Rubbish in, rubbish out
My bed was shaking....I thought it was just me, my perception, since I had had quite an intense healing in the Besakih temple the day before. Then my room started to shake. I stayed calm, but did realise I had no clue what to do if it would get worse. Since I knew my Balinese friend would be at the reception by now, I decided to go and find her. 'You just experienced an earthquake!', she said upon my entering the lobby. Ah, an earthquake, sure! In the moment itself I hadn't been scared at all. Now that I knew what it was, I noticed I still felt very calm. Funny enough, I woke up about ten minutes before it happened. I was wondering whether to join sunrise yoga or go for a walk down the river. I had already decided to go for the walk and meditate in the bamboo forest, when everything started to shake. 'When something like this happens, I always feel like listening to what Earth has to say. I have the feeling we don't do that enough as humans'. I totally understood what she was saying and so I did. When only a few seconds in my meditation an immediate message came on my question 'what do you need'? 'Rubbish in, rubbish out. I need to be safe and loved.'
Now, I consider myself quite a conscious person as to how we treat Earth. This message stroke me. I could feel the disrespect we show as humankind by our taking, taking and more taking. What do we give back? The only worry we generally show is mainly out of self interest: when water is running out, gas supplies decrease, food harvests are not as good as expected. Self interest. It was one of the final words my father in law said before passing away. An important one: is self interest perhaps the most destructive phenomenon on earth?
I loved to see all the transformed faces at the end of our workshop week in Bali. It is such an honour to do this work! Inspiring people to be their true Selves. Help them take ownership of their own lives, make them remember their meaning in life. The possibilities that emerge from there...wow! Funny enough these possibilities never come from a place of self interest. What emerges always holds the interest of the community, future generations, giving back, serving others to connect with their true purpose. It is a confirmation, to me, that we are spiritual beings having a human experience. It is an honour and bliss to see people free themselves of limiting beliefs that would have kept them stuck in the lower levels of the pyramid of Maslow. Imagine if everybody in the world would be the best they could be!? Self interest as a leading principle would certainly vanish, I am sure.
While meditating in the bamboo forest, a lot of insights came to me. All life needs to take care of levels one and two: survival, food and health, love, belonging and propagation. Plants, animals, humans, all. But the level of self esteem, level 3 in the levels of consciousness of Richard Barret that we use in this work, is a soly human need, it seemed to me. I don't know if it is true, but it feels like it's only about satisfying our ego. I do know to be true that we, as humankind, do need to transform to be able to move to a new paradigm. And I know transformation of humans is mainly about realising we are not only our ego, our strategic persona. We are equally our soul, our true being.
I loved the Balinese people: so much gentleness, gratitude, grace. Wouldn't it be great if we could learn to use the best of the richness of all our cultures in the world? That we 'take' the Asian grace, the European pioneering, the down-to-earthiness of Africa. It is all there. United diversity: look at the beauty of the differences. Instead of all chasing an American or European dream, which is a bubble anyhow, if you ask me. The Besakih temple has 7 levels and then a level of 'higher consciousness', where we were lucky to be able to join prayers. Would we ever reach that level as humankind?
Of course I am also part of the hypocrisy of humankind. I can only share my Balinese adventure, because I spent about 30 hours in a polluting plane to be there. I am very much aware of that. And the fact that I am bubbling of new ideas that I will manifest, visited Greenschool, sponsor 4Ocean to solve the plastic problem in the world, doesn't make up for it. What I can do, is act like an ambassador of Earth, promoting raising our consciousness to take better care of her...and ourselves. Rubbish in, rubbish out also goes for us as humans. Next week I will spend my yearly cleaning week at the Schouw, just cleaning my one and only body that I've got and don't always treat so gently. Imagine what Earth would need to do some internal cleaning...