On Racism

I was asked how I as a Black person can work so hard to bring healing and happiness to people of races that have a rough history with my race (aka, White people). I was actually kind of shocked, but saw the earnestness of the questioner, so tried to come up with a meaningful response. At the time I didn't do so well, truly thrown off by the perspective of the question, given my world view. I think I said something like, "Well everyone is an individual, not a member of a group. You can't relate to people as if they were groups."

On further reflection however, this is what I really have to say:

I have been blessed to have been born into a family that did not believe in hating those who hurt them. Nor did they assume that this stance of forgiveness would be spontaneous within us kids -- so they taught us -- correcting and explaining as necessary to guide us to a place where there was peace in our hearts, even as we confronted painful incidents of racism and discrimination.

Neither were we taught to turn a blind eye to injustice. My step-father and grandmother in particular were very vocal about their thoughts and feelings about racism, and about other forms of discrimination against other groups. As many things as my family may have done wrong as I was growing up, this is one area in which they clearly got it right.

I will not say that I am color-blind. I notice race, but I do not see through the filter of race. I do not conceive of myself as a Black person, but rather as a person, one for whom sometimes it is quite significant that I am Black. I see others the same way.

To be color-blind would mean to deny the very real impact that racial heritage has on how much of the world treats a person, and thereby shapes that person's life experience in very powerful ways. I sometimes have reason to note a person's racial heritage because it becomes relevant to something that is happening or that they are saying, but in general it doesn't rise into my awareness any more than other details about their appearance.

I do categorize people a bit, not being completely able to perceive everyone as an individual of unlimited potential in each moment, but it is more in terms of the decisions they have made about who they are. Categories I would use to generally think of my friends would include: Super-loving, Environmentally Proactive, Community oriented, Musician, Dancer, Nature-dweller, etc.

When I run into them that impression tends to influence my unconscious assumptions about them. These are of course all positive characteristics, but still it is a type of prejudice. I have been socialized to be prejudicial in my thinking just as much as the next person has. It's just that for me race was never included as a major category, and certainly not a negative one, and really the idea of having negative prejudices in general was not a part of my upbringing.

Many parents assume that because they themselves are not racist their children naturally won't be, but nothing could be further from the truth. The society teaches racism, and to ignore that is to let it run free reign within the hearts and minds of the next generation. My family knew this because as victims of racism who had not let it harden their hearts, they saw the development of racism within the young around them of various races, and empathized with those children as victims in their own way. They understood how it happens, and knew it could happen in their own children too, even if coming from the opposite racial perspective. And they therefore worked very hard to see that that did not happen to us.

And so now I can unequivocally say that I do not feel ill-will for someone simply because they may feel ill-will towards me. What I truly wish for is their growth, learning and healing. I know that if they can develop a sufficient degree of self-love they will find there is no room in their hearts for hating anyone. They will discover that their light shines equally upon all who draw near, and that this is the fundamental truth about who they are. I know this about them, but they don't yet, and that's okay. I will hold that truth for them until they are ready to do so for themselves.

And I will go on writing books and articles meant to inspire everyone, creating communities meant to emotionally support everyone, teaching meditation to even murderers so that they may find peace, and generally being utterly irresponsible in my loving. I will not build walls to separate the supposedly deserving from the supposedly undeserving. I do this for my own good, and am glad it blesses you as well.

The Schizotypal Shaman

If you have a spare 80 minutes, check out this fascinating Stanford lecture video on the Biology of Religion, which could more aptly be called, "How religiosity is the healthy trait expression of schizophrenia and OCD."

Not being a follower of any ritual based religion (my Tibetan lama has removed the ritual aspects of the religion from our sangha's practice), I don't myself see the benefits of the traits linked to OCD. But for those people who find peace within ritual and believe in its transformative power, hopefully you find no insult in the linkage to OCD. You really have to watch a good chunk of the video for the connection to be clarified, but he is definitely not pathologizing religion.

