May 2021 – Spiritual Sushi

May 30, 2021June 3, 2021

Energy and Enlightenment — Of Sages and Horses

I was speaking with a new acquaintance (https://www.anniebauer.com/) who has horses and draws on them in her leadership work. Horses, she said, relate to people based on the energy they are putting out. Animals, she explained, that don’t use language are tuned in to read what people are saying that lies beyond words. While humans are less finely tuned this way, research still indicates that more than 70% of human communication lies in non-verbal elements rather than the words that are spoken. This connects with the idea of presence. Presence is a mysterious and mystical space that extends beyond what we fully understand.

I just finished a book titled Love Everyone about an Indian guru called Maharajji who inspired lots of devotees from the West in the ‘60s and ‘70s, several of whom became remarkable figures who changed the world — people like Daniel Goleman who popularized Emotional Intelligence, Larry Brilliant who helped wipe out smallpox, and Ram Dass who wrote Be Here Now. Maharajji spoke very little English and was a portly, somewhat dishevelled looking sage but he radiated immense loving presence that drew people and filled them with joy. The book also describes what one of the Western travellers, Raghu Markus (who founded Triloka Records), discovered in Auroville in South India where he went to meet a spiritual teacher known as the Mother, who then was close to 95 years old. Expecting to encounter a “decrepit old woman” he says he found only light.

The connection between energy and light was made by Einstein and is reflected in various scientific works and spiritual traditions. In the book, The Power of Full Engagement (one of the most insightful books I’ve read), the focus is on harnessing energy rather than managing time. Time is fixed but what we are able to accomplish is dependent on the energy we have. When we are energized and in a state of flow, we perform at a completely different level than when we feel drained of energy.

So, in all of this, a question is how can we generate and manifest energy? The sun, a source of energy that fuels life on earth, generates energy from within. We are recipients of that energy. And while we can absorb energy — from people who radiate light like Maharajji and the Mother — we can also generate it from within ourselves like the sun. And, energy received can also be reflected outward. This is perhaps why many people who encountered Maharajji did so much good — they became vehicles for light.

Enlightenment expresses the idea of finding a deeper truth. Yet enlightenment manifests as action to radiate light. So, a great and deep source of energy lies waiting in our own transformation to embody and radiate light and love. The Mother said: “In each world, in each being, in each thing, in each atom is the Divine Presence, and it is man’s mission to manifest it.” Maharajji offered: “The best form to worship God is every form.” The title of the book I mentioned on Maharajii reflects his frequent refrain: Love everyone!

This refrain is also embodied in a classic song from England Dan & John Ford Coley (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QZjJU-mtFU):

Light of the world, shine on me

Love is the answer

Shine on us all, set us free

Love is the answer

…And when you feel afraid, love one another

When you’ve lost your way, love one another

When you’re all alone, love one another

When you’re far from home, love one another

When you’re down and out, love one another

All your hope’s run out, love one another

When you need a friend, love one another

When you’re near the end, love

We got to love, we got to love one another

These words reflect deep truth, eternal wisdom, and just plain and simple horse sense. We need to find our source of light and let it shine. For love attracts. Love lifts. Love energizes. Love lights up the world. Love is the answer. We got to love one another.

Related resources:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/follow-sun-lyndon-rego/

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/few-reflections-close-year-lyndon-r ego/

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/seeing-people-source-rather-than-resource-lyndon-rego/

https://www.ramdass.org/ram-dass-now-ep-126-miracle-maharajji-larry-brilliant/

May 22, 2021May 23, 2021

Humanity over Enmity — From Narrow Identity to Broader Affinity

Last week I wrote about moving from DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion) to IDEAL (inclusion, diversity, equity + affinity & love) (link). The idea is that cultivating affinity is key to changing the dynamic from apathy or aversion to authentic connection or love. Here is a story that illustrates how.

I was in Hyderabad, India, to do a train-the-trainer program with youth organizations in the country. As part of the program, the trainers had to deliver a session to a live group of participants. The organizers brought in participants from a local slum.

When the participants filed into the room, they sat automatically with those they identified with. The men sat with men. Women with women. Girls with girls. Boys with boys. Hindus picked a seat next to other Hindus. And Muslims with Muslims. Everyone self-segregated themselves into visible identity groups – gender, age, religion. The trainers wanted to shake this up and did so in a clever way. They asked everyone to walk around the rooms while the facilitators clapped their hands. When they stopped clapping, everyone was instructed to stop where they were.

When they got the group to stop, the identity groups were completely scrambled. They asked people to sit down with the four people who were now around them. They then moved into an activity using a tool called Visual Explorer to get the participants to each share a story about their aspirations. I snapped a picture of a young Muslim woman sharing her story surrounded by a mix of adults all listening intently. These were people who would have never otherwise have stopped to listen to her. While I don’t know what may have changed as a result but mutual respect was visible. I believe that in sharing these stories something shifted in how these individuals now saw and related to one another.

Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen pointed out that polarization comes when we focus on a single aspect of our identity, such as race, religion, or class. When we unpack our identities more fully with others, we find many commonalities that we share that can be the basis for forming a relationship. A Muslim and a Jewish man may both find they have daughters, love soccer, and like to play music. What is needed are ways to bring all of who we are into view, into the light, so as to be seen, so as to discover what connects us.

This insight has been at the heart of my work in leadership development over two decades in more than two dozen countries. In conflict zones, the impact of this is dramatic. Social scientist Ashutosh Varshney studied places around the world to discover why some places that had a similar ethnic make-up saw communal riots while others didn’t. What he found was the places that didn’t have riots had community networks that spanned across the different groups. When trigger events occurred, these networks were able to diffuse the tension and resolve the issues peacefully (https://www.un.org/esa/socdev/sib/egm/paper/Ashutosh%20Varshney.pdf).

We might notice that the places where we see violence occur in the world are often accented by separation. When we are able to create boundary-spanning networks and ways to see into the lives of others, we find that we often have more in common than the facets of difference that may divide us. What we need then are ways to bring us together and help us see each other more fully. My work with CoMetta (www.cometta.co) is focused on doing this by hosting open community conversations that build empathy and understanding. We can all do this work of bridging in ways that are closer to home.

My wonderful neighbor Anna Wilkins is a model of how to do so. She organized a series of gatherings throughout the year where neighbors host potlucks that are open to everyone in the neighborhood (https://youtu.be/tt79X0akm4I). Rather than pass each other on the street as strangers, we now have a sense of belonging.

This belonging can sometimes be a matter of life or death. My wife worked as a social worker for a nonprofit organization based in a slum in Mumbai. Back in the 1990s, Hindu-Muslim riots convulsed the city. Mobs roamed the streets looking for people of the other religion to target but the people who worked at the nonprofit sheltered each other. While nearly a thousand people died in the violence in the city, nobody from the nonprofit organization was hurt.

Creating harmony needs networks and orchestration. It doesn’t happen automatically. If we want peace, we need to build bridges to help us connect rather than walls to keep each other out. When we invite people into our homes and networks, we get to see each other’s eyes and read one another’s hearts. What we invariably find — in expressing our struggles and aspirations — is a common humanity that draws us together rather than an enmity that drives us apart.

Related posts:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/electing-win-different-way-lyndon-rego/

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/healing-heart-america-lyndon-rego/

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/retreating-from-reality-our-connectivity-lyndon-rego/

May 13, 2021May 13, 2021

Stories over Stats — The Key to Creating Change

Facts matter but they simply don’t move people as much as stories. Take this example:

Art by @artistraman at Creative Aging Network

I was recently at a community gathering where the conversation was about increasing equity. When asked why this matters, I launched into data from a poll about community needs and aspirations. Another participant, however, shared a personal story.

He spoke about his sister with three children. She was out of work and struggling to get by. She was living in a rat-infested house and was terrified about the children being bitten. The landlord had failed to remedy the issue and it was possible to file a complaint with the city. This would result in the family being moved out and housed somewhere for a period of time. But then, they’d be back to having to find a place they could afford and potentially becoming homeless. They chose to stay with the rats.

The story stuck with me because it was vivid and real. It moved me and reminded me of why stories matter. In the world of changemaking, volumes of stats cause people to tune out because they can’t relate to numbers (see graphic below). But a personal story cuts through it all.

The European migrant crisis became real when we saw the pictures of a drowned Syrian toddler in a red t-shirt and shorts washed up on a beach in Turkey. Suddenly, we saw in the refugee child our own children and felt the anguish of the hundreds of thousands of desperate families fleeing war. It spurred a shift in empathy and public policy.

In my community work (www.cometta.co), I focus on getting people to share personal stories rather than opinions about issues. This humanizes things. We may dismiss a person’s perspectives but we can’t easily discount their experience. When we hear their story of struggle, we move towards empathy because we know what it feels like too.

I think this is important in DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) efforts. There are people who want equality and equity, some who are opposed, and some who sit indifferently on the sidelines. For those who are indifferent or opposed, an unwanted push triggers resistance. And resistance may not be overt but can result in subtle stalling and sabotage that derails change. What we need is to move from DEI to IDEAL (inclusion, diversity, equity + affinity and love). We find affinity when we share experiences — such as the story I heard about the mother in the rat-infested home — which create caring. Caring generates love, connection, concern, and compassion.

Cold stats engage the mind but don’t often find a way into the heart. We act not because we know things but because we care. Stories get us to care. And caring gets us to change.