In Remembrance

*Originally Posted October 8, 2010*
It has been a year today since the tragedy at James Ray's event where 3 souls lost their lives. My feeling is that too much of the "human potential" movement is geared towards personal empowerment and not enough towards love and community. In my opinion, WAY too much emphasis is placed on the acquisition of power and not enough on the beauty of surrendering to love and Divine acceptance. My hope is that, in my own work, I never lose sight of the true power of love and kindness.

I am very disheartened by so much that happens with "gurus" and other assorted teachers. I feel that it is really pretty simple: be kind to one another, remember we're all here together, try to have a happy thought, smile at a child, etc etc. It ain't that complicated.

The hard part, of course, is identifying where love has been withheld and what the lingering impact of that loss still is. I believe that love and community is truly the essence of spirituality and that kindness IS enlightenment.

Another irony -- and to me this is huge -- is that many of the latest round of "gurus" preach pushing yourself and awakening your own power, while at the same time so obviously setting themselves up as sources of authority. Stand up to everyone and everything -- but bow down to me. This is logically antithetical and, in its extreme form, nothing more than Black Magick, poorly staged.

If more focus had been placed on providing a nurturing environment and less on pushing people to "rise above" then perhaps these beautiful souls would not have perished. Sadly, it appears as if their desire to blend with the group was stronger than their own sense of self. In other words, their desire to awaken their power was thwarted by the conflict they must have felt in not living up to a higher authority -- in this particular case, James Ray, as well as all the other eager neophytes in the sweat lodge with them.

The more I learn of this, the sadder and angrier I become. Love is the answer and when I turn my eyes towards this tragic event a year ago today, it is the one thing I miss. I know many people, including Alicia, who were friends with the people who died and they are, justifiably, grieving. But the focus in our work must -- ABOVE ALL -- be "do no harm" and, in this case, it appears (to me, anyway) that James Ray cared too much about himself and too little about his students.

Grief is a terrible thing. I know . . . and for those who are grieving, my heart breaks for you. Truly, it does. But pushing yourself is one thing, pushing someone else an entirely different matter.

Reaching for some secret magickal incantation to wealth and personal power, which is what many people attending his events were really doing, is a dangerous thing. People want short-cuts, i-phone apps to fix it overnight and that is a problem. Power without restraint . . . that is a wildfire out of control and, to me, is also the theme of this tragic anniversary.