Fwd: ANANDAKAPILA'S NOTES TO SELECT STUDENTS VOL VI NO 4 Saturday, March 01, 2008

March 1, 2008

" Good students listen carefully to everything they are told. They are humble when praised, and make no excuses when corrected. Thevery best students need only be told something once.They are like a blank sheet of paper -- open and ready

to accept the information that is presented to them. " - Hideharu Onuma, " Kyudo: The Essence and Practice of Japanese Archery

www.jonnmumfordconsult.com

HARI OM!

APARIGRAHA

aparigraha

m.; non-acceptance , renouncing (of any possession besides the necessary utensils of ascetics) Jain. ; deprivation , destitution , poverty ; (mfn.) , destitute of possession ;

One Yama cannot be separated from another – they are all inter-related to form a holistic gestalt. This means that that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

Aparigraha may be the last of the Yama however ,like Muladhara, it is the foundation upon which the other Yamas rest and thus when not practised or ignored it is the greatest source of Karmic trouble for mankind.

"Possessions possess."- Paul Eldridge 1888-1982 US " educator, novelist, poet

This single principle is responsible for abject poverty World-wide, 1.6 million people incarcerated in American Prisons, and is the foundation upon which dictatorships and most corporations are built and is the demise of democracies when Governments cohabit with corporations -not for the common good.

I remember in 1960 my Acharya Jain Muni in Bombay used to say

"If you removed Sex and Gold, the earth would cease spinning and become a mere frozen mass orbiting in space".

I am not suggesting Sex or Gold do not have their just and proper place but we humans are driven by continued greed beyond need! How much money do we need in a world of starvation? WHEN IS ENOUGH ENOUGH?

The essence we need to remind ourselves about is that beyond leaving something to our children a shroud has no pockets!"Mine! There isn't any such thing as mine. The world slipsslithering through my fingers."

- Nancy Hale: American Novelist 1908- 1988.

Our Western attitude, at a superficial level, favors " nothing matters " - except the pursuit of wealth and power; consumerism has become almost the sole object and goal of life. Our way of living reinforced by relentless media bombardment moulds us as voracious, bipedal eaters of " goods and chattels " . We all are also " sellers " , of either goods or services, so we can maintain our role as " customers " .

I admit this is a generalization and, in moderation, capitalism is not necessarily such a bad thing; the problem is we have become so extreme in the pursuit of materialism.

In Hinduism, the achievement of physical security (Artha) is but one of four responsibilities, or " Chatars " , enjoined upon each Hindu; the other three are Dharma, Kama and Moksha. These are respectively: duty to ancestors, parents, children and society (Dharma), the pursuit of emotional satisfaction (Kama), contemplative meditation leading to self-realization (Moksha).

The last fifty years our language has produced many a tautology such as "Greedy Corporation" – interesting enough the country that has managed to excel at reducing Democracy to Corporatism is also a Country of great Millionaire philanthropists and generous individuals.

Australia has had its share of Corporate collapses in the last ten years leaving many with their life savings gone due to dishonest board and CEO's, who needed more? Have you ever asked yourself how much money you really need. Acquiring money for some becomes an addiction – despite having millions they cannot resist the challenge of acquiring more

"The man who will use his skill and constructive imagination to see how much he can give for a dollar, instead of how little he can give for a dollar, is bound to succeed"

- Henry Ford: Industrialist 1863- 1947

THE ESSENCE OF APARIGRAHA MAY BE DISTILLED AS REALIZING

Money is a MEANS and not an END; a SHROUD has no POCKETS!

Reducing everything to a commercial enterprise ensures dehumanization and guarantees a destructive cultural ethos, in which " nothing matters " .

Western society has not only lost perspective through wallowing in a commercial swamp but something else has happened to us - at least in the English-speaking world.

OM TAT SAT

Much Love

ANANDAKAPILA