Sunday, November 23, 2008

I read this the other day and decided to post it.

BECOME AWAKE

The vibration of one clear awakened man is unforgettable.

The greatest of those in history revered and loved were simple men
Who during thier lives worked, spoke and acted quietly.

The potency and power of their being, the quality of their actions
Deemed them unforgettable as they influenced many.

This is the power of every being who is honest about his deepest potential
And becomes what he can be.

Monday, June 30, 2008

During one of my teaching sabbaticals I studied with a medical doctor who specialized in acupuncture. One of his patients told him I was a yoga aficionado who had studied in India and my interest in maintaining a healthy body triggered an interest in acupuncture. When he learned I was auditing classes at one of the local acupuncture colleges in Los Angeles, he contacted me and asked if I could create a series of exercises to trigger “chi” through the acupuncture meridian channels. He said I could work with some of his patients to see if the exercises increased their healing time. I was delighted with the offer, but I soon discovered that most of his patients were not comfortable in their bodies and did not have a good sense of their body, especially when their eyes were closed. It was difficult for them to merely stretch their toes and far more difficult to exercise the meridian stretch positions. Only one of the six patients was successful. She had been a ballet student in her youth, was totally in touch with her body and was able to stretch each of the twelve major meridians properly. Suffering with intense back pain, she feared she’d have to cancel a planned trip to Europe. I suggested she practice the twelve stretches five times a day, and a month later I received a card from her thanking me. The card was postmarked from Switzerland.

My keen interest in acupuncture led me to apply to the Academy of Chinese Medicine in Beijing, and when I was accepted I applied for another teaching sabbatical. It was approved, but at the time my elderly myrig became seriously ill and I had to cancel that learning experience. I never did get to China because I transferred that energy from acupuncture to researching and writing a story about my mother’s survival from the Genocide, which took many more years than I had envisioned.

I still find acupuncture fascinating. There are such interesting aspects of how acupuncture relates to our physical and emotional bodies. For example, the organs of the body are compared to a society. The lungs are likened to that of a population’s prime minister, the liver to a General and the heart is referred to as the Emperor. The human heart is protected by a membrane and in acupuncture that membrane is referred to as the jester whose job is to keep the emperor happy. Why? Because when the emperor is happy, the population will be happy. How does this relate to the human being? Does it mean that if the heart is free from stress the rest of the body will function harmoniously? Chinese medicine says the heart rules the mind. If that is true, and it most likely is, I immediately know what is meant when someone says, “He has a big heart.” A wise and great soul once said to me:

Your heart is the center of your life energy
And the center of your mental and intuitive energy

How often have you heard people say
"It was heartfelt"
"My heart is broken"
"I learned it by heart"?

People say, "I love with all my heart."
They never say, "I love with all my brain"
You may think you think with your brain.
But you do not.
You think with your heart.

Is there such a thing as an Armenian heart? And is this Armenian heart with its history of longsuffering the reason why Armenians, one of the most ancient of peoples, if not the most ancient, have had the courage to endure and survive through the ages while other ancient ethnic groups have not?

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

REFLECTIVE MOMENTS

Rajmohan Gandhi, a human rights activist and historian is a visiting professor at the South Asia and Middle East Program at the University of Illinois. He recently authored a biography of his grandfather, Gandhi: The Man, His People, and an Empire, and Pasadena City College was the site of his first lecture tour. He talked about the stature of his remarkable grandfather, Mahatma Gandhi, and how this ordinary man became a revolutionary who believed in the efficacy of non-violence and became the Great Soul who liberated India from the yoke of Great Britain.

I was moved by Rajmohan’s discourse about how his grandfather continued to live by the principle of non-violence even as he was beaten in South Africa by Whites, Blacks and his own South African Indians who refused to embrace non-violence during South Africa’s tyranny of apartheid. One of those beatings nearly took Gandhi’s life. Perplexed, his eldest son asked, “Father, you always preach non-violence to us at home, but if I had been at this beating, what should I have done?” And Gandhi replied, “If you cannot immediately think of something to do that is non-violent, then hit him!” That statement surprised me.

