Conversations with Yogananda
This series of videos completely redeems YouTube, from all the filth.
I really like when Asha finds the good even in the horror of complete moral license. This made me laugh out loud while biking into the city today:
In our culture, particularly now in the west, just...mama mia... It's just like...one of my young friends said to me a comment about his college life...
I try not to be too old, because it doesn't serve to be just so completely from another era and nobody will ever want to talk to you. So when somebody who's 50 years younger than me says something that startles me I try not to be startled. I try to act as if, you know, this is not really horrifying to me? But at the same time I also need to be sincere, because otherwise there's no friendship.
So, after he said whatever he said I contemplated it for a moment and I said: "Do you have any idea how morally depraved what you just said is?"
And he's a little old fashioned, and he can sort of see it. And then I thought, I don't need to leave it there. And I said: "Well, the good news is, whatever actual values your generation has they'll all be self-discovered and they'll be really yours. Because there seems to be absolutely no boundaries to the life you're living. And so, whereas other people might have behaved better that doesn't mean they were actually better. It just meant that they were hemmed in. So you guys are completely not hemmed in. So whatever you do has to spring from yourself. And ultimately, that's a gift. Because, to be good just because you have no opportunity to be bad doesn't mean you're good. It just means you're confined. But when you're unconfined and then you choose then it's really you."
I really like her attitude. Someone like this can go into hell and speak with demons. They can listen respectfully, and actually begin the work of rescue by identifying the tiny sliver of good in the story they were just told. There really will be something...some crack in the edifice. And by a kind of patient "just-not-going-away" the crack will be enlarged. And the being will be made to reflect and take some small stock of their situation, and their ownership of it. Just amazing.
Watch all this please sir or madam:
Another interesting point that resonates with our current moment:
This is what happens when society is falling apart. And, it's nice to be born when society is falling apart, because then everything that you are, you choose.
Because there's just no stability anywhere.
We're in this transition, where there's still a lot of people who hold to (and I think this is fine, no traditional society is like this)...[tradition].
This is good news because we're shifting from an age of forms to an age of energy. Forms are all breaking down, which is making everybody really insecure, and radicalizing everybody, and making them hate everybody else, because they think that you're at fault because my world is crumbling. But the good news is, everybody gets to choose their values. And what you have is really yours. So even if you're varying from what came before you have this strength in yourself, but it's very very insecure for people. And sexuality is just running right through the middle of it, because that's always one of the forms that was held so tightly. It was one of the ways that society was controlled. And once you stop controlling that energy...well, it's easy to see what happens, just look around.
My gosh, that is just so true. The news is full of the way this group is oppressed by that group. This sex oppressed by the other sex. Why this is racist and that is transphobic. Why...uff, you get the picture.
It's a mess!
I'm reminded of those scenes near the end of Synecdoche, NY, where you hear shouting and explosions outside. The culture is just breaking down.
But it's so great the way Asha sees the bright side. You do get to define your own values. And if, like me, you end up dusting off conservative values, religious values, Christian values, why, you find they are quite servicable. That is, they enhance the quality of consciousness moment by moment, and build strength (and thus future abundance) for the future.
I listen to her for five minutes and I get 10 ideas. I want to share them all, but no one is interested in this stuff. Ach, oh well, I have a warm place to sleep. And a new movie recommendation from that talk: "Random Harvest." Will watch it soon.