Sat Nam Dear Community,
Communities need a purpose. Spiritual communities need an elevated purpose. All communities need "buy in" leadership with the correct cause, a community which follows the community protocol. When the community elders no longer take living the purpose primarily, the community begins it’s decent into individual purposes. Community spirit is lost. The community may continue to exist, but it’s relevance has been diminished.
Living a purpose which is devotional is the highest living Order. Please, let me give you an example of how this purpose becomes universal truth and saves communities, et al.
I’m watching a streaming show called Alone. Ten people are air lifted and dropped off beyond the Arctic Circle. They must survive for months in this harshest of harsh environments and do it by themselves. They all are expert bush-crafters. The ten participants are hard core professionals. They all know what they are doing in the wilderness. They live for it.
The first thing I noticed was that the longer participants stay out in the wilderness alone, the more truthful they become. The camera they carry is their only form of communication. They become very intimate with their new friend and they expose themselves through the camera truly and freely. It’s interesting.
One of the participants caught my attention. She is a Canadian Cree First Nation woman named Michela. She wanted to know her history, so she has been living the Cree ideology for many years. She lives the lifestyle. She doesn’t just know the protocol, she lives it. She also has a Cree name which I can’t remember, but I know that it means "beaver." She takes the Cree creed and her Cree name seriously. She lives her name - sound familiar.
She lives her life like a beaver. I know you’ve heard the expression, "busy as a beaver." She thinks and works like a beaver. Beavers are always busy, she works like a beaver: gathering, fixing, fishing, preparing for whatever. Beavers are known to be very smart animals. They figure things out. The use tools. "They are smarter than the average bear," as Yogi Bear used to say.
The temperature can reach to 50 degrees below zero in this zone. There are grizzly bears and wolves everywhere. The wind can be brutal. Loneliness is a grave experience. Fear is a perpetual companion. Need I go on. This environment is God’s great challenge.
In one sequence, she’s walking in a field with tall grasses all around. She stumbles upon a big rock and is mesmerized. She explains that, in her culture, big rocks represent the initial inhabitants of this earth, environmental predecessors, they are a elevated image of the Creator of ALL.
She got down on her knees and began to pray in front of the rock. It was a beautiful prayer which I won’t risk messing up attempting to repeat it. This experience is being filmed, so I’m also aware that it could lead to actors being good actors, but her prayer was real. I felt it. She not only lives the Cree lifestyle, she experiences it. Her lifestyle is her teacher, her very good teacher.
Each morning upon rising, Michela washes herself with smoke. She says her beautiful morning prayers and allows us the the privilege of listening in. Then she starts her day of work in devotion to a big rock. Big rocks are the original creation of the Creator, therefore, in the Cree tradition, big rocks are closest to God.
She prays to a rock, she’s in love with this rock, but there’s more. God, who is inside that rock experiences her devotion and reciprocates by communicating through intuition. Sikhs refer to this communication as "intuitive poise," the understanding and living God’s will. God is everywhere, so He must be in a big rock as well - a universal truth. Her form of "intuitive poise" includes understanding, understanding whatever needs to be understood. As Sikhs find the living Guru within the words of the Siri Granth Sahib, Michela finds her God within large rocks through intuition. - sound familiar.
She brings her intuition into the world and becomes wise beyond the beyond. Hard work and intuition will do very well for any student. These two virtues together are rare. Her intuition is blessed through her devotion, and that’s the only real good use of intuition. Intuition used for understanding is blessed; intuition used for mind tricks deployed for self-interest is used incorrectly.
Michela seems to understand her environment through her intuition and knowledge. That combo is a real winner. She seems to know the proper way to deal with nature. She brings a lot to this challenge. With all the the great experience around in other contestants, she seems to know what they don’t - where everything comes from.
I don’t want to give you the impression that she’s the perfect Cree, I can’t. I haven’t studied what the perfect Cree looks like. And, I’m sure, if she was asked this question, she would say that she’s always working on it, not a master of it. Being great, claiming greatness, requires humility, the humility to recognize that there is no greatness in anyone without the grace of God. When He graces the student, the student becomes more and more grateful, devotional, and loving.
Religions, communities, religious communities, nations, states, families ALL have a purpose, a mission, an understanding. Our lovely Cree woman has a plan and she’s living it. She’s doing it with duty and devotion. What more is there to say. Isn’t that the purpose of existence: sacrificing whatever for happiness through devotion and duty to God's will - again, Michele’s plan sounds very familiar. The first thing to understand is: what is God’s true will? Following the wrong interpretation of God’s will may be hazardous to health. Devotion, duty, and compassion are the correct interpretations of His will and it appears that this is her path.
When a good student sacrifices him/herself through serving and loving God and His creation more and more, organizations, communities, religions prosper. Naturally, the opposite is also true. When we only serve ourselves, prosperity wanes. That’s the law and I can’t change it. I may like it or not, it doesn’t matter. God’s will, protocol, law, prevails and predominates.
If you want your community or whatever to remain relevant, live the protocol as Michela is doing and go on this fantastic journey of living a different reality, and elevated reality. Stay tuned,
In Perfect Harmony, Your Partner and Friend in this Fantastic Journey,
Hari Jiwan
