What Happens After DEATH? It’s Time To Find Out The Answer

https://youtu.be/qtmBAxgoOlc

What Happens After DEATH? It’s Time To Find Out The Answer

ALLATRA TV International 

There is a question that every person asked themselves. We address science and religion to find the answer to it. Already for 6 thousand years, we have been trying to find out ... 

IS THERE LIFE AFTER DEATH? 

For the first time in history! Scientists, physicians, clergymen and eyewitnesses will seek the answer all TOGETHER! 

- Does reincarnation exist? - Fear of death. What is its nature? How do we, alive people, know what death is? 

- Who benefits from hiding facts about a person's after death fate? 

- Human consciousness is outside the body. 

- The prophets knew the truth about the afterlife fate of humans! What does science say? 

- Is the state of Heaven and Hell explained by physics? 

- What are we here for? 

Answers to the most important questions for every person! 

May 22, 2021, International Online Conference “LIFE AFTER DEATH. FICTION AND FACTS”

 

https://youtu.be/1zhO1gyMyQI 

Death is not the end. 

We have the right to know the Truth! 

The official website of ALLATRA IPM: https://allatra.org 

The official website of ALLATRA TV: https://allatra.tv 

E-mail: info@allatra.tv

5 Things That Happen When You Die

Putting Life And Death In Perspective

As an evidential medium, I bridge the gap between the physical and the Spirit world, bringing through detailed messages that prove that life goes on – even after death. A wonderful by-product of my work is the way it puts life and death in perspective, erasing the fear of “what comes next” and illuminating our true path. 

What happens when you die?

When the Spirit is released from the heaviness of the physical shell we call the body, it’s similar to a driver getting out of a broken down car, or even taking off a heavy overcoat and letting it fall to the ground. There is no pain at all associated with exiting the shell. So what DOES death feel like?

For more info see my book, Adventures For Your Soul

Hundreds of thousands of spirits have come back to say they UNIVERSALLY go through the following steps:

1. AWAKENING - The person suddenly experiences an overwhelming sense of PEACE, HAPPINESS and LOVE. 

2. REUNION - No one ever dies alone. Your relatives and loved ones who you have created bonds of love with over your lifetimes will come and greet you. They have prepared for your homecoming - so you can just imagine the incredible sense of joy when you return home.

3. VISITING YOUR MEMORIAL SERVICE, OR FUNERAL - Every soul will be present for their service or funeral. Even if there is no formal ceremony, they will be there - surrounding their family for at least several days after the transition and trying to impress on them that they are ALIVE and feeling healthy and whole.

4. LIFE REVIEW - Upon returning to the spiritual home, each one of us will go through a review - seeing, feeling and living every single experience we lived out on the earth school. We will “relive” every thought, action and word we created about one another and ourselves. If we treated someone unkindly, we will experience it from their point of view.

5. LIVING THEIR JOY - Each soul will get to access what they desire to experience creatively. If they had always wanted to play the piano but were not able to on earth, they will be able to learn and live this expression in heaven. They will be able to have whatever their hearts desire....if someone wanted to have children on earth but were unable to, in the Spirit realms they may find that they are surrogate parents to children in the spirit world who need guidance and wisdom from certain souls.

It’s not surprising that after over 30 years spent talking to dead people, I have become quite an expert on the subject! The more I learn about death, the more I understand that the end of life is an illusion, a transition where the soul – which never dies – leaves its earthly body for its next “assignment.” 

Apr 12, 2016

James Van Praagh

Reincarnation Is Enslavement

Wheel of Samsara

The cycle of Birth and Death

by Greg Calise

August 27, 2013

from RiverBankOfTruth Website

Have you ever actually wondered why we reincarnate?

Why is it that we have such short lives, and, for the most part, the only spiritual paths are very dubious religions and teachers?

Or why those religions are built upon hierarchal structures?

Have you ever wondered why there is so much evil in the world?

And why such evil people seem to become the leaders of men?

And the big question concerning reincarnation:

Why don't we remember our past lives?

How can we resolve our past if we don't even remember it?

We go through our lives with our past lives haunting us, yet we cannot see them.

We carry the residual habits and traits from our former selves, yet we have no idea where they came from. For the most part, we don't have any idea how they are affecting us now.

