When Ma Anand Sheela first met the Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh in his apartment in Mumbai in 1968, she hugged him and cried. My whole head melted, Sheela says in the Netflix docuseries Wild Wild Country, which discusses Rajneesh and his cult. My life was complete. My life was fulfilled.

Rajneesh, who died in 1990, was a powerful spiritual guru who had thousands of followers in India and the West. In 1981, with the help of Sheela, who became his personal assistant, Rajneesh bought a ranch nearby the tiny town of Antelope, Oregon, and moved his cult there, creating a whole new city named Rajneeshpuram. Its no surprise that the situation snowballed, leading to heated confrontations with local residents, attempted murder, and mass poisoning. Wild Wild Country follows the saga in captivating ways, through historical footage as well as sit-down interviews with Sheela, who effectively ran the cult and was Rajneeshs spokesperson, and other members who had prominent roles, like Rajneeshs lawyer Swami Prem Niren.

But as Ronit Feinglass Plank notes in The Atlantic, the series doesnt really explain what the day-to-day life was like in Rajneeshpuram. And it doesnt really address how its possible that thousands of people could just give up their lives, wear only maroon clothes, and blindly follow one man. What are the psychological mechanisms at play?

Rajneesh preached to his followers about the idea of creating awakened people who live in harmony with their surroundings. But his cult also forced members to donate large quantities of money, while creating an isolated community that kept tight control over its members. The Netflix documentary doesnt show this, but Win McCormack, who wrote about the cult in the 1980s, points out in The New Republic that Rajneeshs followers were encouraged to get sterilized or have abortions. (For more on Rajneesh and his cult, read The Oregonians 20-part investigation from the 1980s.)

Rajneesh was just one of many cult leaders who have captivated and horrified people throughout history. In 1978, cult leader Jim Jones urged more than 900 of his followers to kill themselves by drinking poison in Jonestown, Guyana. In 1993, in a standoff with government officials, more than 75 Branch Davidians died in a building fire in Waco, Texas, together with their leader David Koresh. All of these groups, and many more less prominent cult organizations, have some things in common. I talked with Louis Manza, chair and professor of psychology at Lebanon Valley College about how cult leaders control their followers, when people are most vulnerable to cults, and the difference between cults and religions.

This interview has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.

How do cult leaders like Rajneesh exert control over their followers?

They can take a lot of approaches, obviously. On a real simple level, they could take control in a very physical way, restraining someone from leaving a space, but that doesnt seem to happen a whole lot. Its more of a psychological control. If you look historically at different types of cults, theres always an indoctrination period where the cult leader is going to form a bond with people. Once they have that bond, now they can get inside of someones head, because now those people start to trust that person. And now the leader can start to make other suggestions to them: You should move away from your family. You should come live with us, etc. Thats one of the critical things: there has to be that emotional connection thats made by the person whos running everything with the people they want to bring in with them. If you dont have that connection, its going to be really hard to get people to do anything.

What kinds of psychological mechanisms do cults use to keep their members in line?

Once someone forms a bond with a person, you can use that to your advantage, to a certain extent. You can withhold certain types of things. If youre the cult leader, [you can decide] we all get to meet at this point in time, and we all get to talk about our feelings, but you cant come this week because youve been misbehaving, or youve not been pulling your share, or whatever the case might be. Once you have that relationship with that person, punishing [or rewarding] them can get something out of them. Again, its not a physical-restraint type of thing, but it is a form of control.

Theyre also paying attention to what works, the same way that a spouse pays attention to what works with their significant other, the same way a parent pays attention with their kids. [Parents] can punish their children by making them stand in a corner for 10 minutes, and that works because that kid doesnt like to stand in a corner. But for another kid, that doesnt work, so they have to find something else. So they take the tablet away from them, or they dont let them watch television. People who are very good at understanding other people, are very good at paying attention, can get inside someones head and then exploit that. But the person whos exploited has to be exploitable. If someone is in a good place psychologically, then theyre most likely not going to be exploitable.

People who are very good at understanding other people, are very good at paying attention, can get inside someones head and then exploit that.

When are people most vulnerable to a cult?

On a simple level, when theyre in a state of psychological instability if something is not quite right in their life, if theyre missing something, especially on a relationship perspective. We are social creatures. Theres going to be some variability there; some people like much larger social circles than others, some people like to live in a cabin in the woods by themselves. But the majority of us fall in the middle. Its part of what makes us humans. And so if thats missing for individuals, and they dont have a way of meeting that need on their own, theyre going to look for someone else who can maybe provide that need for them. Now, lots of people will join cults as a way of satisfying that. Other people will join other types of groups.

I compete in ultramarathons, so I do a couple races a year. And that kind of satisfies that need for me. Now, is that a cult? I dont think so, not in a way we define a cult, when you think of like the Jonestown massacre and Jim Jones. If youre into certain sports teams, that social need is being met there. Its just that idea that someone needs some type of social connection. I think its one of the primary forces. If they simply cant find a way on their own to fulfill that, and then someone comes along and says, Hey, we have this group. And youre welcome. Join us! it can be a very subtle thing at first. If you want to get someone in, and you know how to manipulate people, its fairly simple to do: you bring them in, you establish the relationship, and then you just start sucking them in more and more, and eventually, someone just crosses a line and theyre in. And then they can have a hard time getting out, because now they have that social need being met. It can be a very subtle process along those lines.

What do cult leaders have in common?

They tend to be charismatic. Historically, if you think of the people we call cult leaders, like David Koresh, James Jones, they all had a certain charisma. That goes back to what I was saying about forming social bonds. If you cant attract people to you, then youre going to be hard-pressed to form a cult. Beyond that, its going to depend. You have to understand people, you gotta know whats going on inside of their heads, you gotta talk to them, you gotta be able to pull information out of them. Those are skills. All of us use them in different ways. Ive been teaching since 1992, so I know if I do this, I will get students to interact in class. Is that a form of manipulation? Sure it is. I wouldnt put it up with the same kind of manipulation that a cult leader is doing, but they are also doing that. Theyre understanding people, theyre studying people. They develop that kind of skill-set, but I think charisma has to be at the top of it, because just knowing people, its a skill people can acquire. Being charismatic and understanding people, thats another thing altogether.

People who are in power also like to keep that power, and they dont want to give that power up. The cult leader wants to control people, to a certain degree. When you look at people who run these organizations, if you look at the more historically famous ones, they had a need to control people, and when that control got pushed up against, they pushed back. When David Koresh and the Branch Davidians went down, Koresh didnt want to give up control of those people. And you had the gun fight and the burning of a building and all that. Jim Jones didnt want to give up control of those hundreds of people in Jonestown, and people died. I think wanting to control is a driving force from the leader, and wanting to belong is the driving force for the member. You put those things together, you create the perfect storm for getting people into a cult.

Whats the difference between a cult and a religion?

Religions are an organized belief system, and cults are organized belief systems. People will engage in lots of behaviors on the part of their religion, that can be very good but it can also be very bad. People have killed other individuals in the name of their religion. Now, will Catholics prevent you from leaving the church? Not to my knowledge. I was raised Catholic. Im an atheist now. No one held me back. So what we usually consider cults tend to exert a bit more control over their members, but thats not to say that that control doesnt happen in more organized, traditional religions. But with cults, you see that real psychological, physical-restraint thing kick in to a much higher degree than you see in Catholics, Lutherans, or whatever. If there is a dividing line, its along those lines, but they definitely share a lot of features, because theyre organized belief systems.

But there are lot of things that are not even religions or cults that are organized belief systems. Again, if youre part of a certain sports team, you have an organized belief system. But mental manipulation, psychological manipulation is something you tend to see more in cults than in organized religion.

Originally posted here:
Heres what Netflixs Wild Wild Country doesnt explain ...

I probably wouldnt have detoured from the trail except that my son, Max, insisted.

Im glad his power to persuade is considerable for a kid whos celebrated just nine birthdays.