In fact, he starts with examples of how biological traits of physical illnesses also have valuable protective abilities within a society. Sickle cell anemia results from a trait that protects against malaria. Cystic fibrosis from a trait that protects against cholera. Tay-Sachs traits that protect against tuberculosis, and so on. It is the small portion of cases where the trait is excessive that disease results. Because the trait normally expresses in a healthy way, it gets passed on to future generations (many people with the trait still reproduce).

The need to "get it just right" is the key point of the lecture. In traditional tribal cultures, the shaman who goes into a trance, speaks to spirits, and thereby draws in healing energy in a ritual that the next day has the sick person get up from their sick bed totally well, or allows them to forewarn of the need to make a change in the tribe's behavior which months later turns out to save all their lives, this shaman is using the best of the traits of schizophrenia to benefit everyone. The schizophrenic who babbles to himself during a part of the hunt where everyone needs to be quiet in order to catch the game, gets exiled. There is a world of difference between highly well adapted traits that make super capable and maladaptive disorders that make one incompetent when it comes to personal survival and tribal survival.

As someone who possesses some such traits (channeling healing energies like Reiki and Johrei, having some truly miraculous healing experience in my treatment of AIDS patients, etc.) and who has also experienced some of the more difficult aspects of them within modern culture (the need for personal isolation within a culture that demands constant social contact in order to achieve), this lecture had a particularly strong resonance within me. It makes me feel both vindicated and condemned. Great to think my biology falls in that "just right" range where I can use the traits beneficially, but still so very hard to live with Shamanic ability within a culture of skepticism. And to have it be biological means that like the autistic, there is really no amount of trying and learning that will ever get me to a point where I don't need to be alone so much just to be at peace.

Fortunately, a tendency towards religious belief also seems to be a very strong buffer against depression. It is thought to relate to religious belief's ability to soothe the pervasive human need for a sense of control over one's environment. Humans don't like it when cause and effect relationships are obscured so that they have no sense of what they need to do to get what they want and avoid what they do not want. In fact, an internal "locus of control" is a well-established psychological determinant of mental health, as opposed to feeling buffeted about by circumstances beyond one's control or a victim of fate.

Lastly, the lecture points at one other pathology whose traits offer some positives when expressed in a mild and adaptive form: temporal lobe epilepsy (to be distinguished from other forms of epilepsy). With TLE traits the person may have a tendency to write a lot and to be fascinated with philosophical/metaphysical topics. It's not that they are necessarily moved by the subjects or applying them in their lives. They are simply fascinated by the mental musing and synthesis of ideas about the subject through writing.

This is a trap of the religious life that many good teachers will point out. Many Buddhists I think particularly fall prey to the down side of this one. They get stuck at a love of the ideas, but do not practice them in their daily lives. They can ruminate and theorize endlessly about the value of compassion, and then be rude to every single person they meet without seeing any incongruity between the two. Yet surprisingly, the same could be said of many atheists. They are just as fascinated by religious ideas, simply from the standpoint of refuting them. They can go on for hours (or write volumes) about all the reasons why religion makes no sense, and they will if you give them an ear.

Similarly, Catholic spiritual leaders back in the 16th Century could be found warning about the practice of empty ritual and how it was important to not let the meaning and spiritual experience of the ritual be lost. Congregations were told to guard against the people who would be attracted to the religion by the structure of the ritual but essentially have no heartfelt embrace of it.

I suppose we should also add to the list of "warnings of pathology masquerading as the healthy balance that produces a benefit to the community" the new age teacher who wants to convince everyone they are speaking for God (the one and ONLY God) as a unique and special messenger. This would be the distortion of the shaman role in the community. The traditional shaman is never thought of as having a special relationship with God. It's more that they have a job that few people are needed to fill, and that few can fill, but it's still just a job within the community.

I can't really present you with any conclusion from all this that goes beyond what has already been said. I think the point is just to present these ideas for you to reflect on with your own experience. For me, I think it leads me to a place of greater acceptance around my solitary nature. I had recently begun thinking I really needed to somehow overcome that, but this research suggests continued attempts would be just as futile as past ones have been. Rather, I should see the value in having the other traits that go with that, and commit myself to making good use of them.

