The Underground History of American Education

The Underground History of American Education, by John Gatto is a must read for anyone who has or will have children going through school and for all teachers. John Gatto, who was a long-time public school teacher, who was given the award of New York's Teacher of the Year, has done extensive research to the roots behind our "failing" public school system.

Personally, I as a child loathed school. I felt it a prison and escaped daily, drifting away in day dreams while the teacher droned away about something I had no interest in. It was only when I went through my Waldorf Teacher Training and subsequently when I became a Waldorf teacher that I found that education can be a fulfilling experience for both student and teacher alike. In comparing my experience in teaching in Waldorf education and hearing the experiences of teachers teaching in the public system I could not teach in the public school system and have felt that what the children was subjected to was criminal, for instance, this new push to have kindergarten children have less and less free play so they can focus on academics to prepare them for 1st grade. This book has laid it out clearly in horrifying details as why it is criminal and to the intentions behind this compulsory education.

"We want one class to have a liberal education. We want another class, a very much larger class of necessity, to forgo the privilege of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks." --President Woodrow Wilson

Look at what we have created: a society where its citizens predominantly go through years and years of a boring and pretty much worthless education that does not teach citizens how to think and question, how to love and make their world more beautiful, how to work with their hands and do meaningful work. Then when the schooling ends most likely these citizens will land a job where there is no security and more meaningless work is done until the citizen's only reward for this heartless occupation are diminishing wages to consume gadgets and unhealthy food that only brings suffering to the earth and no relief to the void in their souls. Society, thanks to the likes of Carnegie, Ford, Morgan, Rockefeller, has become a social factory of consumers, with an elite at the head of the pyramid. And our President, who has promised hope for change, wants our children to stay in school until dinner time and to increase the days out of the year our children are subjected to state indoctrination.

Wake up! people, and protect our children from living a senseless existence.

The Real World

As I found myself today with my mind spinning over the faults in my world, the imperfections of myself and others, about how the world should be by the way I want it to be, I finally got a chance to sit quietly in contemplation. I then randomly opened "A Course in Miracles' and "Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi" and I was gently brought back to my knowing.

Sit quietly and look upon the world you see, and tell yourself: "The real world is not like this. It has no buildings and there are no streets where people walk alone and separate. There are no stores where people buy an endless list of things they do not need. It is not lit with artificial light, and night comes not upon it. There is no day that brightens and grows dim. There is not loss. Nothing is there but shines, and shines forever."--ACIM

Does the realized being tell you that the world is full of pain? It is the other one who feels the pain and seeks the help of the wise saying that the world is painful. Then the wise one explains from his experience that if one withdraws within the self there is an end of pain. The pain is felt so long as the object is different from oneself. But when the self is found to be an undivided whole who and what is there to feel? The realized mind is the Holy Spirit and the other mind is the home of the devil. For the realized being this is the Kingdom of Heaven. "The Kingdom of Heaven is within you." That Kingdom is here and now.--Ramana

I have just finished Anastasia, by Vladimir Megre. It was recommended to me by a friend who owns a metaphysical bookstore after I told him about a dream dealing with Russians. This true story is about a very worldly Russian business man and his meeting with Anastasia who lives out in the middle of Siberia, with little or no clothing, no shelter and her food supplied to her by the creatures and plants around her. For most readers this story will be far fetched to be believed. And I had my doubts halfway through it, even after having the joy of meeting such extraordinary people in my journeys. However, after attempting to connect with her and getting an immediate "electrical charge" and a subsequent dream, I have no doubts that this being exists. And we are lucky that she does. She is a complete embodiment of Truth, Beauty and Goodness, of what an evolved Human is to be. This book is filled with her amazing insights that are reminiscent of Rudolf Steiner's. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to invite some sweet purity into their lives.

The Rider in the Sky

O God, I saw in the sky the other day
Wisps of cloud in the shape of a horseman,
Scattering the other clouds with his cry.

The walls of city towers shook,
And the birds in the sky flew silent;
Yet no one in the city did hear;
No one in the city did see.