Because without Maxs cajoling I likely would have plodded ahead, as though I were on a schedule, and in my stubbornness I would have missed one of those serendipitous and joyful moments that happily interrupt the humdrum passage of our days.

But thats not quite what happened.

We were, it turned out, two days too late for what would have been a memorable encounter for me and for my wife, Lisa.

Max would have remembered it, too, albeit for different reasons.

The person we missed meeting is not a celebrity on the level of, say, Paul McCartney.

But William L. Sullivan is, I daresay, famous among many of us who think one of the better ways to appreciate Oregons beauty and variety of landscapes is to get our boots dusty tramping its trails (or muddy, or snowy, as the season and the situation dictate).

Sullivan is to Oregon hiking guidebooks what Stephen King is to horror novels.

Not that I mean to typecast either of these fine writers.

King, as anyone knows who is more than slightly familiar with his work, has authored many compelling tales which feature no monsters and carry nary a whiff of the supernatural.

Sullivan, though he is best known for his series of 100 Hikes books that divide Oregon into five regions, has also penned many other books. These include Cabin Fever, a memoir about building a log cabin with his wife near the Oregon Coast, a history of the states greatest natural disasters, and six novels, including ones that feature such iconic (and real) Oregon characters as skyjacker D.B. Cooper and guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh.

But Sullivans first book has always been my favorite, and I suspect it will retain that title no matter what subject he turns his prodigious talent to.

Listening For Coyote is Sullivans story about the 1,361-mile solo backpacking trip he made in 1985 from Oregons westernmost point, at Cape Blanco, to its easterly extremity in Hells Canyon.

As someone who relishes hiking but rarely stays out for more than a couple nights in a row, or covers more than 30 miles in one excursion, I have long been drawn to accounts of truly epic journeys such as Sullivans.

I own several books describing hikes on long-distance routes such as the Pacific Crest and Appalachian trails, and I can while away hours following in the authors bootsteps while I relax on a sofa or a reclining lounge chair in the backyard.

But none of these accounts has ever endured itself so thoroughly as Listening For Coyote.

I suspect this is due in some small part to my age when I first read it. I was in high school, an era when I think many of us are susceptible to the lure of an adventure story in a way that we never are later, as our own experiences accumulate and our sense of wonder at new things atrophies. Its a sad, but I think also inevitable, transition.

But for me the most powerful attraction of Listening For Coyote is that its simply a cracking good story, and Sullivan tells it with deft and piquant prose. I have probably read the book a dozen times, and never does the scent of Sullivans campfires fail to reach my nose, never do I not shiver when hes trudging through snow after an early blizzard in the Blue Mountains.

That snowbound trail where Sullivan left his tracks is the very one that Max, Lisa and I walked earlier this summer, the path that follows the North Fork John Day River through its wilderness canyon west of Baker City.

The conditions could scarcely have been different on the day of our trip. The mid-July afternoon was that rare sort when the old chestnut about there not being a cloud in the sky happened to be true.

We couldnt, at any rate, see so much as a scrap of cumulus or tendril of cirrus in the somewhat abbreviated scope of sky visible from our vantage point in the depths of the densely forested canyon.

We bought Max his first real backpack a couple of years ago and just lately hes been nudging us, like a frisky horse too long stabled, to get out in the woods. Lisa and I picked the North Fork trail, which we had hiked before, albeit without children in tow. We chose the path largely because, as riverside routes often are, it lacks the lung-straining climbs that can quickly sap a young hikers enthusiasm.

(And, if I must be honest, a somewhat older hikers.)

When Max spied the cabins metal roof glinting among the lodgepole pines he darted onto the spur path leading toward the structure.

Guy Hafer of Cove, who died in 2007, built the cabin on his mining claim. It stands on public land and the cabin is left unlocked. There were a few rodent droppings inside but it appears the people who use the cabin respect it, and Hafers legacy, and try to ensure it remains usable.

I noticed a notebook ensconced in a plastic bag on a table. It looked to be a sort of guest book. I pulled it out and was shocked by the most recent entry. It was signed William L. Sullivan. The date was July 16, just two days earlier. He was doing research for an updated version of his 100 Hikes In Eastern Oregon book.

I hollered at Lisa, who was outside.

We were both thrilled, albeit a trifle disappointed to have come so close to having met Sullivan.

I interviewed him in 2006 when he made a presentation at the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center.

But meeting him on the North Fork trail would be another matter altogether. And the reason is that one of the most memorable chapters in Listening For Coyote is the one in which Sullivan, hiking through a rainstorm that soon turned to snow, was spared from having to pitch his tent in inclement weather when he came across another old mining cabin about a mile or so downriver from Hafers.

This other cabin, nicknamed the Bigfoot Hilton by someone who visited it before Sullivan, has become something of a shrine for hikers due to its inclusion in Listening For Coyote.

Not to belabor my earlier reference to Paul McCartney, but for me, coming across Bill Sullivan in a cabin on the North Fork John Day would be comparable to bumping into the ex-Beatle while taking the requisite photo in the most famous crosswalk on Londons Abbey Road.

It was not to be.

But I was pleased just the same to have shared a trail, in a manner of speaking, with the man who must be Oregons most famous hiker.

Jayson Jacoby is editor of the Baker City Herald.

See the article here:
COLUMN: Following in the boots of a legendary hiker - Baker City Herald

A new book shows the troubling consequences of Grafton, New Hampshires anti-government experiment.

From his books very title, its clear that Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling sees his story as one great big joke. As he describes it, A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear tells the strange-but-true story of Grafton, NH, a small town that became the nexus of a collision between bears, libertarians, guns, doughnuts, parasites, firecrackers, taxes and one angry llama. The bookhis firstis based on a lively article, published in 2018 in The Atavist Magazine, about an attempted political takeover of the small New Hampshire town by a motley crew of libertarians and survivalists from all across America. Their stated goal was to establish the boldest social experiment in modern American history: the Free Town Project.

A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear: The Utopian Plot to Liberate an American Town (and Some Bears) by Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling PublicAffairs, 288 pp.

Their effort was inspired by the Free State Project, a libertarian-adjacent organization founded in 2003 with the goal of taking over New Hampshire and transforming it into a tiny-government paradise. After more than a decade of persistence, the project persuaded 20,000 like-minded revolutionaries to sign its pledge to move to New Hampshire and finally force the state to live up to its Live Free or Die motto. (Despite their pledged support, only about 1,300 signers actually made the move. Another 3,000 were New Hampshire residents to begin with.) The projects political successes peaked in 2018, when 17 of the 400 members of the New Hampshire House of Representatives identified as Free Statersalthough all but two were registered Republicans.

The affiliated Free Town Project set its sights on Grafton in 2004 because of both its small sizeabout 1,200 residentsand its long history as a haven for tax protesters, eccentrics, and generalized curmudgeons. The Free Town Project leaders figured that they could engineer a libertarian tipping point by bringing in a few dozen new true believers and collaborating with the resident soreheads. Over the next decade or so, Free Towners managed to join forces with some of the towns most tightfisted taxpayers to pass a 30 percent cut in the towns $1 million budget over three years, slashing unnecessary spending on such municipal frills as streetlights, firefighting, road repairs, and bridge reconstruction. But eventually, the Free Town leadership splintered and the haphazard movement fizzled out. The municipal budget has since bounced back, to $1.55 million.

But even though the Free Towners full-scale libertarian takeover of Grafton never fully materialized, they fanned the flames of a community culture that prioritized individual freedom above all elsewhether the individual sought the freedom to smoke marijuana or feed daily boxes of donuts to the increasingly aggressive local bears. The libertarian battle cry of Nobody tells me what to do! drowned out all other political debate, at least temporarily, and the results of their blindly anti-government,anti-authority mind-set were both troubling and predictable.

Hongoltz-Hetling presents the Grafton experience as a rollicking tale of colorful rural characters and oddly clever ursines. The Free Towners wacky political views, like their eccentric clothes, their rusting pickup trucks, and their elaborate facial hair, present him with seemingly limitless opportunities to display his own cleverness.

