Luna Poddar: Dancing Krishna
WHEN we have stopped dancing, singing, being enchanted by stories, or finding comfort in silence we experience the loss of soul, many shamanic societies say.
“Dancing, singing, storytelling, and silence, Gabrielle Roth attests, “are the four universal healing salves.”
For Roth physical movement, according to an Huffpost article, “is key to unlocking the spirit.”
She was an incredibly influential teacher of meditative dance and the creator of the 5Rhythms movement practice.”
“Roth dedicated her life, heart and soul to exploring how to engage her spirit and creativity through dance and movement — and helping others to do the same. The effect of her influence is palpable.”
“Dance is the fastest, most direct route to the truth,” she claimed. It is notable in this regard that two of the most powerful ancient gods, Krishna and Shiva, are so often depicted as dancing, and Krishna additionally is shown at the same time playing the flute.
Yet in our present society, “especially in so-called civilized countries,” H. P. Blavatsky declared in The Key to Theosophy (Sect. 122), “we are continually brought face to face with the fact that large numbers of people are suffering from misery, poverty, and disease.”
Blavatsky went on to describe a society whose “physical condition is wretched, and their mental and spiritual faculties are often almost dormant.” On the other hand, she said, “many persons at the opposite end of the social scale are leading lives of careless indifference, material luxury, and selfish indulgence.”
“Neither of these forms of existence is mere chance. Both are the effects of the conditions which surround those who are subject to them, and the neglect of social duty on the one side is most closely connected with the stunted and arrested development on the other.”
We still suffer terribly from the neglect of each other as a humanity, but there are always a few self-sacrificing individuals who are unselfishly devoted to finding ways to help us heal.
Dance of Shiva
Human Solidarity
“In sociology, as in all branches of true science, the law of universal causation holds good. But this causation necessarily implies, as its logical outcome, that human solidarity on which Theosophy so strongly insists.
“If the action of one reacts on the lives of all, and this is the true scientific idea, then it is only by all men becoming brothers and all women sisters, and by all practising in their daily lives true brotherhood and true sisterhood, that the real human solidarity, which lies at the root of the elevation of the race, can ever be attained.”
“It is this action and interaction, this true brotherhood and sisterhood, in which each shall live for all and all for each, which is one of the fundamental Theosophical principles that every Theosophist should be bound, not only to teach, but to carry out in his or her individual life.”
Solidarity through Music
A theosophist friend Pierre Wouters in Malmo, Sweden sent us the following message: “For those who like music and need a soul-boost, can spare a few minutes of their time: check out this video documentary ‘Playing4change – Peace through Music’, by Mark Johnson the co-director of a remarkable documentary about the simple but transformative power of music.”
“The film brings together musicians from around the world – from blues singers in a waterlogged New Orleans, to chamber groups in Moscow and a South African choir – they celebrate songs familiar and new, to touch something common in each of us.” – Bill Moyers
Bill Moyers’ Journal
Next there’s Bill Moyers’ piece about his visit to a small Baptist church on the West Side of Manhattan, in the neighborhood known as Hell’s Kitchen. “There will be much to repair, if we have the will for it,” Moyers says. “So it seems a good moment to introduce you to someone of the next generation who hasn’t given up on either our humanity or our future together, Mark Johnson.
“Well I think music is the one thing that opens the door to bringing people to a place where they are all connected,” Johnson says. “It is easy to connect to the world through music, you know. Religion, politics, a lot of those things they seem to divide everybody.”
One Love
A Higher Order
“If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.
“He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings.”
― Henry David Thoreau,
“Where I Lived, and What I Lived For”
Arte Maya Tz’utuhil
Theosophy Watch 