Therefore, how can we ever resolve our past issues? Especially since they affect us even in this life?

What religious person or spiritual teacher, or channeler or yogi has ever answered this question satisfactorily:

Why don't we remember our past lives?

The answer may be chilling.

It is described in Vedic and Puranic texts that humankind lived very long life spans during the golden age. They spent their lives in deep meditation and were in balance and harmony with Mother Nature. Then something happened.

In ancient legends, myths and texts, there is described the fall of man.

"Man is perfect at his origin, a divine being who has degenerated into what we are."

R. A. Schwaller de Lubicz (Egyptian Miracle)

"…primeval man was the truest model and representative of man, and that all human progress since, though upward in some things, has been in the main an unceasing deterioration… All the world that came next after primeval man honored and even worshipped their first fathers as very gods of light, knowledge and greatness."

Joseph A. Seiss (Gospel of the Stars)

"Then she added a prophecy in which she foretold the approaching end of the Divine Age and the beginning of a new one, in which the summers would be flowerless, the cows milk less and women shameless and men strengthless, in which there will be trees without fruit and seas without fish, when old men would give false judgments and legislators make unjust laws, when warriors would betray one another and men would be thieves and there would be no more virtue in the world."

(Prophesy of Badb, War Queen of Ireland)

So what caused this 'fall'?

We can see that at one point, gods from the sky came, and humans were taught about agriculture and animal husbandry, which is the enslavement of animals. With that knowledge came the cities, the kings, the hierarchal systems of control, armies, war, slavery and the worship and sacrifices of gods.

This was the fall of man. Mankind fell out of balance and harmony with Mother Nature and thus began losing virtue.

So who were these gods that came and gave humankind this knowledge? From where did they come? They are not of the Earth. They came to enslave humankind, to demand flesh and blood sacrifices, including human sacrifices.

They demanded to be worshiped. And, as we read in the old testament, Jehovah would destroy entire races, or have his "chosen people" destroy them for him.

The Gnostics called these gods the Archons.

Don Juan called them the predators...

These gods have been feeding off of humanity for thousands of years...

They consider us their herd, just as we consider farm animals. As above, so below. They feed off of our negative emotions and energies and they feed off of our worship to them. They especially like blood and suffering, so they create conflict, violence and wars between men.

Notice most wars were between religions...

But they also control us through,

religions

ideologies

governments

societies

propaganda

the media, etc.

Another way of controlling us is through reincarnation.

Reincarnation is a form of slavery. After the fall, man's duration of life was drastically shortened. Before the present age, men only lived a short average life span of 25 to 40 years. That is not enough time to figure out what life is about, especially if all they were given were the religions of the gods.

They had to toil all day, raise their families and then they died.

And then comes the question of, why we don't remember our past lives.

We are constantly born into ignorance and the only knowledge available was what the gods gave us - religions and ideologies. After a few short years, we die in ignorance and then return again. This keeps the herd in order.

Without any remembrance, we are imprisoned in ignorance, without the proper tools to break free. Occasionally a few great souls were able to liberate themselves, but the priests took control of their teachings. They skewed them and butchered them into religions.

We find ourselves in a Matrix, where an artificial light construct has been overlaid upon the real world.

As in the movie, The Matrix, we are simply batteries that the gods feed off of. This is our plight, where we are born and we die in a matrix as food for evil entities. And of course they have their minions here on Earth that keep the herd in line.

So the next question is:

What happens when we die?

When we die, we enter the Cosmic Matrix, another false light construct which we call heaven.

Our souls are trapped within this prison of the gods. After some time in the false heavens, we return again in the same cycle. This is called the wheel of samsara, the cycle of birth and death.

The only escape from this prison is to awaken to who you truly are.

By letting go of all of the false beliefs, gods, angels, gurus, etc., and stop feeding these false gods with our worship, our blood, our negative emotions and thoughts, and moving out of the whole game.

"To see the universe as it is, you must step beyond the net. It is not hard to do so, for the net is full of holes. Look at the net and its many contradictions.

You do and undo at every step. You want peace, love and happiness, and work hard to create pain, hatred and war. You want longevity and you overeat. You want friendship and you exploit.

See your net as made of such contradictions and remove them - your very seeing will make them go away."

Nisargadatta Maharaj

See the Matrix for what it is. It seems all powerful, without any way of escape, but it is full of holes.