Certainly, the author is not alone in finding cause for amusement in Graftons funny little basket of deplorables. For years now, reporters and pundits have chosen to focus on the style, rather than the policy substance, of the growing libertarian right. Again and again, we read stories of rural rubes clad head to toe in MAGA swag, hunched over chipped cutlery in dingy diners, wielding biscuits to wipe the last of the sausage gravy from their oversized plates while vociferously proclaiming that taxation is theft and inveighing against the nanny state. In choosing to shoot these red, white, and blue fish in a barrel, Hongoltz-Hetling is in very good company.

But had the author not chosen snark over substance, his book could have served as a peculiarly timely cautionary tale, because the conflicting philosophical principles that drive this story are central to understanding American politics today. The differences between the libertarian stumblebums who moved to Grafton and the staff of the Koch-funded Cato Institute are mostly sartorial. And the sad outcomes of Graftons wacky social experiment are now being repeated in American communities every single day.

If it seems unkind to slam a writer for indulging in a bit of a laugh as he slogs his way through a story that basically boils down to fundamentally divergent views of tax policy, consider the chapter in which Hongoltz- Hetling drags his reader into an ultimately unsatisfactory discursion into the political dynamics of French- occupied Tunisia. In the chapter, he references the work of the Oxford University professor Daniel Butt, a noted scholar of colonialism. In his discussion of Butts academic work, Hongoltz-Hetling brutally torques his sentences to produce the phrases Butt heads, Butt wipe, Butt cracks, and Butt (w)hole. Oh, how devilishly cheeky.

Look. I get it. Snark is to reporters what salmon is to bearsthey thrive on it, and many cant survive without a lot of it. But back in my crime-reporting days, our city editor routinely tossed back any sophomoric attempts to inject witticisms into odd little crime stories by asking, Would this be funny if it happened to you?

Hongoltz-Hetlings chronic prioritization of style over substance brings his reportorial judgment and diligence into question at multiple points throughout the book. He lightly glosses over one characters conviction on 129 counts of child pornography, and later compares Graftons troubling influx of sex offendersfrom eight to 22 in four yearswith an equally disconcerting drop in the tiny towns local recycling rates. Later, he chuckles about a man found in questionable circumstances with a preteen who was [asked to] leave in an impolite manner involving a very visibly wielded baseball bat. I raise this issue not solely because I am a midwestern mom who is absolutely unamused by child sex abuse, but also because Hongoltz-Hetling does not mention that pedophilia and child pornography are profoundly schismatic issues for the American libertarian community. Mary J. Ruwart, a leading candidate for the Libertarian Party presidential nomination in 2008, wrote,

Children who willingly participate in sexual acts have the right to make that decision as well, even if its distasteful to us personally. Some children will make poor choices just as some adults do in smoking and drinking to excess. When we outlaw child pornography, the prices paid for child performers rise, increasing the incentives for parents to use children against their will.

In 2008, the party refused to vote on a resolution asking states to strongly enforce existing child pornography laws.

The author takes a similarly lighthearted approach to his account of the Unification Churchs establishment of a summer retreat in Grafton in the early 1990sa lengthy episode that buttresses his portrayal of Grafton as a weirdo magnet of national proportions. In fact, there are numerous villages across this country where religious leaders have walked into town and proclaimed, This is the place, regardless of whether that place was already occupied by nonbelievers. The resulting conflicts between townspeople and the invading faithful can be deadly serious. When the Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh founded a commune of 2,000 followers in Oregons rural Wasco County in the 1980s, for example, the groups resistance to land-use laws fueled a campaign of terror against local residents. Group members poisoned hundreds of people in the county by spraying salmonella bacteria on salad bars, and the communes leaders targeted state and county officials for assassination, sending one county commissioner to the hospital with a potentially deadly case of salmonella poisoning.

Againwould it be funny if it happened to you?

These shortcomings, and many others like it throughout the book, would diminish Hongoltz-Hetlings narrative even in normal times. But today more than ever, there is nothing remotely amusing about a group of wrongheaded extremists plotting to take over a government and impose its own dangerously eccentric views on an unwitting and unprepared majority. And it is this reality that makes A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear such a painful missed opportunity. With the story of Grafton, Hongoltz-Hetling was handed the American character in an ant farm. This New England hamlet twines together the most significant strands in our history: tax aversion, religious fervor, veneration of individual liberty, and a deep vein of cantankerousness, all counterbalanced by our equally powerful belief that we are on a God-given mission to establish on this continent a shining City on the Hill. In Grafton, we find a microcosm of the constant American tension between Dont Tread on Me and E Pluribus Unum.

Certainly, one cannot fault a writer for failing to anticipate the specific details of the present disaster. This time last year, none of us could have foreseen that a new, fast-moving virus would spark a global pandemic, claiming hundreds of thousands of lives, nor that wearing a mask to prevent infection would be viewed as a political statement. But the test of a great writer, or a great editor, is the ability to look deeply into a specific set of circumstances and to extrapolate from them, to assess the present and then take a leap of faith into a prophetic vision of the future. In the Grafton experience, we see clearly the chaos that can be created when a significant chunk of the community rejects the strictures of government, science, and the notion of community itself.

As I write this, more than 159,000 American lives have been sacrificed to failures of government at almost every level, and to the refusal of millions of Americans to curtailtheir sense of personal liberty and submit to relatively brief inconvenience to protect their neighbors and their communities. It is heartbreaking to think of how many more lives will be lost to COVID-19 by the time this magazine goesto print.

This is what happens when massively funded propaganda campaigns lead large numbers of Americans to lose faith in our system of government. This is what happens when that loss of faith leads to blind opposition to taxation. This is what happens when public services and public infrastructure are systematically starved of resources in the name of fiscal responsibility. And this is what happens, shamefully, when those who are best able to recognize the threat and sound the alarm choose instead to treat local politics like some sort of low-stakes sporting event for out-of-shapepeople.

Today, we are all living in Grafton. Armies of rabid bears are wandering through our streets, clawing at our window screens, and gnashing their teeth at our children while the phone rings unanswered at the state department of fish and game. The old village church is erupting in flames, but someone has slashed the tires on our towns lone fire truck, and the fire hydrantsunmaintained for adecadehave all run dry. Terrified, we beg our neighbors for help, only to be told that the Lord will protect us, or that the cataclysm in the streets is just punishment for our moral failures or our political misdeeds.

And all of this is happening because a large, disgruntled minority of Americans dutifully memorized the Declarations listing of our inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness without perceiving that these rights can exist only within the context of the social contractan Enlightenment concept so deeply familiar to the Founding Fathers that, tragically, they didnt consider it necessary to mention.

Right now, I am sitting in self-imposed quarantine with my husband, in a small Michigan town far from our home. Our beloved daughtersboth adultsare thousands of miles away, in California. We havent seen them now for almost seven months, and in my darkest moments, I wonder whether we will ever be all together again in this lifetime. We are separated today, and likely will be for long weeks and months to come, because millions of my fellow Americans have been unwilling to sacrifice even a shred of their perceived personal liberty to the higher consideration of what we owe to each other.

And its not funny. None of it is funny. It isnt funny at all.

Elizabeth Austin is a writer and political consultant. She lives in Oak Park, Ilinois.

See more here:
Libertarians Took Control of This Small Town. It Didn't End Well. - Washington Monthly

Regular and longtime readers of this space have probably figured out by now there is at least one thing in my life I am passionate about.

Spirituality.

Admittedly, this term can be confusing for many, and create all kinds of misunderstandings. When the question arises whether someone is spiritual or religious, many people see it in dualistic terms like you must be one or the other, but you cant be both.

This is just not true.

In fact, after reading about and studying spirituality for 25 years, I would propose that before religion comes into ones life, one is already, by birthright, a spiritual person.

Although it has been attributed to various people over the years, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin is credited with originating this statement: We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.

