The Vedic Times

Because Bliss is for Everyone

Welcome

The Vedic Times Org’s mission is to further empower and enlighten all spiritual seekers to become stronger and holistically independent.

We’re manifesting revolutionary, caring and self-sustainable projects developed from 2015 to 2019 by Ana Lucia Alves (aka Aradhana dd), after she co-founded and successfully ran a beautiful Charity.

The Vedic Times projects are:

The Healing Arts ~ Starting with our Female Artisans
Our YME (Production House) producing movies that matter
Our Vastu Huts ~ For your healthy living & retirement
Self Sustainable Eco-Villages ~ For healthy and independent living
Holistic Clinics ~ For you (the soul), your body and mind
Retreats Centers ~ To share knowledge & spread preventive medicine

The Master Plan:

In our Eco-Village Projects, funding can also be generated from our Holistic treatments, Educational efforts and our cottage industries ~ our Vastu & Sadhu Huts ~ and from its organic farming, honey sales, khaki cloth spinning, and all artistic crafts.

Barter and exchanged services is also a paradigm of service we wish to exemplify. The residential village will be a vibrant place where events, workshops, vibrational and holistic medicines, support groups, healing arts, and films with Cine Tribe Club & Studios will be a mainstay.

We look forward to developing these projects in different locations because this will assist the healthy growth of our wonderful ‘Spiritual Community’.

Our Projects in more detail:

1. We aim to create employment to build, secure and maintain each community.
2. In each location, to have a VEDIC TIMES holistic clinic with first class treatments, free for local ‘spiritual seekers’ and paid for everyone else.
3. Self Sustainable Eco-Villages & retirement for spiritual seekers with our beautiful SADHU & VASTU HUTS. This means income during its production and more employment for our ‘spiritual community’, because these ‘first class, healthy little homes’ will also be produced for selling outside.
4. Out-Reach services (free and paid aid for the local population).
5. Holistic Education, free and paid, including spiritual education.
6. Preventive Health Care education (removing drugs, alcohol, etc).
7. Micro-Farming – Permaculture – Education (free and paid for).
8. Production of other “organic products” e.g. honey, dry fruits and flowers. And production of Art.
9. Hospice Services (employment for carers, nurses, doctors, etc).

Find the Vedic Times also on Facebook, Vimeo, Twitter & Instagram


Making movies with Yoga~Maya Entertainment (YME).

A ‘NEW WAVE’ FOR THE 21ST CENTURY

As physicists try to uncover the base structure of matter, Yoga-Maya is working to uncover the profound psychological nature of cinema.

More about our ‘spiritually enhanced’ mainstream feature films here

Historically, ’emerging’ technologies (eg. sound, color, CGI) have caused many evolutionary paths in cinema to be prematurely abandoned, leaving its true potential largely undiscovered.

This focus on technology – rather than movies – has left audiences uninspired and studios relying on marketing rather than content.

Cinema’s renaissance is about the magic of cinema; conceiving, producing and experiencing it. Yoga-Maya is all about this 21st century ‘New Wave’.

Audiences are waiting!

Find Yoga-Maya Entertainment on Facebook & Vimeo
See also our YM-Marketing services.


Cine Tribe is a creative hub for artists and cinephiles.

Our Website here!

Our Film Studio and Resort is on its way!

A Revolutionary and Holistic Media Studio for the creation and consumption of content that carries humanity forward.

We are creating a world-class, cutting-edge film studio that hires and serves many of the most innovative cinematic talents in the world.

To know more, please visit our website here.
Also find us on Instagram and Facebook.

See also its International Film Festival


Also presenting CHANTING YOGA

THE PRACTICE AND BENEFITS OF ‘CHANTING YOGA

Chanting Yoga is a sublime and simple process by which one can attain peace of mind, bliss and everlasting happiness. From the vedic age came the idea of meditating with a mantra – a word or sound repeated to aid concentration. “Man” is mind and “tra” is to liberate. Therefore chanting of mantras frees the mind from entanglements.

Chanting Yoga combines two of the ancient processes of yoga – meditation (dyana) and repetition of mantras by concentrating on sound vibration. Chanting yoga offers a practical solution to the pressures of our time.

To see/book our 2020 Retreats click here.

Chanting Yoga is perfectly suited to this modern time of stressful and busy lifestyles:

  • You can chant anywhere and anytime
  • You can chant alone or in a group
  • You can chant at work, while travelling or at home
  • You don’t have to wear anything special
  • You don’t have to sit in a particular position
  • You don’t have to carry out any gymnastics

Visit our website here.
You can also get all Chanting Yoga updates by following us on
Instagram and Facebook.