If you find any of yourself reflected in this post, I hope you find an insightful yet empowering conclusion as well. Peace and blessings be with you.

Update 9/14/09 - Comments have just been added to this blog, and this article can now accept reader comments.

Fun New Connection Features at Indigo Ocean

Hello everyone. I am so happy to be able to announce that I've just added some new gadgets to this blog that will allow me to hear from you and for you to share with one another your insights, tips, and inspirations around health, wisdom, and well-being.

In the right sidebar you will now see three new features:

1 - A member's area -- please join so that you can post. You can use your existing Google, Yahoo, AIM, or Open ID instead of having to create a new profile/login just for this site

2 - A comments area -- your insights and feedback are an integral part of what this site is meant to be about. Please share.

3 - An article recommendation area -- think an article should be up in the light blue box at the top of the home page so everyone visiting the site will see it? Go to the individual page for that article (not the home page or archive pages that include several articles) and click the "recommend it" link on the last line. You will find links to the most recent articles in the left sidebar under "Ripples in the Pond... Recent Posts." Note that you don't have to pick articles that aren't already listed. The top 5 articles with the most recommendations will appear within the box, so if you agree, register your thumbs up for that article too.

I hope you will find that these new features make the Indigo Ocean blog even more of an uplifting and nurturing retreat within your life. I have long seen that there were many readers coming back each day, but I didn't really have the time to moderate comments, so couldn't really do much to tie everyone together. Hopefully this will be the answer to that. Blessings to you all, and thanks for your loyalty all these years that this has been a comment-less blog.

Endings and Beginnings

As of a couple days ago, it is official that I won't be teaching meditation to teens at the juvenile detention center any longer. I will miss the connection I had with the teens, but definitely will not miss interacting with the organization.

Fortunately I get to go in on Monday to at least be able to say goodbye to the boys, instead of just disappearing like their previous teacher was forced to do (who was also yanked out by admin for reasons unrelated to the actual delivery of services to the kids). Every week they have asked me about her and I only just found out the day things came to a head for me that she had been asked to leave and not allowed to go back to say goodbye.

I had actually offered to stay on for another month, since all the boys in my group will be turning 18 and moving on to adult prisons at that time, but all I got was this coming Monday evening. I'll take it. At least they won't be wondering what happened to me and imagining the worst, the way they've been doing with the other teacher.

What a shame that the organizations that provide such valuable services are plagued with such dysfunction that the kids wind up being more dependable than the teachers. These guys are so committed to the work, it's a shame to not be able to find them regular teachers that the organization is willing to accept. In the end though, for me, it came down to a difference of philosophy. They seem to believe there is only one way to do the work, which is to use one's personal history as a teaching tool, while I believe that there are multiple effective teaching methods, and mine is "get the self out of the way and let a higher wisdom come through."

I have no doubt that both methods work, because I've seen both work, as have all my co-teachers, who are sorry to see me go. But sometimes the truth just can't be brought out, and it's just time to let it go and move on.

I was very sad about this last week and praying for some assistance in coming to peace with it in my heart. Then I logged on and saw that my Facebook profile had been approved (had to get past the "real name" filters due to having such an unusual name), and in the couple days since I've found so many amazing light beings who I have shared the path with at various points over the last couple decades. It has been truly heart warming to reconnect with all these people who adore me and who I adore, such angels of goodness, generosity, and joy. I am so thankful for having them in my life, both in the past and now in a renewed connection online, though they are scattered all over the world.

I held out a long time, with several friends trying to get me to join, but I always thought it would be a waste of time and couldn't imagine genuine social connection coming through something called Facebook. Well I stand corrected. Just loving it right now. You can find me there at Indigo Ocean on Facebook.

What I'm researching - CRM, SaaS, etc.