This implies, that just by being born, each human is a spiritual being. Indeed, some would include in that spiritual being category, all living things animals, plants, trees

Before I sat down at the keyboard this week, I looked up the term spirituality to try to get a grasp on a generally accepted definition of what it means to be spiritual.

There are, of course, many factors that go into determining this, but probably the most basic answer is this, which appeared when I googled the word. This definition is from Oxford Languages:

the quality of being concerned with the human spirit or soul as opposed to material or physical things.

I might elaborate on that just a bit, to say that spirituality is an effort to find meaning, in ones own life, in others lives, in the world around them, and in the events that take place in their lives.

Another description of what it means to be a spiritual person came from an article on HuffPost in 2015. This one is more detailed than the above definition, but overall (and as in anything, there are exceptions), this definition better encapsulates what it means to be spiritual in these days in which we live:

Being a spiritual person is synonymous with being a person whose highest priority is to be loving to yourself and others. A spiritual person cares about people, animals and the planet. A spiritual person knows that we are all One, and consciously attempts to honor this Oneness. A spiritual person is a kind person.

Now, in reading this definition, we can see that it does not preclude spiritual people from also being religious. For some people, they dont have a spiritual awakening for years, even though they have practiced a religion for their entire life. In fact, most world religions, in one way or another, teach the highest priority of human life is to be loving to yourself and others.

As we all know, not all religious peoples lives reflect this, however. In fact, sadly, religions can be divisive, when seen as the be all and end all of existence.

Anyway, the reason I decided to write about this topic this week, is because I was thinking about 2020 and what an unusually, pardon my language, hellish year it has been. Honestly, humanity has been blindsided this year in more ways than we ever thought possible, at least in modern times. At least that is how it seems to those of us living it out. Now.

And I know for almost everyone scratch that everyone, adjusting to these new realities has been mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually challenging scratch that word challenging exhausting.

I know and have heard of many people with heightened anxiety and other mental health issues that are directly related to the extreme uncertainty we live with now.

Each day we awaken, we wonder what life is going to throw at us today.

It cannot possibly get any worse than it is already, we think.

But then it does.

So as someone who is passionate about spirituality, I look at it this way:

In many ways, there is not a lot we can do hands-on, at least not immediately, to resolve the circumstances we find ourselves in. Many of them, especially those more medically related, take time to research and find solutions to.

Others which are more systemically related with deep, thick, sprawling roots must be addressed with much dialogue and mutual respect. No easy answers here.

At the foundation of all these attempts to find a solution, however, is the need for each one of us to tap into that spiritual side of us, that is our birthright.

For months, millions of people have been at home, afraid to go out into public; many of them elderly with few family or friends to check on them.

Others have watched helplessly as nearly 200,000 Americans have succumbed to Covid-19, or complications from the virus. They have watched as dear family and friends have died painful, awful deaths, alone in a hospital room, without anyone even being able to physically touch their skin, or say goodbye. They have grieved their losses relatively alone, without the human support they so desperately need.

Hostilities related to all kinds of situations have boiled up and exploded in recent months, and only seem to be getting worse with each passing day.

As I write this today, I do so without, GOD FORBID, any intention of stirring up yet another political debate. Life is not all about politics. It is about so much more than that.

That is where this idea of spirituality comes in.

I believe that these terrible months we have all endured, if looked at in a positive light, have been an opportunity for every single one of us to get in touch with that spiritual side with which we were born.

That doesnt mean necessarily going to church. Many people cant go to church right now.

It is something more basic than that.

It is getting in touch with a loving Reality that undergirds all the pain and alienation so many of us feel from life, from each other, from ourselves

It is sitting still, quiet, and reaching out to that loving Reality to try to find out more about that Reality, and to find some way to make sense of it all.

Not that we will make sense of it all.

I have found in my life that when we go looking for answers as to why something happened, we might as well be beating our heads against a wall.

We just cannot be assured we will get an answer as to why something happened.

But

We can find meaning in it.often after much time has elapsed.

We can find ways to get grounded in this loving Reality that is eternal the beginning and the end of all things.

We can find ways to acknowledge that we are not isolated beingswe are connected to one another in ways we cannot imagine or explain.

And what happens to one of us, impacts the rest of us.

We can find ways to be the spiritual beings we are.those whose highest priority is to be loving to ourselves and others.those who care about people, animals and the planet.those who know that we are all One, and consciously attempt to honor this Oneness.

those who are kind

SPIRIT MATTERSis a weekly column that examines spirituality in The Times' readership area. Contact Jerrilyn Zavada at jzblue33@yahoo.com to share how you engage your spirit in your life and in your community.

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SPIRIT MATTERS: In matters of the spirit, spirituality matters - LaSalle News Tribune

As a seeker, I try my best to decondition my mind and open the windows of my consciousness. I am aware that it is an exceedingly difficult task. I fail repeatedly. There are many reasons. To begin with, my academic identity as a sociologist often limits my thinking; it is not always easy to free myself from the trap of its methods and techniques, discourses and texts, and modes of argumentation and theoretical construction. Likewise, our political ideologies often obstruct the creative flow of ideas: the ability to see beyond Marx or Ambedkar, liberalism or socialism, atheism or religion, and socialism or feminism. Yes, I realize that I too feel tempted to establish my belief with some sort of egotistic pride, and, as a result, become terribly non-dialogic. However, this awareness of my conditioning and limitations has also helped me to unlearn many things, become somewhat non-judgmental, and with compassionate listening, evolve a relationship with even Oshothe much-talked about controversial spiritual guru. I know that the circle I belong to is unlikely to be sympathetic towards Osho; possibly, he would be condemned and castigated; and many stories would be repeated about his wealthy disciples, their life-styles, and their experiments with love, sexuality and meditation.

Yet, I believe that dance transcends the dancer; and even if the controversy surrounds Oshos life, his deep insights and explorations into the interiority of human existence are illuminating. Why should I deprive myself of the sublime beauty of his speeches or writings, even if I am not always very easy with many practices associated with his ashrams? Osho, as I see, is not merely a guru with the galaxy of Rolls- Royce carsan enemy of Ronald Regan or Morarji Desai, or the priests of organized religions. Osho, I feel, is also a teacher-philosopher, and insights and revelations, I have no hesitation in saying, are illuminatingthe way the snow-clad Himalayan peak illumines us. With philosophy and literature, and mysticism and psychologyhe looks like a flowing river. Unlike what academicians do with the burden of knowledge, Osho communicates, whispers into my ears, and heals me. Unlike the priests of organized religions, Osho doesnt burden me with moralism or ritualism; and he tells a rhythmic story filled with laughter and humour, and religiousness and literary sensibilities. The beauty is that I need not be his disciple; yet, I can engage with him.

In this article, I will make an attempt to share the tales of my journey with him. Yes, this is yet another beautiful evening; I take his books, and allow myself to be nurtured by the song he sings

Preparation, Purification and Perfection

Preparation does not mean preparing for a verbal examination or a written examination. Preparation means preparing for an existential examination; it means going deeper into meditation.

Osho, The World Beyond Time , Sterling Publishers, New Delhi, 2008

As a student/teacher, I am familiar with what our education system regards as examinations. These examinations, we are told, evaluate our ability to memorize select texts, think logically, apply the skills we learn, and acquire the specialized knowledge in academic disciplines. Yes, examinations are everywherefrom play schools to doctorate programs. And our top ranking universities produce knowledgeable personsphysicists and historians, mathematicians and biologists, or anthropologists and geologists. Yet, the world we live in is extremely violent; and there seems to be no positive correlation between ones educational achievement and ones psychic/spiritual health. Envy, aggression, narcissism, petty politics and competitiveness: we the educated classare not free from these negative emotions.

I have often asked myself: Is there any other way of looking at studentship, education and life-trajectory? No academic journal has given a meaningful answer to my question; no expert has satisfied me; and seminars/conferences have seldom gone beyond dry facts and soulless theories. However, this evening as I begin to contemplate on what Osho regards as preparation, purification and perfection, I experience a sense of joy; I begin to feel that possibly I too was waiting to receive this wisdom.