You can support these efforts so we may manifest them sooner

Please consider ticking the ‘make this a monthly donation’ box as our efforts will be on-going. And contact us if you wish to assist otherwise.
Thank you!

For constant updates, please follow the Vedic Times Org on Twitter and Facebook.

Or get in touch today by writing below!
Thank you

“What Makes a Leader?”

In the 1990s, society expended great resources investigating questions of management and leadership. Managers are fairly common; real leaders are extremely rare. Managers use people to make things happen; leaders make things happen for the people. Managers often lead from the back. They may watch to see what is popular, what seems politically correct, what will help them increase their own status and especially, what will help them increase their incomes. Managers tend to be utilitarian and opportunistic.

True leaders, however, always lead from the front.
They are associated with the “four C’s”:

• Character
• Competence
• Compassion
• Courage

When we find a true leader, we will find strong performance in all these areas.

There are so many definitions for the word “leadership” in the English language alone. Such a diversity of meanings for the same word indicates that people are confused about what it means. It is a complex topic.

The work of a true leader can also be listed in descending order of significance:

• To be
• To do
• To see
• To tell

Similarly, we can categorize citizens in a general way:

• Inventors: Those who make things happen
• Resenters: Those who watch things happen (and often complain about how they are happening)
• Consenters: those who do not know what is happening, but who consent and go with the flow.

True leaders are always inventors. They are experts at making things happen. There are so many analogies to help us understand the qualities of a leader.

Here’s another one, relating to the attitude people have when they approach a hill intending to climb it:

• There are those who see the hill as an obstacle, and immediately give up their plans;
• There are those who see the hill and decide to camp at its base
• There are those who see the hill and proceed to climb it.

Those who quit are the types of people who become discouraged by adversity. They do not possess the perseverance, stamina or the deep commitment to attain the goal. Those who camp at the hill’s base may start off with enthusiasm, but they become distracted by the obstacle and lose sight of the goal.

Those who climb the hill despite the promise of difficulty have enough commitment to work for success. Their challenge is to maintain their vision and sense of mission, and by continuing to strive, they can achieve their goal.

Retired United States Army General Norman Schwarzkopf said in his analysis of losers vs. winners:
• To a loser, it may be possible, but it is difficult.
• To a winner, it may be difficult, but it is possible.
• A leader says that nothing is impossible.
• A loser will say, “It’s not my job”
• A winner will say: “Let me help you do it”
• A leader will say: “Follow me and do as I do”

Others have categorized people into winners and whiners. One should live one’s life by discipline, not emotion.
• Winners, and especially true leaders, feel good when they do right
• Whiners must feel good before they will do right
• Winners say: “I will do it because it is right, and I will feel good knowing I acted properly”
• Whiners say: “If I ever feel good about it, then I will do it”
• Winners say: “I must believe it before I can see it”
• Whiners say: “I must see it before can I believe it”

True leaders know that progress is motivating; apparent progress based on lust, greed and self-deception is actually failure.

True leaders make things happen, are winners, lead from the front and always keep the highest welfare of their constituents in mind. In this way, a leader will inspire people to come to a higher standard by their own superior qualities.

By Bhakti Tirtha Swami
In the book “Leadership for an Age of Higher Consciousness Volume II: Ancient Wisdom for Modern Times”

The difference between a COACH and a HANDLER

You hear about coaching and most likely are becoming familiar with what a “handler” is.

In show business – fashion industry – celebrity making machine world – a handler is common; even in politics there is a controlling personality who will not coach or support, but instead, their goal (or mission) is to control and most likely, if they cannot control they will eradicate.

So how to recognize and differentiate the coach from the handler?

The coach is someone who will fan whatever little fire you have regarding anything. He or she will listen to truly comprehend what you want and will support that. They will be a personality for problem-solving and forward thinking, strategically planning landmarks with you while holding you accountable in a very loving and caring way.

He or she will make you feel powerful, remove doubts from your mind while giving realistic insights and assistance for the structuring of your life, setting the stage where success can actually be achieved. The only thing in the mind of a real coach is your success, the success of your project and your life, in business or even marriage; so the sole focus is the achievement of your overall happiness and fulfillment in this life.

