2010) says that he had created a new modern method called active meditation. Osho (2003) argues, even though meditation itself is a passive state or method, there is something missing in practicing traditional meditation techniques for the current generation to prepare them to go into a meditative state; the active part. Therefore, he divided his meditation method into two parts with different techniques such as active and passive. Most of the first part of Osho’s meditation method is the active part which includes catharsis, fast and chaotic breathing through the nose or mouth, jumping, dancing, crying, laughing and gibberish (Osho, 2003, 2010; </span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-language: TA;">D’Andrea, 2007; </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: TA;">Vyas, 2007</span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-language: TA;">). </span></div><shapetype coordsize="21600,21600" filled="f" id="_x0000_t75" o:preferrelative="t" o:spt="75" path="m@4@5l@4@11@9@11@9@5xe" stroked="f"><stroke joinstyle="miter"></stroke><formulas><f eqn="if lineDrawn pixelLineWidth 0"></f><f eqn="sum @0 1 0"></f><f eqn="sum 0 0 @1"></f><f eqn="prod @2 1 2"></f><f eqn="prod @3 21600 pixelWidth"></f><f eqn="prod @3 21600 pixelHeight"></f><f eqn="sum @0 0 1"></f><f eqn="prod @6 1 2"></f><f eqn="prod @7 21600 pixelWidth"></f><f eqn="sum @8 21600 0"></f><f eqn="prod @7 21600 pixelHeight"></f><f eqn="sum @10 21600 0"></f></formulas><path gradientshapeok="t" o:connecttype="rect" o:extrusionok="f"></path><lock aspectratio="t" v:ext="edit"></lock></shapetype><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><shape id="_x0000_s1026" style="height: 168pt; left: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 5.6pt; position: absolute; text-align: left; width: 168pt; z-index: -4;" type="#_x0000_t75" wrapcoords="-96 0 -96 21504 21600 21504 21600 0 -96 0"><imagedata o:title="Dynamic meditation" src="file:///C:\Users\osho\AppData\Local\Temp\msohtmlclip1\01\clip_image001.jpg"></imagedata><wrap type="tight"></wrap></shape><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Osho argues that, first, there is a need for the expression of suppressed emotions and feelings and the use of chaotic expression to free the mind of thoughts in order to connect with their own body again (Osho, 2003, 2010; </span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-language: TA;">D’Andrea, 2007; </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: TA;">Vyas, 2007</span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-language: TA;">)</span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">. It is important to combine the active parts like catharsis with anger, laughter and crying as an expression with the passive part and created as one method of meditation in order to reduce stress and raise relaxation and awareness (Osho, 2003, 2010). </span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-language: TA;">Leslie Greenberg</span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> (2008) also emphasizes in his studies the importance of emotional expression and awareness in order to have a healthy body and mind. Only then, can people go into a deep meditation or meditative state and can have an experience of it by watching their breath and thoughts. Therefore, Osho added a passive part as the second and last part for his meditation method which is the same as traditional meditation methods and gives meditative experience and helps to raise relaxation and awareness (2003). </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJxhkOCHXLzZzf8iACG4yaPOt3_a-jYPQ1ReAfhEWXg6DK3E62iiAWQeJAOrC-4VkHsLs2svL0hSmaMDmcAvmfNE9mslfZ72ga98qgDLIDNvSkch6IY6jU9u_LDUzGBXHhQf78YoZSEoXV/s1600/Dynamic+meditation.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" j8="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJxhkOCHXLzZzf8iACG4yaPOt3_a-jYPQ1ReAfhEWXg6DK3E62iiAWQeJAOrC-4VkHsLs2svL0hSmaMDmcAvmfNE9mslfZ72ga98qgDLIDNvSkch6IY6jU9u_LDUzGBXHhQf78YoZSEoXV/s200/Dynamic+meditation.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br />
<div></div><div></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><shape id="_x0000_s1027" style="height: 168pt; margin-left: 338.15pt; margin-top: 451.85pt; position: absolute; width: 112.5pt; z-index: -3;" type="#_x0000_t75" wrapcoords="-144 0 -144 21504 21600 21504 21600 0 -144 0"><imagedata o:title="dance" src="file:///C:\Users\osho\AppData\Local\Temp\msohtmlclip1\01\clip_image004.jpg"></imagedata><wrap type="tight"></wrap></shape><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Osho (2003, 2010) argues that the emotional expression is important to reduce stress and raise relaxation and awareness. Since the emotions are deeply suppressed within, it is the basic cause for the stress or depression and other psychological problems.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In support to Osho’s argument, </span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-language: TA;">Ruth Davidhizar and Margaret Bowen (1992) argue that the emotional expression like crying helps to relax and otherwise it causes depression and can affect physically and psychologically such as PTSD symptoms after a traumatic event </span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">(Anderson,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Guajardo, Jennifer,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Luthra,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>& Edwards, <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">2010)</span></span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-language: TA;">. Hence, Antonio Pascual-Leone and Leslie S. Greenberg (2007) argue, it is difficult to categories emotions as positive or negative since both help to heal the person when they express it. Emotions transform from one to another for example when people either start to laugh or cry, the other emotion would follow in the middle of the process (Osho, 2003, 2010).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the same way, anger might transform in to sadness (Pascual-leone & Greenberg, 2007). This shows that there is an interconnection among emotions and as result, when expressing one emotion might lead to another emotion which might be the primary emotion and the real cause of the present stress or depression (Pascual-leone & Greenberg, 2007; Osho, 2003, 2010). Therefore, what is important in the first place is as Osho (2003) and Pascual-leone and Greenberg (2007) argue that acceptance and being aware of own emotions whether it is positive or negative. They also argue that it is important to identify what kind of emotion the person has (2007). Only then, expression of emotions is possible and it will help to heal the physical and psychological problems of the participants (Osho, 2003). After expressing all of these so-called negative emotions, participants might feel relax but have low energy. Therefore they need some positive energy, coping skills and attitudes towards life in order to live a healthy life. This can be done through laughter and meditation.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPY93ONnv7wwFZLylrWXDrmcun2z43-14CzR7aCMcVdlXiCsrwhwhsycA3FjWmSo2OR3ffPP7lv6NCA8UywhRuPnpL7z7eExzM7rgyBlwhmkiPwN2Jxpm3IZjeo64YNUl01xBElCb9Xecn/s1600/dance.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" j8="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPY93ONnv7wwFZLylrWXDrmcun2z43-14CzR7aCMcVdlXiCsrwhwhsycA3FjWmSo2OR3ffPP7lv6NCA8UywhRuPnpL7z7eExzM7rgyBlwhmkiPwN2Jxpm3IZjeo64YNUl01xBElCb9Xecn/s200/dance.jpg" width="133" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-language: TA;">Laughter has two functions. First, it helps to reduce stress and then it transforms negative emotions and energy into positive emotions, accumulates more energy within the participants and healthy relationship between the participants (Osho, 2003, 2010; Sutorius, 1995). Davidhizar and Bowen (1992) discuss that laughter as a tool reduces stress and raises relaxation. It is a natural part of human nature and is used to cure physical, psychological issues such as pain and stress (1992). Sutorius (1995) argues from his own experience that laughing everyday at least for some time, fifteen minutes, makes people relax and helps them to solve their day to day problems in a creative way. He says that he learned laughing meditation from Osho (2003, 2010) who says “laugh for no reason at all, just for the sake of the laughter, just laugh.” In addition, Sutorius (1995) says that anyone can laugh at their own problems and it makes them lighter and allows them to see the problems from a different perspective.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Melany Cueva, Regina Kuhnley, Anne Lanier and Mark Dignan (2006) also support these ideas about laughter based on the research study which they have done with First nation people in Alaska. In addition, Dacher Keltner and George A. Bonanno (1997) have done a study with the people who have lost their spouse or relatives and they found that there was an improvement in the participants’ life by practicing laughter. The participants had less sorrow and stress but had more happiness. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhp18SN5D0zkC6CHVtoaXpE5Th75Sly7DzBVICXF5-c5UB6-gcb2Wfp0HEPbpXxcN6l4xrRQUH7ViBrs_l9_CUBeuf7hPUf4_4IHOM24O-OMp7AaeooDxlC2fUI0sYaXOpRjgXrA2VmNwGx/s1600/laughing+buddha.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="185" j8="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhp18SN5D0zkC6CHVtoaXpE5Th75Sly7DzBVICXF5-c5UB6-gcb2Wfp0HEPbpXxcN6l4xrRQUH7ViBrs_l9_CUBeuf7hPUf4_4IHOM24O-OMp7AaeooDxlC2fUI0sYaXOpRjgXrA2VmNwGx/s200/laughing+buddha.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-language: TA;">Osho (2003, 2010), Sutorius (1995), Keltner and Bonanno (1997) and Cueva et al., (2006) argue that even artificial laughter has its own effect because after all, it is laughter in the end ,while others such as Davidhizar and Bowen (1992) argue that artificial laughter is not that effective. Moreover, not only does it help the people who are close to laughing people, but it is infectious and spreads the laughter too. However, all of these researches agree on one point, that t</span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">he laughter can be used to reduce stress and pain and raise relaxation. The reason is laughter stimulates the immune system which is cut short when a person has stress. Another reason is that laughter </span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-language: TA;">simulates the secretion of betaendorphines in the brain and thus affects pain-receptor sites of the nerve cells and reduces pain sensations </span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">and massages the muscles in the face and makes a state of relaxation (</span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-language: TA;">Davidhizar & Bowen, 1992, Martin, 2001)</span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">. </span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-language: TA;">Nicholas A. Kuiper and Rod A. Martin (1998) take is argument one step further and posit that laughter functions as barrier to stop the stress in its beginning stages. People who laugh regularly do not have a stressful life but have a positive attitude towards life compared to people who do not laugh (Kuiper and Martin 1998; Cueva et al., 2006). </span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">After the expression of emotions and explosion of laughter, relaxation might happen by itself to the participants. Most of the Western therapies stop </span><shape id="_x0000_s1028" style="height: 102pt; left: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 259.6pt; mso-position-horizontal-relative: text; mso-position-vertical-relative: text; position: absolute; text-align: left; width: 110.25pt; z-index: -2;" type="#_x0000_t75" wrapcoords="-147 0 -147 21441 21600 21441 21600 0 -147 0"><imagedata o:title="laughing buddha" src="file:///C:\Users\osho\AppData\Local\Temp\msohtmlclip1\01\clip_image005.jpg"></imagedata><wrap type="tight"></wrap></shape><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">their treatment here and miss the meditative part as coping skills for the future. However, Osho’s added traditional passive techniques as a last part to his method. Most of the traditional Eastern Therapeutic and meditation followers begins this last part as the first step and miss the emotional expression.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">The last part of the Osho’s active meditation is that doing nothing and just let go when the silence might happens itself within without any effort by the participants (2003, 2010). This is called as the meditative state of a participant which is called as no-mind in the meditative field (Osho, 2003, 2010) or mindfulness in the academic filed, but in the commercialized world, it is limited with relaxation. However, this is the ultimate goal of the meditation and this might happen within a short period by practicing Osho’s active meditation than the passive meditation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The reason is that participants might feel themselves full of energy and experience of relaxation after the explosion of expressing all the suppressed emotions through catharsis and laughter by practicing Osho’s active meditation. Then silence happens by itself for the participants and that is the time to go deeper in to themselves by being aware of their thoughts and breathing or doing nothing (Osho, 2003, 2010). Rubia (2009) says that meditative part help the participants in four levels such as physical, cognitive, emotional and psychological levels. In addition, she says, there are several other internal functions happens within the body and brain such as neurophysiological activities (2009).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These all help to reduce stress and raise relaxation and awareness in the participants.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-language: TA;"></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6BbP__CekME_2XRkPyBmOpXA0SIPeMX04Hc2IhS7I6gIDbq8fgCtOkV-Rek8ZbdgnMx_dbFdBMO2XcsJ_kn0yUqW_pdUcmWIn_w26jLYXp2y2Meb81qRdZdqvm8226Nmm5i2JfvqX4_cR/s1600/meditate.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" j8="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6BbP__CekME_2XRkPyBmOpXA0SIPeMX04Hc2IhS7I6gIDbq8fgCtOkV-Rek8ZbdgnMx_dbFdBMO2XcsJ_kn0yUqW_pdUcmWIn_w26jLYXp2y2Meb81qRdZdqvm8226Nmm5i2JfvqX4_cR/s200/meditate.jpg" width="192" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><shape id="_x0000_s1029" style="height: 102.75pt; left: 0px; margin-left: 357.7pt; margin-top: 4.85pt; position: absolute; text-align: left; width: 99pt; z-index: -1;" type="#_x0000_t75" wrapcoords="-164 0 -164 21442 21600 21442 21600 0 -164 0"><imagedata o:title="meditate" src="file:///C:\Users\osho\AppData\Local\Temp\msohtmlclip1\01\clip_image007.jpg"></imagedata><wrap type="tight"></wrap></shape><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-language: TA;">Rubia (2009) also explains that the ultimate goal of meditation is to make the mind free of thoughts, relaxation and self-actualization. Dhvan Sutorius (1995) says that meditation is being aware of thoughts without thinking or judging anything or a state of “no mind.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Moreover, meditation raises physical and mental relaxation and offers physical, psychological, and emotional balance </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">(Zayfert, & Becker, 2007) </span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-language: TA;">and it does not give any side effects compared to other pharmaceutical treatments and it costs nothing (Rubia, 2009).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Besides, m</span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">editation is one the best natural treatments for reducing stress and other psychological problems, and gives many other positive results as by-products (Oman et al., 2008; </span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-language: TA;">Skevington & White, 1998). </span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Oman et al., (2008) supported their argument with many other research studies which have been done by Shapiro, Astin, Winzelberg and Luskin and </span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-language: TA;">Tloczynski and Tantriella. In addition, Osho (1974, 2003, & 2010) also emphasizes that the goal of meditation is to raise the consciousness, or conscious awareness, or awareness of the individual and be now-here, in the present. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">It can be concluded that emotional expression such as anger, laughter, and crying are important parts for relaxation and reduction of stress. Therefore, this paper propose that <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Osho’s active meditation methods can be used for a research study to know whether active meditation reduce stress or even PTSD symptoms and raise awareness or not. There are more than ten active meditation techniques which are one hour long are available to do a research study (osho.com). For example, doing catharsis for ten minutes, laughing for ten minutes, crying ten minutes and then being silent and doing nothing for thirty minutes as a passive part of the meditation. This method can be compared to passive meditation method, “Vippassana” which is being silent and watching and being aware of own breath and thoughts without any judgments with closed eyes for sixty minutes. <span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">In addition, Osho’s dynamic meditation, kundalini meditation and also laughing meditation can be used to do a research study. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-language: TA;">Kuiper and Martin (1998) also recommended in their studies that in the future there is a need to find out that how laughter works with different genders and personalities. </span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Therefore, it can be also purposed another study just comparing laughing for fifteen minutes and silent for fifteen minutes with thirty minutes silent meditation to know whether these techniques reduce stress or PTSD symptoms and raise relaxation or not. The hypotheses will be that </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">active meditation is better than passive meditation in reducing stress or PTSD symptoms and raising relaxation. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">If this research study has been done and find positive results, it could be used in Sri Lanka, particularly in North and Eastern province where people have been affected by war and violence for last 25 years and natural disaster like tsunami. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">They have to overcome their psychological affects of war and tsunami like stress, depression and PTSD, not only fight for their rights and freedom but also to live their day to day life. Therefore, they need all kind of supports from everyone. Only a healthier society can fight for their freedom in a healthy way.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Meerabharathy.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">photos: osho.com</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">References</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: left;"></div><span lang="ES-TRAD" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: ES-TRAD; mso-bidi-language: TA;"><span lang="ES-TRAD" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: ES-TRAD; mso-bidi-language: TA;"></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">.</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span lang="ES-TRAD" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: ES-TRAD; mso-bidi-language: TA;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-language: TA; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span lang="ES-TRAD" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: ES-TRAD; mso-bidi-language: TA;">Cueva, M., Kuhnley, R., Lanier, A., & Dignan, M. (2006). </span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-language: TA;">Healing hearts: Laughter and learning. <i>Journal of Cancer Education, 21</i>(2), 104-107.</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-language: TA; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-language: TA;">Canadian Mental Health Association, (2011). Coping with Stress. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mental Health Week</i>. Retrieved, 05, 2011, from http://www.cmha.ca/bins/content_page.asp?cid=2-28-30&lang=1.</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-language: TA; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-language: TA;">D’Andrea, A. (2007). Osho international meditation resort (PUNE, 2000s): An anthropological analysis of sannyasin therapies and the Rajneesh legacy. <i>Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 47</i>(1), 91-116.</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-language: TA; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-language: TA;">Davidhizar, R., & Bowen, M. (1992). The dynamics of laughter. <i>Archives </i>of <i>Psychiatric Nursing, 6</i>(2),<i> </i>132-137.<i></i></span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Donnellan, M. B., Oswald, F. L., Baird, B. M. & Lucas, R. E. (2006). The Mini-IPIP Scales: Tiny-yet-effective measures of the Big Five Factors of Personality. <i>Psychological Assessment, 18</i>(2), 192-203.<br />
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</div></div></div>மீராபாரதி meerabharathyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04864604775581602269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4350163001081036315.post-66148564930133856132011-04-04T12:03:00.000-07:002011-05-26T19:05:20.912-07:00Sex Workers Also Belong to Working Class!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span class="hlgt_nws_Dtls"><b><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Garamond", "serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;">Sex Workers Also Belong to Working Class!</span></b><tt><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Garamond", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"></span></tt></span> <br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span class="hlgt_nws_Dtls"><tt><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Garamond", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">International Women's Day events in Toronto also had a discussion, </span></tt><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Garamond", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">“</span><tt><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Garamond", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Sex Work in Toronto: Decriminalize vs. Legalize. What are the issues?” At the event, they discussed about sex work, sex worker and their problems. Sex work, which is called prostitution, is an outcome of patriarchal, heterosexual and monogamous society. This is a society, according to </span></tt><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Garamond", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Marilyn Frye, a lesbian writer, teacher, theorist, and philosopher at </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Garamond", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Michigan State University</span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Garamond", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">, “men and …institutions, relationships, roles, and activities which are male-defined, male-dominated, and operating for the benefit of males and the maintenance of male privilege…” (1993: 92). Therefore, it is not a surprise that they use women as prostitutes to experience their “favourite sexual escape fantasies” (1993: 94), which is beyond missionary position. On the other hand, the male chauvinist society labelled the sex worker as a prostitute, someone who is doing third-grade and low-class work than so called normal work that people ordinarily for their living. This is the hypocritical stand of this male chauvinist society. However,</span><tt><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Garamond", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> at the event, a s</span></tt><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Garamond", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">ex worker was not described as a prostitute, but as a social worker. In addition, guest speakers and participants talked about and discussed sex work and the industry, the practical and legal problems which sex workers face, their status, identity, and how they live and survive in the male chauvinist society. Moreover, they shared how they fight for their rights as a group, their feelings such as shame, anger, and worries and their adjustment with normative society. These discussions made clear that sex work must be integrated with the normative society by making it legal, decriminalizing and recognizing it like other work. In addition, sex workers should be respected and recognized like other workers. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Garamond", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="hlgt_nws_Dtls">“The time has come to think about sex” (1984: 267) says Galle Rubin, an a<span style="color: black;">ssistant Professor, Anthropology and Women's Studies at the <place st="on"><placetype st="on">University</placetype> of <placename st="on">Michigan</placename></place></span>. She says that some people think that sex is not as important as other issues in society. However, she argues against them, saying that sex and sexuality have their own politics within themselves and also with outside world. That is why there are laws against some sexual behaviours and activities, for example prostitution is prohibited (1984: 268). This view has dominated humankind and is expressed through laws and in practical life. These laws and practical attitude discriminate against sex workers in this society. Therefore, it is very difficult to live as a sex worker because they have to face many practical legal problems while they do their work. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Garamond", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="hlgt_nws_Dtls">One of the attitudes is that sex work is not accepted and respected by this society. Even though sex work is legal in <city st="on"><place st="on">Toronto</place></city>, working as a sex worker is really a challenge and difficult. At the event they shared some issues, for example, that men who are the main customers could possibly exploit, sexually abuse, and rape sex workers. In addition to this, pimps who are the agent for sex workers have the possibilities to exploit them. Not only them, even the police, who are mostly men and have the responsibility to protect citizens, can arrest sex workers for many reasons. One of the reasons is violating laws by selling sex for money, but not arresting the customers who are mostly men who pay sex worker to have sex. This attitude of the police is real discrimination against sex workers. Moreover, the public and the neighbours can harsh the sex workers by spitting on them, insulting them and some people even use boiling water and dogs against sex workers (Event March, 11th 2009). This shows how sex workers are discriminated against by society through their attitudes, laws, and behaviours. Therefore, liberating sex workers from society is the first step to liberate the sex. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Garamond", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="hlgt_nws_Dtls">There are many ways to liberate themselves from the oppressors. One of the way, Audre Lorde who describes herself “as a forty-nine-year-old Black lesbian feminist socialist mother if two…and a member of an interracial couple” (1984: 114) says, “it is the responsibility of the oppressed to teach the oppressors their mistakes” (1984: 114). Her argument is that humanity is divided and conditioned by the oppressors since many groups such as “dominant/subordinate, good/bad, up/down, superior/inferior” and even more like race, color, gender (1984: 114), sex and sexuality. After oppressors made such divisions, they have been dominating humankind the way they want. Since most sex workers who are part of their division are women, it is easy for oppressors to treat sex workers in an inhuman way because women are already in their controlled and an oppressed gender. Sex workers as a group are already oppressed; hence, they have to teach their oppressors such as men, government, and religious institutions. For example, what they do against sex workers, how they treat, discriminate against and dominate them. Sex workers should speak for their rights and fight against illegal and criminal status of their work and discrimination against them. This is another way of teaching oppressors.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Garamond", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="hlgt_nws_Dtls"></span><span class="hlgt_nws_Dtls">Another point of view, Lorde agues is that sex worker’s rights are also part of women rights too because most of the sex workers are women. Therefore, all women beyond their colour, race, status and national should unite (1984: 117) and raise their voice for sex workers’ rights and protection. These oppressions should not be repeated again and again but that is what happening so far because we as oppressed people are not learning from our past and not listening to the people who have been oppressed. (1984: 117). Many people not only women, even some feminists are not listening to sex workers because they have their own thoughts and beliefs about sex work. They do not understand that sex workers are also oppressed by men and male chauvinist ideas. Most of us are still under the condition of male chauvinist ideas but unfortunately we are not able to separate these ideas from our normal thoughts. As Lorde says that, “heterosexual black women often tend to ignore and discount the existence and work of black lesbians” (1984: 121). The same thing is happening for the sex workers who are ignored by women. Sex workers as social workers are, on the one hand, really facing practical problems and difficulties to live and other hand fight for their rights and against the discrimination. As social workers, they also fight to liberate sex from domination of patriarchal society. This is very important in this time as Galle Rubin mentions in her writing (1984: 267). To understand this, “as women, we must root out internalized patterns of oppression within ourselves if we are to move beyond the most superficial aspects of social change” (Lorde 1984: 122). Otherwise she says, “Refusing to recognize difference makes it impossible to see the different problems and pitfall facing us as women” (1984: 118). This would be not only unfortunate for the sex liberation and sex workers but also for the women liberation too.