Well, we often prepare for school/college examinations; and these days, coaching centres or the traders of knowledge help us to prepare for these examinations. Preparation, for all practical purposes, means the ability to acquire the exam strategyhow to become smart and efficient, and solve quickly the riddles relating to physics and mathematics, or English grammar and general knowledge. When I am tired of this psychic violence that goes on in the name of preparation, Osho tells me a different story. Yes, real studentship is like preparing for an existential examination. And this means a great deal of unlearning. The mind has already been burdened with texts and scriptures, or tales of success and failure. No preparation is, therefore, possible without deconditioning the mind. As Osho says,

Preparation means that you drop all your conditionings, you drop your prejudices, you drop what you think you know and you do not know: you get as innocent as possible. Your innocenc will be the preparation.

In a way, it is like becoming a child once again. However, as Osho reminds us, a child need not necessarily be always pure. In fact, children are not free from anger, hatred, greed and jealousy. If one child has a doll, the other becomes so jealous that they will start fighting. In fact, there are many ugly instincts we have inherited with nature, and with our birth. And this is the reason why preparation alone is not sufficient; we must go through a process of purification. School Principals or Vice-chancellors have never spoken of the process of purification. Instead, we have been continually asked to be competitive, or to be winners, achievers and leaders. We have normalized the ethos of competitiveness; and as a result, we negate our specificity and uniqueness; we imitate the toppers; we evolve some sort of sadomasochism. Hence, purification is needed.

Purification is almost going through a fire of understanding in which all that is instinctive and ugly burns down. And it is a great experience that only the ugly burns. That which is beautiful blossoms. In purification you lose all trace of hate and instead, suddenly a spring of love bursts forthas if the rock of hate was preventing the spring.

Indeed, purification is a deeper meditation than preparation. Because it can turn greed into compassion, or hate into love. And then, everything, says Osho, is light, fragrant and fresh. This invariably leads to perfection. One becomes awakened or enlightened.

Contrast this alchemy of human transformation with what the learning machine does these days. In a way, what the system regards as education destroys us. Awakened intelligence is not its goal; deconditioning or purification hardly matters; what is important is the cultivation of instrumental rationality. We get degrees; we become clever, strategic and instrumental; we become doctors, engineers, managers and professors; we make bombs, cause war, pollute the environment; and we manufacture theses and books on our decay. But then, Osho makes me see the absurdity of the entire thing. I hear the call from the distant peak

Celebrating the Spirit of Meditative Education

God is not a manufacturer, he is a creator. He does not manufacture people like cars on an assembly line. You can have many Ford cars exactly alikethats the difference between a machine and a man. A machine can be duplicated, a man cannot be duplicated, and the moment you start duplicating, imitating, you become more like a machinethen you are no longer respectful toward your humanity.

Osho, Learning to Silence the Mind, St. Martins Griffin, New York, 2012

We live in a society that loves to hierarchize and stigmatize. Not solely that. Here is a society that is eager to normalize and standardize people. Think of it. Your child is silent and introvert. She looks at the sky, observes a tree carefully; and she is not very efficient in mathematics and history. Even if you are a sensitive parent, it is quite likely that schools and neighbours would pressurize you, and remind you that what is happening to your child is not good; she must be smart and pushy; and she must impress her teachers through her knowledge in physics and geography. In other words, she ought to be like what an achievement-oriented society wantsambitious, extrovert and competitive. In a way, we loathe uniqueness; we do not want a child to evolve and grow in her own way. Instead, a sort of uniformityor the societal definition of normalcygoverns our educational practices. What do these schools, coaching centres and management/engineering colleges seek to do? They manufacture products: well-fed/well-clothed employees. And Osho captures it so beautifully:

Every child starts that waywith awe, with wonder, with great inquiry in his heart. Every child is a mystic. Somewhere on the way of your so-called growing you lose contact with your inner possibility of being a mystic, and you become a businessman or you become a clerk or you become a collector or you become a minister. You become something else, and you start thinking that you are this. And when you believe it, it is so.

No wonder, Osho reminds us repeatedly of the dangers of conditioning. In fact, true meditation is not indoctrination; it is to make one aware of the treasure within. However, we destroy this possibility. We make them believe that success is what matters. Moreover, we teach them that they are Hindus, Muslims or Christians. This indoctrination destroys the natural intelligence of the child. The result is that they start losing their natural rhythm, their natural elegance, and they start learning plastic behaviour.

Is it possible to change this pattern? Can education be a meditative experience? In a society that conditions the mind, fills it with all sorts of bookish knowledge and thoughts, and equates religion with the ritualism of Hinduism, Islam or Christianity, Oshos approach to meditative education might annoy our priests, ideologues and teachers. Yet, I feel, it is wonderful.

Meditation is a way to go within yourselves to that depth where thoughts dont exist, so it is not indoctrination. It is not teaching you anything; in fact, it is just making you alert to your inner capacity to be without thought, to be without mind. And the best time is when the child is still uncorrupted.

Epilogue

Your truth is not to be thought about, it has to be seen. It is already there. You dont have to go anywhere to find it. You dont have to think about it, you have to stop thinking so that it can surface in your inner being. Unoccupied space is needed within you so that the light that is hidden can expand and fill your being.

Osho, I Teach Religiousness, Not Religion, Hind Pocket Books, Delhi, 2000

My evening with Osho, I realize, is immensely beautiful. It is a song. No television news. No academic anxiety to perform. No burden of the intellect. I feel like reading his booksthe way I see a mountain peak, a flowing river, a tiny bird flying in the sky. It seems I have become empty. With the lightness of being, I am silencing the noisy mind. And is it that I have ceased to become a Hindu, a Muslim, a Marxist, a sociologist, an intellectual? And then, I feel he is whispering:

You need a total let-go, an utterly peaceful, tensionless, silent state of being. And suddenlythe explosion.

Avijit Pathak is Professor of Sociology at JNU.

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An Evening with Osho - The New Leam

While doing asanas, you preserve your breath and conserve your body, says fitness guru Mickey Mehta.

In 1970, when Mumbai was Bombay, an eight-year-old boy was restless. It would be his birthday the next day and all he wanted was to join a gym. His mother suggested he should ask at the nearby YMCA.

So I went to Lamington Road YMCA. As I sprinted up the stairs, I was bubbling with excitement. I could see some of the members working out. It was where I wanted to be.

But They said I was too small and I should buy equipment and train at home. This seemed a very good idea and I told my mom. But she said it was not something we could afford. And she then said the strangest thing. She told me to use my mind and body to build my physique instead of depending on equipment.

Not sure what exactly his mother meant, the very next day, on his birthday, Mickey Mehta locked himself in his room and started stretching and doing freehand exercises.

Fifty years later, Dr Mickey Mehta stands tall as one of the leading holistic health gurus and corporate life coaches in the world, having trained Bollywood superstars, top politicians, beauty queens, and the personnel of the police, army, navy and air force. He is also a published author and a regular on various television and radio shows.

Seek and find

Just a few days after the newly nine-year-old Mehta began freehand exercises in his room, one of his uncles dropped in, carrying a book by Yogacharya BKS Iyengar. I was so fascinated by the book that my uncle gave it to me, says Mehta. That was my first initiation into real yoga.

Iyengar led to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who led to Osho, Ma Hansaji, Sadhguru, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Baba Ramdev and Deepak Chopra, all of whom Mehta considers his gurus. But he is actually the quintessential Eklavya, having never really trained under anyone.

Still, Mehta has met most of his gurus. The common thread among them is that they are always in a state of joy, always smiling, he muses. Never go to a guru who is too serious. Go to people who can loosen you up. Laughter is a miracle drug! When you meditate, you realise that life is not something one should get too serious about. Because everything is transient.

Half a century ago, Mehta began doing yoga to build his body. Now he understands that yoga is about the mind and soul. Here, he shares his 10 commandments of wellness.