The handler is someone who is either naturally unbalanced, with a deep desire to control another; or it could be a straight up narcissist, with some having heavy sociopathic traits and if so, he or she will only want to control for pleasure, and most likely they’ll begin to take credit for everything you do while diminishing your past accomplishments. Overall it would be a person that comes into your life with a focus on manipulation (emotional and psychological) only to control. It could be someone who says they want “to help” by giving input and insights, but that would only be to forward their own agenda, be it for purely monetary gain – so being paid for their so called coaching services – or they could carve out a “friendship.” But again, for their own controlling and manipulative pleasures. 

Depending on what your position in society is already, it could be someone sent (employed by someone else) to “handle you” and in this way, you would be put in line with whatever agenda the employee wishes. Some handlers will just come in and mess up one’s life entirely for both a pay check and personal sociopathic pleasure.

Yes! These characters are a minority, but are fantastic manipulators, so it’s good to know they actually do exist. 

In the event you are looking to make advancement, and are humble enough to ask or just accept advice from anyone, be it a coach, a friend, or even a family member, please make sure that you know the difference in behavior so you can scan very closely what their agenda truly is. Observe how they proceed in regard to “helping you out” and most importantly, follow your in-tuition and gut feeling because that compass is a true guide. And don’t worry if the handler tries to ridicule you, just know that, if something feels fishy there’s probably someone fishy around. 

And lastly, by knowing the difference one will avoid hiring a handler for a coach. It would be terrible to actually pay someone to control you and very likely, usher you into not accomplishing your heartfelt life goals.

By Ana Lucia Alves

More blog posts @ AnaLuciaAlves.com

PROMOTING INTERDEPENDENCE

“Promoting Interdependence”:

Varnashrama-dharma is based on honoring the diversity in unity that is the natural consequence of interdependence. When there is forced conformity, there will never be true unity; when there is simply diversity without any attempt at unity, this is anarchy. The divine monarch’s duty is to expertly engage the people according to their individual natures and responsibilities toward the central goal of developing a balanced society.

A divine monarch seeks to synergize his kingdom.

Synergy literally means that the total effect is greater than the sum of the individual elements. One plus one equals more than two. The ability to synergize a kingdom comes from celebrating the diversity among one’s subjects and then holding them accountable to fulfill both personal and social goals. It does not result from either dependent or independent citizens, but from those who recognize their interdependence.

Recognizing interdependence also results in the formation of symbiotic relationships. That is, relationships based on mutual need. In a symbiotic relationship, what it takes to maintain two distinct living entities is actually reduced as the two entities support each other’s needs and help one another attain success.

When the king honors unity in diversity, it allows for symbiotic relationships among his subjects wherein all benefit.

For interdependence to work, however, there has to be a common ground upon which the diversity expresses itself. Without that common ground or common goal, society will fall into chaos.

Diversity experts realize that by celebrating diversity, we can avoid four “cancers” that are detrimental to the achievement of synergy.

These are:
• Criticism
• Complaint
• Comparison
• Competition

Without celebrating diversity, we may exist, but will we flourish? In such a condition, we will not optimize our potential. Unless we learn to cooperate, we will only compromise. We must do away with divisive factors if we are to achieve synergy.

Too much independence destabilizes an institution or community because it produces anarchy. When there is social fragmentation, people will not bring out their best. Also, too much dependence is unhealthy because people will not be creative. They will not use their own initiative in performing their tasks but will tend to be dull and uninvolved on a personal level.

Nowadays, people are discussing codependency, which manifests at its worst in addictive behaviors. Codependency is often at conflict with one’s God consciousness, because the codependent person replaces God with his or her spouse, child, business or a substance such as alcohol or cocaine.

Every form of addiction is a misdirected religion. John Bradshaw, in his best-selling book, Healing the Shame that Binds You, discusses some of the dangers of addiction. He stresses how every addiction is an aborted religion—how it has a God, disciplines, devotees and rituals. The rituals might be seen in the way one passes around a marijuana joint, for example, or the way in which one drinks alcohol with friends.

Addictions have their moment of ecstasy, and their atonement. All addicts and codependent people are spiritually bankrupt. They are actually searching after the ecstasy that comes from God, but they look in all the wrong places. Bradshaw explains how shame is necessary for recovery, and that in codependency and addiction, one is overreacting to things outside and under-reacting to things inside.

Addicts believe something outside will bring them happiness. In materialistic society, where addiction is rampant, people tend to want to look for their happiness outside themselves rather than finding it within. A divine monarch helps people to focus more on both their individuality and their interdependence, and he himself leads from the inside out. His leadership example stimulates them to also look for inner happiness.