If you have an open mind, discernment and the eyes to see, this whole game is nothing more than a house of cards. In Ask Simple Questions I showed many examples of how this entire matrix is falling apart at the seams.

The question is,

will you wake up, or be dragged away in the net, to continue on the wheel of birth and death?

Imagine how fortunate you are to come into contact with the keys to escape this prison.

You can see how confusing it can be with all of,

the religions

New Age philosophies

false teachers and teachings

I see that there are a few great masters who shine above all of this confusion. Take what you can from them, but blaze your own trail into your inner Self.

Break free of the prison...

The Astral Plane

Consciousness and Human Energy

Soul Catching Net - Are We 'Recycled' at Death to Remain in the Matrix?

by Makia Freeman

July 23, 2015

The idea of a soul-catching net or soul net that awaits us at death - and keeps us in the Matrix - is a grim and highly disturbing notion, but one which I believe has to be considered by all serious researchers of the global conspiracy.

True free thinkers want to know exactly where the global conspiracy rabbit hole ends. Just how far does the suppression go? Past this lifetime? Past this planet? Well, the answer may well be yes to both.

After you spend years of research going through the many layers of,

political corruption

corporatocracy

surveillance

false flag attacks

central banking

GMOs

geoengineering

Zionism

Illuminati bloodlines

the radiation agenda

UFOs

ETs

alien intervention,

...and more, you come to realize that the true source of the suppression is at the intersection of consciousness and conspiracy.

Why? Because the conspiracy is all about suppressing your idea of Who You Are.

It's about convincing you that you are nothing, no one. It's about convincing you that you are just a biological machine, fit to serve as no more than a cog in a machine or as Pink Floyd put it, just another brick in the wall.

Mainstream science to this day still denies the existence of consciousness just because it can't get a handle on it with the 5 senses. Its simplistic solution is to disregard anything it can't measure.

There are many researchers who will be unable to contemplate this topic, or refuse to go there, because it clashes with their belief systems, such as,

religious belief systems (the afterlife is either Heaven or Hell, or 100 virgins, but not a soul net)

scientific/materialistic belief systems (there is no such thing as a soul or consciousness)

various other belief systems (there are no such things as aliens or extraterrestrials, etc.)

If you have read this far, you probably are ready to go beyond those belief systems, having realized they are set up to create a false dichotomy, and to limit and disempower you.

You have probably also realized that the true manipulators at the helm of the conspiracy are non-physical entities, which various religions and cultures have referred to the,

Archons (in the Gnostic tradition)

Djinn or Jinn (in Islam)

Demons (in Christianity)

Mud Shadow (in the books of Carlos Castaneda),

...or by other names.

What is the Reincarnation Trap/Soul-Catching Net/Soul Net?

The idea is that upon death, our soul or consciousness separates from the body and then undergoes a process where its memory is wiped clean and it is recycled - reincarnated - into another body to repeat the same process. 

In this way the Earth becomes a literal prison planet from which it's very difficult to escape. The soul net is placed there as an artificial energetic grid (not the natural energetic grid of ley lines of Planet Earth) to prevent any soul from getting through.

Thus the Earth remains a closed system where new people are constantly born for the purpose of powering the economy and generating (negative) emotion for the Archons to feed off, not remembering Who They Are or what the real situation is.

The soul net ensures the planet remains a trawling ground for the Archons to trigger our emotions, which they expertly do through,

the media

war

fear,

...and other methods of deception, so they can get fed.

As Don Juan put it in Castaneda's final book, The Active Side of Infinity, we are like humaneros, raised like livestock on a farm to be exploited.

Remember also The Matrix series of films. Morpheus shows Neo the shocking truth that we are raised as a food source for the Controllers. He shows Neo a symbol of the battery. While this is a good symbol, a battery implies a storage of energy.

In actuality, we act as generators of energy for the Archons, so a generator you see at a construction site might be a more accurate symbol.

However, because we are powerful beings, the Archons can't just rely on force for all this. They need to trick us into giving them consent.

How do they do that?

How do they get us to go willingly into the soul net?

With the trick of the white light…

The Soul Net Relies on the Trick of the White Light

We have been told through various sources that the white light at death is something to head towards. Hollywood films such as Ghost promote this. People who have experienced OBEs (Out of Body Experiences) mention it.