I've been looking around the web a great deal lately to discover new SaaS business tools that solve business problems more affordably. I'm discovering that many a CRM consultant offers a downloadable CRM implementation guide (particularly for Salesforce crm implementation projects and Salesforce implementation consultants). That leads me to think that there must be a lot of businesses out there trying a "do it yourself" approach to getting started.

That's both good and bad. Good that the available software is getting more accessible so that people feel they can do this. Bad because in my experience people usually make a lot of fundamental mistakes, both in setting up their systems but also in choosing the right products to solve their needs in the first place. I really think it's one of those areas where a couple thousand bucks invested up front getting a consultant to help out can really pay off in tens of thousands in return on investment in the long run.

I'm also noticing more and more that for a Salesforce crm consultant in particular there is a need to help people understand best practices, since it is hard to find instructional material, and what is available is so overwhelming to most people that it might as well not even exist. I think that can be said less for products like Zoho, which are more limited but also simpler to learn.

Another thing I'm finding in my research is that the number of new products coming out seems to be trending upward over the last 3 years. It's as if "software in the cloud" or whatever catch-phrase you use for it, just went viral. It is a little hard to keep up with, and I think that also creates an opening for any technology consultant that can guide people through it and help with business process optimization. Salesforce training services are also still growing strongly in demand, probably linked to the dominance of that software in the CRM space. All good things.

Rather than creating a downloadable, I'm going to develop a separate blog for comparing all these different SaaS technologies and giving people free advice. If a subject holds your interest, why not share the information you collect with others? Besides, it may help me organize the information more for my own uses too. Nothing like having an audience to sharpen your focus, as any blogger reading this surely knows.

I'll post later on that blog once I really get it going. I'm going to need to decide between Blogger and Wordpress. I've been using Blogger a while now (including for this blog), but I'm seeing that Wordpress has some nice features I might want to use on the new blog. For one, the tag clouds that show category popularity would be nice. However, I get Blogger at not additional cost to have the blog hosted on my own server, whereas with Wordpress I wind up paying about $60 yearly for a blog with no ads on it that is hosted externally and another $100 yearly for PHP capabilities on my host (which currently I don't need, as I'm serving only static HTML pages).

Since I'm helping a friend make a site with Wordpress this month, that will give me a chance to sort out whether I want to establish my new online technology blog on that platform or stay with Blogger. To be continued.

I have succumbed - I'm on Twitter

I had no intentions of joining Twitter. As you can see if you've been following this blog, I don't even post all that often. But then I started a Twitter account for my business to see how well it worked for that and in the process I learned enough about Twitter to want to give it a try for my personal online presence as well.

Imagine my surprise when I went to sign up only to find out that there was someone already using my name on Twitter! After signing up under an alteration of my name I looked him up (yes, it's a he) and discovered he's a guy named Jason. After I post this I'm going to send him a message inquiring about his name choice. Though I would rather be the one using my own name, I can't deny that I'm happy to "meet" what may be a kindred soul. I have actually run across two other Indigo Oceans (both women and neither with it as their legal name) over the last 20 years it has been my name. (No, I was not born Indigo Ocean, but it's been a long, long time since I wasn't Indigo Ocean.)

Anyway, I'll update this post when I hear back from Jason/IndigoOcean, assuming he replies back. I'm also following him on Twitter now. Hey, I've got to start somewhere and none of my friends seem to be on. If you would like to follow me I would love that. Since I haven't been able to stay on top of this blog enough to allow comments, following me on Twitter and sending replies to my @IamIndigoOcean postings is a great way for you to open up a two way dialogue with me. I'm really going to try to post something there at least a couple times a week. You can follow me by clicking this link Indigo Ocean on Twitter.

Looking forward to getting to know you. Peace and blessings, Indigo.

Update 6/13/09: Received a message from Jason that he was changing his Twitter username to be his real name so that I could have access to my name. Thanks Jason! I am now simply @IndigoOcean on Twitter (and I've updated the above link, in case you want to follow me).