Bhakti Tirtha Swami
Leadership for an Age of Higher Consciousness Volume II:
Ancient Wisdom for Modern Times

MOVIES ARE ‘CULTURE CREATION’

This is one of the many reasons we’re taking upon ourselves to use the power of Cinema properly. For this we’re creating Cine Tribe Studios and sharing somewhat ‘Conscious’ and relevant Movies that may have shaped your mind!

Cine Tribe is Presenting:

Movie Nights in Tulum

Our Philosophy: “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

 Buckminster Fuller

All about it HERE.

Meanwhile we’re editing the “fully independent” feature film ‘TIME TO DIE’ and pushing for the ‘CINEMATIC RENAISSANCE’ with our ‘CINE TRIBE STUDIOS’.

Please contribute as you’re able and spread the word. Thank you!

by Ana Lucia Alves

RECLAIM YOUR MIND

Here an intro to
RECLAIM YOUR MIND!

This is a Video PodCast hosted by ANA LUCIA ALVES (Aradhana dd). She is a TRAILBLAZER/FILM PRODUCER/ACTOR/DOCUMENTARIST/YOGI/MOM

In this Channel, she interviews amazing personalities (famous or not) who are actually making a difference in this world.

TO SUBSCRIBE GO TO ITS YOUTUBE CHANNEL HERE.
Also on Ana’s personal website.

EPISODE TWO: Kevin Annett on modern Indigenous Genocide, The Republic of Kanata & Great Wisdom.

And remember that we keep going with our wonderful projects (all about it below), so please get involved today!

Our Eco-Village and Vastu Huts

As you may already know, we now have a fabulous place to build 18 Vastu/Sadhu Huts, with the basic construction costs outlined and team to execute it.

Our first Eco-Village (Eco-Aldea) will be next to
our ‘Yoga Retreat Centre’ & ‘Cine Tribe’. The ‘Vastu Huts’ is a brilliant project for your peace of mind; for staying healthy and for living a truly prosperous life.

All about it here. All about it here

We’re proud to announce that ‘Yoga Maya Films’ & ‘Cine Tribe’ is producing a ‘truly independent’ feature film.

WebPage

The power of Cinema is undeniable and its existence has shaped modern culture; actually  causing the loss of so much freedom and important values.

Please join us in reclaiming its power, to do only good with it!

All about ‘Time to Die’ and its first trailer (also above) on its webpage.

Please spread the word. Your participation is key!
Thank you. 

And a little about our marketing services.

All about it YMMarketing here!
Please do check it out and consider hiring us. Thanks.

And our ‘CHANTING YOGA’ Retreats.


We’re now planning our ‘Chanting Yoga Forest Retreat’ for early Spring 2021.

You can write us here to learn more.
To follow Chanting Yoga please go to:
Facebook here & here, Instagram here

Because Blissful is Your Nature!

by Ana Lucia Alves

Who cares

by Maria M. Anderson

The Creator’s extended Eden absences increased. 

Man looked up at the Heavens and complained. “You do not love me. You are never around anymore. I do all of the animal-naming myself. I am bored. I am lonely, and by-the-way, I never asked to be made in the first place. What are You going to do about that?”

God chose Archangel Jophiel to mind and mentor the solo garden human, Adam. Besides an honor, Jophiel viewed the Eden provisional placement as a welcome break from his full-time mission, directing fifty-three legions of angels, and assisting Michael with his battle against evil. 
Naming animals and Man babysitting, a breeze.

Or not.

The Creator asked for an update.

Jophiel looked up at the Heavens and complained to God. “Man is no angel. I fear, without your constant presence, love, composure, and example, Adam will remain forever as he is: selfish, childish, and ungrateful.”

The Creator pondered, then replied. “I shall create an animal companion for Adam, to always be with him and reflect My love. This animal’s devotion shall be unconditional. Regardless of how selfish, childish, or ungrateful Adam is, the companion will remain loyal and loving. Because the animal will be a reflection of Me, God, I will name it, dog.”

Dog followed Adam throughout the Garden, ate his scraps, slept by his side. Dog was conscientious and content. Dog nuzzled, played, and wagged its tail often. Adam seemed pleased.

Or not.

The Creator asked for an update.

Jophiel looked up at the Heavens and complained to God. “Dog is your finest creature. Its kindness and patience, a mirror of You. However, there is a definite disconnect. With dog at his heels, Man has become as bold as bull, as proud as peacock, as lordly as lion, and as cunning as coyote. Adam has learned from dog’s unconditional faithfulness that he is protected and loved, but what Man gravely lacks is humility.” 
    