</span></span></div><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Garamond", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="hlgt_nws_Dtls">Legal problems are another important problem to consider because it is an issue not only affecting particularly women sex workers but also women in general. Even though sex work is legal in <country-region st="on"><place st="on">Canada</place></country-region>, sex workers cannot communicate with other persons to sell sex for money because it is violating the law. That is illegal says <span style="color: black;">Kara Gillies, who was a sex worker and has been active in the sex workers rights movement for over twenty years and one of the guest speakers at the event. She also adds that sex worker can be arrested under the criminal law and have to live in jail.</span> Sex workers organizations are saying that this law is against freedom of speech. Therefore, sex work should be decriminalized by government because it will allow sex workers to work freely by opening their businesses wherever they want without fear and work together with other sex workers since this would be safer for them too. (<span style="color: black;">Murdock 2009</span>). However, mostly men make the laws and policies based on their social beliefs which are international like disrespect and criminal act. </span></span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Garamond", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="hlgt_nws_Dtls"></span><span class="hlgt_nws_Dtls">(</span></span><span lang="EN-CA" style="color: black; font-family: "Garamond", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="hlgt_nws_Dtls">Cset</span></span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Garamond", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="hlgt_nws_Dtls"> and Seshu <span style="color: black;">2004:</span> </span></span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Garamond", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="hlgt_nws_Dtls">9). </span></span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Garamond", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="hlgt_nws_Dtls">Moreover, “Julia Query, sex worker,[says]... no matter what you think about sex work and its ‘morality,’ it is a legitimate feminist position to argue that women in sex work - there by "choice" or economic despair-- deserve to be safe, to have rights as workers and legal recourse for abuse or discrimination from clients and employers (Nguyen <span style="color: black;">15 Apr. 2009</span> ). </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Garamond", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="hlgt_nws_Dtls">Sex workers’ rights are also women’s rights and therefore human rights. But the male chauvinist societies and their governments do not care about women’s and sex workers’ rights. The reason is, Marilyn Frye claims, that men depend on women for their needs. That is why men are afraid to give freedom and accept women’s rights because women can get the power over their own body. Then men cannot use her whenever, wherever and however he needs and wants (1993: 95). Then she described that, “male parasitism means that males must have access to women it is the patriarchal imperative….total power is unconditional access, total powerlessness is being unconditionally accessible” (1993: 95). Women having rights over their body is a problem for men because it denies their power. Particularly men like to have total power particularly when it comes to a sex worker. Men do not like this attitude from a sex worker if the sex worker has the power to refuse anything which is asked of them. This creates a problem for them. That is why men are against giving rights to sex workers. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Garamond", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="hlgt_nws_Dtls">Sex workers are doing a service for people in the patriarchal society where sex is suppressed and discriminated against. Therefore, being a sex worker is not their fault because people need their services and they are providing them. However, sex is not a sin as we believed for long time. Sex is natural and sexual behaviours are a normal act of every human being. Therefore, sex work is natural work too and should be accepted as normal as all other works. Hence, sex work should be legalized and recognized by laws if a person chooses to offer sex for money for his/her living, pleasure or any other reasons by using his/her body without abusing and exploiting others such as customers. It is his/her basic human right and therefore government’s responsibility is to make it legal and decriminalize the sex work. This is one of the ways that society will begin to accept and respect sex work and worker. It is all human beings such as men and women responsibility is to “root out” (Lorde 1984: 122) our male chauvinist ideologies from our minds and bodies. It is a way to free sex from male chauvinist society and respect and accept sex work as it is and workers as they are because they are also part of working class.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-size: 12pt;"></span><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span class="hlgt_nws_Dtls"><b><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Garamond", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Bibliography</span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="color: black; font-family: "Garamond", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span class="hlgt_nws_Dtls">Csete, Joanne., and, Meena Saraswathi Seshu. (2004). “Still underground:<br />
searching for progress in realizing the human rights of women in prostitution”. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="color: black; font-family: "Garamond", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span class="hlgt_nws_Dtls"></span><span class="hlgt_nws_Dtls"><u>HIV/AIDS Policy & Law Review</u>. Vol. 9 Issue 3,</span></span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Garamond", "serif";"><span class="hlgt_nws_Dtls"><span style="font-size: 100%;"> p1-13, 7p.</span></span></span><span lang="EN-CA" style="color: black; font-family: "Garamond", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span class="hlgt_nws_Dtls"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Garamond", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span class="hlgt_nws_Dtls">Frye, Marilyn. (1993). “Some Reflections on Separatism and Power”. <u>The Lesbian and Gay </u></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span class="hlgt_nws_Dtls"><u><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Garamond", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Studies Reader</span></u><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Garamond", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">. Ed. Henry Abelove et al. Routledge. Pp.91-98.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Garamond", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Garamond", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span class="hlgt_nws_Dtls">Lorde, Audre. (1984). “Age, Race, Class and Sex: Women Redefining Difference”. <u>Sister </u></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span class="hlgt_nws_Dtls"><u><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Garamond", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Outside: Essays and Speeches.</span></u><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Garamond", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"> Crossing Press. Pp.114-123.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="color: black; font-family: "Garamond", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="color: black; font-family: "Garamond", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span class="hlgt_nws_Dtls">Murdock, Jessie. (2009). “A closer look at decriminalizing<br />
prostitution”. <u>The Gazette</u>. <place st="on"><city st="on">London</city> <state st="on">ON</state></place>. <place st="on"><placename st="on">Western</placename> <placetype st="on">University</placetype></place>.<br />
<br />
Nguyen, Mimi Thi. (15 Apr. 2009).</span></span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Garamond", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span class="hlgt_nws_Dtls"> <a href="https://mymail.yorku.ca/horde/util/go.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.worsethanqueer.com%2F&Horde=0fea0a9adb53aeefb70d7bbe5f93a992" target="_blank"><span style="color: #333399; font-family: Arial;">http://www.worsethanqueer.com/</span></a></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Garamond", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Garamond", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span class="hlgt_nws_Dtls">Rubin, <place st="on"><city st="on">Galle</city></place>. (1984). “Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality”. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span class="hlgt_nws_Dtls"><u><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Garamond", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Pleasure and Danger: Exploring Female Sexuality.</span></u><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Garamond", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"> Ed. Carole Vance, <place st="on"><city st="on">Boston</city></place>: </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Garamond", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span class="hlgt_nws_Dtls">Routledge and Kegan. pp.267-319.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="color: black; font-family: "Garamond", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"></span></div><span class="hlgt_nws_Dtls"></span></div><span class="hlgt_nws_Dtls"></span></div><span class="hlgt_nws_Dtls"></span></div><span class="hlgt_nws_Dtls"></span></div><span class="hlgt_nws_Dtls"><span style="font-family: Arial;"></span></span></div><span class="hlgt_nws_Dtls"><span style="font-family: Arial;"></span></span></div><span class="hlgt_nws_Dtls"><span style="font-family: Arial;"></span></span></div><span class="hlgt_nws_Dtls"><span style="font-family: Arial;"></span></span></div><span class="hlgt_nws_Dtls"><span style="font-family: Arial;"></span></span></div><span class="hlgt_nws_Dtls"><span style="font-family: Arial;"></span></span></div><span class="hlgt_nws_Dtls"><span style="font-family: Arial;"></span></span></div><span class="hlgt_nws_Dtls"><span style="font-family: Arial;"></span></span></div><span class="hlgt_nws_Dtls"><span style="font-family: Arial;"></span></span></div><span class="hlgt_nws_Dtls"><span style="font-family: Arial;"></span></span></div><span class="hlgt_nws_Dtls"><span style="font-family: Arial;"></span></span></div><span class="hlgt_nws_Dtls"><span style="font-family: Arial;"></span></span></div><span class="hlgt_nws_Dtls"><span style="font-family: Arial;"></span></span></div><span class="hlgt_nws_Dtls"><span style="font-family: Arial;"></span></span></div><span class="hlgt_nws_Dtls"><span style="font-family: Arial;"></span></span></div><span class="hlgt_nws_Dtls"><span style="font-family: Arial;"></span></span></div><span class="hlgt_nws_Dtls"><span style="font-family: Arial;"></span></span></div>மீராபாரதி meerabharathyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04864604775581602269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4350163001081036315.post-66914962609161656242010-12-28T17:36:00.000-08:002011-05-26T18:59:33.500-07:00Start and finish your day with Laughter - Osho<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">L A U G H T E R by OSHO<br />
Osho Laughing Buddha Meditation <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5fAuTg8dKQ">in Video</a><br />
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When a child is born, the first social activity that the child learns — or maybe it is not right to say learns, because he brings it with himself — is smiling. The first social activity. By smiling he becomes part of society. It seems very natural, spontaneous. Other things will come later on — that is his first spark of being in the world, when he smiles. When a mother sees her child smiling, she becomes tremendously happy...because that smile shows health, that smile shows intelligence, that smile shows that the child is not stupid, not retarded. That smile shows that the child is going to live, love, be happy. The mother is simply thrilled.<br />
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Smiling is the first social activity, and should remain the basic social activity. One should go on laughing the whole of one’s life.<br />
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If you can laugh in all sorts of situations, you will become so capable of encountering them — and that encounter will bring maturity to you.<br />
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I am not saying don’t weep. In fact, if you cannot laugh, you cannot weep. They go together; they are part of one phenomenon: of being true and authentic.<br />
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There are millions of people whose tears have dried; their eyes have lost luster, depth; their eyes have lost water — because they cannot weep, they cannot cry; tears cannot flow naturally. If laughter is crippled, tears are also crippled.<br />
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Only a person who laughs well can weep well.<br />
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And if you can weep and laugh well, you are alive. The dead man cannot laugh and cannot weep. The dead man can be serious. Watch: go and look at a corpse — the dead man can be serious in a more skillful way than you can be. Only an alive man can laugh and weep and cry.<br />
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These are moods of your inner being, these are climates — enriching. But, by and by, everybody forgets. That which was natural in the beginning becomes unnatural. You need somebody to poke you into laughter, tickle you into laughter; only then do you laugh. That’s why so many jokes exist in the world.<br />
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Laughter brings strength. Now, even medical science says that laughter is one of the most deep-going medicines nature has provided man with.<br />
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If you can laugh when you are ill you will get your health back sooner.<br />
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If you cannot laugh, even if you are healthy, sooner or later you will lose your health and you will become ill.<br />
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Laughter brings some energy from your inner source to your surface. Energy starts flowing, follows laughter like a shadow. Have you watched it?<br />
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When you really laugh, for those few moments you are in a deep meditative state.<br />
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Thinking stops. It is impossible to laugh and think together. They are diametrically opposite: either you can laugh or you can think. If you really laugh, thinking stops. If you are still thinking, laughter will be just so-so, it will be just so-so, lagging behind. It will be a crippled laughter.<br />
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When you really laugh, suddenly mind disappears. As far as I know, dancing and laughter are the best, natural, easily approachable doors. If you really dance, thinking stops. You go on and on, you whirl and whirl, and you become a whirlpool: all boundaries, all divisions are lost. You don’t even know where your body ends and where the existence begins. You melt into existence and the existence melts into you; there is an overlapping of boundaries. And if you are really dancing — not managing it but allowing it to manage you, allowing it to possess you — if you are possessed by dance, thinking stops.<br />
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The same happens with laughter. If you are possessed by laughter, thinking stops. And if you know a few moments of no-mind, those glimpses will promise you many more rewards that are going to come. You just have to become more and more of the sort, of the quality, of no-mind. More and more, thinking has to be dropped.<br />
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Laughter can be a beautiful introduction to a non-thinking state.<br />
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The moment you feel that sleep is gone, first start laughing, then open the eyes — and that will set a trend for the whole day.<br />
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If you can laugh early in the morning you will laugh the whole day.<br />
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You have created a chain effect; one thing leads to another. Laughter leads to more laughter.<br />
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Almost always I have seen people doing just the wrong thing. From the very early morning they get out of bed complaining, gloomy, sad, depressed, miserable. Then one thing leads to another...and for nothing. And they get angry...it is very bad because it will change your climate for the whole day, it will set a pattern for the whole day.<br />
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Try it! Start and finish your day with laughter, and you will see, by and by, in between these two more and more laughter starts happening.<br />
OSHO:A Sudden Clash of Thunder</div>மீராபாரதி meerabharathyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04864604775581602269noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4350163001081036315.post-14835573682365665872010-12-28T17:32:00.000-08:002011-05-26T19:00:10.185-07:00LEARN TO LAUGH AT YOURSELF - Osho<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">People laugh at others, but never laugh at themselves. It has to be learned. If you can laugh at yourself, seriousness is already gone. It cannot make its abode within you if you are capable of laughing at yourself. <br />
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In Zen monasteries every monk has to laugh. The first thing in the morning to do is to laugh, the very first thing. The moment the monk becomes aware that he is no longer asleep, he has to jump out of bed, stand in a posture like a buffoon, like a circus joker, and start laughing, laughing at himself. There cannot be any better beginning of the day. <br />
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Laughing at oneself kills the ego and you are more transparent, more light, when you move in the world. And if you have laughed at yourself, then others' laughter toward you won't disturb you. In fact they are simply cooperating, they are doing the same thing that you were doing. You will feel happy. <br />
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To laugh at others is egoistic; to laugh at oneself is very humble. Learn to laugh at yourself-about your seriousness and things like that. You can get serious about seriousness. Then instead of one, you have created two diseases. Then you can get serious about that also, and you can go on and on. There is no end to it; it can go on ad nauseam. <br />
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So take hold of it from the very beginning. The moment you feel you are serious, laugh about it and look for where the seriousness is. Laugh, give a good laugh, close the eyes and look for where it is. You will not find it. It exists only in a being who cannot laugh. <br />
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A more unfortunate situation cannot be conceived, a poorer being cannot be conceived of, than the man who cannot laugh at himself. So start the morning by laughing at yourself, and whenever you can find a moment in the day when you have nothing to do, have a good laugh. For no particular reason-just because the whole world is so absurd, just because the way you are is so absurd. There is no need to find any particular reason, The whole thing is so absurd that one has to laugh. <br />
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Let the laughter be a belly laughter, not a head-thing. One can laugh from the head: then it is dead. From the head everything is dead; the head is absolutely mechanical. You can laugh from the head: then your head will create the laughter, but it will not go deep in the belly to the hara. It will not go to your toes, it will not go to your whole body. A real laugh is just like a small child laughs. Watch his belly shaking, his whole body throbbing with it-he wants to roll on the floor. It is a question of totality. He laughs so much that he starts crying; he laughs so deeply that the laughter becomes tears, tears come out of him. A laughter should be deep and total. This is the medicine that I prescribe for seriousness. <br />
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A laughter should be deep and total. This is the medicine that I prescribe for seriousness. You would like me to give you some serious medicine. That won't help. You have to be a little foolish. In fact, the highest pinnacle of wisdom always carries foolishness in it, the greatest wise men of the world were also the greatest fools. <br />
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It will be hard to understand. You cannot think that they can be fools because your mind always divides: a wise man can never be a fool, and a fool can never be a wise man. Both attitudes are wrong. There have been great fools who were very wise. <br />
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In the old days, in every king's court, there was a great fool-the court fool. He was a balancing force because too much wisdom can be foolish, too much of anything can be foolish. Somebody was needed who could bring things back to earth. A fool was needed in the kings' courts who would help them to laugh, otherwise wise people tend to become serious, and seriousness is an illness. Out of seriousness you lose proportion, you lose perspective. So every king's court had a fool, a great fool, who would say things and do things and bring things back to earth. <br />
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I have heard that one emperor had a fool. One day the emperor was looking in the mirror. The fool came, jumped, and hit him with his feet in the back. The emperor fell against the mirror. He was, of course, very angry and he said, "Unless you can give some reason for your foolish act which is more criminal than the act itself, you will be sentenced to death." <br />
The fool said, "My Lord, I never thought that you were here. I thought the queen was standing here." <br />
He had to be pardoned because he had given a reason that was even more foolish. But to find such a reason, the fool must have been very wise. <br />
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Every great wise man-Lao Tzu, Jesus-they have a certain quality of sublime foolishness. This has to be so because a wise man otherwise will be a man without salt, he will taste awful. He has to be a little foolish also. Then things are balanced. Look at Jesus-riding on a donkey and saying to people, "I am the Son of God." Look at it! He must have been both. People must have laughed: "What are you saying? Saying such things, and behaving in such a way...." <br />
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But I know that's how perfect wisdom appears. Lao Tzu says, "Everybody is wise, except me. I seem to be foolish. Everybody's mind is clear; only my mind seems to be murky and muddled. Everybody knows what to do and what not to do: only I am confused." What does he mean? He is saying that "In me, wisdom and foolishness meet together." And when wisdom and foolishness meet together, there is a transcendence. <br />
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So don't be serious about seriousness. Laugh about it, be a little foolish. Don't condemn foolishness; it has its own beauties. If you can be both, you will have a quality of transcendence within you. <br />
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The world has become more and more serious. Hence so much cancer, so much heart disease, so much high blood pressure, so much madness. The world has been moved, forced, towards one extreme too much. Be a little foolish also. Laugh a little, be like a child. Enjoy a little, don't carry a serious face everywhere, and suddenly you will find a deeper health arising in you-deeper sources of your health become available. <br />
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Have you ever heard about any fool who went mad? It has never happened. I have always been searching for a report of any foolish man who went mad. I have not come across one. Of course a fool cannot go mad because to be mad you need to be very serious. I have also been searching to see if fools are in any way prone to be more healthy than the so-called wise. And it is so: fools are more healthy than the so-called wise. They live in the moment and they know that they are fools, so they are not worried about what others think about them. That worry becomes a cancerous phenomenon in the mind and body. They live long, and they have the last laugh. <br />
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Remember that life should be a deep balancing, a very deep balancing. Then, just in the middle, you escape. The energy surges high, you start moving upwards. And this should be so about all opposites. Don't be a man and don't be a woman: be both, so that you can be neither. Don't be wise, don't be a fool: be both, so you go beyond. <br />
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[From Come Follow To You , Volume 1, #4]</div>மீராபாரதி meerabharathyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04864604775581602269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4350163001081036315.post-17591701801781712942010-12-28T17:16:00.000-08:002011-06-14T08:17:47.149-07:00Three types of Laughter -Osho<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">three types of laughter<br />
It has to be understood that there are three types of laughter. The first is when you laugh at someone else. This is the meanest, the lowest, the most ordinary and vulgar when you laugh at the expense of somebody else. This is the violent, the aggressive, the insulting type Deep down this laughter there is always a feeling of revenge.<br />
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”The second type of laughter is when you laugh at yourself. This is worth achieving. This is cultured. And this man is valuable who can laugh at himself. He has risen above vulgarity. He has risen above lowly instincts – hatred, aggression, violence.<br />
<br />
”And the third is the last – the highest. This is not about anybody – neither the other nor oneself. The third is just Cosmic. You laugh at the whole situation as it is. The whole situation, as it is, is absurd – no purpose in the future, no beginning in the beginning. The whole situation of Existence is such that if you can see the Whole – such a great infinite vastness moving toward no fixed purpose, no goal – laughter will arise. So much is going on without leading anywhere; nobody is there in the past to create it; nobody is there in the end to finish it. <br />
<br />
Such is whole Cosmos – moving so beautifully, so systematically, so rationally. If you can see this whole Cosmos, then a laughter is inevitable. ”I have heard about three monks. No names are mentioned, because they never disclosed their names to anybody. They never answered anything. <br />
<br />
In China, they are simply known as the three laughing monks. And they did only one thing: they would enter a village, stand in the market place and start laughing. They would laugh with their whole being and suddenly people would become aware. Then others would also get the infection and a crowd would gather. The whole crowd would start laughing just because of them. What was happening? The whole town would get involved. Then they would move to another town. ”They were loved very much. That was their only sermon, their only message; that laugh. And they would not teach; they would simply create a situation.<br />
<br />
”Then it happened that they became famous all over the country. Three laughing monks. All of China loved them, respected them. Nobody had ever preached in such a way that life must be just a laughter and nothing else. They were not laughing at anyone in particular. They were simply laughing as if they had understood the Cosmic joke. And they spread so much joy all over China without using a single word. People would ask for their names, but they would simply laugh. So that became their name – the three laughing monks.<br />
<br />
”Then they grew old. And while staying in one village. one of the three monks died. The whole village became very much expectant because they thought that when one of them had died, the other two would surely weep. This must be worth seeing because no one had ever seen these people weeping. The whole village gathered. But the two monks were standing beside the corpse of the third and laughing – such a belly laugh. So the villagers asked them to explain this.<br />
<br />
”So for the first time, the two monks spoke and said, ’We are laughing because this man has won. We were always wondering as to who would die first and this man has defeated us. We are laughing at our defeat and his victory. Also he lived with us for many years and we laughed together and we enjoyed each other’s togetherness, presence. There can be no better way of giving him the last send off. We can only laugh.<br />
<br />
”But the whole village was sad. And when the dead monk’s body was put on the funeral pyre, then the village realized that the remaining two monks were not the only ones who were joking, the third who was dead was also laughing. He had asked his companions not to change his clothes. It was conventional that when a man died they changed his dress and gave a bath to the body. So the third monk had said, ’Don’t give me a bath because I have never been unclean. So much laughter has been in my life that no impurity can accumulate, can come to me. I have not gathered any dust.<br />