PCC’s Sexton Auditorium was filled to capacity, and I was fortunate to be sitting in the front row. I was charmed by the smile of a rugged looking Latino who, with camera in hand, sat next to me. He introduced himself and told me he was going to video Rajmohan Gandhi’s talk and post it on his website. Wearing a Che Guevara beret, he said he had recently filmed the Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus and we both agreed that Dr. Yunus, the small-loan banker from Bangladesh who is lifting the poorest of the poor out of poverty, was most likely today’s Mahatma Gandhi. That conversation triggered my thinking about how the very ordinary can become totally principled and never waver from their core, and how they can affect the lives of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands. And the image of Henry Morgenthau, Sr. came to my mind. He is a hero to many Armenians, but this principled man worked at developing his strengths by what he referred to as building his moral muscles.

The young Henry Morgenthau at age fourteen composed twenty-four rules of actions he wished to acquire and vices he needed to avoid. He made a chart and every night he marked breaches of that day. He titled his chart: Tabulating virtues to be acquired and vices to be avoided
1. Do not use any profane words.
2. Do not eat much sweet food as it darkens the mind.
3. Always speak the truth.
4. Spend nothing unnecessarily, for if you save when young, you can spend when old.
5. Never be idle as it will cause you to think of wrong things.
6. Talk little, but think much.
7. Study daily, or else your knowledge will not improve.
8. Keep your own secrets, for if you do not keep them, no one will keep them for you.
9. Make few promises, but if you make any, fulfill them.
10. Never speak evil of anyone.
11. Work for your employer as though it was for yourself.
12. Deal fairly and honestly with your fellow clerks, but be not too intimate.
13. Be not inquisitive.
14. Neither borrow nor lend if avoidable.
15. Trust none too much, but be not distrustful.
16. Be not vain, for vanity is the destruction of men.
17. Be grateful for the smallest favor.
18. Never leave for tomorrow what can be done today.
19. Drink no kind of intoxicating liquor nor smoke any weed.
20. Never play at any game of chance.
21. Conquer temptation though it be ever so powerful.
22. Keep yourself clean, as cleanliness is next to godliness.
23. Wonder not at the construction of man, but use your time in improving yourself.
24. In deciding any doubts in the meaning of above maxims, let conscience decide.

These moral muscles he practiced as a teenager built within him an honest power that eventually led to the world’s recognition of him as a wealthy entrepreneur, a diplomat extraordinaire and a noble humanitarian.

Monday, April 07, 2008

YOU REJOICE MY HEART Taderon Press, London

This story filled my heart with rejoice. Written by a Turk who lives and teaches in Germany, this is the story of his search to find Turkish Armenians who masked their Armenian identity. His friendship with a fellow German naturalized citizen, Melanie, triggered his curiosity when he discovered she was an Armenian born in Turkey. He made a promise to Melanie, a colleague whom he deeply admired, that he would learn about Armenian history and why Armenians, especially those living in Turkey, felt a need to hide their Armenian heritage.

As an American born to immigrant Armenian parents, I never considered being Armenian as an impediment. I knew opportunities were around every corner, but apparently that is not the case for Armenians living in Turkey. Yalcin’s story is a reminder how painful it is for those who are told they don’t fit into the everyday mold and feel safer by hiding their heritage. My heart also goes out to American Moslems who abhor the destructive activities of some of their extremist brethren and to light- skinned blacks who, in our recent past, felt opportunities were greater if they passed as whites.

I am grateful to Kemel Yalcin, a Turk who understands the Armenian question and is open to creating dialogue, especially in Turkey. He understands we all belong to this planet earth, whether male or female, old or young, Turk or Armenian or Kurd, Israeli or Palestinian....and whenever there is an exclusion of certain groups from the circle of friendship, there are far sighted ones like Kemel Yalcin who understand that the circle needs to be expanded to enclose everyone.