The Creator sighed, then replied. “I shall create another creature companion that will see Adam for what he truly is. This creature will remind Man of his many shortcomings and weaknesses. When Adam realizes that he is not worthy of pure and unconditional animal love and companionship, he will become humble.”

God created cat. 

Cat always remained near, but did not acknowledge or obey Adam. Sometimes cat would purr and accept affection, other times Man’s gentle touch would be met with a hiss or a sharp claw. When Adam gazed into cat’s penetrating peridot eyes, he was reminded that Man was not, and never will be, Who Am. 

In time, Adam learned humility.

God was pleased. Jophiel was pleased. Dog was pleased.

Cat did not care.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

About Maria here.

The Indigenous Science of Permaculture

On the ENVIRONMENT, By Rohini Walker

The last few decades have seen a slow yet steady rise in the awareness and practice of permaculture in conservation and environmental communities. This growing understanding is both heartening and deeply necessary. It also gives rise to occasional pauses to take a closer look at what the term permaculture implies and means, and its true origins. In particular, this examination compels us to look at how permaculture, like much other wisdom deriving from pre-industrial, non-hierarchical, collaboration with land and nature, is at risk of being appropriated and colonized. The resulting reductionist approach seeks to create homogenizing formulas to work in harmony with the environment, a hallmark of mainstream western scientific materialism. This is anathema to what was originally — and still is — an indigenous science of working in partnership and reciprocity with the land and cycles of nature.

Bill Mollison in the garden of his Enmore, Australia home on January 16, 1989. | Greg White / Fairfax Media via Getty Images

The term permaculture — a fusion of “permanent” and “agriculture” — was first coined in the 1970s by two Australians, David Holmgren, and Bill Mollison. Both were academics in Tasmania. Holmgren was at the time a graduate student studying environmental design at the Tasmanian College of Advanced Education, and Mollison — also dubbed the “father of permaculture” — was a senior lecturer in environmental psychology at the University of Tasmania. The foundations of permaculture rest on two concepts: an understanding and acceptance of the diversity of whole systems, as opposed to the soil-degrading effects of industrial monoculture; and on the relational, slow-yet-dynamic practice of observing the land, and its many complex ecosystems.

Running Ditches and Slowing Water
Paiute People Adapt Traditions to Modern-Day Gardens

That permaculture arose as a vital response to the dangerous environmental and human degradation of industrialization, and its toxic farming and agricultural practices is undeniable. Its philosophy is based on the common-sense truth that the human race cannot survive in any measure of health if the Earth is being poisoned. We are at a point in our evolution where anything less than an applied understanding of this idea spells disaster to our survival. In all of this, the propagation of permaculture is crucial.

What is at issue here is the importance of recognizing that permaculture’s roots lie firmly and deeply in the ancient, fertile, organic soil of indigenous science. To overlook and ignore that is to leave permaculture at the mercy of the dogmas of mainstream science, and the latter’s view of the manifold, complex systems in nature as nothing more than resources to be exploited. From this vantage point, humans control, degrade and exploit the land to become obedient, consummate consumers; and the indigenous science of cultivating a reciprocal, regenerative relationship with the Earth, in which the human acknowledges her innate connection to Earth, is dismissed as “unscientific” and empirically unsound.

The Potawot Community Garden, housed at United Indian Health Services’s facility in Arcata, California, incorporates elements of permaculture seamlessly into the center’s holistic approach to healing the Earth and body. | Still from “Tending Nature” episode “Healing The Body with United Indian Health Services.”

Without actively anchoring itself to the wisdom of indigenous science, permaculture is rudderless and vulnerable to invasion by the parasite that only feeds off its host, without giving anything back, ultimately destroying both.

Indeed, Mollison attributed much of what he came to create as “permaculture” to what he learned from the Aboriginals in Tasmania, and other Indigenous people around the world.

Permaculture is fundamentally then, an indigenous science. Its framework is a design system that incorporates core principles and practices from indigenous knowledge around the world, assimilating it with sustainable new technology that is making strides towards harmonizing this traditional wisdom with pioneering modern quantum science. As such, it can restore valuable ancient knowledge, while steering our industrialized society towards a more viable future based on regeneration and reciprocity.