<br />
Laughter is always young and fresh. So don’t give me a bath and don’t change my clothes.’ ”So just to respect his wishes, they did not change his clothes. And when the body was put to fire, suddenly they became aware that he had hidden some Chinese fire-works under his clothes and they had started going off. So the whole village laughed and the other two monks said: ’You rascal, you are dead, but you have defeated us once again. Your laughter is the last.’<br />
<br />
”There is a Cosmic laughter which comes into being when the whole joke of this Cosmos is understood. That is of the highest. And only a Buddha can laugh like that. These three monks must have been three Buddhas. But if you can laugh the second type of laughter, that is also worth trying. Avoid the first. Don’t laugh at anyone’s expense. That is ugly and violent. If you want to laugh, then laugh at yourself.<br />
<br />
”That’s why Mulla Nasruddin, in all his jokes and stories, always proves himself the stupid one, never anybody else. He always laughs at himself and allows you to laugh at him. He never puts anybody else in the situation of being foolish. Sufis say that Mulla Nasrudin is the wise fool. Learn at least that much – the second laughter.<br />
<br />
”If you can learn the second, then the third will not be far ahead. Soon you will reach the third. But leave the first type. That laughter is degrading. But almost ninety-nine percent of your laughter is of the first type. Much courage is needed to laugh at oneself. Much confidence is needed to laugh at oneself. <br />
<br />
”For the spiritual seeker, even laughter should become a part of Sadhana. Remember to avoid the first type of laughter. Remember to laugh the second. And remember to reach the third.”<br />
<br />
Laughter is eternal, life is eternal, celebration continues. Actors change but the drama continues. Waves change but the ocean continues. You laugh, you change--and somebody else laughs--but laughter continues. You celebrate, somebody else celebrates, but celebration continues. <br />
<br />
Existence is continuous, it is a continuum. There is not a single moment's gap in it. No death is death, because every death opens a new door--it is a beginning. There is no end to life, there is always a new beginning, a resurrection. <br />
<br />
If you change your sadness to celebration, then you will also be capable of changing your death into resurrection. So learn the art while there is still time.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
I have heard about three Chinese mystics. Nobody knows their names now, and nobody ever knew their names. They were known only as the "Three Laughing Saints" because they never did anything else; they simply laughed. <br />
<br />
These three people were really beautiful--laughing, and their bellies shaking. And then it would become an infection and others would start laughing. The whole marketplace would laugh. When just a few moments before, it was an ugly place where people were thinking only of money, suddenly these three mad people came and changed the quality of the whole marketplace. Now they had forgotten that they had come to purchase and sell. Nobody bothered about greed. For a few seconds a new world opened. <br />
<br />
They moved all over China, from place to place, from village to village, just helping people to laugh. Sad people, angry people, greedy people, jealous people--they all started laughing with them. And many felt the key--you can be transformed. <br />
<br />
Then, in one village it happened that one of the three died. Village people gathered and they said, "Now there will be trouble. Now we have to see how they laugh. Their friend has died; they must weep." <br />
<br />
But when they came, the two were dancing, laughing and celebrating the death. The village people said, "Now this is too much. When a man is dead it is profane to laugh and dance." <br />
<br />
They said, "The whole life we laughed with him. How can we give him the last send-off with anything else?--we have to laugh, we have to enjoy, we have to celebrate. This is the only farewell that is possible for a man who has laughed his whole life. We don't see that he is dead. How can laughter die, how can life die?" <br />
<br />
Then the body was to be burned, and the village people said, "We will give him a bath as the ritual prescribes." But those two friends said, "No, our friend has said, 'Don't perform any ritual and don't change my clothes and don't give me a bath. You just put me as I am on the burning pyre.' So we have to follow his instructions." <br />
<br />
And then, suddenly, there was a great happening. When the body was put on the fire, that old man had played the last trick. He had hidden many fireworks under his clothes, and suddenly there was a festival! Then the whole village started laughing. These two mad friends were dancing, then the whole village started dancing. <br />
<br />
It was not a death, it was a new life.<br />
<br />
Source: from Osho Book “Akshya Upanishad”<br />
<br />
<br />
Osho <br />
Source:<br />
Osho - "202 Jokes of Mulla Nasrudin"</div>மீராபாரதி meerabharathyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04864604775581602269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4350163001081036315.post-63653952316144261942010-12-28T17:05:00.000-08:002011-06-14T08:18:59.274-07:00THE TRANSFORMING FORCE OF THE LAUGHING MEDITATION<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><a href="http://www.odemagazine.com/doc/65/laughter-meditation/all">How laughter meditation can bring you peace and joy</a><br />
-by Dhyan Sutorius, M.D.<br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="http://home.kpn.nl/dhyansutorius/index_bestanden/LM_art_11_46_UK_27-6-06.pdf">THE TRANSFORMING FORCE OF THE LAUGHING MEDITATION</a><br />
<br />
by Dhyan Sutorius, M.D.<br />
<a href="http://home.kpn.nl/dhyansutorius/index_bestanden/LM_art_11_46_UK_27-6-06.pdf">http://home.kpn.nl/dhyansutorius/index_bestanden/LM_art_11_46_UK_27-6-06.pdf</a><br />
<br />
<br />
THE TRANSFORMING FORCE OF THE LAUGHING MEDITATION<br />
by Dhyan Sutorius, M.D.<br />
INTRODUCTION<br />
Laughter is a very special phenomenon. Unfortunately its (psycho) therapeutic value<br />
is underestimated and the incredible transforming force, hidden in laughter, is not<br />
used to its full extent. Laughter is a very good anti-stressor and gives a profound<br />
relaxation. I like to draw your attention to the laughing meditation, a structured<br />
exercise of 15 minutes with 3 stages: 1. stretching all the muscles, 2. laughing<br />
(and/or crying or laughing with the tears), 3. silence.<br />
The laughing meditation is no therapy, but it can be - as laughter is so healthy –<br />
sometimes very therapeutic! It can be used as adjuvans in all kinds of therapy and<br />
also in other situations it can enhance the coping with all of life's woes.<br />
In 1976 I learned from Osho - among other things - this laughing meditation, which I<br />
conduct since 1978 at all kinds of medical or other congresses and meetings,<br />
sometimes with more than 800 laughers, several times partly broadcasted on radio<br />
and television in different countries. In 1985 I founded the CENTRE IN FAVOUR OF<br />
LAUGHTER, and since then I conduct also "laughshops" = laughing meditation<br />
workshops. Laughter brings you in no time in the moment, in the here and now. It<br />
gives a deep relaxation at all levels. The "laughing muscles" are in general rather<br />
rigid, but will get better trained if you laugh more often. And every day you will feel : it<br />
is easier and easier to do! Meditation can be described as "awareness without<br />
thinking" or to be in the NO-MIND. That is possible in many situations when you do<br />
something totally with awareness. This can also happen when you are running,<br />
dancing, or working in the garden.<br />
INSTRUCTIONS<br />
The laughing meditation is a morning meditation, but it is also possible to do it later,<br />
before lunch or dinner. Bladder and stomach should be almost empty. It can be done<br />
alone or with "the other" in the mirror, or with any group of participants. Stay all the<br />
time in the moment and be total in every second of this short meditation, without<br />
forcing.<br />
Allow yourself to laugh without a reason. You may use any reason or situation, which<br />
let you laugh and – if you wish, as a third point - use a first class trigger : make a top<br />
ten of your favorite problems in such a way, that the heaviest problem you have right<br />
now, is your favorite problem number 1, and so on so forth. Suddenly you look at it<br />
from a totally different angle and more in perspective with all other things in life.<br />
Laughter transforms and makes things lighter. Sometimes I feel it myself as if I dive<br />
from the "hell" in my head, into the "paradise" in my belly!<br />
It is better to "laugh with" than to "laugh about" someone or something, placing<br />
yourself on the pedestal. To "laugh at" or to "laugh about” is cold and unpleasant, to<br />
"laugh with" is warm and accepting. That is why it is so pleasant to laugh with your<br />
partner, with children, with friends, with colleagues or with grandma. It is all heart<br />
energy!<br />
As laughter and crying are very close, it is possible that in the second stage your<br />
laughter suddenly turns into crying. If that happens, enjoy the crying, cry with all your<br />
energy from your belly, until the crying finishes by itself, and then start actively<br />
laughing again. So you may also laugh with your tears or cry with your laughter.<br />
STAGES OF THE LAUGHING MEDITATION<br />
1. Stretching, total stretching (5 minutes)<br />
Use all your energy to stretch your muscles and, if possible, start yawning. While<br />
stretching it is good to breathe out, without stretching inhale and continue the<br />
stretching breathing out. In the last minute of this first stage stretch your fingers<br />
backwards with your other hand and stretch your face muscles - without laughing –<br />
by making strange faces, while putting out your tongue in different directions and<br />
looking in the eyes of others.<br />
2. Laughing and/or crying (5 minutes)<br />
Smile and slowly, with a relaxed throat, start laughing without any force, until you<br />
have a really heartfelt belly laugh. Focus all the time your awareness on what there<br />
is for you in the moment, and whatever that is or whatever you feel in that very<br />
moment laugh with that. It is more a matter of allowing and of letting go. Let-go is<br />
the secret of meditation. Especially in the first minute let it built up slowly, just let it<br />
happen. Without forcing at all, just laugh "allegro ma non troppo", without<br />
screaming or yelling, only laughing and/or crying. Instead from the throat, relaxed<br />
laughing from the belly. Just let bubble your belly, let it be a belly ballet!<br />
If you have an other feeling or emotion, for instance when you get angry, then use<br />
the total energy of that other emotion to laugh or to cry with it. In the last minute of<br />
this stage close your eyes and continue laughing or crying.<br />
3. Silence (5 minutes)<br />
Suddenly stop laughing and keep your eyes closed. Let your whole body be still<br />
without any movements. The slightest movement will change your state of<br />
consciousness. Breathe in total silence without controlling the rhythm of your<br />
breathing. Just let it happen. Every time when you find yourself thinking, feel a<br />
"good bye!" for those thoughts and focus all your awareness on your body, on the<br />
contact with Mother Earth and also on the feelings you have in that very moment,<br />
whatever you feel, whatever it is, feel a "YES!" to that!<br />
If you can cry and allow your total being to go into if and dissolve into it, you will have a totally<br />
different quality of laughter arising in you Allow it. . It is beautiful!<br />
Osho<br />
A FEW REMARKS<br />
One remark about the giggles and hysterical laughter (le fou rire, schlapp lachen).<br />
Only if you totally, for 100 %, want to stop laughing, then you can. This sudden silence<br />
in the third stage of the laughing meditation is the big difference with all the other<br />
laughter. Your whole awareness is needed to be totally present in the moment.<br />
THERE IS NOTHING TO BE REACHED and respect your limits !<br />
The key of this meditation is always to focus your awareness on what there is for you<br />
in that very moment. Whatever it is, stretch, laugh (or cry) with it of be silent!<br />
Laughter has everything to do with ACCEPTANCE: the moment you accept totally the<br />
situation, the other(s) or yourself you can laugh. If someone gets some insights in a<br />
certain - sometimes difficult - situation, then quite often a roaring laughter emerges<br />
from the belly. It is also possible to do this the other way around: starting with laughter,<br />
......... and the insights follow as shadows!<br />
SOME RESPONSES OF PARTICIPANTS<br />
Some responses of participants after having done a laughing meditation: a deep<br />
relaxation / a feeling of being "whole" / a feeling of being unburdened / a feeling of<br />
peace / the pain is gone or the pain is less / I feel my tears or I feel sad / I feel as if I<br />
took a shower inside myself / a feeling of ACCEPTANCE: a huge "YES"' for what<br />
there is NOW, what I have NOW, for what I am NOW!<br />
CHRONIC PAIN PATIENTS<br />
With Dr. Wouter van der Schaar, a medical psychologist from the University of<br />
Amsterdam, I did in 1985 a research about the effects of this laughing meditation done<br />
by chronic pain patients, who could do this, after 3 weeks having done a daily<br />
laughing meditation, they felt in general better , they laughed more during the day,<br />
(their laughing muscles were more trained), the pain was often less, sometimes not,<br />
but they could always handle their pain better. So in the process of accepting they<br />
were more advanced.<br />
Also people with high-pitch voices will get a voice coming more from a natural level.<br />
Speaking, singing, crying and laughing come from the same centre in your belly.<br />
When a child falls on the floor, anyone can hear if the crying comes straight from the<br />
centre in the belly or a little bit higher, a little bit harder to let know the parents or the<br />
caretaker to give a hand to help. Also with laughter, you can hear if the laughter is<br />
forced, if the laughter is harder than the person feels it. The sound or the timbre of<br />
the laughter or the crying reveals clearly if it is forced or not.<br />
When you have a heartfelt belly laugh, all parts of your being - the physiological, the psychological,<br />
the spiritual - they all vibrate in one single tune, they all vibrate in harmony!<br />
Osho<br />
SUGGESTIONS<br />
Postpone your opinion about the effects of the laughing meditation on yourself until<br />
you have done this every day for at least 3 weeks (or even better 6 weeks). And<br />
every day as if it is for the very first time, be open to something new. To me - even<br />
after many laughing meditations - it is every time new, fresh and mind-blowing!<br />
Make your own LAUGHING MEDITATION DIARY: before and after the meditation it<br />
is good to find one or two words, which are the closest to the feelings you have in<br />
that moment. And if no words are coming up then perhaps you see – with closed<br />
eyes - an image or a picture, that shows your feelings of that moment the best, keep<br />
that in mind.<br />
After the laughing meditation you can write down those words or images or pictures<br />
and also - as a personal sharing or feedback -how the laughing meditation was that<br />
time. Do it the next day again as if you have never done it before, and so on so forth.<br />
After several weeks you will have a very interesting laughing meditation diary.<br />
I can recommend this laughing meditation at all kinds of congresses or meetings, or<br />
at work just in the first 15 minutes of the lunchbreak, only for those who want to do<br />
this. It is a first class energizer.<br />
As you have noticed, I am very fascinated by this phenomenon of laughter and I like<br />
to collect as many different experiences with laughter. If you like to share with me<br />
your experiences with laughter in general and with the laughing meditation in<br />
particular, I invite you to write this down and to send it to me in a letter,<br />
I wish you many good laughs,<br />
DHYAN SUTORIUS, M.D.<br />
CENTRUM TER BEVORDERING<br />
VAN HET LACHEN<br />
(CENTRE IN FAVOUR OF LAUGHTER)<br />
SECRETARIATE: JUPITER 1007<br />
NL-1115 TX DUIVENDRECHT<br />
THE NETHERLANDS<br />
TELEPHONE: +31 20 69 00 289<br />
www.lachmeditatie.info<br />
Dhyan Sutorius, M.D., has worked as a family doctor (G.P.) and as a ship’s<br />
doctor and later as a dermatologist in his private practice in one of the<br />
hospitals in Amsterdam. He conducts - since 1978 - this laughing meditation<br />
at all kinds of medical or other congresses and meetings, sometimes with<br />
more than 800 laughers, several times partly broadcasted on radio and<br />
television.<br />
In 1985 he founded in Duivendrecht (NL) the CENTRE IN FAVOUR OF<br />
LAUGHTER and is still conducting “LAUGHSHOPS “ = LAUGHING<br />
MEDITATIONS WORKSHOPS for different groups and companies. When<br />
people can laugh together, they can better work together!</div>மீராபாரதி meerabharathyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04864604775581602269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4350163001081036315.post-59200828136331282092010-12-28T17:00:00.000-08:002011-05-26T19:01:27.901-07:00THE FIVE SEXES. Why Male and Female Are Not Enough by ANNE FAUSTO-STERLING<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><a href="http://bms.brown.edu/faculty/f/afs/fivesexesprnt.pdf">THE FIVE SEXES.</a> Why Male and Female Are Not Enough by ANNE FAUSTO-STERLING<br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="http://abouthomosexuality.com/five-sexes.pdf">fausto-sterling the five sexes revisited</a><br />
<br />
Two Sexes Are Not Enough<br />
by Anne Fausto-Sterling<br />
<br />
In 1843 Levi Suydam, a 23-year-old resident of Salisbury, Connecticut, asked the town's board of selectmen to allow him to vote as a Whig in a hotly contested local election. The request raised a flurry of objections from the opposition party, for a reason that must be rare in the annals of American democracy: It was said that Suydam was "more female than male," and thus (since only men had the right to vote) should not be allowed to cast a ballot. The selectmen brought in a physician, one Dr. William Barry, to examine Suydam and settle the matter. Presumably, upon encountering a phallus and testicles, the good doctor declared the prospective voter male. With Suydam safely in their column, the Whigs won the election by a majority of one.<br />
<br />
A few days later, however, Barry discovered that Suydam menstruated regularly and had a vaginal opening. Suydam had the narrow shoulders and broad hips characteristic of a female build, but occasionally "he" felt physical attractions to the "opposite" sex (by which "he" meant women). Furthermore, "his feminine propensities, such as fondness for gay colors, for pieces of calico, comparing and placing them together, and an aversion for bodily labor and an inability to perform the same, were remarked by many." (Note that this 19th-century doctor did not distinguish between "sex" and "gender." Thus he considered a fondness for piecing together swatches of calico just as telling as anatomy and physiology.) No one has yet discovered whether Suydam lost the right to vote. Whatever the outcome, the story conveys both the political weight our culture places on ascertaining a person's correct "sex" and the deep confusion that arises when it can't be easily determined.<br />
<br />
European and American culture is deeply devoted to the idea that there are only two sexes. Even our language refuses other possibilities; thus to write about Levi Suydam I have had to invent conventions—s/he and h/er to denote individuals who are clearly neither/both male and female or who are, perhaps, both at once. Nor is the linguistic convenience an idle fancy. Whether one falls into the category of man or woman matters in concrete ways. For Suydam—and still today for women in some parts of the world—it meant the right to vote. It might mean being subject to the military draft and to various laws concerning the family and marriage. In many parts of the United States, for example, two individuals legally registered as men cannot have sexual relations without breaking antisodomy laws.<br />
<br />
Male and female form the extremes of a biological continuum that features many types of intersex conditions.<br />
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br />
<br />
<br />
But if the state and legal system has an interest in maintaining only two sexes, our collective biological bodies do not. While male and female stand on the extreme ends of a biological continuum, there are many other bodies, bodies such as Suydam's, that evidently mix together anatomical components conventionally attributed to both males and females. The implications of my argument for a sexual continuum are profound. If nature really offers us more than two sexes, then it follows that our current notions of masculinity and femininity are cultural conceits. Reconceptualizing the category of "sex" challenges cherished aspects of European and American social organization.<br />
<br />
Indeed, we have begun to insist on the male-female dichotomy at increasingly early stages, making the two-sex system more deeply a part of how we imagine human life and giving it the appearance of being both inborn and natural. Nowadays, months before the child leaves the comfort of the womb, amniocentesis and ultrasound identify a fetus's sex. Parents can decorate the baby's room in gender-appropriate style, sports wallpaper—in blue—for the little boy, flowered designs—in pink—for the little girl. Researchers have nearly completed development of technology that can choose the sex of a child at the moment of fertilization. Moreover, modern surgical techniques help maintain the two-sex system. Today children who are born "either/or—neither/both"—a fairly common phenomenon—usually disappear from view because doctors "correct" them right away with surgery. In the past, however, intersexuals (or hermaphrodites, as they were called until recently), were culturally acknowledged.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Within 24 hours of the birth of an intersex baby, doctors typically operate to assign the newborn a gender.<br />
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br />
<br />
Hermaphroditic heresies<br />
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br />
In 1993 I published a modest proposal suggesting that we replace our two-sex system with a five-sex one. In addition to males and females, I argued, we should also accept the categories herms (named after "true" hermaphrodites), merms (named after male "pseudohermaphrodites"), and ferms (named after female "pseudohermaphrodites"). [Editor's note: A "true" hermaphrodite bears an ovary and a testis, or a combined gonad called an ovo-testis. A "pseudohermaphrodite" has either an ovary or a testis, along with genitals from the "opposite" sex.] I'd intended to be provocative, but I had also been writing tongue in cheek and so was surprised by the extent of the controversy the article unleashed. Right-wing Christians somehow connected my idea of five sexes to the United Nations-sponsored Fourth World Conference on Women, to be held in Beijing two years later, apparently seeing some sort of global conspiracy at work. "It is maddening," says the text of a New York Times advertisement paid for by the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, "to listen to discussions of 'five genders' when every sane person knows there are but two sexes, both of which are rooted in nature."<br />
<br />
Sexologist John Money, who features largely in the NOVA program "Sex: Unknown," was "horrified" at Fausto-Sterling's proposal that there be five sexes.<br />
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br />
<br />
<br />
[Sexologist] John Money was also horrified by my article, although for different reasons. In a new edition of his guide for those who counsel intersexual children and their families, he wrote: "In the 1970's nurturists ... became ... 'social constructionists.' They align themselves against biology and medicine ... They consider all sex differences as artifacts of social construction. In cases of birth defects of the sex organs, they attack all medical and surgical interventions as unjustified meddling designed to force babies into fixed social molds of male and female ... One writer has gone even to the extreme of proposing that there are five sexes ... (Fausto-Sterling)."<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, those battling against the constraints of our sex/gender system were delighted by the article. The science fiction writer Melissa Scott wrote a novel entitled Shadow Man, which includes nine types of sexual preference and several genders, including fems (people with testes, XY chromosomes, and some aspects of female genitalia), herms (people with ovaries and testes), and mems (people with XX chromosomes and some aspects of male genitalia). Others used the idea of five sexes as a starting point for their own multi-gendered theories.<br />
<br />
<br />
More and more intersexuals are speaking out about their experiences, including Max Beck, seen here with his daughter Alder (see My Life as an Intersexual).<br />
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br />
<br />
Clearly I had struck a nerve. The fact that so many people could get riled up by my proposal to revamp our sex/gender system suggested that change (and resistance to it) might be in the offing. Indeed, a lot has changed since 1993, and I like to think that my article was one important stimulus. Intersexuals have materialized before our very eyes, like beings beamed up onto the Starship Enterprise. They have become political organizers lobbying physicians and politicians to change treatment practices. More generally, the debate over our cultural conceptions of gender has escalated, and the boundaries separating masculine and feminine seem harder than ever to define. Some find the changes under way deeply disturbing; others find them liberating.<br />
<br />
I, of course, am committed to challenging ideas about the male/female divide. In chorus with a growing organization of adult intersexuals, a small group of scholars, and a small but growing cadre of medical practitioners, I argue that medical management of intersexual births needs to change. First, let there be no unnecessary infant surgery (by necessary I mean to save the infant's life or significantly improve h/er physical well-being). Second, let physicians assign a provisional sex (male or female) to the infant (based on existing knowledge of the probability of a particular gender identity formation—penis size be damned!). Third, let the medical care team provide full information and long-term counseling to the parents and to the child. However well-intentioned, the methods for managing intersexuality, so entrenched since the 1950s, have done serious harm.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Dr. Anne Fausto-Sterling is a biologist and historian at Brown University. The passages above were excerpted from her book Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality. ©1999 by Anne Fausto-Sterling. Reprinted by permission of Basic Books. All rights reserved.<br />