From HT Brunch, August 30, 2020

Follow us on twitter.com/HTBrunch

Connect with us on facebook.com/hindustantimesbrunch

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Mickey Mehtas 10 commandments of wellness - Hindustan Times

With the world navigating health concerns on a global scale, in an unknown climate asking us collectively to slow down, simplify our living, return to our roots and reassess our values, it seems fitting that when it comes to our wellbeing, going primal is the new progressive.

The mind/body connection is well versed and well understood and the new decade sees us move away from faddy diets and false promises of fast results in favour of optimising our health through holistic approaches, yielding long-term results on both the physical and metaphysical level.

MORE:Easy ways to improve your gut health and boost your immune system

We chatted to founder of Primal Health, solicitor-turned-spiritual Holistic Health and Paleo Diet Coach, Charlne Gisle, about how taking note from our ancestors could boost our health today.

Primal principles recommend that we eat as our ancestors would have done, so think foraging, hunting and gathering. Of course that may not be possible in todays society, but the point is discernment moving away from instant availability and industrial processing in favour of quality and nutrient-dense foods and treating your body with respect by loving what you are fuelling it with.

For me, a truly holistic and healthy approach to food is one that gets as close to the source, (nature) as possible. Choices that we can all make are to select foods that are local, organic, seasonal and whole, when it comes to eating in a Paleolithic way.

Enjoy meat, poultry, eggs and fish as healthy sources of protein, try cooking with butter or extra virgin coconut oil as these fats are very good for you, eat your fruit and vegetables as fresh as possible to benefit from all of their nutrients, and sprinkle seeds on your meals for extra nutritional value.

MORE:What is forest bathing and where can you go forest bathing in the UK?

For me, a healthy approach to eating is to see your diet as abundant, to love what you eat and to think about it in terms of what you are adding so a richer variety of fruit and vegetables or good quality, organic meats.

However, going a little Konmari in your kitchen is essential as its crucial to also know what you should be eliminating from your diet as well. Think foods that were entirely absent prior to civilisation, which includes all refined sugar, sugary beverages, all processed food, refined grains such as pasta and breakfast cereals and industrial/chemically altered oils (canola, sunflower). The Primal Principles also recommend limiting the consumption of alcohol.

We know we are not meant to be sedentary creatures, with numerous health implications associated with spending too much time seated or inactive.

You may not be able to help having an office job, which requires a fairly sedentary lifestyle but there are so many helpful ways that you can stop it having a negative impact on your health, wellbeing and fitness levels.

Start the day with some yoga, a morning workout or a short bike ride (even if to the shops or to run errands) before you set yourself up for work. Break your day up with lunch time activity perhaps a brisk walk to ensure you are getting your heart pumping, your blood circulating and a break from your computer screen.

Studies have found many mental health benefits for a 30-minute walking lunch, such an increase in enthusiasm, a greater ability to relax, improvements to physical fitness and other measures of health

This law harks back to the days when our Paleolithic ancestors, in their tribes, would have carried wood for fires, large stones which were used as tools or heavy buffalo and bison that would have been hunted.

The modern equivalent might be to incorporate some functional bodyweight training into your routine essential movements that humans were designed to be able to do, such as lifting your own body weight, push-ups, pull-ups, squats, and planks.

With so many, free online body-weight and Calthinestic work outs available online at the moment, this primal law can be done from the comfort (and isolation!) of your own home.

Weight training isnt just about building muscles, its benefits include improved posture, better sleep, gaining bone density, maintaining weight loss, boosting metabolism, lowering inflammation and staving off chronic disease.

This law also nods to our ancestors hunter gatherer lifestyles and the short bursts of cardio required to chase and hunt their food.

A great way to replicate this way of living in modern routine is with Tabata or HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) work outs. Trainers everywhere love HIIT because theyre usually fast, always efficient, can be adjusted to just about any level of expertise, and can be done from your living room. Short bursts of cardio are also a great way to burn maximum calories in a minimal time.

In the Paleolithic era our ancestors started and ended their days in alignment with the sun and natures circadian rhythm, illuminating sleep disorders and mid-afternoon slumps. -I certainly saw these benefits (and more!) when living by the suns ritualistic simplicity during my time living with monks in an authentic Indian Ashram, Govardhan Eco Village, north of Mumbai.

While Im a huge advocate of living my life by natures circadian rhythm, I know that waking at sunrise and winding down as the sun sets isnt possible for everyone. However, we can all create regular sleep habits and even relaxing bedtime rituals like going to bed at night and waking up in the morning around the same times (including on weekends), and aiming for around 6 hours sleep a night to help reduce stress, inflammation and depression, while improving your memory, keeps you more alert and may help you lose weight.

We know from studying cave drawings that the Paleolithic tribes spent around 6 hours a day playing, creating and making art and under the idea of play is the importance of human connection, exploration, intimacy and sex.

MORE:The best vibrators for a buzz with benefits with expert recommendations for dryness, sensitivity and toning pelvic floor

The number of adults dealing with stress and depression are increasing all the time with work pressures regularly cited as a reason so we know that we should be striving for a better work/life balance, and making more time for things we love.

Carving out time to play, make love and be creative boosts endorphins, improves cognitive function and reminds us that intimacy is a sacred part of our lives. I believe that we should make time every day for love, laughter and playfulness perceiving play time as quality time where you return to your inner child with your own children, spending time with friends in activities that do not involve screens (think tribe-esque sister circles), enjoying your partner and even playing with a pet.

For anyone in lockdown with a partner or lover, there is never a better time to embrace elements of a Tantric lifestyle, which I offer as part of my Holistic Coaching Service, whereby intimacy, connection and sex is considered sacred and pleasure considered a birth right!

Primal law waxes lyrical about the benefits of spending time outside as our ancestors would have done. For me time outside in nature is an essential part of my wellbeing, and in fact, my approach to holistic health coaching is centered on the five elements:

Air for breath work and Pranayama (breathing techniques), Water for ice-bathing and fasting, Earth for Primal Diet, earthing and grounding, Spirit for meditation and Fire for Tantra and sacred sexuality as well as sun exposure.

Getting outside every day, even if just for a walk or run and a dose of vitamin D, produced naturally in your body when directly exposed to sunlight. Vitamin D fights disease, reduces depression and boosts weight loss.

This may sound an obvious one, but in the primal sense this law applies to not doing too many things at once in essence, being present in the daily.

Todays society is anesthetised to modern environmental dangers by distraction and overstimulation. We all do it: texting while driving, sending emails during meetings, chatting on the phone while eating dinner.

Taking time to do just one thing at a time seems downright luxurious, even wasteful but research shows that its not nearly as efficient as we like to believe, and can even be harmful to our health.

Doing too much can be harmful to your relationships, cause you to overeat as you havent processed what youve eaten that day, stifles creativity, is dangerous and causes stress. Make time to be present in your routine, fitting in both the things you need to do and the things you want to do

As Osho said, To be creative means to be in love with life. You can be creative only if you love life enough that you want to enhance its beauty.

Not only does creativity infuse life with a different sort of depth and richness; creativity allows self-discovery, the opportunity to share a hidden side of ourselves, promotes thinking and problem-solving and reduces stress and anxiety.

I know from my time as a London Litigator that using your brain does not (and should not) mean in the intellectual sense only when it comes to fulfilment and a healthy, functioning mind; so make time to do something you love, which stimulates you creatively, every day. It can be art, singing, making something, a hobby or a passion project.

A simple and truly beautiful way to integrate this law into our modern life is to start journaling and set some time aside to write every day.With practice, negative thoughts can be replaced with positive ones using tools such as a daily gratitude, simply writing a list of five things I am grateful for every morning to set myself up for the day.

With time and dedication to these practices you can replace negative thinking patterns with thoughts that actually help. This can make a huge difference in your day-to-day happiness and comfort

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Could a return to primal living help us live longer and healthier lives? - woman&home

Aresearch studyby The National Center for Women & Information Technology showed that gender diversity has specific benefits in technology settings, which could explain why tech companies have started to invest in initiatives that aim to boost the number of female applicants, recruit them in a more effective way, retain them for longer, and give them the opportunity to advance. But is it enough?