In California, the Chumash, Yurok, Karuk, Hupa, and Miwok tribes have, for over 13,000 years, practiced and handed down the tradition of prescribed burning as a way of tending the land. As people Indigenous to California, and as guardians of Native wisdom whose cultural foundations rest on a reciprocal, reverential, subject-subject interaction with nature, the practice of prescribed burning sees fire as a necessary medicine for the land. For millennia, this method of small-scale, skillfully managed, intentional burning of dead or dying underbrush has been a way of regenerating the land, and significantly decreasing the risk of catastrophic, out-of-control, large-scale wildfires.

Given the devastation caused by wildfires in recent years, a result of climate change and rising temperatures, the art of prescribed burning is something that is finally being looked at by state fire officials and environmental agencies as a viable means of minimizing the risk of wildfires. Tribes are now working together to revive this ancient and practical wisdom of fire as preventative, restorative medicine through the Indigenous Peoples Burning Network. Crucially, state governing bodies are now beginning to work with tribes and their tradition of prescribed burning as a time-tested way of reducing the conditions that cause wildfires in our current, climate-sensitive age.

This restoration of Native wisdom is critical at this time because we are all indigenous to somewhere. There is as much to be gleaned from pre-Christian, pre-industrialized, indigenous old European culture and wisdom as there is from our more current understanding of what being native is. These traditional societies also operated within an Earth-focused, reciprocal, relational paradigm and were decimated through the terror of widespread witch trials and burnings. They also became colonized by the belief that man is here to exercise dominion over land and sea. These old, indigenous, pagan ways became marginalized at best, literally demonized at worst. What did survive we displaced to the fringes of society, viewed by mainstream science and “sensible” society as esoteric, crackpot nonsense — Fait accompli.

Permaculture’s ability to re-indigenize Caucasian people, to reconnect them with their indigenous wisdom traditions of working in partnership with the land, has the potential to stem the tide of the, frankly, crackpot notions of the colonial mindset. These notions are summed up succinctly in the unabridged subtitle of Charles Darwin’s landmark “Origin of Species,” which is: “By Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.” There is nothing that comes close to resembling “natural” about this type of “selection.” That this book is the cornerstone of what has been accepted science for almost 200 years, also coinciding with the Industrial Revolution, has alarming and multiple layers of significance. For this piece, however, our focus is on the importance of recognizing the core truth that permaculture is an indigenous science.

Why is this important? As a philosophy, practice, and movement, permaculture is gaining much support and momentum across the world. Inevitably, the reductionism of mainstream science and its focus on relentless hyper-productivity, are making insidious advances towards permaculture. This rise in awareness is a bid to dominate and reduce to formulas a system rooted firmly in the cultivation of a dynamic, reciprocal relationship between the human and the Earth, both as subjects. As with any relationship, this takes patience. Permaculture can thrive under the pioneering auspices of new quantum science and technology that is discovering that what the ancients knew to be true is also empirically verifiable. The findings of this new science accept the wisdom of indigenous science — and permaculture as a product of it.

As Bill Mollison, the “father of permaculture” so articulately put it:

“Each such cycle is a unique event; diet, choice, selection, season, weather, digestion, decomposition and regeneration differ each time it happens. Thus, it is the number of such cycles, great and small, that decide the potential for diversity. We should feel ourselves privileged to be part of such eternal renewal. Just by living we have achieved immortality — as grass, grasshoppers, gulls, geese and other people. We are of the diversity we experience in every real sense.

“If, as physical scientists assure us, we all contain a few molecules of Einstein, and if the atomic particles of our physical body reach to the outermost bounds of the universe, then we are all de facto components of all things. There is nowhere left for us to go if we are already everywhere, and this is, in truth, all we will ever have or need. If we love ourselves at all, we should respect all things equally, and not claim any superiority over what are, in effect, our other parts. Is the hand superior to the eye? The bishop to the goose? The son to the mother?…

“Stupidity is an attempt to iron out all differences, and not to use them or value them creatively.”

We must safeguard the permaculture movement against colonizing influences that seek to reduce it to a system of sterile formulas if we want it to remain a powerful agent of healing for the Earth — and for us. It has to be seen for what it is: an indigenous science.

Potawot Health Center: A Holistic Approach to Healing

“Every individual in the world, regardless of cultural background or race, has an indigenous soul struggling to survive in an increasingly hostile environment created by that individual’s mind. A modern person’s body has become a battleground between the rationalist mind — which subscribes to the values of the machine age — and the native soul. This battle is the cause of a great deal of spiritual and physical illness.”