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/gender/fs.html</div>மீராபாரதி meerabharathyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04864604775581602269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4350163001081036315.post-13371670494273224942010-12-28T12:12:00.000-08:002010-12-28T12:20:14.552-08:00A Carefully Crafted F**k You - Nathan Schneider interviews Judith Butler, March 2010The gender-theorist-turned-philosopher-of-nonviolence discusses the choices that make people expendable, the violent foundation of nonviolent activism, and the role grief can play in setting a new course.<br /><br />Judith Butler’s philosophy is an assault on common sense, on the atrophy of thinking. It untangles not only how ideas compel us to action, but how unexamined action leaves us with unexamined ideas—and, then, disastrous politics. Her work over the last few years has been devoted to challenging the Bush/Cheney-era torpor that came over would-be dissenters in the face of two wars and an acquiescent electorate. She does so not with policy prescriptions or electoral tactics, but with an analysis of the habits of thinking and doing that stand behind them. It is in response to the suffering of others, she insists, of innocent victims in particular, that we must come to terms with the world as it is and act in it.<br /><br />Butler is, at University of California at Berkeley, Maxine Elliot Professor in the Departments of Rhetoric and Comparative Literature. Her reputation is secure as the most important theorist of gender in the last quarter century, thanks to books like Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (1990) and Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex (1993). The thrust of her contribution is to destabilize—to queer—identity by disentangling the fragile performances that give rise to it. Whether in gender politics or geopolitics, her analysis shows how failing to grasp these sources of identity blinds us to the common humanity of others.<br /><br />Her latest book, Frames of War: When Is Life Grievable? (2009), reflects on the past decade’s saga of needless war, photographed—even fetishized—torture, and routine horror. It treats these practices as issuing from a philosophical choice, one which considers certain human beings expendable and unworthy of being grieved. The concluding chapter confronts the paradoxical nature of any call for nonviolent resistance—paradoxical because the very identities that we claim and resist on behalf of were themselves formed by violence in the past. Butler does not mistake nonviolence for passivity, as so many critics do. At its best, she writes, nonviolent resistance becomes a “carefully crafted ‘fuck you,’” tougher to answer than a Howitzer.<br /><br />Many of Frames of War’s reviewers comment about the difficulty of Butler’s prose. It certainly departs from the usual terms of debate about the subject—say, troop levels or international law—in order to point toward something more fundamental. Her books are notoriously dense, but the sensation of density stems from the very expectations we hold that she is trying to challenge. Butler has written about J.L. Austin, who taught philosophers in the deepest throes of the linguistic turn “how to do things with words,” and that is what she does. Reading her prose is a feat, an act. It is performative, in the sense that the text aspires to change us, not simply inform or explain. Apparently clear language can be more misleading than purposeful obfuscation; clarity sometimes depends on the assumptions and vocabulary that deliver us into war after war, or hate crime after hate crime, or refusal after refusal to admit the personhood of another.<br /><br />Butler’s sentences are an invitation to refute those mistakes, to rethink, and to start again. Whether her particular performance, or philosophy in general, can make any dent in the war machine remains to be seen—though its influence may finally be too subtle to detect.<br /><br />We had this exchange over a series of emails, during which she traveled to the West Bank and back on a research trip. <br /><br />—Nathan Schneider for Guernica<br /><br />Guernica: This book, you write, is a response to the policies under the Bush administration. How different would a book about the Obama administration be? Have we learned at all how to expand our circle of grief? Have we adjusted our frames?<br /><br />Judith Butler: The fact is that the war in Afghanistan has escalated under the Obama administration, and though it seems as if there is a firmer policy against torture, and a clear condemnation of torture on the part of the administration, we still are responsible for an extraordinary number of brutal deaths by war. This administration was fully silent during the massacre on Gaza. And Obama himself has agreed not to disclose the full narrative and visual archive on U.S. torture—we have to ask why. I think we have to learn how to separate our impressions of Obama the man as both thoughtful and inspiring from the policies of the Obama administration. Perhaps then we can begin to see that the politics of the administration are very separate from the impression of the man. This is a painful lesson to learn, and I wonder whether the U.S. public and its European allies will actually learn it. <br /><br />Perhaps we should cease to ask the question of what kind of person he really is and focus on what he does.<br />Guernica: That kind of distinction between the man—well, as you say, impressions of him—and the administration is something one hears disappointed progressives making a lot lately. But many still feel that, in Obama, they have an ally on the inside who is doing the best he can against political inertia. Can one afford to trust him? Not doing so could undermine his ability to undo that inertia.<br /><br />Judith Butler: Those explanations that try to locate all the inertia outside of Obama don’t take into account his own unwillingness to speak and act in face of certain urgent issues. His inability to condemn the onslaught against Gaza was not a matter of some external constraint upon him. No one coerced him into escalating the war in Afghanistan, nor was it a matter of externally situated inertia when he abandoned stronger versions of universal healthcare. Perhaps we should cease to ask the question of what kind of person he really is and focus on what he does. He speaks, he acts, and he fails to act; he is explicitly thwarted by entrenched relations. But let us not make excuses for the man or his administration when his actions are weak or, indeed, when he fails to act at all.<br /><br />Guernica: Obama has performed his presidency as a thinker, a reflecting person, perhaps most ironically when deciding how many tens of thousands more troops to send to Afghanistan. Do you find this heartening?<br /><br />Judith Butler: With Obama, there is thinking. But it seems to me mainly strategic, if not wholly technical. He has surrounded himself with technocrats, especially on his economic team. So how do we understand the disconnect between the domain of principle and that of policy? What is the relation between the moral vision and principles he espouses and the kind of policy he implements? <br /><br />All I really have to say about life is that for it to be regarded as valuable, it has to first be regarded as grievable.<br />Guernica: Let me turn that question back at you. In a world ever more specialized, should articulating a moral vision still be expected of politicians? Might mere bureaucratic competence at the service of their constituent’s interests be enough?<br /><br />Judith Butler: A president is part of a team, and he chooses those with whom he will act in concert. Summers and Geithner were choices, and they were ones that clearly put technocratic free market thinking above questions of social justice and the kind of political thinking it would take to implement norms of justice. One has to be competent at implementing one policy or another. But there is always the question of which policy, and this is a matter of principle.<br /><br />Guernica: In the book’s introduction, you set out a principled vision for how we might go about defining life—<br /><br />Judith Butler: I am not at all sure that I define life, since I think that life tends to exceed the definitions of it we may offer. It always seems to have that characteristic, so the approach to life cannot be altogether successful if we start with definitions. All I really have to say about life is that for it to be regarded as valuable, it has to first be regarded as grievable. A life that is in some sense socially dead or already “lost” cannot be grieved when it is actually destroyed. And I think we can see that entire populations are regarded as negligible life by warring powers, and so when they are destroyed, there is no great sense that a heinous act and egregious loss have taken place. My question is: how do we understand this nefarious distinction that gets set up between grievable and ungrievable lives? <br /><br />Guernica: How does your understanding of life differ, for example, from that of the pro-life movement?<br /><br />Judith Butler: I distinguish my position from the so-called “pro-life” movement since they do not care about whether or not life is sustainable. For me, the argument in favor of a sustainable life can be made just as easily for a woman or girl who requires an abortion in order to live her life and maintain her livelihood. So my argument about life does not favor one side of that debate or another; indeed, I think that debate should be settled on separate grounds. The left needs to reclaim life, especially given how many urgent bio-political issues face us now.<br /><br />I am trying to contest the notion that we can only value, shelter, and grieve lives that share a common language or cultural sameness with ourselves.<br />Guernica: What do you mean by “separate grounds”? Must we draw a line between death by abortion and death by war? As opposed, for example, to the “seamless garment” of life in Catholic social teaching?<br /><br />Judith Butler: We cannot decide questions of reproductive technology or abortion by deciding in advance where life begins and ends. Technologies are already re-deciding those basic issues. We have to ask what kinds of choices are made possible by social configurations of life, and to locate our choices socially and politically. There is no way around the question, “What makes a life livable?” This is different from the question of what constitutes life. At what point in any life process does the question of rights emerge? We differ over how to answer that question.<br /><br />Guernica: Your account of life depends on being intertwined with other lives; does it really then call on us to be more concerned for the lives of others in distant places and conflicts?<br /><br />Judith Butler: Along with many other people, I am trying to contest the notion that we can only value, shelter, and grieve those lives that share a common language or cultural sameness with ourselves. The point is not so much to extend our capacity for compassion, but to understand that ethical relations have to cross both cultural and geographical distance. Given that there is global interdependency in relation to the environment, food supply and distribution, and war, do we not need to understand the bonds that we have to those we do not know or have never chosen? This takes us beyond communitarianism and nationalism alike. Or so I hope.<br /><br />Guernica: Yes, but surely the lines of interdependency are much deeper and immediate between me and my friends, family, and local community than between me and the average Iraqi in Iraq. Can’t I be excused for at least grieving the Iraqi less, proportionate to my dependence?<br /><br />Judith Butler: It is not a question of how much you or I feel—it is rather a question of whether a life is worth grieving, and no life is worth grieving unless it is regarded as grievable. In other words, when we subscribe to ideas such as, “no innocent life should be slaughtered,” we have to be able to include all kinds of populations within the notion of “innocent life”—and that means subscribing to an egalitarianism that would contest prevailing schemes of racism.<br /><br />Guernica: What does the grief you call for consist of? How does it act upon us?<br /><br />Judith Butler: If we were to start to grieve those against whom we wage war, we would have to stop. One saw this I think very keenly last year when Israel attacked Gaza. The population was considered in explicitly racist ways, and every life was considered an instrument of war. Thus, a unilateral attack on a trapped population became interpreted by those who waged war as an extended act of self-defense. It is clear that most people in the world rejected that construal of the situation, especially when they saw how many women and children were killed.<br /><br />The vast majority of feminists oppose these contemporary wars, and object to the false construction of Muslim women “in need of being saved.”<br />Guernica: On your recent trip to the West Bank, did you observe any instances of grief at work?<br /><br />Judith Butler: I certainly saw many commemorations on the walls of Nablus and Jenin. The question is whether the mainstream Israeli press and public can accept the fact that their army committed widespread slaughter in Gaza. I heard private confirmation of that among Israelis, but less in public. Some brave journalists and writers say it. The organization, Zochrot, that commemorates the deaths and expulsions of Palestinians in 1948—the Naqba—does some of this work, but so much of it remains partially muted within public discourse. There is now a resolution under consideration in Israel attempting to ban public funding for educational and arts projects that represent the Naqba—this is surely a state effort to regulate grieving.<br /><br />Guernica: Forms of grief are deployed, through certain deplorable exemplars, to justify a military regime—the Holocaust, for example, and now 9/11. Why, then, can’t grief just as easily be used to justify more war?<br /><br />Judith Butler: Well, I do worry about those instances in which public mourning is explicitly proscribed, and that invariably happens in the context of war. I think there were ways, for instance, of producing icons of those who were killed in the 9/11 attacks in such a way that the desire for revenge and vindication was stoked. So we have to distinguish between modes of mourning that actually extend our ideas about equality, and those that produce differentials, such as “this population is worth protecting” and “this population deserves to die.”<br /><br />Guernica: The hawkish wing in the “war on terror” has quite effectively claimed the banner of feminism. Is feminism as it has been articulated in part to blame for this?<br /><br />Judith Butler: No, I think that we have seen quite cynical uses of feminism for the waging of war. The vast majority of feminists oppose these contemporary wars, and object to the false construction of Muslim women “in need of being saved” as a cynical use of feminist concerns with equality. There are some very strong and interesting Muslim feminist movements, and casting Islam as anti-feminist not only disregards those movements, but displaces many of the persisting inequalities in the first world onto an imaginary elsewhere.<br /><br />Guernica: After millions of protesters around the world could do nothing to prevent the Iraq War, what do you think is the most effective form of protest? Disobedience? Or even thinking?<br /><br />Judith Butler: Let us remember that Marx thought of thinking as a kind of practice. Thinking can take place in and as embodied action. It is not necessarily a quiet or passive activity. Civil disobedience can be an act of thinking, of mindfully opposing police force, for instance. I continue to believe in demonstrations, but I think they have to be sustained. We see the continuing power of this in Iran right now. The real question is why people thought with the election of Obama that there was no reason to still be on the street? It is true that many people on the left will never have the animus against Obama that they have against Bush. But maybe we need to protest policies instead of individuals. After all, it takes many people and institutions to sustain a war.<br /><br />Guernica: Anyone who went to an anti-war protest during the Bush administration surely saw the violence of the anger directed personally against the president. People have a need to personalize. It seems to me the strength of your book, though, is that it counter-personalizes, turning our focus not so much to policies or policy-makers as to victims and potential victims.<br /><br />Judith Butler: It is personal, but it asks what our obligations are to those we do not know. So in this sense, it is about the bonds we must honor even when we do not know the others to whom we are bound.<br /><br />Guernica: Your account of nonviolence revolves around recognizing sociality and interconnection as well. Does it also rely on the kind of inner spiritual work that was so important, for instance, to Gandhi?<br /><br />Judith Butler: I am not sure that the work is “inner” in the way that Gandhi described. But I do think that one has to remain vigilant in relation to one’s own aggression, to craft and direct it in ways that are effective. This work on the self, though, takes place through certain practices, and by noticing where one is, how angry one is, and even comporting oneself differently over time. I think this has to be a social practice, one that we undertake with others. That support and solidarity are crucial to maintaining it. Otherwise, we think we should become heroic individuals, and that takes us away from effective collective action.<br /><br />Guernica: What can philosophy, which so often looks like a kind of solitary heroism, offer against the military-industrial complexes and the cowboy self-image that keep driving us into wars? At what register can philosophy make a difference?<br /><br />Judith Butler: Let’s remember that the so-called military-industrial complex has a philosophy, even if it is not readily published in journals. The contemporary cowboy also has, or exemplifies, a certain philosophical vision of power, masculinity, impermeability, and domination. So the question is how philosophy takes form as an embodied practice. Any action that is driven by principles, norms, or ideals is philosophically informed. So we might consider: what practices embody interdependency and equality in ways that might mitigate the practice of war waging? My wager is that there are many.<br /><br />Guernica: Last year, for one, the Mellon Foundation awarded you $1.5 million which you are using to found a critical theory center devoted to scholarship about war. How is it progressing? What are your goals?<br /><br />Judith Butler: I am trying to bring together people to think about new forms of war and war waging, the place of media in the waging of war, and ways of thinking about violence that can take account of new forms of conflict that do not comply with conventional definitions of war. This will involve considering traditional definitions of war in political science and international law, but also new forms of conflict, theories of violence, and humanistic inquiries into why people wage war as they do. I’m also interested in linking this with studies of ecology, toxic soil, and damaged life.<br /><br />Guernica: Do you mean to say that the concept of war might be recovered, as William James proposes, for instance, in “The Moral Equivalent of War”? Is war’s ferocity of commitment possible without the bloodlust and the bloody victims?<br /><br />Judith Butler: Perhaps the issue is to become less ferocious in our commitments, to question certain forms of blind enthusiasm, and to find forms of steadfastness that include reflective thought. Nonviolence is not so much about the suppression of feeling, but its transformation into forceful intelligence.<br /><a href="http://www.guernicamag.com/interviews/1610/a_carefully_crafted_fk_you/">A Carefully Crafted F**k You - Nathan Schneider interviews Judith Butler, March 2010</a>மீராபாரதி meerabharathyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04864604775581602269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4350163001081036315.post-18183253859286352642010-12-26T20:13:00.000-08:002010-12-26T20:16:08.145-08:00Extracts from Gender as Performance: An Interview with Judith Butler<a href="http://www.theory.org.uk/but-int1.htm">Extracts from Gender as Performance: An Interview with Judith Butler </a><br /><br />Interview by Peter Osborne and Lynne Segal, London, 1993. <br /><br />Full version originally published in Radical Philosophy 67 (summer 1994). © Radical Philosophy Ltd, 1994. These extracts are reprinted here with the kind permission of Radical Philosophy Ltd. <br /><br />You can subscribe to Radical Philosophy and find other information about the journal by visiting the Radical Philosophy website. <br /><br />Extracts of this interview are reproduced here for personal study purposes only. The extracts are necessarily short due to copyright regulations. Grateful acknowledgment is made to Radical Philosophy. In return, it would be excellent if you could get your local library, and/or philosophy, sociology and other departments to subscribe to Radical Philosophy. <br /><br />Links: Judith Butler | Comms Theory | Module tutor. <br /><br /><br /><br />--------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br /><br />RP: We'd like to begin by asking you where you place your work within the increasingly diverse field of gender studies. Most people associate your recent writings with what has become known as "queer theory". But the emergence of gay and lesbian studies as a discrete disciplinary phenomenon has problematised the relationship of some of this work to feminism. Do you see yourself primarily as a feminist of as a queer theorist, or do you refuse the choice? <br /><br />Butler: I would say that I'm a feminist theorist before I'm a queer theorist or a gay and lesbian theorist. My commitments to feminism are probably my primary commitments. Gender Trouble was a critique of compulsory heterosexuality within feminism, and it was feminists that were my intended audience. At the time I wrote the text there was no gay and lesbian studies, as I understood it. When the book came out, the Second Annual Conference of Lesbian and Gay Studies was taking place in the USA, and it got taken up in a way that I could never have anticipated. I remember sitting next to someone at a dinner party, and he said that he was working on queer theory. And I said: What's queer theory? He looked at me like I was crazy, because he evidently thought that I was a part of this thing called queer theory. But all I knew was that Teresa de Lauretis had published an issue of the journal Differences called "Queer Theory". I thought it was something she had put together. It certainly never occurred to me that I was a part of queer theory. <br /><br />I have some problems here, because I think there's some anti-feminism in queer theory. Also, insofar as some people in queer theory want to claim that the analysis of sexuality can be radically separated from the analysis of gender, I'm very much opposed to them. The new Gay and Lesbian Reader that Routledge have just published begins with a set of articles that make that claim. I think that separation is a big mistake. Catharine MacKinnon's work sets up such a reductive causal relationship between sexuality and gender that she came to stand for an extreme version of feminism that had to be combatted. But it seems to me that to combat it through a queer theory that dissociates itself from feminism altogether is a massive mistake. <br /><br />RP: Could you say something more about the sex-gender distinction? Do you reject it or do you just reject a particular interpretation of it? Your position on this seems to have shifted recently. <br /><br />Butler: One of the interpretations that has been made of Gender Trouble is that there is no sex, there is only gender, and gender is performative. People then go on to think that if gender is performative it must be radically free. And it has seemed to many that the materiality of the body is vacated or ignored or negated here - disavowed, even. (There's a symptomatic reading of this as somatophobia. It's interesting to have one's text pathologised.) So what became important to me in writing Bodies that Matter was to go back to the category of sex, and to the problem of materiality, and to ask how it is that sex itself might be construed as a norm. Now, I take it that's a presupposition of Lacanian psychoanalysis - that sex is a norm. But I didn't want to remain restricted within the Lacanian purview. I wanted to work out how a norm actually materialises a body, how we might understand the materiality of the body to be not only invested with a norm, but in some sense animated by a norm, or contoured by a norm. So I have shifted. I think that I overrode the category of sex too quickly in Gender Trouble. I try to reconsider it in Bodies That Matter, and to emphasise the place of constraint in the very production of sex. <br /><br />RP: A lot of people like Gender Trouble because they liked the idea of gender as a kind of improvisational theatre, a space where different identities can be more or less freely adopted and explored at will. They wanted to get on with the work of enacting gender, in order to undermine its dominant forms. However, at the beginning of Bodies That Matter you say that, of course, one doesn't just voluntaristically construct or deconstruct identities. It's unclear to us to what extent you want to hold onto the possibilities opened up in Gender Trouble of being able to use transgressive performances such as drag to help decentre or destabilise gender categories, and to what extent you have become sceptical about this. <br /><br />Butler: The problem with drag is that I offered it as an example of performativity, but it has been taken up as the paradigm for performativity. One ought always to be wary of one's examples. What's interesting is that this voluntarist interpretation, this desire for a kind of radical theatrical remaking of the body, is obviously out there in the public sphere. There's a desire for a fully phantasmatic transfiguration of the body. But no, I don't think that drag is a paradigm for the subversion of gender. I don't think that if we were all more dragged out gender life would become more expansive and less restrictive. There are restrictions in drag. In fact, I argued toward the end of the book that drag has its own melancholia. <br /><br />It is important to understand performativity - which is distinct from performance - through the more limited notion of resignification. I'm still thinking about subversive repetition, which is a category in Gender Trouble, but in the place of something like parody I would now emphasise the complex ways in which resignification works in political discourse. I suspect there's going to be a less celebratory, and less popular, response to my new book. But I wanted to write against my popular image. I set out to make myself less popular, because I felt that the popularisation of Gender Trouble - even though it was interesting culturally to see what it tapped into, to see what was out there, longing to be tapped into - ended up being a terrible misrepresentation of what I wanted to say! <br /><br />[...]It is important to distinguish performance from performativity: the former presumes a subject, but the latter contests the very notion of the subject. The place where I try to clarify this is toward the beginning of my essay "Critically Queer", in Bodies that Matter, I begin with the Foucauldian premise that power works in part through discourse and it works in part to produce and destabilise subjects. But then, when one starts to think carefully about how discourse might be said to produce a subject, it's clear that one's already talking about a certain figure or trope of production. It is at this point that it's useful to turn to the notion of performativity, and performative speech acts in particular - understood as those speech acts that bring into being that which they name. This is the moment in which discourse becomes productive in a fairly specific way. So what I'm trying to do is think about the performativity as that aspect of discourse that has the capacity to produce what it names. Then I take a further step, through the Derridean rewriting of Austin, and suggest that this production actually always happens through a certain kind of repetition and recitation. So if you want the ontology of this, I guess performativity is the vehicle through which ontological effects are established. Performativity is the discursive mode by which ontological effects are installed. Something like that. <br /><br />[. . .] <br /><br />[Butler is then asked about the way in which she apparently ignores biological constraints on bodies, most obviously the fact that male bodies can't produce children whilst female bodies can]. Yes, there will be that exasperated response [to what I do there], but there is a good tactical reason to reproduce it. Take your example of impregnation. Somebody might well say: isn't it the case that certain bodies go to the gynaecologist for certain kinds of examination and certain bodies do not? And I would obviously affirm that. But the real question here is: to what extent does a body get defined by its capacity for pregnancy? Why is it pregnancy by which that body gets defined? One might say it's because somebody is of a given sex that they go to the gynaecologist to get an examination that establishes the possibility of pregnancy, or one might say that going to the gynaecologist is the very production of "sex" - but it is still the question of pregnancy that is centaring that whole institutional practice here. <br /><br />Now, it seems to me that, although women's bodies generally speaking are understood as capable of impregnation, the fact of the matter is that there are female infants and children who cannot be impregnated, there are older women who cannot be impregnated, there are women of all ages who cannot be impregnated, and even if they could ideally, that is not necessarily the salient feature of their bodies or even of their being women. What the question does is try to make the problematic of reproduction central to the sexing of the body. But I am not sure that is, or ought to be, what is absolutely salient or primary in the sexing of the body. If it is, I think it's the imposition of a norm, not a neutral description of biological constraints. <br /><br />I do not deny certain kinds of biological differences. But I always ask under what conditions, under what discursive and institutional conditions, do certain biological differences - and they're not necessary ones, given the anomalous state of bodies in the world - become the salient characteristics of sex. In that sense I'm still in sympathy with the critique of "sex" as a political category offered by Monique Wittig. I still very much believe in the critique of the category of sex and the ways in which it's been constrained by a tacit institution of compulsory reproduction. <br /><br />It's a practical problem. If you are in your late twenties or your early thirties and you can't get pregnant for biological reasons, or maybe you don't want to, for social reasons - whatever it is - you are struggling with a norm that is regulating your sex. It takes a pretty vigorous (and politically informed) community around you to alleviate the possible sense of failure, or loss, or impoverishment, or inadequacy - a collective struggle to rethink a dominant norm. Why shouldn't it be that a woman who wants to have some part in child-rearing, but doesn't want to have a part in child-bearing, or who wants to have nothing to do with either, can inhabit her gender without an implicit sense of failure or inadequacy? When people ask the question "Aren't these biological differences?", they're not really asking a question about the materiality of the body. They're actually asking whether or not the social institution of reproduction is the most salient one for thinking about gender. |In that sense, there is a discursive enforcement of a norm. <br /><br />[. . .] <br /><br />It's not just the norm of heterosexuality that is tenuous. It's all sexual norms. I think that every sexual position is fundamentally comic. If you say "I can only desire X", what you've immediately done, in rendering desire exclusively, is created a whole set of positions which are unthinkable from the standpoint of your identity. Now, I take it that one of the essential aspects of comedy emerges when you end up actually occupying a position that you have just announced to be unthinkable. That is funny. There's a terrible self-subversion in it. <br /><br />When they were debating gays in the military on television in the United States a senator got