Three years ago, we launched a diversity series aimed at bringing the most inspirational and powerful women in the tech scene to your attention. Today, wed like you to meet Kelly Mathieson, Chief Client Experience Officer at Digital Asset.

Kelly Mathieson is the Chief Client Experience Officer for Digital Asset, the creators of the DAML smart contract language and pioneers in the blockchain technology space. Prior to Digital Asset, Kelly spent 26 years at J.P.Morgan and 3 years at Goldman Sachs working in securities services, clearing and brokerage businesses. Kelly serves on the Greater NYC Board of the Susan J. Komen Foundation.

While I have been involved in technology for years and currently work at Digital Asset, a technology company, Im not actually a technologist. However, throughout my career in financial services, every role I have ever had heavily relied on the technology used in the operating environment, that is, the algorithms used to trade financial products, or the systems used to clear and settle trades, or the software used to serve customers.

In my career in financial services, I lived through seminal events from the 1987 crash, to the rise of online brokerages, to the initial Internet bubble and its demise, to 9/11 and the effects it had on global finance, and finally to the credit crunch of 2007 and 2008. In every one of these situations or crises, technology played a key, if not essential role.

After 30 years working in an industry that relied so heavily on technology, and suffered so greatly when technology didnt work as intended, I wanted to be part of a team that was changing how the business of finance was done, which is why I joined Digital Asset.

You are the grand sum of your experiences at any moment in time, and therefore, what youre capable of doing tomorrow is never going to be equal to what youre capable of doing today.

I consider myself to be one of those fortunate people who has established a strong network across geographies, roles and industries. My role models are my family, friends and colleagues that allow me to use them as a sounding board, either to improve my perspective or guide me in making an important decision by suggesting different angles by which to analyze the situation and form my opinion.

There was not a specific person or a moment in time that blocked me from moving in the direction I wanted to go professionally, but I do have a cautionary tale on getting pigeon-holed in your career. In 2008, following the market crisis, I was fortunate to be involved in some of the more transformative market and regulatory initiatives designed to stabilize financial services and ensure that such an event never happened again. I would never trade that experience. However, because I played such a prominent role, that experience came to define me in ways. It was assumed that I would remain in this role for the rest of my career. What I learned is that you must be willing to promote your brand and emphasize capabilities that position you beyond your current role. You are the grand sum of your experiences at any moment in time, and therefore, what youre capable of doing tomorrow is never going to be equal to what youre capable of doing today.

I am the Chief Client Experience Officer at Digital Asset. At the core of our service offering is DAML, an open source and platform-independent smart contract language that enables developers to write a distributed application once and deploy it to a variety of platforms, from distributed ledgers to traditional databases .

At Digital Asset, I lead the team that supports and enables customers to use Digital Assets technology and partner solutions to build the next generation of connected applications. This includes everything from forming a strategy on how to use DAML for a specific use case or a business issue, helping them visualize their first application prototype or demo, supporting how they engage and interact with third parties, such as regulators, market participants or their customers and helping them select from a range of solutions that we provide with our partners.

Throughout my 30-year plus career, diversity has been an industry issue, whether it was on trading floors in the late eighties and early nineties, breaking glass ceilings in financial services, or giving women more opportunities in leadership positions. Diversity in the workforce is as important to driving business success as it is to personal empowerment. It has been proven in countless studies that diverse workforces produce more competitive companies that deliver better products and services.

That being said, there are still many challenges that we must overcome. When women enter an organization that has low female representation in the technology roles, they are instantly branded as different rather than assessed for their actual skills and experience. This requires women at all levels to work harder to ensure theyre not seen as the female team member but rather as an outstanding performer. Women in technology must make sure that they are consistently distinguishing themselves, regardless of gender.

The obstacles we face as women in technology start early on in our education system.. Most technology, science, engineering and math programs tend to attract men over women, particularly at higher education levels. We must create curricula in these fields of study that appeal to both genders from elementary school through college and postgraduate programs.

As leaders in the technology industry, we need to have a real sense of responsibility for creating that path for girls beginning at the grade school level. We also need to make sure that the technology companies are purposely working to attract female applicants, principally by eliminating male dominant, tech bro cultures. This starts with how job descriptions are written and the types of career opportunities and career paths that are discussed with female employees. In addition, companies need to offer flexible work environments that support both working mothers and fathers so women have the same potential for career growth as their male counterparts.

From my own experience, companies must also consider alternative or diverse paths into senior technology roles. Computer science and mathematical degrees should not be prerequisites to attaining a senior technology role. I know many technology leaders who came from fields such as finance and customer support. Having a diverse professional background enables you to bring a unique perspective to an organization and one that can unite different areas of the company together in pursuit of the most practical and customer-centric technology solutions.

I firmly believe the world is a better place when people with diverse perspectives, backgrounds and experiences are brought together to solve a challenge or problem. Women introduce a fresh voice to any initiative if only because our perspectives are different.

We need to encourage students at the grade school level, at the middle school and the high school level, to define their own paths and help develop STEM topics and curricula that inspire them to pursue technology careers with passion and persistence. If we do that, in just a decade or generation, there will be social, economic, cultural impact of an indefinable positive quality, simply because we opened the door to a more diverse workforce that applies its intellectual force to solving the worlds biggest challenges.

A wise person once told me Kelly, you dont need to know everything. You just need to know where to go get it and who to ask.

Over the course of my career I have seen results, but clearly not enough to eliminate the debate and there is much more to do. As I said, I have been involved in discussions on gender diversity my whole professional life, and Ive long since stopped guessing on when they will no longer be necessary. Ive never been with a company that didnt need to focus on it and didnt benefit from doing so.

First of all, you must be prepared to work really hard. Dont let opportunities wait to present themselves to you, go pursue them. You are the best author of your own career path, so seek to define it actively and pursue it aggressively. You are the grand sum of your experiences, and you need to present yourself as such. Finally, it is very important to build your network of influencers. A wise person once told me Kelly, you dont need to know everything. You just need to know where to go get it and who to ask.

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Women in Tech: "You are the best author of your own career path" - JAXenter

Keith Haring Photographer unknown 1989. Courtesy of The LGBT Community Center National History Archive

Dear Keith: Works from the Personal Collection of Keith Haring in a dedicated online auction open for bidding from 24th September 1st October 2020 at Sothebys

Dear Keith will present 140+ works of art and objects from Harings personal collection, all on offer from the Keith Haring Foundation an organization established by the artist shortly before his death in 1990 from HIV/AIDS-related causes. Harings collection features works gifted to, purchased by and traded with Haring among friends and artists in his community, including Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Kenny Scharf, and many more.

Gil Vazquez, Acting Director of the Keith Haring Foundation, said:

Dear Keith is an especially meaningful event in what is the 30th anniversary of Keiths passing. It feels as if Keith himself rallied his friends to make art for this specific purpose. It is rare that we as a foundation are able to address so many of the concerns that our founder deeply cared about in a single gift. The Center embodies so much of what Keith was about: community, empowerment, and the support of our future, the youth. We feel confident that this gift during this time for this purpose is the right thing.

Keith Haring Foundation. Polaroids, The Keith Haring Foundation Archives

All of the works will appear at auction this Autumn for the first time, together revealing never-before-told stories about Harings community and bringing to life the celebrated art scene of 1970s and 80s New York from the School of Visual Arts (SVA) and Club 57 to street art and beyond.

In keeping with the Keith Haring Foundations mission to sustain and expand the artists legacy of philanthropy, full proceeds from the auction will benefit The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center of New York (also known as The Center) an organization that empowers the queer community of New York to lead healthy, successful lives; celebrates the communitys diversity and advocates for justice and opportunity.