The relatively new science of quantum physics is discovering what indigenous science has known for millennia: we live in a world where all matter is sentient, a subject-subject stance. This traditional knowledge is very much at odds with the fictions of the lifeless, mechanical “objective” world over which humans ruthlessly rule that has been the prevailing dogma of mainstream science. Permaculture can remain immune to the parasitic disease if colonialism of its origins are grounded in indigenous science, and with this new science as its companion and benefactor. It can be a powerful movement of authentic and radical change that it has the potential to be.

“Permaculture’s focus on symbiotic relationships is informed by the concept of ayni, a Quechua and Aymara word for sacred reciprocity, an ethic shared by many traditional cultures and sometimes translated as ‘today for you, tomorrow for me.’ If the permaculture movement can successfully integrate and spread indigenous science in a way that truly benefits both traditional and modern cultures, perhaps this exchange — this sacred reciprocity — has the power to help guide the future of the planet.” – cultureofpermaculture.org

Indigenous science is unequivocally a science, and the system of permaculture is a recent offspring. A dismissal of it as such is a telltale sign and symptom of the colonizer and its unnatural selections.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Rohini Walker is a writer, editor and nature enthusiast. She lives in Joshua Tree, CA and is the co-founder of Luna Arcana, a desert-focused arts & literary print publication.

This article was originally published in support of Tending Nature, a KCET program exploring how traditional practices can inspire a new generation to find a balance between humans and nature.

The Vedic Times is working to create Eco-Villages that will utilize these methods. Please read also “Eco-Villages, Vastu & Sadhu Huts” and join the RE-Evolution.

Financing The Soul

Story by Maria M. Anderson

Gilfre paused the plow, granting his aged dappled beast invite to nibble the few early sprigs of green, poking through the departed winter’s fallow soil. It was not fatigue, but curiosity that prompted the farmer’s attention elsewhere, to the adjacent road, whereupon a team of black horned goats pulled a gilded wagon. Alone, managing the reins, appeared to be a crimson-robed king, of sorts, his hands gnarled, jeweled wooden crown worn upside-down.

“Stranger!” called Gilfre. “A foreign sight to behold, insooth!” The farmer’s hearty amusement chuckle short-lived, extinguished by sudden stench of brimstone, arrived in a hot whirl of grey smoke. The stranger now stood beside the startled farmer, and his even more terrified horse, that in a frenzied instant managed to release from its yolk and hasten home, towards the barn.

“A gallant steed,” commented the Stranger.

“In a day long passed, perhaps,” replied the farmer, whilst exchanging fear for marvel, at the speed of his spooked beast, fast fading from view.

“Perception determines value,” said the Stranger.

Every hair on Gilfre’s body prickled in foreboding, yet his curiosity was piqued by what he could not comprehend. “I am a simple farmer.”

The Stranger smiled and removed a rolled document from beneath his red robe. “Riches await. May we strike a deal?”

Finger-prick sangre signature, in exchange, the Stranger’s promissory note. Gilfre sold his soul and his horse to the faux king, for a magnificent sum, twenty pieces of gold, secured by indiscernible verbiage, pre-penned on parchment paper. At the Stranger’s instruction, as noted in the agreement, the farmer was required to immediately buy back his plow horse, and return the afore signed note, promising twenty pieces of gold, plus two additional silver coins, as interest. Silver coins, Gilfre’s sole life savings, that he was required to retrieve (much to his wife’s angry dismay) from a hidden box beneath the cottage hearth, and present in tangible actuality, to the open-handed Stranger.

Transaction complete, with verifiable receipt.

Gilfre could now tout his plow horse, to the entire village, as a fine equine specimen, one that he had purchased for twenty pieces of gold, plus two silver coins.

A stud craze ensued. Every townsperson, from near and far, who wished to capitalize on Gilfre’s invested fortune, brought broodmare, along with gold and silver payment, hoping to breed offspring of equal or greater value.

In the name of conspicuous consumption, Gilfre’s wife forgave her husband for what she’d deemed foolish. Every coin earned by the procreating plow horse, two coins were spent by his jubilant spendthrift masters. Until the old plow horse died of pleasure, leaving Gilfre and his wife with numerous debts, and no means of repayment.

Desperate not to lose his only remaining asset, his land, Gilfre called upon the faux king for advice and assistance.

The Stranger produced a second binding document, one that required the farmer’s wife to sangre sign, before financial remedy could be divulged. She pricked and penned without inquiry or hesitation.

“Very well,” said the Stranger. “I will purchase your land.” He removed a tin coin from his robe pocket and handed it to Gilfre.