up and laughed, and he said, "I must say, I know very little about homosexuality. I think I know less about homosexuality than about anything else in the world." And it was a big announcement of his ignorance of homosexuality. Then he immediately launched into a homophobic diatribe which suggested that he thinks that homosexuals only have sex in public bathrooms, that they are all skinny, that they're all male, etc, etc. So what he actually has is a very aggressive and fairly obsessive relationship to the homosexuality that of course he knows nothing about. At that moment you realise that this person who claims to have nothing to do with homosexuality is in fact utterly preoccupied by it. <br /><br />I do not think that these exclusions are indifferent. Some would disagree with me on this and say: "Look, some people are just indifferent. A heterosexual can have an indifferent relationship to homosexuality. It doesn't really matter what other people do. I haven't thought about it much, it neither turns me on nor turns me off. I'm just sexually neutral in that regard." I don't believe that. I think that crafting a sexual position, or reciting a sexual position, always involves becoming haunted by what's excluded. And the more rigid the position, the greater the ghost, and the more threatening it is in some way. I don't know if that's a Foucauldian point. It's probably a psychoanalytical point, but that's not finally important to me. <br /><br />RP: Would it apply to homosexuals' relationship to heterosexuality? <br /><br />Butler: Yes, absolutely. <br /><br />RP: Although presumably not in the same way... <br /><br />Butler: Yes, there's a different problem here, and it's a tricky one. When the woman in the audience at my talk said "I survived lesbian feminism and still desire women", I thought that was a really great line, because one of the problems has been the normative requirement that has emerged within some lesbian-feminist communities to come up with a radically specific lesbian sexuality. (Of course, not all lesbian feminism said this, but a strain of it did.) <br /><br />[. . .] <br /><br />Lesbians make themselves into a more frail political community by insisting on the radical irreducibility of their desire. I don't think any of us have irreducibly distinct desires. <br /><br />[. . .] <br /><br />The heterosexual matrix [in Gender Trouble] became a kind of totalising symbolic, and that's why I changed the term in Bodies That Matter to heterosexual hegemony. This opens the possibility that this is a matrix which is open to rearticulation, which has a kind of malleability. So I don't actually use the term heterosexual matrix in Bodies That Matter. <br /><br />[. . .] <br /><br />There's a very specific notion of gender involved in compulsory heterosexuality: a certain view of gender coherence whereby what a person feels, how a person acts, and how a person expresses herself sexually is the articulation and consummation of a gender. It's a particular causality and identity that gets established as gender coherence which is linked to compulsory heterosexuality. It's not any gender, or all gender, it's that specific kind of coherent gender. <br /><br />[. . .] <br /><br />One of the problems with homosexuality is that it does represent psychosis to some people. Many people feel that who they are as egos in the world, whatever imaginary centres they have, would be radically dissolved were they to engage in homosexual relations. They would rather die than engage in homosexual relations. For these people homosexuality represents the prospect of the psychotic dissolution of the subject. How are we to distinguish that phobic abjection of homosexuality from what Zizek calls the real - where the real is that which stands outside the symbolic pact and which threatens the subject within the symbolic pact with psychosis? <br /><br />[. . .] <br /><br />RP: Perhaps we could move on to the politics of queer theory, and in particular to the ideas of subversive repetition and transgressive reinscription, which we touched on earlier when we asked you about drag. Alan Sinfield has suggested that the problem with supposedly subversive representations of gender is that they're always recuperable. The dominant can always find a way of dismissing them and reaffirming itself. On the other hand, Jonathan Dollimore has argued that they're not always recuperable, but that any queer reading or subversive performance, any challenge to dominant representations of gender, can only be sustained as such collectively. It's only within critical subcultures that transgressive reinscriptions are going to make a difference. How do you respond to these views on the limits of a queer politics of representation? <br /><br />Butler: I think that Sinfield is right to say that any attempt at subversion is potentially recuperable. There is no way to safeguard against that. You can't plan or calculate subversion. In fact, I would say that subversion is precisely an incalculable effect. That's what makes it subversive. As for the question of how a certain challenge becomes legible, and whether a rendering requires a certain collectivity, that seems right too. But I also think that subversive practices have to overwhelm the capacity to read, challenge conventions of reading, and demand new possibilities of reading. <br /><br />For instance, when Act Up (the lesbian and gay activist group) first started performing Die-ins on the streets of New York, it was extremely dramatic. There had been street theatre, a tradition of demonstrations, and the tradition from the civil disobedience side of the civil rights movement of going limp and making policemen take you away: playing dead. Those precedents or conventions were taken up in the Die-in, where people "die" all at once. They went down on the street, all at once, and white lines were drawn around the bodies, as if they were police lines, marking the place of the dead. It was a shocking symbolisation. It was legible insofar as it was drawing on conventions that had been produced within previous protest cultures, but it was a renovation. It was a new adumbration of a certain kind of civil disobedience. And it was extremely graphic. It made people stop and have to read what was happening. <br /><br />There was confusion. People didn't know at first, why these people were playing dead. Were they actually dying, were they actually people with AIDS? Maybe they were, maybe they weren't. Maybe they were HIV positive, maybe they weren't. There were no ready answers to those questions. The act posed a set of questions without giving you the tools to read off the answers. What I worry about are those acts that are more immediately legible. Those are the ones that I think are most readily recuperable. But the ones that challenge our practices of reading, that make us uncertain about how to read, or make us think that we have to renegotiate the way in which we read public signs, these seem really important to me. <br /><br />[. . .] <br /><br />Some people would say that we need a ground from which to act. We need a shared collective ground for collective action. I think we need to pursue the moments of degrounding, when we're standing in two different places at once; or we don't know exactly where we're standing; or when we've produced an aesthetic practice that shakes the ground. That's where resistance to recuperation happens. It's like a breaking through to a new set of paradigms. <br /><br />RP: What are the relations of this kind of symbolic politics to more traditional kinds of political practice? Presumably, its function is in some way tied to the role of mass media in the political systems of advanced capitalist societies, where representations play a role they don't necessarily have elsewhere. <br /><br />Butler: Yes, I agree. <br /><br />RP: Yet at the same time, it is a crucial part of this role that the domain of representation often remains completely cut off from effective political action. One might argue that the reason a politics of representation is so recuperable is precisely because it remains within the domain of representation - that it is only an adjunct to the business of transforming the relationship of society to the state, establishing new institutions, or changing the law. How would you respond to that? <br /><br />Butler: First of all, I oppose the notion that the media is monolithic. It's neither monolithic nor does it act only and always to domesticate. Sometimes it ends up producing images that it has no control over. This kind of unpredictable effect can emerge right out of the centre of a conservative media without an awareness that it is happening. There are ways of exploiting the dominant media. The politics of aesthetic representation has an extremely important place. But it is not the same as struggling to change the law, or developing strong links with political officials, or amassing major lobbies, or the kinds of things needed by the grassroots movement to overturn anti-sodomy restrictions, for example. <br /><br />I used to be part of a guerrilla theatre group called LIPS - it stood for nothing, which I loved - and now I'm contemplating joining the board of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission. There is nothing to stop me from doing one rather than the other. For me, it does not have to be a choice. Other people are particularly adept working in the health care fields, doing AIDS activism - which includes sitting on the boards of major chemical corporations - doing lobbying work, phoning, or being on the street. The Foucauldian in me says there is no one site from which to struggle effectively. There have to be many, and they don't need to be reconciled with one another. <br /><br />[. . .] <br /><br />RP: We'd like to end by asking you how you see the future of feminism. <br /><br />Butler: Catharine MacKinnon has become so powerful as the public spokesperson for feminism, internationally, that I think that feminism is going to have to start producing some powerful alternatives to what she's saying and doing - ones that can acknowledge her intellectual strength and not demonise her, because I do think there's an anti-feminist animus against her, which one should be careful not to encourage. Certainly, the paradigm of victimisation, the over-emphasis on pornography, the cultural insensitivity and the universalisation of "rights" - all of that has to be countered by strong feminist positions. <br /><br />What's needed is a dynamic and more diffuse conception of power, one which is committed to the difficulty of cultural translation as well as the need to rearticulate "universality" in non-imperialist directions. This is difficult work and it's no longer viable to seek recourse to simple and paralysing models of structural oppression. But even her, in opposing a dominant conception of power in feminism, I am still "in" or "of" feminism. And it's this paradox that has to be worked, for there can be no pure opposition to power, only a recrafting of its terms from resources invariably impure. <br /><br />Interview by Peter Osborne and Lynne Segal, London, 1993. © Radical Philosophy Ltd, 1994.<br />http://www.theory.org.uk/but-int1.htmமீராபாரதி meerabharathyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04864604775581602269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4350163001081036315.post-71092775516243473872010-12-26T05:59:00.000-08:002010-12-26T06:02:04.721-08:00The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House - Audre LordeThe Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House<br /><br />by Audre Lorde<br /><br />From Sister Outsider, The Crossing Press Feminist Series (1984)<br /><br /><br />I agreed to take part in a New York University Institute for the Humanities<br />conference a year ago, with the understanding that I would be commenting<br />upon papers dealing with the role of difference within the lives of American<br />women: difference of race, sexuality, class, and age. The absence of these<br />considerations weakens any feminist discussion of the personal and the<br />political.<br /><br /><br />It is a particular academic arrogance to assume any discussion of feminist<br />theory without examining our many differences, and without a significant<br />input from poor women, Black and Third World women, and lesbians. And yet, I<br />stand here as a Black lesbian feminist, having been invited to comment<br />within the only panel at this conference where the input of Black feminists<br />and lesbians is represented. What this says about the vision of this<br />conference is sad, in a country where racism, sexism, and homophobia are<br />inseparable. To read this program is to assume that lesbian and Black women<br />have nothing to say about existentialism, the erotic, women's culture and<br />silence, developing feminist theory, or heterosexuality and power. And what<br />does it mean in personal and political terms when even the two Black women<br />who did present here were literally found at the last hour? What does it<br />mean when the tools of a racist patriarchy are used to examine the fruits of<br />that same patriarchy? It means that only the most narrow perimeters of<br />change are possible and allowable.<br /><br /><br />The absence of any consideration of lesbian consciousness or the<br />consciousness of Third World women leaves a serious gap within this<br />conference and within the papers presented here. For example, in a paper on<br />material relationships between women, I was conscious of an either/or model<br />of nurturing which totally dismissed my knowledge as a Black lesbian. In<br />this paper there was no examination of mutuality between women, no systems<br />of shared support, no interdependence as exists between lesbians and<br />women-identified women. Yet it is only in the patriarchal model of<br />nurturance that women "who attempt to emancipate themselves pay perhaps too<br />high a price for the results," as this paper states.<br /><br /><br />For women, the need and desire to nurture each other is not pathological but<br />redemptive, and it is within that knowledge that our real power is<br />rediscovered. It is this real connection which is so feared by a patriarchal<br />world. Only within a patriarchal structure is maternity the only social<br />power open to women.<br /><br /><br />Interdependency between women is the way to a freedom which allows the I to<br />be, not in order to be used, but in order to be creative. This is a<br />difference between the passive be and the active being.<br /><br /><br />Advocating the mere tolerance of difference between women is the grossest<br />reformism. It is a total denial of the creative function of difference in<br />our lives. Difference must be not merely tolerated, but seen as a fund of<br />necessary polarities between which our creativity can spark like a<br />dialectic. Only then does the necessity for interdependency become<br />unthreatening. Only within that interdependency of different strengths,<br />acknowledged and equal, can the power to seek new ways of being in the world<br />generate, as well as the courage and sustenance to act where there are no<br />charters.<br /><br /><br />Within the interdependence of mutual (nondominant) differences lies that<br />security which enables us to descend into the chaos of knowledge and return<br />with true visions of our future, along with the concomitant power to effect<br />those changes which can bring that future into being. Difference is that raw<br />and powerful connection from which our personal power is forged.<br /><br /><br />As women, we have been taught either to ignore our differences, or to view<br />them as causes for separation and suspicion rather than as forces for<br />change. Without community there is no liberation, only the most vulnerable<br />and temporary armistice between an individual and her oppression. But<br />community must not mean a shedding of our differences, nor the pathetic<br />pretense that these differences do not exist.<br /><br /><br />Those of us who stand outside the circle of this society's definition of<br />acceptable women; those of us who have been forged in the crucibles of<br />difference -- those of us who are poor, who are lesbians, who are Black, who<br />are older -- know that survival is not an academic skill. It is learning how<br />to stand alone, unpopular and sometimes reviled, and how to make common<br />cause with those others identified as outside the structures in order to<br />define and seek a world in which we can all flourish. It is learning how to<br />take our differences and make them strengths. For the master's tools will<br />never dismantle the master's house. They may allow us temporarily to beat<br />him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine<br />change. And this fact is only threatening to those women who still define<br />the master's house as their only source of support.<br /><br /><br />Poor women and women of Color know there is a difference between the daily<br />manifestations of marital slavery and prostitution because it is our<br />daughters who line 42nd Street. If white American feminist theory need not<br />deal with the differences between us, and the resulting difference in our<br />oppressions, then how do you deal with the fact that the women who clean<br />your houses and tend your children while you attend conferences on feminist<br />theory are, for the most part, poor women and women of Color? What is the<br />theory behind racist feminism?<br /><br /><br />In a world of possibility for us all, our personal visions help lay the<br />groundwork for political action. The failure of academic feminists to<br />recognize difference as a crucial strength is a failure to reach beyond the<br />first patriarchal lesson. In our world, divide and conquer must become<br />define and empower.<br /><br />Why weren't other women of Color found to participate in this conference?<br />Why were two phone calls to me considered a consultation? Am I the only<br />possible source of names of Black feminists? And although the Black<br />panelist's paper ends on an important and powerful connection of love<br />between women, what about interracial cooperation between feminists who<br />don't love each other?<br /><br /><br />In academic feminist circles, the answer to these questions is often, "We<br />did not know who to ask." But that is the same evasion of responsibility,<br />the same cop-out, that keeps Black women's art out of women's exhibitions,<br />Black women's work out of most feminist publications except for the<br />occasional "Special Third World Women's Issue," and Black women's texts off<br />your reading lists. But as Adrienne Rich pointed out in a recent talk, white<br />feminists have educated themselves about such an enormous amount over the<br />past ten years, how come you haven't also educated yourselves about Black<br />women and the differences between us -- white and Black -- when it is key to<br />our survival as a movement?<br /><br /><br />Women of today are still being called upon to stretch across the gap of male<br />ignorance and to educate men as to our existence and our needs. This is an<br />old and primary tool of all oppressors to keep the oppressed occupied with<br />the master's concerns. Now we hear that it is the task of women of Color to<br />educate white women -- in the face of tremendous resistance -- as to our<br />existence, our differences, our relative roles in our joint survival. This<br />is a diversion of energies and a tragic repetition of racist patriarchal<br />thought.<br /><br /><br />Simone de Beauvoir once said: "It is in the knowledge of the genuine<br />conditions of our lives that we must draw our strength to live and our<br />reasons for acting."<br /><br /><br />Racism and homophobia are real conditions of all our lives in this place and<br />time. I urge each one of us here to reach down into that deep place of<br />knowledge inside herself and touch that terror and loathing of any<br />difference that lives there. See whose face it wears. Then the personal as<br />the political can begin to illuminate all our choices.<br /><br /><br />---------------------<br />Prospero, you are the master of illusion.<br />Lying is your trademark.<br />And you have lied so much to me<br />(lied about the world, lied about me)<br />that you have ended by imposing on me<br />an image of myself.<br />underdeveloped, you brand me, inferior,<br />That ís the way you have forced me to see myself<br />I detest that image! What's more, it's a lie!<br />But now I know you, you old cancer,<br />and I know myself as well.<br />- Caliban, in Aime Cesaire's "The Tempest"<br />http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/margins-to-centre<br /><br />http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/margins-to-centre/2006-March/000794.htmlமீராபாரதி meerabharathyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04864604775581602269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4350163001081036315.post-31642168380122397862010-12-26T05:51:00.000-08:002010-12-26T05:53:35.641-08:00Feminism is for Everybody: bell hooks<a href="http://reconstruction.eserver.org/BReviews/revFeminism.htm">Feminism is for Everybody: Passionate Politics. 2000</a><br /><br />hooks, bell. Cambridge, MA: South End Press. 123 p., $12.60, paperback. ISBN: 0896086283.<br /><br /><br />"Everything we do in life is rooted in theory" (19).<br /><br /><br />Taking a decidedly radical feminist position, bell hooks, the writing voice of Gloria Watkins, promotes the learning of feminist theory and history as essential parts of the process of self-actualization and the practice of freedom. In Feminism is for Everybody: Passionate Politics, hooks provides an overview targeted to readers new to interdisciplinary feminism. Importantly, hooks argues in strong opposition to the anti-feminist public voice in contemporary culture. In particular, she speaks to young female readers who know little about feminism, many of whom falsely assume that sexism is no longer a problem or is "no longer relevant since women now have equality" (49). hooks also speaks to male readers, assuring them that we too can play a positive role in the feminist movement. The bottom line is that "feminism is a movement to end sexist oppression" (6). hooks argues that if people adopt her definition, and know more about feminism and feminist history, then they would no longer fear it.<br /><br /><br />Feminism is for Everybody provides an introduction to the work of bell hooks, a prolific writer about popular feminist theory and cultural criticism. hooks considers herself a social activist and a revolutionary feminist, though her work has had a significant impact in the academic world. This book’s initial interest stems from hooks’ argument that sexism, racism, classism, capitalism, and colonialism in America promote oppression by idealizing oppressive values and characteristics. In order to liberate, hooks interrogates cultural assumptions supported by oppression. She prompts readers to share in the intellectual and spiritual growth of women, to raise awareness about the world in which they live; she respects and encourages readers to find their own voices, and helps them critically reflect on and analyze their place in society.<br /><br /><br />The historical background included in this book provides useful information about earlier days of the feminist movement, especially to readers new to feminism. While, at times, hooks’ tone may seem confrontational to some readers -- for example, when she demands alternatives to patriarchal, racist, and homophobic aspects of popular culture -- hooks asks readers to participate in what she calls true liberation. Some readers may feel shocked when she critiques the increased entry of bourgeois women into the workforce; she points out that this is not, in fact, a sign that women as a group are gaining economic power. Rather, this phenomenon is related to a process whereby women’s interests are divided along class and racial lines, and feminism itself -- when measured by corporate accomplishment -- is co-opted by capitalism.<br /><br /><br />In this regard, one particularly strong chapter is on feminist class struggle (chapter 7). This chapter links class and behavior -- how women are taught expectations about behavior, and how women understand and resolve problems. Drawing from work by Rita Mae Brown, Betty Friedan, Mary Barfoot, Charlotte Bunch, and Nancy Myron, as well as her own previously-published work (e.g., Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center), hooks critiques the notion that economic gains of affluent females is a positive sign for all women. Instead, hooks argues "that freedom of privileged-class women of all races has required the sustained subordination of working-class and poor women" (41). She asks readers to consider how "feminist liberation is linked to a vision of social change which challenges class elitism" (43). In this sense, she suggests that we rethink the meaning of work. "When women work to make money to consume more rather than to enhance the quality of our lives on all levels, work does not lead to economic self-sufficiency. More money does not mean more freedom if our finances are not used to facilitate well-being" (53).<br /><br /><br />hooks connects theory with practice and sees commitment to feminism as connected to political action. For example, she argues that "one cannot be anti-choice and be feminist" (6). She believes that when women do not have the right to choose what happens to their bodies, they risk relinquishing rights in other areas. Missing the organized, radical feminist, mass-based political movement, she calls for a renewed commitment to political solidarity.<br /><br /><br />Although hooks clearly argues for the notion of inclusion in feminism, what makes this book indeed valuable to readers more advanced in feminist thinking is her critique of power struggles within the women’s movement, struggles among highly literate, well-educated, and materially privileged white women and materially disadvantaged women who do not have access to class power. hooks does not shy away from pointing out that females can be sexist. She illustrates this point with a critique of "lifestyle feminism" and "power feminism," two contemporary co-optations of feminist thinking that, according to hooks, shape the feminist movement toward competitiveness and away from a clearly-defined goal of ending sexist oppression. hooks argues that the current feminist movement lacks a strong sense of sisterhood due to this focus on competition (sexually, economically, physically) concurrent with a lack of participation in consciousness raising groups. In making this argument, she discusses some of the differences between "reform" and "revolutionary" feminism, and explains why knowing about this distinction is so important for women today.<br /><br /><br />hooks realizes that learning about feminism takes place both inside and outside academic settings. She passionately argues for taking feminist theory from the academy and giving it back to the communities from which it sprang. She calls for feminism without divisive barriers but with rigorous, yet non-hierarchal, discussion and debate. She also argues that feminism cannot succeed without men’s participation in the movement, that men can exist as "worthy comrade[s] in struggle" because feminism is anti-sexism, not anti-male. The enemy, then, is sexist thought and behavior by men or women. She concludes that "enlightened" feminists see that men are not the problem, that the problems are patriarchy, sexism, and male domination (67).<br /><br /><br />Some critics contend that hooks’ work offers no practical suggestions regarding the feminist struggle. However, hooks does apply her philosophies and suggests specific solutions. For example, she argues for the creation of housing co-ops with feminist principles (43). She also suggests programs of job sharing, and an increase in pay for teachers and service workers. She argues for equal access to welfare for men, so that it would no longer carry the stigma of gender (52). In doing so, hooks asserts that we all live in chaos, because capitalism defines the ways in which we can care and love. But feminism can help society and individuals by creating a rhetoric of belief, to help us learn about and participate in the struggle of the marginalized. Only by doing this can humans celebrate life and love, working against dehumanization and domination. hooks espouses the belief that true revolutionaries must anchor their efforts in an act of love of people and of life.<br /><br /><br />hooks’ writing often includes personal stories, and her use of emotion and confessional tones often draws criticism from scholars for being non-academic. In Feminism is for Everybody: Passionate Politics, bell hooks uses a mere 123 pages to present some of her concepts and philosophies in a simple, readable way. Its language and tone are accessible and clear. The book consists of concise chapters (about 7 pages), each covering a specific topic such as consciousness-raising, education, neocolonialism, spirituality, anti-violence movements, male feminism, and marriage & child-rearing. Readers familiar with feminist theory, and especially hooks’ other work, may find this book to be a simplified, and perhaps even recycled, version of her other texts. Nevertheless, at a cost of just over $10, this book serves as an excellent introduction to feminism. I also find it to be an excellent gift to male friends who are just learning about feminisms or for "power feminists" to help them reflect on their "feminism" in relation to others. hooks has served as a professor at Yale University and Oberlin College, and currently is the Distinguished Professor of English at City College, CU-New York.மீராபாரதி meerabharathyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04864604775581602269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4350163001081036315.post-42144402079737759912010-12-26T05:37:00.000-08:002010-12-26T05:46:01.643-08:00Feminism a Movement to End Sexist Oppression - bell hooks<a href="http://mcc.osu.edu/posts/documents/sexism-bhooks.pdf">Feminism a Movement to End Sexist Oppression</a> - bell hooks<br /><br />bell hooks - Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center.