Who was this rider across the sky?
Was it truly one of the four the preachers and priests
Have thumped over their congregations’ heads
With the threat of the wrath of You?

I cannot but laugh at the thought of You filled with wrath.
It is like the sky filled with fish.

I know this horseman,
Whose name is Death,
Has been sent not from You,
But from human minds.

How is it that the Eternal
Can know this specter called Death?
Can water know this thing called dryness?

Only those who continue to believe
They are nothing but a bag of flesh and bones,
Who know not the Self,
Will meet this lord of death,
Who rides howling across the sky.

Yet the very ones who created such a god,
Stare straight ahead as they speed down the road,
To lock themselves in little cubicles
And to turn on the magic box.

Lest they see that ride,
Lest they hear that cry.

O silly ones, who close your eyes and ears,
This rider comes not to destroy.
He comes to be released from time’s unending task.
He cries to quit, to walk away from his job.

But no one hears him.
No one sees.
So he must rip apart bodies and draw away breaths,
To knock down the towers and tear away the cubicles,
Until his creators have cried out:

“Enough!”

Until they have looked inside and found the Eternal Self,
Where Death is dissolved like a spider’s web
Licked by a dancing flame.

O seeker of God,
Know that this rider of the winds
Is the greatest of friends.

He will only touch you
If you see me and you,
And you chase after this and that,
And think your happiness is but outside.

While, at the same time,
you build security boxes
To keep that same outside from coming in.

Janaka has heard this cry
And has seen this ride,
And has laughed with his pants around his ankles,

As the rider galloped to run him down.

--"Footprints Along the Shores of Time," Janaka Stagnaro

Fasting

From "Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi"

D: Can fasting help realisation?

M: But it is temporary. Mental fast is the real aid. Fasting is not an end to itself. There must be spiritual development side by side. Absolute fasting makes the mind weak too. You cannot derive sufficient strength for the spiritual quest. Therefore take moderate food and go on practising.

I opened up the book to that passage. This is the end of my fifth day on the Master Cleanser lemonade fast. It is a fast I have done many times. It is a great aid, I find, in not only giving my body a rest but quieting the mind with more sattwa (purity). Other fasts I have found overly taxing and debilitating. With this fast I am fully functional and with lots of energy. I have fasted for 14 days and I will see with this one. I highly recommend this fast.

"Religulous": Rationalism vs. Faith

Last night I watched with my family the movie "Religulous." The docu-movie was about Bill Maher, an in-your-face-comedian, satirist, going around interviewing primarily fundamentalists and extremists from Christianity, Islam and Judaism. Many parts of the film was witty and his quick wit and mind logically ran circles around most of the interviewees (although admitedly he chose pretty easy targets). While I agree that fundamentalist interpretations of the various holy writs lead to unthinking dogma and thus to blind, and at times, dangerous followers, I found the film left nothing else to offer people after his mind cut faith to bits. The movie and Bill's role reminded me of the left rational side of the brain trying to make sense out of the right irrational side. The logical side cannot make sense of the metaphysical world that is beyond cause and effect and the senses.

Religion, I believe, has a very valuable place in the world as a system of thought and codes, and each, through the saints and mystics, are shown as paths to the one summit. However, eventually, like a beloved worn garment, all religion must be cast aside in order for one to come totally naked without any pre-conceptions about the Beloved, Great Mystery. That which Is lies beyond all words and thoughts.

Bill Maher, while he may have been like Socrates in the film challenging peoples' "knowing," he could not lead us to that place beyond words, but only left us in the stark field of his jagged judgment.

The Self is One

The Self is One. Unmoving, it moves swifter tnat thought. The senses do not overtake it, for always it goes before. Remaining still, it outstrips all that run. Without the Self, there is no life.

To the ignorant the Self appears to move--yet it moves not. From the ignorant it is far distant--yet it is near.It is within all, and it is without all.

He who sees all beings in the Self, and the Self in all beings, hates none. To the illumined soul, the Self is all. For him who sees everywhere Oneness, how can there be delusion or grief?

--"Isha Upanishad" from The Upanishads:Breath of the Eternal, translated by Prabhavananda and Manchester