Peter van der Werff: SITUATIONAL AWARENESS: JUNGLE OR TEMPLE

Peter van der Werff: SITUATIONAL AWARENESS: JUNGLE OR TEMPLE: Meditation calms down your racing mind, but is not meant to close yourself off from noticing what happens in yourself or depart for a drea...

Peter van der Werff: SEE FAMILY LIFE TO KNOW SOCIETY

Peter van der Werff: SEE FAMILY LIFE TO KNOW SOCIETY: If we want to understand a society, let alone would wish to bring about certain changes in a society, there’s no need to ask for the nation...

DOCTOR OF GOLD

In order to reduce pain, in whatever form, we can try to elevate ourselves along with the pain in us, to the divine level.

But feeling connection with the divine should not lead to alienation from earthly pain. That would turn spirituality into an escape mechanism, or bypass, as it ignores the pain which continues to subconsciously make us do things that produce unhappiness in us and others.

The art here is to courageously and consciously search for the hidden sources of unhappiness, sources that often have a content of inner pain, and just stay with that pain. Let the pain expand, embrace it - and perhaps you’ll start feeling the energy of it.

Once our awareness accepts pain as energy, the energy itself takes over and turns into a healing force. The miracle mechanism is that pain energy, once experienced as such, becomes a natural doctor of gold.

More generally, this mechanism can be called homeostasis, the natural tendency to restore balance in dynamic situations. Our feeling of that homeostasis, here our natural healing process, creates a deep sense of gratitude, peace and happiness.

And the more we feel peace of mind, the more we get in contact with the divine. This shows that trying to reduce pain by elevating ourselves to the divine level is a wrong start. The order is not using the divine to arrive at relief, but using the pain to arrive at the divine.

SIX HANDS OF MODERNITY

Don’t think European modernity is a single purpose project.

Early modernity, on the one hand, advocated equality among citizens. But on the other hand, early modernity generated colonial empires of massive proportions. As the English writer George Orwell summarized it: ‘All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.’

Modernity, on the one hand, believes in free will and collective action to change the world, such as by capitalism, Nazism, socialism, feminism and environmentalism. But on the other hand, modernity generates the scientific cause-and-effect research that shows how our behavior is shaped by genes and the subconscious, which renders free will into an illusion.

Late modernity, on the one hand, believes in intention, responsibility and deliberate life management at the individual level. But on the other hand, late modernity advocates calming down of the rat race and spiritual consciousness of big bang determination and universal unity.

Equality in Amsterdam, 17th century

European colonialism

Statue of Liberty, New York

Stringes of genes

Wall Street Stock Exchange

Meditation, away from the rat race

ASIAN CARBON CITIES

About 180 million people are facing the risk of flooding through sea level rise. 

Most of them live in south and east Asia. Low coastal cities have more resources to defend themselves than low coastal areas in-between cities. 

From these highly vulnerable rural coasts, millions of people will move to inland cities and create unparalleled urbanization, with vast problems of employment, housing and infrastructure.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/24/upshot/flooding-risk-from-climate-change-country-by-country.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&bicmp=AD&bicmlukp=WT.mc_id&bicmst=1409232722000&bicmet=1419773522000

YOGAFICATION OF THE NETHERLANDS

When I bought a book to start yoga at home in 1969, I was ridiculed by quite some people. Now, 45 years later, yoga is common practice in the Netherlands.

Yoga schools are found not only in the central, progressive cities, but also in distant corners of the country and places known for their conservatism. Even orthodox Christian fishermen villages have yoga schools.

Yoga in far corners of the country:

Terneuzen http://www.yogahansenriadee.nl/index_3.htm

Appingedam http://gezondheidscentrumoverdiep.nl/Nieuws.aspx?nwsId=189

Vaals http://www.moniqueyogamassage.nl/contact.html

Yoga in conservative villages:

Staphorst http://www.yogaoefeningen.eu/yoga-staphorst

Katwijk http://yogaswings.nl/contact/

Urk http://www.yogaoefeningen.eu/yoga-urk

Volendam https://plus.google.com/103159625618748557437/about?hl=nl

Women of the ultra-conservative village Staphorst

New yoga school in the town of Enschedé

ENCHANTED SOCIAL SECULARISM IN HOLLAND

Unlike in other parts of the world, a vast majority of all Dutch are secular. 

After a temporary loss of spiritual enchantment and social embedding that came with the exodus of churches, many are now actively experimenting with new spiritual and social forms. Actually, half of the Dutch secularists are geared towards such experiments. Especially among the younger generations this goes full steam ahead. 

These secularists don’t go to churches, synagogues, mosques or temples but meet through new media, dance, music, events, workshops, magazines, bookstores, fairs, conferences, training institutes and retreat centers, whereas yoga, meditation and mindfulness rapidly expand in society.

Rejection or avoidance of new social enchantment occurs mainly among the lower educated, the elderly. Because trade unions, politicians, traditional newspapers and national television channels are lagging behind they increasingly lose support.

But insurance companies repay costs for alternative medicine. In universities, rationalist strongholds of old, mindfulness can be openly discussed.  And the conservative world of football is busy adopting yoga.

See also: http://www.trouw.nl/tr/nl/5091/Religie/article/detail/3640705/2014/04/28/Vergeet-de-secularisatie-we-doen-aan-zelfspiritualiteit.dhtml

IN HONOR OF TRAUMA

Don’t be mistaken, perhaps nobody is entirely without old trauma. And to whatever degree this trauma may sit in us, it does not fade away automatically. If we repress and deny old trauma, it will go on creating unwanted behaviors in us. Courageous, careful and critical thinking can make that clear and lead to intentional detection, acknowledgment and relief work. Such work does not divert us from living in the present, pragmatism, spirituality or happiness. It improves our living in the present, pragmatism, spirituality or happiness.

Then, why is this logic so often ignored? The main explanation refers to old fear that occurred during the traumatic experience, a realistic fear of pain at that time. In reaction we tried to avoid feeling that pain, and the fear of that pain. This avoidance behavior got hardened, fossilized, and now makes it difficult to acknowledge the old pain and fear and arrive at relief work.

A related obstacle to relieve old pain and fear and diminish unwanted behaviors, is others’ fear for more or less similar old pain and fear in themselves that made them develop avoidance behaviors. They may tend to force their avoidances upon others as well. What needs more maturing, is the acknowledgment of what is avoidance behavior. An indicator of such avoidance may be the degree of discouraging others to detect their possible trauma.

An obstacle of a different kind is the immaturity and mutual exclusiveness of treatment techniques. But cognitive, emotional and somatic elements of trauma are more recognized, whereas the three related types of treatment grow into full-fledged alternatives. What still needs maturing, though, is the organized availability of integrated packages to treat trauma.