<br />"hooks argues that feminism should be a political commitment, a revolutionary movement to end sexist oppression; it should not be about achieving social equality with men, creating a new lifestyle or identity. Feminism must aim at changing society and start with challenging the cultural basis of group oppression. In her opinion, no oppression is privileged - sex, race and class oppression are all interrelated - but sexist oppression is what most of us experience on a daily basis. Hooks stresses the importance for women to know what feminism is about so that they can connect with one another; she points out the collective good of feminism as opposed to privileging individual groups of women. As a strategy to bring all women together, hooks suggests a shift in expressing one's involvement in the movement from "I am a feminist" to "I advocate feminism," which, as she hopes, would eradicate women's fear of being "labeled"."<br /><br /><br /><br />"bell hooks helps to define feminism and takes a critical look at how different branches of feminism have strayed from what she considers its ultimate goal–the struggle to end sexist oppression. Liberal feminists have focused on achieving equality with men and have not pushed for social change that will end domination. Radical feminists struggle for the deconstruction of the politics of domination but have only focused on sexism, ignoring its connections to racism and classism. hook's definition of feminism requires the understanding of domination, addresses the need for women to find their own voice and stresses that these two ideas come together to relate to women's political reality. She also argues that race and class oppression are feminist issues in that they all depend on domination and one form of domination cannot be eliminated while the others remain. Sexism can be considered the primary opression because it is the most widely felt both by the exploiter and by the exploited. She also attempts to explain the reluctance of women to identify with the feminist movement and how her definition may remedy this. "மீராபாரதி meerabharathyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04864604775581602269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4350163001081036315.post-32273761263288232832010-12-25T13:15:00.000-08:002010-12-26T04:15:26.354-08:00introduction: points of origin, points of departure - Ruth Frankenberg social construction of whitenessRuth Frankenberg - <a href="http://www.macalester.edu/wgs/Frankenberg-PointsOfOrigin.pdf">social construction of whiteness<br /></a><br /><a href="http://www.macalester.edu/wgs/Frankenberg-PointsOfOrigin.pdf">http://www.macalester.edu/wgs/Frankenberg-PointsOfOrigin.pdf</a>மீராபாரதி meerabharathyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04864604775581602269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4350163001081036315.post-45261605172793710522010-12-21T14:12:00.001-08:002010-12-21T14:12:33.392-08:00Bringing up ChildrenBringing up Children <br />BELOVED OSHO,<br />WHAT ARE THE MAJOR MISTAKES IN BRINGING UP CHILDREN?<br /><br />The major mistakes in bringing up children are many, but I will talk only about the most important. First: the idea that they belong to you. They come through you; you have been a passage, but they don't belong to you. They are not your possessions. Out of this idea of possessiveness many mistakes arise.<br /><br />Once you start thinking that they are your possessions, you have reduced them into things, because only things can be possessed, not human beings. It is the ugliest act you can do. And those poor children are so helpless, so dependent on you, they cannot rebel. They accept whatever your idea is. And to protect your possessiveness you make them Christians the moment they are born. You make them Hindus, you make them Mohammedans, you make them Buddhists, you make them Jews -- you can't wait! And can't you see the absolute absurdity of it?<br /><br />In politics, the person will be adult and capable of voting when he is twenty-one. Is religion something of lesser quality than politics?<br />But the child cannot even understand language and he is circumcised; he is told that he is a Jew. He is baptized, with no consent from his side -- for the simple reason that you don't need any consent from your furniture, where to put it, to keep it or throw it. You are behaving with your children in the same way, like things.<br /><br />If the parents are really alert, conscious, they will wait for the child to grow up so that he can choose. If he feels like becoming a Christian, he is free. If he feels like becoming a Buddhist, he is free. But he should choose only when he decides.<br /><br />My feeling is that if twenty-one is the minimum age for politics, then for religion forty-two should be the minimum age when people can decide. And in fact that is the time when religion becomes important. You have lived life; you have seen all the seasons of life -- forty-two is a very important turning point. You have to decide whether you will continue the same routine life, or you will bring some new dimension to it. And that new dimension is religion.<br /><br />If the person chooses to be religious -- simply religious, not belonging to any organization, not belonging to any church -- that's perfectly good. He has chosen freedom. But it is personal, intimate, absolutely his own affair; nobody can interfere in it. But parents start interfering from the very beginning. Why the hurry? The hurry is that later on the child will argue, later on he will ask why he is a Jew -- because he was not born a Jew; no child is born a Jew or a Christian or a Hindu. All children are born as a tabula rasa: a clean slate. Nothing is written on them... pure innocence.<br />The first thing to remember is, don't reduce the child into a thing, by any of your efforts. Give him individuality; don't impose personality on him. Individuality he brings with himself; personality is imposed by the parents, by the society, by the educational system, by the church. If you understand, you will not impose anything on the child, you will help the child to be himself.<br /><br />Certainly it is difficult. That's why all the societies of all the ages have chosen the simple path: it is simpler to impose something on the child. Then he is obedient; then he is not rebellious. He does not give you any trouble, he is not a nuisance. But if you give him total freedom and help him to be free and individual, he is going to give you trouble about many things. People have chosen to destroy the child rather than accept the troubles.<br /><br />If you are so much afraid of troubles, it is better not to give birth to a child. But to give birth to a living being, and then to destroy it just for your peace of mind, is very inhuman. Children are the most enslaved class of people in human society, the most exploited -- and exploited "for their own sake."<br />The child, if he is free, is going to ask questions which you don't know the answers to. And your ego does not allow you to say, "I don't know" -- it is better to force the child to keep his mouth shut. Every parent is continually telling the children, "Shut up. Sit silently. When you grow old you will know the answer."<br /><br />My grandfather used to tell me the same thing in my childhood. Year after year I continued to ask the same questions, and I asked him, "I am growing, but your answer remains the same: Shut up... when you grow up. Can you please tell me at what age I will know the answer?"<br />The day I asked him, I was fifteen. I said, "I have been hearing this for ten years. In ten years nothing has changed, and I suspect that even in a hundred years nothing is going to change. My question will remain a question and there is not going to be any answer. And you cannot look directly into my eyes. You also don't know the answer, but you don't have the guts to accept it."<br />He was taken aback, shocked, but he thought that it would be better to say something, because it was going to happen again and again. He said, "You are right; I am sorry. I don't know the answer, I was just postponing it. I thought you would forget all about it. And that's how it has been all along. I had also asked the same question and I was told, `When you grow up you will know.' And now I am seventy-five, just on the verge of death, and I have not got the answer. Just by growing old, you cannot get the answer. I was hoping that you will also grow old, you will have your children asking you the same question, and you will say to them, `Grow old and you will get it.' This is how it has been done for centuries."<br /><br />An individual child is troublesome because he is alive, because he is intelligent, because he can expose your ignorance. And you are ignorant in almost all the basic points of life. Do you really know God? Do you really know that Jesus Christ was the only begotten son of God? Do you know that there is a hell and a heaven beyond this life?<br />What do you know? Do you know yourself, who you are? -- except the name, which is a label glued to you after you were born, except your profession, that you are a doctor, that you are an engineer, that you are a scientist, that you are a professor. But this is not your being, this is your profession. What do you know about yourself?<br /><br />The whole society has been living in utter ignorance -- and perpetuating it by not allowing children to be individual seekers, because it is through individual seeking that one comes to know who he is, and whether there is any God or just a fiction. One comes to know whether his life is eternal or just confined to seventy years. Only experience... but experience needs enquiry, search. But all of that is being stopped by the parents, by the teachers, by the priests.<br />Either they say that you will get it when you are old enough, or they give a fictitious answer, which the innocent child cannot argue against. They say that God created the world. Every child asks, "Who created the world?" Every child is being told, "God created the world." Do you really know? Were you a witness when God was creating the world? Was there any witness at the time of creation? If there is no witness, then what are the grounds on which you are basing your fact? And stupidity knows no limits....<br /><br />Christians say God created the world four thousand and four years before Jesus Christ's birth. They exactly know the time -- four thousand and four years before Christ was born. Certainly it must have been January first, Monday. That can be easily inferred. But the whole answer is nonsense, because we have excavated ancient cities in China, in India, of civilizations which are seven thousand years old. Ruins of great civilizations -- they must have remained in existence for a few thousand years. We have found skeletons of animals fifty thousand years old. And according to Christianity, it is only six thousand years old -- the whole of creation!<br />But the child cannot ask. If he is too inquisitive, he is punished for it. If he is obedient, if whatever you say he accepts without any argument, he is praised. That's your story of Adam and Eve. Why were they expelled from the Garden of Eden? Because they disobeyed. There begins the wrong upbringing of children. They were the first children, mythologically.<br /><br />And what kind of father was this God, who told them not to eat from the tree of knowledge and not to eat the fruit from the tree of eternal life? Two trees are prohibited....<br />The story is significant. It shows what perhaps every father is doing: preventing the child from becoming wise, keeping him ignorant. But it is the natural curiosity of every child -- if you prevent him, if you tell him not to eat the fruit of this tree... In the Garden of Eden there must have been millions of trees. If God had not pointed them out, I don't think we would be sitting here; we would be still wandering in the Garden of Eden. It would have been almost impossible to find those trees.<br />The whole civilization, the whole evolution of man goes back to the disobedience of Adam and Eve. They ate from the tree of knowledge.<br /><br />And you can see the antithesis that I was talking about just before: God says, "Don't eat from that tree," and the devil comes in the shape of a snake and says, "Eat it -- because if you eat it you will be wise, and if you eat from the other tree also, you will be as eternal as God, as wise as God. And that old guy is really jealous; he does not want you to be equal to him."<br /><br />Now this is conspiracy! On the one side prevention, on the other side provocation. And what can you expect of innocent Adam and Eve? They ate from the tree of knowledge. They loved it -- for the first time they became alert, alert of their nakedness, alert of their animalness. But before they could reach to the other tree, they were expelled. They were caught red-handed and expelled from the Garden of Eden, and since then man has been searching and searching for the other tree.<br />The whole scientific endeavor is nothing but a search for eternal life, and the whole religious endeavor is also nothing but a search for eternal life. The other tree we have missed. And the first tree has been so helpful to make us human beings -- now we know we can be equal to gods. All enquiries are basically to find some source so that life can be eternal... or perhaps it is eternal and we have to discover it.<br /><br />What God did to his children, every father is doing to his children. It is perfectly right to say, "God, the father" -- they have a similarity. Every father should be called "Father, the God."<br />Obedience has become the basis of bringing up children, and that is the wrong basis. Intelligence, rebelliousness should be the basis. The child should say yes only when his intelligence says yes; otherwise he should say no. And his yes or his no has to be respected. He is a stranger from an unknown world, a visitor, a guest to your family. Behave with him as a friend, as a guest. He has every right to say no or yes, and you have to make it completely clear that whatever he says will be respected; otherwise we create yes-sayers. That is spiritual slavery.<br /><br />In offices they are saying yes to the boss, in the home they are saying yes to the wife. They have forgotten completely that the word `no' exists. And it strange that `no' defines you, gives you a clear-cut personality; `yes' dissolves you.<br />One should first learn to say no.<br />Your yes is meaningful only when you are also capable of saying no. If you are incapable of saying no, your `yes' is a robot `yes'. It is meaningless.<br /><br />Children should be treated with great respect. All the societies have done just the opposite: they have been teaching children to respect the parents, respect the elders, the grandparents.<br />...<br />...<br />But this is the way the children are being brought up: respect the old people. Why? Just because they are old? Has oldness something respectable?<br /><br />And this is the same logic: respect the people who are dead, because they are even older. Respect the people who have been dead for thousands of years, because nobody can beat them. You are making the living respect the dead. You are making the fresh, the newly sprouting leaf respect the dead leaves which have fallen on the ground, or are just going to fall down.<br />In a right upbringing of children, children should be respected, because the old people are soon going to disappear, but children have a long life to live.<br /><br />And respect has an alchemical effect. If children are respected, the very respect will prevent them from doing many things -- it goes against their respectability. It will make them do many things which they would not have ever cared to do, but now they are so much respected, they feel like being worthy of that respect. But right now the whole thing is upside down.<br />The children need to be taken care of, they need your help, but they don't need to be made dependent on you. Your real help will be to make them independent; your real help will be such that your help is no longer needed.<br /><br />They are strangers in the world. You can keep an eye on them so that they cannot fall into a ditch, but there is no need to enslave them just to save them from the ditch. If these are the only two alternatives, I prefer the ditch. At least by falling in the ditch they will learn something. They will learn what ditches are; they will learn not to fall again into any other ditch. But slavery for their whole life, protection for their whole life, makes them incapable of learning.<br /><br />When you send them to school, a basic education should be given to all children. By basic education I mean: one international language to create one world, their mother tongue, the three R's: reading, arithmetic, writing. You can see it: people's handwriting is so ugly for the simple reason that nobody pays any attention to their writing. And writing is their signature; it shows their whole personality, whether there is a rhythm, an art. Their writing should be a painting, an art.<br />This should be the basic education. And after the basic education, the teachers, psychoanalysts, psychologists should be continuously learning about the children and what are their potentials. Tests can be developed which can give more evidence that the person can become a great musician or a painter or a poet or a scientist. Right now the whole world is in a chaos: the painter is making shoes, the man who was meant to make shoes is painting. Naturally, if you see the painting it looks crazy -- it is no wonder! Everybody is somewhere where he is not supposed to be. It is such a mess!<br /><br />I am reminded of a great surgeon. He was the greatest surgeon in his country, very much respected, a Nobel prize winner -- and he was retiring. He was almost seventy-five, but still no young man was capable of doing such artful surgical work as he was capable of. Even at the age of seventy-five, his fingers were not trembling. He was a brain surgeon. In your small skull there are seven million nerves -- you can think how small they will be -- and when somebody is operating on the brain to remove some nerves, the danger is he may cut other nerves which are so close together, so the hand has not to shake at all.<br /><br />At the age of seventy-five he was still a perfect surgeon, and all the doctors and the surgeons had given him a party because he was retiring. They were dancing, singing, but he was sitting in a corner, sad, with tears in his eyes. One of his old friends came by and he said, "What is the matter? Everybody is so happy and you are looking so sad -- I even see tears in your eyes." He said, "Yes, there is a reason. In the first place I wanted to become a dancer, I never wanted to become a surgeon. My parents forced me. Although I became the most famous surgeon, it was not my heart's desire. I would have been far happier just with a guitar on the street as a beggar -- a singer, a dancer.<br /><br />"All this fame has meant nothing to me. All these awards have meant nothing to me. Each award has only reminded me of one thing, that I am losing my life and I am not where I am supposed to be. And now my whole life is finished. These tears are... I am crying because... why could I not rebel against my parents, and just do whatever I wanted to do?"<br /><br />The world is so miserable. Ninety percent of its misery and anguish comes from the fact that everybody is doing somebody else's work. Naturally he is not happy; he cannot put his whole soul into it.<br />So the parents should not decide where their children are going, in what direction. It should be decided by psychoanalysts, psychologists, teachers who have watched those children for four years during their basic education. The children should be given tests so everything is clear, where they will feel a fulfillment.<br /><br />Now parents decide for a better job; their reasons for deciding are different. They are not deciding for the child and his potential, they are deciding for financial reasons, for respectability. If he becomes a great engineer or a surgeon he will have a good life, a comfortable life; he will have a respectable life. Their intention is not bad, but the path to hell is paved with good intentions. The question is not their good intention, the question is what is hidden in the child that needs a flowering.<br /><br />And that is possible now. We can find out what is hidden in a child and let him move in that direction. Perhaps he may not have a very comfortable life, but he will have very contented life -- and what is comfort in comparison to contentment?<br /><br />Perhaps he may not become world famous, but who cares? How many people know him does not make any difference. But dancing or singing or painting, he will have a fulfillment, a flowering.<br />His life will be juicy.<br />His aura will be of joy.<br /><br />This whole world can be a paradise; we just have to put everybody in his own place. Right now everybody is in the wrong place: nobody is happy, nobody is blissful, nobody is contented. And the whole responsibility is on how we start bringing up children.<br /><br />- Socrates Poisoned Again After 25 Centuries, Chapter #2மீராபாரதி meerabharathyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04864604775581602269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4350163001081036315.post-34357422283263905492010-12-21T14:10:00.001-08:002010-12-21T14:10:51.926-08:00The Art of ParentingThe Art of Parenting <br /> <br />The Art of Parenting<br /> The relationship between the child and his parents is primarily based on love, freedom and a total acceptance of the child as an individual. The parent's core philosophy, in dealing with their children, should be a deep trust in children's natural intelligence and their ability to make their own decisions based on awareness and understanding. <br /><br />The relationship between parents and children should be such where children should be able to express themselves with honesty and integrity, have trust in themselves and understand that their lives, actions and feelings are their own responsibility, and have a non-serious, zestful, confident, creative and fearless approach to life and learning.<br /><br />The parent's main focus should be to help children transform their natural curiosity into a strong inner discipline and motivation. Parents should understand that each individual child comes with some gift, some treasure. It may be academic, it may be practical, or it may be artistically creative. Parents should try to provide as much space and as many opportunities as possible for the child's individuality and creativity to unfold. <br /><br />Parents should not use comparison and competition as stimuli for achievement and performance. Life is so vast, individuals so unique, and there are so many human gifts that cannot be quantified, tested or measured: for example, a loving heart, sensitivity, courage, awareness, honesty, vitality, being generous or understanding. All these qualities are valued as precious, in fact priceless. <br /><br />Parents are the first teachers of the children and their homes their first classroom. Parents should help in every possible way to give freedom, to give opportunities for personal and spiritual growth to their children.<br /><br />WHY ARE PARENTS SO CRUEL TO THEIR CHILDREN? IS THERE ANY SENSE IN MAKING THEM RESPONSIBLE? AND HOW CAN ONE AVOID MAKING THE SAME MISTAKE?<br /><br />PARENTS ARE CRUEL TO THEIR CHILDREN because parents have some investment in them. Parents have some ambitions they would like to fulfill through their children -- that's why they are cruel. They want to use the children. The moment you want to use somebody, you are bound to be cruel. In the VERY idea of using somebody as a means, cruelty has entered, violence has come in.<br /><br />Never treat another person as a means! -- because each person is an end unto himself.<br /><br />Parents are cruel because they have ideas: they want their children to be this and that. They would like their children to be rich, famous, respected; they would like their children to fulfill their unfulfilled egos. Their children are going to be their journeys.<br />The father wanted to be rich but could not succeed, and now death is approaching; sooner or later he will be cut off from life. He feels frustrated: he has not yet arrived. He was still searching and seeking... and now comes death -- this looks so unjust. He would like his son to carry on the work, because his son represents him. He is his blood, he is his projection, his part -- he is his immortality. Who knows about the soul? Nobody is definite about it. People believe, but belief is out of fear, and deep down the doubt remains.<br /><br />Each belief carries the doubt in itself. Without the doubt there cannot be any belief. To repress the doubt, we create the belief -- but the doubt remains gnawing in the heart like a worm in the apple; it goes on eating inside you, it goes on rotting you from the inside. Who knows about God and who knows about soul? They may not be.<br />The only immortality known to man is through children -- that is actual. The father knows, "I will be living in my son. I will be dead, soon I will be under the earth, but my son will be here. And my desires have remained unfulfilled." He imposes those desires, implants those desires, in the consciousness of his son: "You have to fulfill them. If you fulfill them, I will be happy. If you fulfill them, you have paid your debts to your father. If you don't fulfill them, you have betrayed me."<br /><br />This is from where cruelty comes in. Now, the father starts moulding the child according to HIS desire. He forgets that the child has his own soul, that the child has his own individuality, that the child has his own inner growth to unfold. The father imposes HIS ideas. He starts destroying the child.<br />And he thinks he loves: he loves only his ambition. He loves the son also because he is going to become instrumental; he will be a means. This is what cruelty<br /><br />You ask me: WHY ARE PARENTS SO CRUEL TO THEIR CHILDREN?<br /><br />They cannot help it, because they have ideas, ambitions, desires -- unfulfilled. They want to fulfill them, they want to go on living through their children. Naturally, they prune, they cut, they mould, they give a pattern to the children. And the children are destroyed. <br />That destruction is bound to happen -- unless a new human being arises on the earth, who loves for love's sake; unless a new parenthood is conceived: you love the child just for the sheer joy of it, you love the child as a gift from God. You love the child because God has been so... such a blessing to you. You love the child because the child is life, a guest from the unknown who has nestled into your house, into your being, who has chosen you as the nest. You are grateful and you love the child.<br />If you really love the child, you will not give your ideas to the child. Love never gives any ideas, never any ideology. Love gives freedom. You will not mould. If your child wants to become a musician, you will not try to distract him. And you know perfectly well that being a musician is not the right kind of job to be in, that he will be poor, that he will never become very rich, that he will never become a Henry Ford. Or the child wants to be a poet and you know he will remain a beggar. You know it! but you accept it because you respect the child.<br /><br />Love is always respectful. Love is reverence. You respect! because if this is God's desire to be fulfilled through the child, then let it be so. You don't interfere, you don't come in the way. You don't say, "This is not right. I know life more, I have lived life -- you are just ignorant of life and its experiences. I know what money means. Poetry is not going to give you money. Become a politician, rather! or at least become an engineer or a doctor." And the child wants to become a woodcutter, or the child wants to become a cobbler, or the child simply wants to become a vagabond, and he wants to enjoy life... rest under trees, and on the sea beaches, and roam around the world.<br />You don't interfere if you love; you say, "Okay, with my blessings you go. You seek and search your truth. You be whatsoever you want to be. I will not stand in your way. And I will not disturb you by my experiences -- because my experiences are my experiences. You are not me. You may have come through me, but you are not me -- you are not a copy of me. You are NOT to be a copy of me. You are not to imitate me. I have lived my life -- you live your life. I will not burden you with my unlived experiences. I will not burden you with my unfulfilled desires. I will keep you light. And I will help you -- whatsoever you want to be, be! with all my blessings and with all my help."<br /><br />The children come through you, but they belong to God, they belong to totality. Don't possess them. Don't start thinking as if they belong to you. How can they belong to you?<br /><br />Once this vision arises in you, then -- then there will be no cruelty.<br /><br />You ask: WHY ARE PARENTS SO CRUEL TO THEIR CHILDREN? IS THERE ANY SENSE IN MAKING THEM RESPONSIBLE? <br /><br />No, I am not saying there is any sense in making parents responsible -- because they have suffered because of THEIR parents, and so on and so forth.... Understanding is needed. Finding scapegoats is of no help. You cannot simply say, "I am destroyed because my parents have destroyed me -- what can I do?" I know, parents ARE destructive, but if you become alert and aware you can get out of that pattern that they have created and woven around you.<br /><br />You ALWAYS remain capable of getting out of any trap that has been put around you! Your freedom may have been encaged, but the freedom is such, is so intrinsic, that it cannot be utterly destroyed. It always remains, and you can find it again. Maybe it is difficult, arduous, hard, an uphill task, but it is not impossible.<br /><br />There is no point in just throwing the responsibility, because that makes you irresponsible. That's what Freudian psychoanalysis has been doing to people -- that is its harm. You go to the psychoanalyst and he makes you feel perfectly good, and he says, "What can you do? Your parents were such -- your mother was such, your father was such, your upbringing was wrong. That's why you are suffering from all these problems." You feel good -- now you are no more responsible.<br /><br />Christianity has made you feel responsible for two thousand years, has made you feel guilty, that you are the sinner. Now psychoanalysis goes to the other extreme: it simply says you are not the sinner, you are not to feel guilty -- you are perfectly okay. You forget about all guilt and you forget all about sin. Others are responsible!