During his 10+ years living and working in downtown Manhattan, Haring was engaged in the queer / downtown art and activism scene. He executed one of his final large-scale murals, Once Upon a Time, in the second-floor mens bathroom at The Center in May 1989 for The Center Show a celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots that featured works by LGBTQ artists commissioned by The Center. That mural stands to this day. Haring was devoted to all of his communities, from his family and friends to collaborators both in art and activism, and the Foundation is pleased to celebrate the enduring connection he had with The Center through this gift.

Harrison Tenzer, Head of Sothebys Contemporary Art Online Sales in New York, said:

Dear Keith spotlights the diverse community of artists whose unique visions inspired Keith throughout his life. The collection is remarkably autobiographical, just as any great collectors estate is a window into their individual perspective. We see the progression of Keiths life captured in these works, from those of his childhood friend Kermit Oswald, to SVA peers John Sex and Kenny Scharf, to fellow upstart Jean-Michel Basquiat, to graffiti writers Futura 2000 and Lee Quiones, to his heroes Andy Warhol, Pierre Alechinsky and William Burroughs, who he collaborated with during his meteoric rise to fame. Together they illuminate a culturally fertile era in which artists and activists worked closely together to create a world that was more inclusive than the one they were born into. I am deeply honored that the Keith Haring Foundation has entrusted Sothebys with this momentous opportunity to celebrate Keiths continuing legacy, and I am proud that the sale will benefit The Centers important work.

Dear Keith: Works from the Personal Collection of Keith Haring will be on view by appointment in Sothebys York Avenue galleries from 26th 30th September. sothebys.com/dear-keith

Fascinated by cartoons from an early age, Keith Haring was best known for striking graffiti-inspired drawings that took him from New York Citys streets and clubs to museums and public spaces around the world. While attending the School of Visual Arts in New York in 1978, Haring discovered a thriving art community of fellow emerging artists such as Kenny Scharf, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Tseng Kwong Chi. Haring created a singular graphic style based on the primacy of the line, peopling his compositions with such signature images as dancing figures, radiant babies, barking dogs and flying saucers, and infusing them with uncommon energy.

Between 1980 and 1989, Keith Haring achieved international recognition, participating in numerous group and solo shows and producing more than 50 public artworks from New York to Paris. By expressing universal concepts of birth, death, love, sex and war, Haring created lasting imagery that has been embraced around the world. Harings works can be found in the collections of many museums including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Albertina, in Vienna, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and many more.

Shortly before his death in 1990, Haring established the Keith Haring Foundation. The mission of the Foundation continues to be threefold: the support of organizations committed to enriching the lives of children, promoting care and education surrounding issues of HIV/AIDS, and furthering the legacy of his artwork.

Haring was greatly influenced by Andy Warhol, who was both a friend and artistic collaborator. In 1989 he told Rolling Stone:

Before I knew [Warhol], he had been an image to me. He was totally unapproachable. I met him finally through Christopher Makos, who brought me to the Factory. At first, Andy was very distant. It was difficult for him to be comfortable with people if he didnt know them. Then he came to another exhibition at the Fun Gallery, which was soon after the show at Shafrazi. He was more friendly. We started talking, going out. We traded a lot of works at that time.

The auction includes a number of such works, including an Untitled portrait of Haring with Juan DuBose a DJ as well as Harings partner and lover, who passed away due to HIV/AIDS in 1988 (pictured above, estimate $200/250,000). Haring and DuBose had a passionate on-and-off relationship for five years that was predominantly driven by physical attraction. The sale also features a significant group of works by artists associated with Club 57 the night club located in a church basement in New Yorks East Village that quickly became one of the most influential centers of the citys countercultural movement when it opened its doors in 1978.

Works by Jean-Michel Basquiat (pictured above: Basquiat, Untitled, estimate $100/150,000), Tseng Kwong Chi, Stefano Castronovo, Samantha McEwen, Kermit Oswald, Kenny Scharf, Bruno Schmidt and John Sex bear witness to a definitive downtown scene fueled by low rents, opposition to the Reagan administration, and the desire to experiment with new modes of art, performance, fashion, music, and exhibition.

Kenny Scharf was particularly close with Haring having become fast friends at the School of the Visual Arts, the two were roommates and collaborated often. The sale features works on paper by the artist, highlighted by his watercolor on paper in hand-painted frame Untitled (pictured above, estimate $18/25,000), as well as a number of hand-painted objects.The street art scene in which Haring worked in the 1970s and 80s is well represented, including pieces by John Crash Matos, Lady Pink, Lee Quiones, Rammellzee and Basquiat, whose work he greatly admired. In his essay Remembering Basquiat published in Vogue, Haring wrote:

His work had a kind of power which was unmistakably real. The intensity and directness of his vision was intimidating. Jean-Michel was maybe a little too real for us. He was uncompromising, disobedient, and rude if the situation required it. Not malicious, but honest.

Another close friend of the artist was George Condo, who often worked from Harings East Village studio. The sale includes an excellent grouping of early drawings and paintings done by the artist in the 1980s, including an Untitled work on paper featuring the inscription: For Keith in Paris, so it is once before a bum I am

Haring also owned a number of works by established artists whom he greatly admired, including Pierre Alechinsky, Jean Cocteau, Alberto Giacometti, Roy Lichtenstein and Pablo Picasso. The sale includes two Lichtenstein prints, including Forms in Space from 1985 which took pride of place above the fireplace in his home (pictured above, estimate $50/70,000). Lichtenstein attended Keiths first major exhibition in New York, as did Robert Rauschenberg and Sol Le Witt.

Mark Westall is the Founder and Editor of FAD magazine Founder and co-publisher Art of Conversation and founder of the platform @worldoffad

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Dear Keith: Works from the Personal Collection of Keith Haring - FAD magazine

Lifestyle / Fashion / H&M collaborates with Beirut-based designer Sandra Mansour on empowering collection H&M collaborates with Beirut-based designer Sandra Mansour on empowering collection Its launch was postponed as a result of port explosion in Lebanon

Fashion powerhouse H&M releases its first-ever fashion collaboration with a Lebanese brand. Sandra Mansour, a designer known to weave dreamy silhouettes and figures into ultra feminine frocks, finally unveils her latest work. This will transport us into her world of modern coolness aptly entitled Fleur du Soleil after getting inspired with the way a sunflower follows the sun from day into night.

The first things you notice about Sandra Mansours designs are the dreamy qualities and sheer beauty, but then you get further drawn into the craftsmanship, the storytelling, and the modern youthfulness, says Maria stblom, head of design womenswear at H&M. Theres also something empowering about the femininity. Were proud to be collaborating with such a trailblazer, and we look forward to launching the collection worldwide.

The Sandra Mansour x H&M collection boasts of a feminine and strong range of dresses, blouses and skirts, a tailored blazer, and a printed T-shirt and hoodie. Fit-and-flare shapes and ruffled hems are mixed with volume and statement details in an earthy color palette of mushroom greys, ivory, and black.

Sewn with a message of empowerment and hope for the people of Beirut, the collection embodies the true beauty of nature as inspired by strong female artists such as Toyen, Dorothea Tanning, Lena Leclercq and Bibi Zogb. The inspiration for the H&M collaboration was nature and natural elements. Especially the sunflower, which represents the cycle of life as seen in its dependence on sunlight, says the designer. Poetry and painters inspired the selection of fabric the dark laces, jacquards, and embroidered organza. With the Fleur du Soleil collection, I want to talk to women around the world by sending a message of hope, something we really need right now.

Due to the devastating events in Beirut, the Sandra Mansour collection that was supposed to be launched on Aug. 6 was postponed. In the wake of the explosions, H&M has donated $100,000 to Red Cross Lebanon to help rebuild countless lives affected by the catastrophe.

The Sandra Mansour x H&M collection is available at SM Megamall, SM Makati, and Greenbelt 4 starting today.

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2020-08-27 13:48:36

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H&M collaborates with Beirut-based designer Sandra Mansour on empowering collection - Manila Bulletin