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

A REFLECTIVE MOMENT
The year was 1976 and I was on sabbatical from my college in Los Angeles. I had submitted a doctoral proposal for developing a competency based curriculum in yoga for the community colleges. When the proposal was accepted, I contacted several yoga centers throughout India and soon after was on a plane with a ticket so fat it impressed even airline personnel. The first of my thirty-two scheduled stops was Germany followed by three touristy weeks in Egypt. Then I boarded Japan Air to fly on to India. I had been with family and friends up to this point, but for the next five months I would be on my own. Nervous but elated at the thought of finding a yoga teacher who could answer my questions, I sat in my window seat and watched white fluffy clouds gently disappear into the blue sky. Finally, when the 747 made its approach into Bombay, now called Mumbai, I viewed the ancient city in the morning’s first light. My excitement soared.
As my cabby drove wildly through the littered streets, I drank in the early morning sights. Life was still quiet. Men, women, and children clothed in lightweight white cottons slept on sidewalks close to doorways of paint-peeling apartments. Were they escaping India’s unbearable heat? This early September morning was already hot and humid. Our Indian Ambassador taxi had no air-conditioning, and my clothes were sticking to my body. Relief flowed over me when I checked into the air-conditioned Taj Mahal Hotel. I quickly unpacked eager to start my interviews. I had assumed yoga was a way of life in India, and I wanted to understand that life-style. I’d hoped to meet that someone special who could teach me life’s secrets. When the student is ready, the teacher will come. Isn’t that what all the books said? And I was ready.
It didn’t take long to discover that being ready was not enough. I realized many of my questions would never be answered. My first interview was my first betrayal.
As I entered an old building that advertised a Bombay yoga center and walked up the creaky narrow stairs, I found myself in what looked an ordinary apartment with no furniture. I had traveled thousands of miles only to be greeted by a twenty something American girl. The yogi, her teacher, was out of town. So instead of interviewing an Indian yogi, I observed this young 26 year-old American from Florida teaching yoga postures to Indian teenage girls. Was this why I had traveled to India?
I refused to be discouraged. I had many more interviews scheduled. One, in particular, held intrigue. A government sponsored research center housed a hospital, a medical doctor and a swami. Research on the effects of yoga postures on insulin production of diabetics was in progress. This one interview would prove that the books and all their claims of yoga’s healing powers were true. But when I arrived, my heart sank. The small hospital was dirty, the doctor with whom I had corresponded was away in Madras, and the excited swami who was expecting me had Richard Hittleman’s yoga book, A 28-Day Exercise Plan sitting on his desk. I’m sure he thought I was going to take him to America and make him famous. That was the day the magic ended.
What I learned is what my teacher said to me:
Look into a man's eyes
Learn to read his spirit.
His countenance and his eyes
Tell you what quality is in him
More than the words he speaks.

Kay Mouradian is author of REFLECTIVE MEDITATION and A GIFT IN THE SUNLIGHT: An Armenian Story

Sunday, March 09, 2008

The infighting in Yerevan during this last election needs to be heeded by all Armenians. Armenia, the first country to break from the yoke of Russia, should be an exemplar of democracy for its entire people, not just for those who know how to exploit the system. “A house divided against itself cannot stand,” said Abraham Lincoln. A weakened Armenia becomes vulnerable prey to the wolves watching and waiting for the right moment to strike.

I often wonder why Armenians, probably one of the most ancient of peoples, if not the most ancient, survived through the ages while other ancient ethnic groups have not. I suspect the reasons for our survival are nobler than for us to embrace the worst of human qualities as was demonstrated in Yerevan and even more so by the Young Turks.

I wonder how our ancestors forced from their homes in 1915, in whatever plane they now are, look upon us who carry those strong Armenian ancestral genes and wonder if they cringe as they “watch” Armenia today. How would they, who suffered so tragically, feel if our Armenian intelligence and nobility showed the way to better our planet? I’d love to see some young Armenian look to the sun and learn to effectively harness its free energy to relieve the world from its dependence on oil and the greed, fear and hatred that dependence causes. I wonder if we Armenians really understand the power of our ancestral genes.

But then I also wonder why there is so much water on the planet earth and what role those magnificent oceans play in supporting our planet.