<br />Christianity has done much harm by creating the idea of guilt -- now psychoanalysis is doing harm from the other extreme, by creating the idea of irresponsibility.<br /><br />You have to remember: the parents were doing something because they were taught to do those things -- their parents had been teaching them. They were brought up by parents also; they had not come from heaven directly. So what is the point of throwing the responsibility backwards? It doesn't help; it will not help to solve any problem. It will help only to unburden you from guilt. That is good, the good part; the beneficial part of psychoanalysis is that it unburdens you from guilt. And the harmful part is that it leaves you there; it does not make you feel responsible.<br /><br />To feel guilty is one thing: to feel responsible is another thing. I teach you responsibility. What do I mean by responsibility? You are not responsible to your parents, and you are not responsible to any God, and you are not responsible to any priest -- you are responsible to your inner being. Responsibility is freedom! Responsibility is the idea that "I have to take the reins of my life in my own hands. Enough is enough! My parents have been doing harm -- whatsoever they could do they have done: good and bad, both they have done. Now I have become a mature person. I should take everything in my own hands and start living the way it arises in me. I should devote all my energies to my life now." And immediately you will feel a great strength coming to you.<br /><br />Guilt makes you feel weak: responsibility makes you feel strong. Responsibility gives you heart again, confidence, trust.<br /><br />That is the meaning of sannyas. Sannyas wants you to be free from Christianity, Hinduism, Jainism, Mohammedanism, and sannyas wants you to be free from Freudian psychoanalysis and things like that too. Sannyas wants you to live your life authentically, according to your innermost voice, not according to any other voice from anywhere. Not according to the Bible or according to the Koran. If God has spoken in a certain way in the Koran, it was specifically meant for Mohammed, not for you. It was God's dialogue with Mohammed, not with you. You will have to find your own dialogue with God. You will have to find your own Koran!<br /><br />If Jesus has spoken those beautiful words, they are out of the dialogue that happened between him and the totality. Now don't go on repeating them. They are meaningless for you. They are not BORN in you, they are not PART of you! They are like a plastic flower: you can bring a plastic rose and hang it on the rosebush -- yes, they are like that -- it is not the same as when a roseflower comes out of the rosebush itself.<br />You can deceive people. Those who don't know may be deceived. They may see so many beautiful flowers are blooming on the rosebush, and they are all plastic. But you cannot deceive the rosebush -- you cannot deceive yourself. You can go on repeating Jesus, but those words have not been uttered in your cars by God; they are not addressed to you. You are reading a letter addressed to somebody else! It is illegal; you should not open that envelope. You should search and find your own relationship with the totality.<br /><br />That relationship I call responsibility. Response means spontaneous capacity to relate. Response means capacity to respond tc life situations according to your heart, not according to anybody else. When you start feeling that, you become an individual. Then you stand on your own feet.<br /><br />And remember, if you stand on your own feet, then only one day will you be able to walk without feet and fly without wings. Otherwise not.<br /><br />And you ask: AND HOW CAN ONE AVOID MAKING THE SAME MISTAKES?<br /><br />JUST TRY TO UNDERSTAND THOSE MISTAKES. If you see the point, why they are committed, you will not commit them. Seeing a truth is transforming. Truth liberates. Just see the point! -- why your parents have destroyed you. Their wishes were good, but their awareness was not good; they were not aware people. They wanted you to be happy, certainly, they wished you all happiness. That's why they wanted you to become a rich man, a respected man; that's why they curbed your desires, cut your desires, moulded you, patterned you, structured you, gave you a character, repressed many things, enforced many things. They did whatsoever they could. Their wish was right: they wanted you to be happy, although they were not aware of what they were doing, although they themselves had never known what happiness is. They were unhappy people! and unaware.<br /><br />Their wish was good -- don't feel angry about them. They did whatsoever THEY could. Feel sorry for them, but never angry at them. Don't feel any rage! They were helpless! They were caught in a certain trap. They had not known what happiness is, but they had some ideas that a happy person is one who has much money. They worked for it their whole lives; they wasted their whole lives in earning money, but they remained with that stupid idea that money brings happiness. And they tried to poison your being too. They were not thinking to poison you -- they were thinking they were pouring elixir in you. Their dreams were good, their wishes were good, but they were unhappy people and unaware people -- that's why they have done harm to you.<br /><br />Now be aware. Search for happiness. Find out how to be happy. Meditate, pray, love. Live passionately and intensely! If you have known happiness, you will not be cruel to anybody -- you cannot be. If you have tasted anything of life, you will never be destructive to anybody. How can you be destructive to your own children? You cannot be destructive to ANYBODY at all.<br /><br />If you have known awareness, then that's enough. You need not ask "And how can one avoid making the same mistakes?" If you are not happy and aware, you cannot avoid making the same mistakes -- you will make the same mistakes! You are bound to, you are doomed to make the same mistakes.<br /><br />So I cannot give you a clue as to how to avoid -- I can only give you an insight. The insight is: your parents were unhappy -- please, you be happy. Your parents were unaware -- you be aware. And those two things -- awareness and happiness -- are not really two things but two aspects of the same coin.<br />Start by bang aware and you will be happy! And a happy person is a non-violent person.<br /><br />And always remember: children are not adult; you should not expect adult things from children. They are children! They have a totally different vision, a different perspective. You should not start forcing your adultish attitudes upon them. Allow them to remain children, because they will never be again; and once lost, everybody feels nostalgia for the childhood, everybody feels those days were days of paradise. Don't disturb them.<br /><br />Sometimes it is difficult for you to accept the children's vision -- because you have lost it yourself! A child is trying to climb a tree; what will you do? You immediately become afraid -- he may fall, he may break his leg, or something may go wrong. And out of your fear you rush and you stop the child. If you had known what joy it is to climb a tree, you would have helped so that the child could learn how to climb trees! You would have taken him to a school where it is taught how to climb trees. You would not have stopped him. Your fear is good -- it shows love, that the child may fall, but to stop the child from climbing the tree is to stop the child from growing.<br />There is something ESSENTIAL about climbing trees. If a child has NEVER been doing it, he will remain something poor, he will miss some richness -- for his whole life. You have deprived him of something beautiful, and there is no other way to know about it! Later on it will become more difficult for him to climb on the tree, it will look stupid or foolish or ridiculous.<br /><br />Let him climb the tree. And if you are afraid, help him, go and teach him. You also climb with him! Help him learn so he doesn't fall. And once in a while, falling from a tree is not so bad either. Rather than being deprived forever....<br />The child wants to go out in the rains and wants to run around the streets in the rain, and you are afraid he may catch a cold or get pneumonia or something -- and your fear is right! So DO something so that he is more resistant to colds. Take him to the doctor; ask the doctor what vitamins should be given to him so that he can run in the rains and enjoy and dance and there is no fear that he will catch cold or will get pneumonia. But don't stop him. To dance in the streets when it is raining is such a joy! To miss it is to miss something very valuable.<br /><br />If you know happiness and if you are aware, you will be able to feel for the child, how he feels.<br /><br />A child is jumping and dancing and shouting and shrieking, and you are reading your newspaper, your stupid newspaper. And you know what is there -- it is always the same. But you feel disturbed. There is nothing in your newspaper, but you feel disturbed. You stop the child: "Don't shout! Don't disturb Daddy! Daddy is doing something great -- reading the newspaper." And you stop that running energy, that flow -- you stop that glow, you stop life. You are being violent.<br /><br />And I am not saying that the child has always to be allowed to disturb you. But out of a hundred times, ninety times you are unnecessarily disturbed. And if you don't disturb him those ninety times, the child will understand. When you understand the child, the child understands you -- children are very very responsive. When the child sees that he is never prevented, then once you say, "I am doing something please..." the child will know that it is not from a parent who is constantly looking to shout at him. It is from a parent who allows everything.<br /><br />Children have a different vision.<br /><br />"Now, I want it quiet " said the teacher, "so quiet you can hear a pin drop."<br />A deep silence descended on the classroom. After about two minutes an anguished voice from the back shouted, "For Pete's sake, let it drop!"<br /><br />It was the little boy's first day at school, and as soon as his mother had left him, he burst into tears. Despite all efforts on the part of his teacher and the headmistress, he went on crying and crying until finally, just before lunch, the teacher said in exasperation, "For heaven's sake, shut up child! It's lunch-time now, and then in a couple more hours you'll be going home and you'll see your mummy again."<br />At once the little boy stopped crying, "Will I?" he said. "I thought I had to stay here until I was sixteen!"<br /><br />They have their vision, their understanding, their ways. Try to understand them. An understanding mind will always find a deep harmony arising between him and the child. It is the stupid, the unconscious, the non-understanding people, who go on remaining closed in their ideas and never look at the other's vision.... Children bring freshness into the world. Children are new editions of consciousness. Children are fresh entries of divinity into life. Be respectful, be understanding.<br /><br />And if you are happy and alert, there is no need to be worried about how not to commit the same mistakes -- you will not commit. But then you have to be totally different from your parents. Consciousness will bring that difference.<br /><br />osho-Walk Without Feet, Fly Without Wings and Think Without Mind<br />Chapter #2மீராபாரதி meerabharathyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04864604775581602269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4350163001081036315.post-15692274592901722332010-12-21T06:07:00.000-08:002010-12-21T06:16:44.815-08:00An Interview with Vivian Gornick<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkUsWVfjWXUqcc7pZDKTP1lJEt5m1wPwD5ye90dnYeatVI4tcQKcxF5KR9DFWMftLZ1DHsppD_NpzAdmuCP8_eq3LpUC0wUeER6mRwAZdldPNXdUMBHWDhyphenhyphenTCtYgE-0kCY_2cxGklQnXsH/s1600/Vivian+Gornick.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkUsWVfjWXUqcc7pZDKTP1lJEt5m1wPwD5ye90dnYeatVI4tcQKcxF5KR9DFWMftLZ1DHsppD_NpzAdmuCP8_eq3LpUC0wUeER6mRwAZdldPNXdUMBHWDhyphenhyphenTCtYgE-0kCY_2cxGklQnXsH/s320/Vivian+Gornick.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5553139282895275410" /></a><br />Demon Doubt:<br />An Interview with Vivian Gornick<br />"Penetrating the familiar is by no means a given. <br />On the contrary, it is hard, hard work." <br /><br />From The Situation and the Story: <br />The Art of Personal Narrative (2001)<br /><br /><br /> <br />Photo credit: Jill Krementz<br /><br />May 15, 2008 — Writer and critic Vivian Gornick recently spoke with Boston Globe Ideas reporter Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow about her forthcoming book, The Men in My Life. The collection won her praise from Library Journal as "a vigorous and sophisticated thinker," whose essays "explore the inner conflicts of the authors. . . and illustrate how magnificent the literary yield of human frailty can be."<br /><br /><br />--------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br /><br />In this book, you describe finding the struggle toward inner freedom that you identify with feminism in the work of male authors. Is its presence stronger in the work of male authors than in that of female authors?<br /><br />No. I say in the book that all writers deal with the demon of self-doubt. But when I was a young feminist, I was so concentrated on its power over women that it took me a while to come back to what, of course, I had understood before. By the time my apprenticeship, so to speak, in feminism was over, I read male authors with new ears and eyes. That’s what it means to reread—rediscovering old knowledge.<br /><br />What drives you to read a particular book?<br /><br />There are people who feel obliged to read right up to the minute, whatever’s new and talked about. I’m not one of those people. I have never read with an agenda. But I do feel that I have my job as a reader, to engage fully with whatever I’m reading, that’s the only thing that matters.<br /><br />How do you see your job as a critic?<br /><br />I feel about writing criticism as I would about writing out of imagination. It has exactly the same responsibilities as any other kind of writing. Criticism is a window through which the writer looks and sees the world. What’s most important is those particular eyes and that particular vision and that particular way of seeing. Which, if you’re lucky, grows more and more coherent as you grow older. It’s a way of looking at things that I’ve found myself applying, not mechanically, not by virtue of agenda. So that there are all kinds of things I don’t feel obliged to read because I don’t feel they will deepen my way of seeing the world.<br /><br />In your criticism, you often analyze the authors as people, as well as the work itself. Do you draw any distinction between the two?<br /><br />I only analyze people in relation to the work. The people that I have written about are very autobiographical. H.G. Wells, for example. I don’t write about him in relation to his fiction, or even his nonfiction, but in relation to his memoir. I hope I analyze the authors as people when it’s truly relevant and truly contributes.<br /><br />One thing I’ve noticed that recurs in your work—you describe writers who are able to be alone with themselves and the reader. For example, you referred to Wells as being alone with himself.<br /><br />That is the aim, isn’t it—to be alone with yourself. We live in a world, in a culture that has misused the word loneliness. Our culture seems to be explaining itself in terms of a flight from loneliness. The question that interests me and many others is an old one: who is there in the room when you’re alone? What is it you’re fleeing when you’re fleeing loneliness? Are you fleeing the fact that you can’t deal with yourself? You’re not able to occupy your own skin? The writers in these essays all raise these questions for me.<br /><br />In the essay on Saul Bellow and Philip Roth, you write about the relationship between Jewishness and misogyny. Could you elaborate?<br /><br />These Jewish-American writers, they have written more virulently, more violently, more angrily about women than have their gentile counterparts. There are very few gentile writers of their age—John Updike, for example—who can write about women the way Roth and Bellow write. They’re too sure of themselves. Roth and Bellow suffer from feeling like such outsiders in gentile culture that savaging women seems justified. So in that sense there’s a connection between Jewishness and misogyny. I don’t think Jews are more misogynistic than gentiles. We’re talking about these writers. <br /><br />I’m not sure I understand. You note that their misogyny increased as they became more renowned.<br /><br />When people feel suppressed—take feminists, for instance. Women woke up realizing they’d been second-class citizens, and they did not wake up feeling mild and gentle and happy to be getting any crumbs of equality. They woke up in a rage. The movement did not emerge until the time had come when society at large was able to respond to it. So we were closer to being equalized or liberated or heard. And the closer we got, oddly enough, the angrier we were. It’s the same with them. But they’re Jewish. They hated having to be polite Jews. When the time came and they felt they could open their mouths and write as they would wish to, they were closer, society was actually closer to accepting assimilation. The irony is that the closer they got, the more enraged they got.<br /><br />And why do you think it gets translated into hating women rather than gentiles?<br /><br />It’s an old, old story. Look at how badly people treat each other in family life. If you feel powerless, it is an unhappy truth that you turn on the one closest to you, instead of turning on the true source of the problem. It’s displaced anger.<br /><br />When you gave a recent speech on Roth and Bellow, I understand that some of the audience members had a contentious reaction.<br /><br />Roth and Bellow are titanic figures, they’re beyond criticism. But really, what I am saying in this piece is that Jewish writing is over. That is the point of contention.<br /><br />Jewish-Americans did something in American literature that no other culture has done— they created world-class literature out of the immigrant experience. And that’s the only thing that mattered in Jewish-American writing. Had Roth and Bellow not been major talents, you wouldn’t have Jewish-American writing. It wouldn’t mean anything. It would just be parochial, local.<br /><br />But we cannot have major talent writing this stuff anymore because there’s nothing to write about. What made them major was their gripe, the chip on their shoulders. The rage that they felt at the world for keeping them out. That experience became a great metaphor. There is no hyphenated Jewish experience anymore. I have two nieces who are both Ivy League babies and they’re in the ruling class. There’s nothing they can’t do. Nothing.<br /><br />So there’s nothing to talk about. There’s really nothing to write about. Yet you have young people who keep on doing it. All I’m saying is, it doesn’t count. Take Michael Chabon, or Jonathan Safran Foer. They’re cashing in on a world that’s long gone and they’re writing with open nostalgia. They’re making things out of it that belong to their grandfathers. It’s a habit to go on assuming that this is legitimate writing. But I truly feel it is not.<br /><br />What are your thoughts about the fate of feminism?<br /><br />The fate of feminism as a force, as a philosophy, as an action, as a vision, as a yearning will go on spreading its way through until it accomplishes its goals. My generation was very lucky to be alive in a time when it reawakened with visionary force.<br /><br />A struggle for equality just doesn’t complete itself. Every fifty years it reawakens with new force, and it makes this much progress, and then it stops. But it never goes back to where it was before. It’s the longest and the oldest struggle in history. There’s more fear and anxiety attached to equality between men and women than anything else. Everyone’s afraid of it, men and women alike. That’s our problem.<br /><br />And it’s such a contrast to what you’re saying about the progress of Jewish-Americans.<br /><br />Absolutely. There isn’t a black person in the world today who wants to remain a slave, who wants to remain at the wrong end of the racist dynamic. But there are lots of women who want to remain as they are.<br /><br /><br />Demon Doubt <br />An Interview with Vivian Gornick<br />http://bostonreview.net/BRwebonly/gornick.phpமீராபாரதி meerabharathyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04864604775581602269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4350163001081036315.post-9077217190958302052010-11-12T12:43:00.000-08:002011-05-26T19:02:49.000-07:00More sex, Gender, and sexual orientation Identities- A Reality<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">More sex, Gender, and sexual orientation Identities- A Reality<br />
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Social science claims that the sex, gender, and sexuality of human beings have been constructed throughout the history. Sex identities of male and female are assigned at birth based on biological genitalia and the identities of gender are constructed by giving different colours of cloths to each sex, pink for girls and blue for boys (Lindsey, 1995, p.109). Subsequently, the social institutions do control and condition human behaviour, emotions, and feelings in every step of their life which forms their gender identity (Segal, p.442-444). However, many people do not fall into the prescribed gender norms: there are many individuals who have visible and invisible biological and psychological differences and exist in the societies. Their identities are different from the constructed male and female identities such as western transgender, Brazilian travesties, Indian hijras, Xanith of Oman and Philippine’s bakla, or eunuch (Uregui, 2006, p.96). In fact, there is a controversy between the norms of social construction and deconstruction of sex, gender, and sexuality because of these different sex and gender identities (2006, p.95). Hetero normative society claims that sex, gender, and sexuality are natural and if anything is wrong in it then it should be treated. However social science argues that hetero normative identities and behaviours are constructed and it should be deconstructed.<br />
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Social construction of identity begins at birth by looking at our genital parts (2000, p.121) and since then, we have been recognized and identified as either a man or a woman by ourselves and the outside world (Rubin, 1984, p.308). Then, as we grow up, we have been trained and behave according to assigned behaviours based on our sexual bodies such as either masculine or feminine (Passer, Smith, Atkinson, Mitchell, & Muir, 2003, p.489). Afterwards for reproduction but not for our sexual pleasure, we are directed to reach out to the opposite sex and therefore, identifying ourselves as heterosexual because all other sexual relations and behaviours are prohibited, and made illegal and against moral values (Rubin, 1984, p. 270-276, Baird, 2001, p.104). All of our identities we have recognized because we are living in a society where everything about sex, gender and sexuality is mostly constructed as opposite identities and characters such as for sex as male or female, for gender as masculine or feminine, where as sexual orientation connects these opposites as heterosexual (Grant, 2006, p.968). These are constructed based on social beliefs and myths without any scientific reasoning and followed and imposed by social institutions such as medical science (doctors), family, religion, education, and culture (Passer et.al, 2003, p.489). <br />
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Foucault also supports this claim by saying that, “the sexuality of children becomes a primary site in the exercise of power. The bodies of children are controlled (socialized) by parents as well as by a host of institutions” (Muszynski, 2000, p.124). Similarly, the video, “Tough Guise” by Jackson Katz, one of America's leading anti-sexist male activists, an educator, author and filmmaker (Katz, 2009), also proves how cultures, peers and other institution construct and condition human identity by repeating the assigned identity and insulting and offensive against different identities and behaviours (Coinlin, 2009). That’s why in the normative society boys and girls are not allowed to wear the dress of their opposite sex/gender. If anyone does, society and peers call them tomboys or sissies (Baird, 2001, p.104). These are some of the many ways in which social constructing happens in society. However, these social constructions contradict reality because of different individual human beings who do not fall into these normative social categories of sex, gender and sexuality. On the other hand, knowing how social constructions happen in societies is a way to deconstruct these normative identities.<br />
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The individuals who are born with or without both sex genitals and behave with a unique or opposite character contrast to their assigned gender. Anne Fausto Sterling, Professor of Biology and Gender Studies at Brown University in the USA, says an individual’s internal organs and hormones can differ from assigned gender for each individual. These individuals may also differ in their desire and behaviour to have sexual pleasure with either the same, different, or opposite gender (1993, p.170-172). Also, even earlier there is a possibility, because biological research says that the human embryo develops in its own environment which is in women’s womb and therefore it can be affected by that but not with genes (Passer, et al. 2003, p.461). This means that the biology and psychology of a person can also be determined by the environment of the women’s womb, other than gene heredity or effect. Therefore, there are many factors which decide an individual’s sex, gender, and sexuality other than genes.<br />
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The fact is that there are individuals who are born different compared to hetero normative social construction of sex, gender and sexuality. Hence, these individual identities could contradict the normative social construction. Therefore, human beings who differ from the social construction deny and suppress their real identity and pretend that they are like purported normal people. That’s why Foucault says, “If power affects the body, it is not because it was first internalized in people’s consciousness. There is a network of bio-power. That is itself a network from which sexuality is born as a historical and cultural phenomenon within which we both recognize and lose ourselves” (Muszynski, 2000, p.123). The bio powers like, “bio-chemistry, embryology, endocrinology, psychology, and surgery” control the sex of an individual through their developed knowledge (Sterling, 1993, p.170). Hence, the normative societies are made of heterosexual men and women with masculine and feminine identities. Other identities, relationships, and behaviours fall into third sex/gender which is excluded from the normative. However, in reality many individuals do not fall into prescribed gender norms because there are other categories which are considered abnormal like herm, perm, homo (1993, p.172). That is why, there are, “studies that focuses on femininity [and] analyses of masculinity challenge researches to interrogate the multiple identities of gender...” (McPherson, 2003, p.6). These make it clear that all of these power relations and institutions reinforce their hetero normative ideas over individuals when they are born. However, social science identifies gender differences and their uniqueness and challenge with hetero normative societies’ construction of sex, gender, and sexuality. <br />
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Patriarchal societies separate and divide natural qualities and behaviours of a human being such as laughing, crying, soft, strength, passive, and aggressive based on gender binary social system. Then the societies assign these separated qualities and behaviours to individuals based on their sex. However, by doing this they succeed in constructing two opposite sex and gender identities and also put those in an order where power play a role (Grant, 2006, p.969). We can see these separated qualities and behaviours in individuals around us in our everyday life. Also we can notice that men have more power than women and when anyone behaves against hetero normative identities and behaviours, we look at them differently.<br />
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Judith Butler makes it clear by saying that “conceptualization of gender along the lines of sexuality, religion, and philosophy” (Rubin, 1984, p.270). Moreover, women also have seen as imperfect males (Muszynski, 2000, p.121) by these patriarchal societies. Muszynski states according to Kessler, “the non-normative is conversed into the normative and the normative status is considered as natural” (2000, p.121).<br />
Therefore, hetero normative society’s beliefs are not natural, but constructed as a binary sex and gender identity. Nature is beyond binary systems because nature has multiple sex, gender identities and sexual behaviours. Also most individuals have masculinity and femininity together or beyond or combined with different percentages. <br />
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This society does not have any name even for third gender identity or pronoun. Then where do we to go for more than three identities? Even the languages are constructed and do not have a word at least for a third sex or gender because it is limited with only he or she. However, lack of this social definitions and language cannot deny that there are different sexes and genders. Therefore, Sandeep Bakshi says that social construction of sex, gender, and sexuality is a controversy in social science (2004, p.221, Segal, p.444). The existence of many different unique sexes, genders identities and sexual behaviours confront with hetero normative societies and sustain these controversies in social science.<br />