“This pittance would not garner a loaf of bread from the baker, let alone the land on which the wheat was grown!” Gilfre attempted to return the coin to the Stranger. “Do you think me a simpleton?”

“Who sought my assistance?” asked the Stranger. “Go forth and inform farmers the value of their land, and my offer to purchase it before prices fall lower. Each secured parcel purchase, I will reward you with a piece of silver as commission.”

The farmer’s wife pulled her husband aside. “A fair compensation, one that will pay our debts and provide means to repurchase our land.”

Gilfre agreed.

Gilfre’s past financial success, as master of a valuable plow horse stud, gave credence to his dire alarm: Sell your land before it is too late. Frightened farmers lined up to trade their properties for coins. The Stranger, in self-pronounced charity, offered consolation to dismal market values. Since most lands had been owned and worked by families for generations, the farmers could continue to plant and harvest on their former plots, in exchange for providing a portion of crop proceeds to the Stranger. All agreed.

Gilfre and his wife once again became rich, on commission silver. Rather than squandering as before, they paid creditors and saved half of the remaining silver coins; the other half were presented to the Stranger. “I come in good faith to repurchase my land,” announced the former farmer. “Offering the amount paid, plus fair profit, to give thanks for your prior assistance and generosity.”

“That land has increased in value, tenfold.” The Stranger laughed and tossed Gilfre back his bag of silver. “A barrel of gold would not suffice for property as precious as that which you once owned.”

Word of increased property values spread like fire throughout the village. The few farmers who had not sold for a pittance were tempted to finally forgo their lands for hefty profits, paid by other foreign investors, procured by the Stranger. Most of whom paid low-wage imported crews to manage, plant, and harvest the lands. Farmers who had sold cheap, rightly feared the Stranger would increase crop proceed amounts.

Amounts soon doubled, then tripled.

To make up for the deficit, farmers inflated the price of their crops sold to merchants, and decreased the wages paid to local hired laborers. The village bakery was the first business to close. Gypsies replaced local workers, who departed town to seek better compensation, elsewhere. Children of age fled family farms for big cities, without intention of returning. Those without means entered servitude. Instead of land and toil, the generation with means, inherited or borrowed, sought ideas and progress. Skills and traditions were deemed useless by scholars who lectured about knowledge in brick and mortar institutions, created and financed by the Stranger, for profit.

The village and surrounding farms fell into abject ruin. Consumption, crime, and poverty plagued the few who remained. Still, the Stranger grew richer, claiming for his own the deserted decay, and mortgaging it to a new crop of eager speculators, who also signed sangre on the dotted line.

Years passed. Nothing remained of the village, not even its name. Gilfre’s former way of life had become an industry, owned not by many, but by a select few. Gilfre blamed himself. On his deathbed, the old farmer pleaded for his wife to summon the Stranger, one final time.

He came.

“Please, tell a dying man who you are,” implored the farmer, fast fading. “You wear a misplaced crown, but are more cunning and powerful than any king.”

“True. I own what remains of you, and many others, for eternity,” the Stranger replied. He bent down and whispered into Gilfre’s ear. “Call me, The Banker.”

Chanting Yoga Online

YOGA

Facts and Myths

Yoga is not physical exercises
Yoga is not merely difficult posture
Yoga is not confined to attire
Yoga is not renunciation of worldly life
Yoga is not inactivity
Yoga is not torturing oneself
Yoga is not magic
Yoga is not an exhibition
Yoga is not a competition
Yoga is not mysticism
Yoga is not one’s inherited domain

NOW – ONLINE EXCEPTIONALLY

Yoga (in Sanskrit) means, to connect with the Divine.


The benefits are:
• Physiological
• Mental
• Physical
• Spiritual

1. Physically, from working with your  Fascia (BowSpring Yoga style) and breathing exercises.
2. Mentally and Psychologically, from the ‘Vibrational Medicine’ in the form of ‘Mantra Meditation’, which calms the mind and assists your alignment with the Divine.
3. Spiritually, from hearing sacred mantras that open pathways to transcendence.


THE CLASS
Introduction to Chanting Yoga 10′
Fascia BowSpring Yoga style ) 40′
Benefits of Yoga and  Mantra Meditation 10′
Contemporary vibrational enhancing techniques 15′

This method also assists in the speedy removal of stress,
so you may enhance your assimilation of all the practices many fold.

Minimum donation recommended US$5
Thank you!

Teacher: Ana Lucia

CONTACT HERE TO SCHEDULE YOUR CLASS!

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