Australasia and Oceania

White Skin Black Spirit

Acarya Narada Muni recently produced a documentary telling the story of a white-skinned Aboriginal woman discovering her roots. The documentary was aired on Australian TV ABC's Message Stick program.

PIA

The Prout Institute of Australia recently published the
online journal Understanding Prout: Volume 1

Volume 1 contains four excellent essays on various aspects of Prout, written by two associates at Prout College. All the essays are very readable and easy to understand.

The Biospychology of Cooperation by Michael Towsey starts by reviewing the history of the cooperative movement then contrasts cooperation with capitalism and communism. The final part explores various aspects of cooperation, including the theory and science of cooperation, the concept of progress, egalitarianism, and the future of cooperation. The essay is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand cooperation from an ethical, social and cultural perspective.

Education for Liberation by Marcus Bussey begins with the paradox of a modern education then introduces the philosophy of Neohumanism as the essential ingredient of an education for cooperation and liberation. Much of the essay focuses on the relationship between Prout and Neohumanism, exploring in particular the educational implications of the Five Fundamental Principles of Prout and the concept of sadvipra, the ideal for a Proutistic education.

The Three-Tier Enterprise System by Michael Towsey introduces cooperatives from the traditional economic perspective and compares them with the more usual private and public enterprises. The essay then moves on to expand our understanding of the cooperative sector and to explore the governance and regulatory issues that are likely to arise in a cooperative economy. The essay provides new insight into how best to structure the enterprise system in a modern economy.

Water and Land Management by Michael Towsey argues that a cooperative global society cannot be achieved without due attention to the local economy and the local economy depends first and foremost on water and land management. Whereas 20th century water policy focused on hydraulic engineering, so the 21st century approach will be about ecosystem management and biotechnology. The essay clearly sets out the fundamentals necessary for localised planning.

Ananda Marga River School

At the River School, the year-six class has been studying humanitarian movements. They have been learning about disaster relief and development work for over one term. The model the teacher is using is AM and AMURT, so they have studied them intensively. It's been an amazing term and very life-changing for the children. 

A super-inspiring part of this was that the teacher arranged for the children to go on a bus to Brisbane and work in a homeless shelter serving a free lunch. It is a very good shelter (they call it 5-star!) so they provide good services.

The children cooked a meal for 200 people, served it and cleaned up, then had a tour of the shelter and learned about homelessness. The children were so inspired to do the work, and the people they were serving were very moved. One of them even cried, when the children explained that they wanted to do something to help. The teacher said some of these kids have never been the same since, i.e. much better.

Today, as part of their studies, I invited the children up to our house at the MU (the family community is adjoining the school). We set up a video conference with AMURT coordinators Dada Unmantrananda in Sydney and Dada Vishvarupananda in Washington, DC.

The children had a long discussion with each Dada about their work and what they do in disasters. They had good questions and listened with great interest to the Dadas' experience. I think the children were very inspired.

Speaking to the teacher after (named River, amazingly) he said how much the children have been affected by this study. I am completely certain that at their age, just before launching into "teenageness" they will never forget what they have learned.

And another moment...

Last week an African man came to our all-school morning circle to share the work he is doing in his village to help the people. He started out by asking the children some questions about their lives, what they wanted to do when they grow up, and then, what they would do with the money they earned. I know he was expecting a very different answer... but one by one, the children of different ages stood up and said, "I want to do something to help poor people", "I want to help people who are suffering"… each child said the same sort of thing. He told me afterwards he was absolutely stunned. Below is a nice photo he took with all the children who all crowded around to be with him. (You can't see it well in the photo, but he is holding a baby duckling one of the children had brought in and handed to him.)

Cooperative Maleny Festival

I had the good fortune to organise this week-long Festival, in conjunction with other board members of the Maple Street Cooperative. The Festival ended last night with a completely sold out 30th Birthday Dinner Party for the Maple Street Coop at the Community Hall. Well over 200 people attended the festivities, which began with an angelic procession of River School children leading people into the hall with candles, while Dada lead them in singing.

The River School also opened the night with a two cultural performances organised by teacher Katyayani, with participation of many of the unit members. The first dance combined yoga dance, a choir, film, and shadow dances to a song/kiirtan called 'Butterfly.' The children were dressed in beautiful white costumes and were beautifully sentient. The second song brought in the older children with a rap/break dance/yoga dance/ film/instrumental spectacular to an extended version of 'Soon the Day Will Come' (choreographed with the help of Anadi, while he was visiting). We felt so proud to see our school represented so well (they had been specially invited and sponsored to attend by the Maleny Credit Union) and it has also been great working together as a unit supporting the performance in many ways.

Another lovely feature last night was that although the buffet dinner was catered for over 200 people, each dish was specially marked as "sentient" or not, out of respect for the margiis. And most of the meal was sentient, although no margiis had been part of planning the meal.

The entire festival included over 20 events, such as open houses, tours and informational evenings, many of which were very well attended. On Sunday, Dada Ratnadevananda and I hosted the Housing Communities Bus Tour, which was a fantastic afternoon of touring the Maleny housing communities in the River School bus. People loved the tour, which ended up at our Master Unit where they were met by many of the residents and served a lovely afternoon tea by Giita.

Tuesday night was a special night at the Upfront Club cooperative restaurant. Three beautiful vegetarian meals were on offer for people to buy, and during dinner they watched Narada's film on Venezuelan Cooperatives put out by the Prout Institute. We had a full house of around 35 people who fully enjoyed Bhaktivirya's talk and discussion on 'A Cooperative Economy is Possible.' Margiis from the unit volunteered to help in the kitchen that night, which created a lovely vibration.

Wednesday night was another dinner at the Upfront Club, with the theme, 'Cooperative Maleny: The Journey Continues.' The evening began with Narada's documentary on Maleny coops. The rest of the evening was a wide-ranging and enthusiastic panel discussion, and I was invited to be one of the panelists along with four other leaders in Maleny's cooperative movement. Again the house was full, this time over 40 people squeezing into the space and joining in the lively discussion.

All in all, the Coop Festival achieved what we had hoped: increasing the visibility of Maleny coops. We had a number of newspaper articles, and an entire pull-out section in the local newspaper as well.

Ananda Marga River School Growing

There is a lot of interest in extending the River School through to secondary school. We are looking at new land in Maleny and hoping to be able to offer middle school by 2011. We had a meeting with parents about secondary school and there was tremendous interest as there are no good alternatives for children leaving the school (although our kids tend to do very well in high school wherever they go). We feel we will have tremendous parental and community support as our school has an excellent reputation in the community. We are considering the name Maleny Sustainability High School, which will help bring community support and will also challenge us to build the school in a truly sustainable way.