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Third sex and gender individuals feel that their sex and gender different from normative definition of sex and gender. Sometimes they like to change or transform their sex body parts such as sex organs or genitals which they were born with to assimilate with the society or to affirm their uniqueness. Another confirmation about third sex because they are not like “normal” individuals and have extra genital part or have not genital part. This can happen by birth or surgery. <br />
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Social science is a way to research how norms are constructed in the hetero normative society and how to deconstruct these norms to treat everyone equal. It is a part of the responsibility of the researcher to determine what is constructed and how. However, this is a controversy in social science because, “liberal and socialist feminist argue for a social construction of gender, [and] post-structuralism and post- modernism [and queer theory] argue for deconstruction not only gender, but also sex and sexuality”( Muszynski, 2000, p.119). However, Social scientists are working with medical science and psychologist to overcome these issues because it is their social responsibility. <br />
Sterling is discussing and proposing new thoughts about sex and gender identities, in her essay, “The Five Sexes: Why male and female are not enough”. She explains:<br />
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European [and American culture] is deeply devoted to the idea that there are only two sexes. Even our language refuses other possibilities such as s/he and he/r denote individuals who are clearly neither/both male and female or who are, perhaps, both at once. ...but if the state and legal system has an interest in maintain only two sexes, [but] our collective bodies do not. ...while male and female stand on the extreme ends of a biological continuum, there are many other bodies such as fems (people with testes, xy chromosomes, and some aspects of female genitalia), herms (people with ovaries and testes), and mems (people with xx chromosomes and some aspects of male genitalia). (as cited in Sterling, 1993, p.166-168 ) <br />
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Post-structuralism and post-modernist analyse and criticise normative social conditions and the definitions of sex, gender, and sexuality and how they are constructed in the societies. Even though they have different points of views, they agree on one matter that old construction of identities have to be deconstructed (Muszynski, 2000, p.119). The deconstruction of old definitions of identities may find real identity of human beings. Also new definitions will accommodate all varieties of human beings without discriminating against any one. As a result, it will lead to accept their rights and equal status like other human beings in society.<br />
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In conclusion, individuals are born with natural and unique identities, characters, and behaviours in society. However, the power of the hetero normative society redefines and constructs their identities, characters, and behaviours of individuals according to their hetero normative social systems and beliefs since the birth of individuals. But in reality not everyone falls into these normative social categories because they are different and like to be that as natural as they were born. They are another category of sex/gender and different in their body, character, and behaviours. Therefore, their sex and gender identity has to be accepted, respected and legalized with full social rights. In the same time, deconstruction of traditional values of social construction such as sex, gender, and sexuality has to happen by social science. Then, it will open for more sexes and genders come in to real life from their hidden life style. However, it should be a freedom of choice of an individual. If a person wants to change or transform or being as s/he already is, then their sexuality should be sanctioned by the laws. Only this will protect their rights and pay the way to live as they are which are different from normative society. Ultimately it is an individual freedom and society does not have any rights to interfere in with the individual body. These genders have been recognised and legalized through the Canadian charter of rights and freedom in Canada.<br />
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Raising the voices against any kind of discriminations is the only way to move forward little fast. However, it is better to ask the question and to know, why the hetero normative social power wants to keep just two sexes and genders?, who benefits from these sex and gender division?, why restrictions and prohibitions are against other sex and genders? and finally, why human beings need sex and gender identity?. The answers to these questions will layout the path to deconstruction of hetero normative sex and gender. Then, we can have a society where all kinds of sexes and genders have their full social rights with equal status and mutual respects between them.<br />
<br />
meerabharathy<br />
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Uregui, B. S. (2006). Unzipping Gender: Sex, Cross-dressing and Culture by Charlotte <br />
Suthrell, Riviews -Journal of Gender Studies, 15:1. Routledge. London. P.95-96</div>meerabharathyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06137888444336308408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4350163001081036315.post-73525708459815590642010-08-24T12:58:00.002-07:002010-08-24T13:00:47.510-07:00Death is only a changeYou think death gives you the illusion of life, love, freedom, and then one day suddenly it comes in and everything is destroyed: life, love, freedom. Death is not a reality. It cannot step in or step out.<br /><br />DEATH NEVER HAPPENS.<br /><br />The illusion is not given by death. How can death give the illusion? In fact, it destroys the illusion. If you are aware that death is bound to happen, how can you remain in the illusion that life is going to continue forever? For that you will need really a thick skull. Death is happening every day. All the cemeteries around the world, and the crematoriums -- death has left its mark.<br /><br />Death is not creating the illusion. It is your mind that creates the illusion that, "It is always somebody else who dies, I never die." And in a way it looks logical: you always see somebody else dying, you cannot see yourself dying. The man who has died, he was also in the same illusion; he had also seen others dying, and deep down he must have been saying, "It is something that happens to others, it does not happen to me."<br /><br />This is your mind. Certainly you will never see your death, because dead men don't see. Mind gives you the feeling that you are going to live forever. Drop that illusion, drop that mind! You cannot be certain even of the next moment.<br /><br />And it is good that you cannot be certain of the next moment, and the tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow; it is good, tremendously good. Because the next moment is not certain, you are thrown back to the present. This is the only moment you have got of which you can be certain -- enjoy it! Enjoy it as totally as possible. Squeeze the whole juice out of it, because who knows? -- the next moment may never come.<br /><br />DEATH IS GOOD -- IT KEEPS YOU ALERT.<br /><br />It never gives you a warning of when it is coming; it comes suddenly out of nowhere. It is a great blessing. Just think: if you were allowed to be immortal in your body, do you think you would enjoy it? Even people who live for eighty years start praying for death. They are bored -- the same routine, the same life. What more is there to live for? They are tired, exhausted, weak, old. Now death is their only hope.<br /><br />I HAVE HEARD about Alexander the Great, that when he was reaching India, passing the big desert of Saudi Arabia, he was informed that there is a well in Saudi Arabia -- if you drink out of that well you become immortal. Naturally, anybody would have been attracted, and particularly a man like Alexander the Great, who was nothing but a big ego. He wanted to conquer the whole earth, and he was afraid -- is there time enough or not? The earth is so big... He wanted to become the first man in history who has conquered the whole earth.<br /><br />This was a good chance; if he is immortal, then there is no problem. And if somebody is immortal, is not going to die, he is not going to be sick either, because sickness, illness, disease -- they are just steps towards death. The immortal man will be young, healthy, with no possibility of any sickness or disease.<br /><br />And Alexander was only thirty-three years old; this was a good time to become immortal. He was healthy, beautiful, strong -- this was a good time to become immortal, that meant he would remain thirty-three forever.<br /><br />He stopped his armies and he said, "I am going to the well. Nobody comes with me." He did not want anybody else to become immortal. If others also become immortal, his immortality would no longer be unique.<br /><br />He went to the well -- it is a beautiful story. In the East there are wells made in two ways. One is the ordinary way, a hole in the earth. To reach water level... you have to pull the water up in a bucket. There is also another type of well; only very rich people can afford it. On one side there is an arrangement where you can pull the water up in a bucket. On the side opposite to it there are steps going to the water itself. It is really cool there, silent.<br /><br />I have been into many wells. When you sit there for hours, time seems to stop, the whole world seems to be so far away. The noise of the market, the people -- nothing reaches there. Sixty feet deep in the earth, it is dark, cool, yet very fresh.<br /><br />The well where Alexander went was this type of well. So he went in, step by step, immensely excited. And just as he was making a cup out of his hands, and filling his hands with the water to drink, a crow who was sitting just nearby on a tree by the side of the well, said, "Wait! Wait a minute!"<br /><br />Alexander looked back. He could not believe that a crow -- because there was nobody else -- could speak, but he was speaking. The crow said, "Wait."<br /><br />Alexander said, "Why did you stop me? Don't you know I am Alexander the Great? Nobody can stop me! And you are just a crow."<br /><br />The crow said, "First listen to what I have to say to you, then do whatsoever you want. I have drunk from this well and I have become immortal. Now, for hundreds of years I have been trying to commit suicide -- in this way, in that way. Nothing succeeds, and I am tired, utterly tired. And the very idea that I am going to live forever in this despair, in this anguish... even death is not going to relieve me.<br /><br />"I have known everything, I have experienced everything. Now there is nothing in the future but a painful, miserable existence. That's why I said, wait a moment. Now, think it over, and then if you feel like drinking, drink. But I am sitting here only to prevent people, because I am suffering so much."<br /><br />A moment of silence... Alexander's hands dropped the water back into the well, and he said to the crow, "Thank you, my friend. I am immensely grateful. I had never thought about it, that I would have to live forever and forever. My friends will be dying, my beloved will be dying, my parents will be dying, my teachers will be dying, my contemporaries will be dying -- and I will remain stuck forever. No, I cannot drink this water, and I pray to you, please remain sitting here, because there are many fools like me. If they come to know about the well, stop them. It will be one of the greatest acts of compassion."<br /><br />You say death creates the illusion of life, love? No. It is death that makes you aware that if you want to live, live now, because tomorrow is uncertain. If you want to love, love now, because you may be in the crematorium and sannyasins will be dancing, celebrating.<br /><br />Death is a great reminder. If there were no death in the world, it would have been just hell. Just think: all those people who have died and are sleeping peacefully in the graveyard, all those people who have been burned in crematoriums and have been freed completely, have evaporated into thin air.... Just think, if all those people -- your father, your father's father, and so on up to Adam and Eve -- for millions of years, and nobody is dying.... Poison is useless, bullets are meaningless, swords cannot cut heads: what will be the situation? Do you think it will be very pleasant? It will be the worst that can happen.<br /><br />Death makes life beautiful, because it makes you alert: don't miss the train, don't miss anything. Enjoy, relish everything possible to you, because tomorrow is death. Death is not your enemy, death is your greatest friend. Without death you will be just dead bodies moving around with no purpose, with no meaning, and no exit.<br /><br />If there can be any hell, its name will be "No exit."<br /><br />Jean-Paul Sartre has written a play titled NO EXIT, and it is the description of hell. The only trouble is there is no way out. And according to Christianity, you have to be there forever.<br /><br />Death is your great friend, companion, which makes you love intensely, which makes you not want to miss anything. Religions have not told you the truth. They have been lying to you, telling you that beyond death there is paradise: all beautiful things, joys, blessings, freely available. These people are criminals, because they are destroying your present.<br /><br />They are giving you a hope of a better, far more fulfilling life... after death, so why be bothered about this small time? Why be bothered about living intensely, totally? Just wait for death to come. Meanwhile you go on praying in the church, in the mosque, in the synagogue. You go on listening to all kinds of superstitions and stupidities -- they call them sermons -- and go on believing whatever the priest says to you. This is all that you have to do in life. And don't commit a sin; otherwise you may miss paradise.<br /><br />And if you look deep into the word "sin," you will be surprised. It means no joy, no laughter, no celebration, no love. Anything that makes you happy is condemned as sin by some religion or other. Remain serious, with long faces, dull, avoid living. Renounce life, love -- renounce the world and move into some ugly caves in the mountains, and wait there chanting some mantra -- transcendental meditation, or "Ave maria, Ave maria."<br /><br />These religions have crippled you, destroyed you. They are really messengers of the devil. All the religions of the world are messengers of the devil, not of God. There is no God, but about the devil I am doubtful. Perhaps he exists; otherwise from where do all these theologians, religious preachers, monks, nuns, Mother Teresa, pope the Polack -- from where do all these people come? Who sent them? There must be a devil. Or perhaps there is not a devil, but these people are in a conspiracy against human joy, pleasure, comfort, luxury.<br /><br />There is no possibility of a devil. Without God, the devil cannot exist; he is only the shadow of God. The day I said to you, "There is no God," his shadow also disappeared. So it is a committee, not a devil, a committee of all your prophets, messengers, messiahs -- all cheating, deceiving you, destroying your life in every possible way.<br /><br />It is not death that destroys your life and keeps you in illusion. It is your religions that destroy your life and keep you in an illusion which will happen after death.<br /><br />I say to you, never forget death. It is always there by your side. Before it grips you, do whatsoever you feel like doing. Dance, have a little champagne. Love, and don't be bothered about death, because that will be destroying your present. When it comes, if we have lived our life totally and intensely, we will be able to live our death too, with the same intensity, with the same totality.<br /><br />Yes, in fact death is only a transmigration -- changing your house which has become dilapidated, is almost in ruins, and moving into a new house, fresh, just made, made for you. Death is only a change.<br /><br />You have changed many houses, many bodies, and you are still here. Only when you become enlightened, then the work of death is finished, because after enlightenment you will not be changing the house, you will not be entering into another body. After enlightenment you will be entering into absolute freedom, you will be becoming one with the whole existence. You will be in the flowers, in the birds, in the sun, in the moon, in the rain, in the wind. You will be all over the place.<br /><br />To become enlightened means to live this moment without any hesitation, without being half-hearted. Put everything at stake. Be a gambler! Risk everything, because the next moment is not certain. So why bother? Why be concerned?<br /><br />Live dangerously!<br /><br />Live joyously!<br /><br />Live without fear, live without guilt; live without any fear of hell or any greed for heaven. Just live! Death is not creating any illusion for you, it is your mind. Put this mind aside, so that it cannot disturb your dance, your song, your music.<br /><br />OSHO<br />From the False to the Truth<br />Ch #28: Death never happens<br />am in Rajneeshmandirmeerabharathyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06137888444336308408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4350163001081036315.post-51100356878871069432010-08-24T12:58:00.001-07:002010-08-24T12:58:32.185-07:00The Death of Each MomentThe Death of Each Moment <br />Death is already happening. Whether you face it or not, whether you look at it or not, it is already there.<br /><br />It is just like breathing. When a child is born, he inhales. he breathes in for the first time. That is the beginning of life. And when one day he becomes old, dies, he will exhale.<br /><br />Death always happens with exhalation and birth with inhalation. But exhalation and inhalation are happening continuously. With each inhalation you are born; with each exhalation you die.<br /><br />So the first thing to understand is that death is not somewhere in the future, waiting for you, as it has been always pictured. It is part of life; it is an ongoing process -- not in the future, here, now.<br /><br />Life and death are two aspects of existence. simultaneously happening together.<br />Ordinarily, you have been taught to think of death as being against life. Death is not against life -- life is not possible without death. Death is the very ground on which life exists. Death and life are like two wings: the bird cannot fly with one wing, and the being cannot be without death. So the first thing is a clear understanding of what we mean by death.<br /><br />Death is an absolutely necessary process for life to be. It is not the enemy, it is the friend. And it is not there somewhere in the future, it is here, now. It is not going to happen, it has been always happening. Since you have been here it has been with you. With each exhalation it happens -- a little death, a small death -- but because of fear we have put it in the future.<br /><br />The mind always tries to avoid things which it cannot comprehend, and death is one of the most incomprehensible mysteries. There are only three mysteries: life, death and love. All these three are beyond mind.<br /><br />So mind takes life for granted; then there is no need to inquire. That is a way of avoiding. You never think, you never meditate on life; you have simply accepted it, taken it for granted. It is a tremendous mystery. You are alive, but don't think that you have known life.<br />For death, mind plays another trick: it postpones it. To accept it here and now would be a constant worry, so the mind puts it somewhere in the future -- then there is no hurry. When it comes, we will see.<br /><br />And for love, mind has created substitutes which are not love. Sometimes you call your possessiveness your love; sometimes you call your attachment your love; sometimes you call your domination your love -- these are ego games. Love has nothing to do with them. In fact, because of these games, love is not possible.<br /><br />Between life and death, between the two banks of life and death, flows the river of love. And that is possible only for a person who does not take life for granted, who moves deep into the quality of being alive and becomes existential, authentic. Love is for the person who accepts death here and now and does not postpone it. Then between these two a beautiful phenomenon arises: the river of love.<br /><br />Life and death are like two banks. The possibility is there for the river of love to flow, but it is only a possibility. You will have to materialize it. Life and death are there, but love has to be materialized -- that is the goal of being a human. Unless love materializes, you have missed -- you have missed the whole point of being.<br /><br />Death is already happening -- so don't put it in the future. If you don't put it in the future there is no question of defending yourself. If it is already happening -- and it has been already happening always -- then there is no question of protecting yourself against death. Death has not killed you, it has been happening while you were still alive. It is happening just now and life is not destroyed by it; in fact, because of it, life renews itself each moment. When the old leaves fall, they make space for the new leaves to come. When the old flowers disappear, the new flowers appear. When one door closes, another immediately opens. Each moment you die and each moment there is resurrection.<br /><br />Each moment the past is crucified, the old leaves disappear. And each moment a new being arises in you, resurrects. It is a constant miracle.<br />The second thing to understand about death is that death is the only certainty. Everything else is uncertain: it may happen, it may not happen. Death is certain because in birth half of it has already happened, so the other end must be somewhere, the other pole must be somewhere in the dark. You have not come across it because you are afraid; you don't move in the dark. But it is certain! With birth, death has become a certainty.<br />Once this certainty penetrates your understanding, you are relaxed. Whenever something is absolutely certain then there is no worry. Worry arises out of uncertainty.<br /><br />Watch. A man is dying and he is very worried. The moment death becomes certain and the doctors say, 'Now you cannot be saved,' he is shocked. A shivering goes through his being. But then things settle, and immediately all worries disappear. If the person is allowed to know that he is going to die and that death is certain, with that certainty a peace a silence, comes to his being.<br />Every person who is dying has the right to know it. Doctors go on hiding it many times, thinking, 'Why disturb?' But uncertainty disturbs; certainty, never. This hanging in-between, this being in limbo, wondering whether one is going to live or die -- this is the root cause of all worry. Once it is certain that you are going to die then there is nothing to do. Then one simply accepts it. And in that acceptance, a calmness, a tranquillity happens. So if the person is allowed to know that he is going to die in the moment of death he becomes peaceful.<br />In the East we have been practicing that for millennia. Not only that, in countries like Tibet particular techniques were evolved to help a man to die. They called it BARDO TODO. When a person was dying, friends, relatives and acquaintances would gather together around him to give him the absolute certainty that he was going to die, and to help him to relax.<br /><br />Because if you can die in total relaxation, the quality of death changes and your new birth somewhere will be of a higher quality. The quality of birth is decided by death. And then, in turn, the quality of birth will decide the quality of another death. That's how one goes higher and higher, that's how one evolves. And whenever a person becomes absolutely certain about death a flame arises on his face -- you can see it. In fact, a miracle happens: he becomes alive as he has never been before.<br /><br />There is a saying in India that before a flame dies, it becomes tremendously intense. Just for a moment it flares up to totality. I was reading a small anecdote.<br /><br />Once there were two little worms. The first was lazy and improvident, and always stayed in bed late. The other was always up early, going about his business. The early bird caught the early worm. Then along came a fisherman with a flashlight, and caught the night crawler. Moral: You can't win.<br />Death is certain. Whatsoever you do -- get up early or not -- death is certain. It has already happened, that's why it is certain; it is already happening, that's why it is certain. So why wait for the moment when you are dying on your bed? Why not make it certain right now?<br /><br />Just watch. If I say death is certain, can't you feel fear disappearing within you? Can't you feel that with the very idea -- and it is just an idea right now, not your experience -- with just an idea that death is certain, you are calm and quiet. If you can experience it.... And you can, because it is a fact. I am not talking about theories; I don't deal in theories. This is a simple fact. Just open your eyes and watch it. And don't try to avoid it; there is no way to avoid it. In avoiding, you miss. Accept it. Embrace it. And live with the consciousness that each moment you die and each moment you are born. Allow it to happen. Don't cling to the past -- it is no more, it is already gone. Why go on carrying dead things? Why be so burdened with corpses? Drop them. And you will feel weightlessness; you will feel unburdened.<br /><br />And once you drop the past the future drops on its own accord, because the future is nothing but a projection of the past. In the past you had some pleasures; now the mind projects those same pleasures into the future. In the past you had some sufferings; now the mind projects a future in which those sufferings are not allowed to happen. That's what your future is. What else is your future? Pleasures that you enjoyed in the past are projected and miseries are dropped. Your future is a more colorful and modified past, repainted, renovated, but it is the past. Once the past drops, suddenly the future drops -- and then you are left here and now; then you are in existence, you are existential, and that is the only way to be. All other ways are just to avoid life. The more you avoid life, the more you become afraid of death.<br /><br />A person who is really living is not in any way afraid of death. If you are living rightly you are finished with death, you are already too grateful, fulfilled. But if you have not lived, then the constant worry continues, 'I have not lived yet and death is coming. And death will stop all; with death there will be no future.' So one becomes apprehensive, afraid, and tries to avoid death.<br /><br />In trying to avoid death, one goes on missing life. Forget about that avoidance. Live life. In living life, death is avoided. In living life, you become so fulfilled that if this very moment death comes and the future stops, you will be ready. You will be happily ready. You have lived your life; you have delighted in existence; you have celebrated it; you are contented. There is no complaint, no grumbling; you don't have any grudge. You welcome death. And unless you can welcome death, one thing is certain -- you have not lived.<br /><br />Osho, from 'Ancient Music in the Pines', Ch 8meerabharathyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06137888444336308408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4350163001081036315.post-60512931986899392402010-08-19T12:44:00.001-07:002010-08-19T12:44:53.744-07:00Lust...Sex...Love....& Consciousness -oshoLust...Sex...Love....& Consciousness -osho<br /><br />The way people use the word love is exactly like a four-letter word, obscene -- because to call it lust would be offensive.<br /><br />If you say to someone, "I lust for you," you can't expect that that woman is going to have any respect for you. She will say, "Lust? Then get lost!" But if you say, "I love you," then everything is good.<br /><br />And deep in your mind you are simply lusting. It is a biological desire to use the woman but a beautiful word hides the ugly reality. The problem is that people are not aware of what love is, so they are not only deceiving others, they are themselves deceived. They also think it is love.<br /><br />Love needs immense consciousness. Love is a meeting of two souls, and lust is the meeting of two bodies. Lust is animal; love is divine. But unless you know that you are a soul, you cannot understand what love is.<br /><br />I cannot tell you what love is, but I can tell you how to find your soul. That's my whole work: to help you meditate, to help you become more aware, alert, so that slowly, slowly you start seeing that you are not just the body, that you are not just even the mind, that there is something else hidden behind it all, which is your real life. And once you become aware of your real life, your being, you will know that the joy of being is so overflowing that one wants to share it with someone who is receptive, someone who is available, with someone who is ready to open his heart.<br /><br />The meeting of two consciousnesses is love.<br /><br />Discover your consciousness and you will find what love is. It is an experience, and there is no way to say anything about it, more than that which I have said. The meeting of two consciousnesses merging into each other brings the greatest orgasm the universe allows.<br />But before that, you have to move away from the body and the mind and the heart, and reach to the very center of your being.<br /><br />Once you have reached to the center of your being, you will find love radiating from you. It is not something to be done by you. It will be just as if the sun has risen and the flowers have opened, and the air has become filled with their fragrance.<br /><br />Love is a by-product of meditation.<br />Only meditators know what love is.<br /><br />Osho,<br />The Razor's Edge<br />Chapter #15<br />Chapter title: One coin, two sidesmeerabharathyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06137888444336308408noreply@blogger.com0