Yet what if, as David Icke, Wayne Bush and others have suggested (see related links below), the white light at death - and light itself (in this context) - is the trick? What if light is the source of the deception?

After all, the Illuminati and other Secret Societies worship Lucifer, the Light Bearer.

Michael Tsarion talks about the occult weaponization of light.

Cameron Day talks about why he is no longer a lightworker, because of the false duality and the fake "light".

What if the New-Age talk of "light" is another trap? 

What if light is the source of the matrix prison planet?

What if light is the mechanism for the soul net?

Sounds far out? It is, so let me now introduce the various sources, old and new, which are suggesting this concept.

When independent sources, especially from different time periods, all come forth with the same idea, it's a good sign that the information has validity.

ET Contactee Simon Parkes

Simon Parkes is an incredible modern day ET contactee.

If you listen to his interviews it is clear he is a rational, level-headed man, who even holds a position in local government in England. He states that alien intervention and genetic manipulation occurred earlier in humanity's history, where our DNA was tampered with and our psychic abilities repressed.

This was done so that no one could challenge the prison guards (the Archons).

In the below video presentation, Parkes mentions the trick of the white light and the soul net:

WingMakers Neruda Interview #5

The WingMakers story is an astonishing creation, full of stories of humanity's history, poetry, paintings and music, well worth checking out. 

To me, one of the most powerful of the stories - which are written as fiction but come across as completely factual - is the Neruda Interview #5, where we learn of how all of us humans - who are divine, infinite consciousness - came to be trapped inside physical bodies that die.

The deception came about through the conspiring of 3 separate alien races:

the Annunaki

the Serpent Race

the Sirians,

...who found a way to trick the Atlanteans (our ancient ancestors) to inhabit biological vessels (the human body).

Part of the deception involves Anu, the reptilian king of the Annunaki, ruling over humanity as king, and setting up planes of existence to ensure we never get out - including the soul net reincarnation plane.

The World as "Maya" (Illusion)

A theme in Buddhism and Hinduism is that this world is Maya or illusion (i.e. the Matrix).

Another Buddhist teaching is that life contains suffering, and that reincarnation is an endless cycle of suffering (the wheel of Samsara) that can only be broken through spiritual practice (i.e. the raising of one's consciousness).

Although some people may see this as pessimistic, it exactly fits into what we know the grander conspiracy and the soul net. 

The millennia-old Tibetan Book of the Dead is an instruction manual for monks on how to prepare for the point of death and attain liberation by avoiding reincarnation.

Val Valerian

Val Valerian is a former CIA agent (real name John Grace) started writing about the idea of a soul net in the 1990s, before The Matrix trilogy of films. In his books he writes:

"It is they [Grey aliens] who await in the light when a human being dies.

The human being is then recycled into another body and the process begins all over again… Hence the Light and Tunnel at death Trap. Scanning someone they wish to recycle as they near death, the aliens discover who the person was close to has died.

They project the person(s) image in the white light tunnel and the image waves you in deeper.

If you CHOOSE to follow you can be trapped and sent to another incarnation of their choice… these entities view Earth as a big farm."

Val Valerian

Matrix II & Matrix V

Tanaath of the Silver Legion

Tanaath (below video) of the Silver Legion also talks about the existence of the soul net or reincarnation trap:

She describes it as a holding pen designed to look like whatever the particular individual or soul would expect the afterlife to look like.

For instance, if you were a Christian and expected to see St. Peter at the Pearly Gates, you would see that; if you were a Muslim, you may see 100 virgins. She also makes reference to the fact that your memories are wiped before you are sent back to Earth to reincarnate.

There are various other people who know of (or believe in) the existence of the soul net, such as,

Wes Penre

ET contactee Peggy Kane

Gregg Prescott of in5d.com

Greg Calise,

...and many others.

How interesting that soul net, soul harvest and soul trap are all magic card games, books or video games. The idea of a soul net is out in the public consciousness.

The question remains:

Is enough of humanity ready to confront it and investigate it?

Can enough people grasp the magnitude of the soul net - that forced reincarnation into a prison planet is the ultimate enslavement - and raise consciousness about it?

Sources

http://www.trickedbythelight.com/tbtl/index.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVDjToIyohw

Cameron Day:

1. Why I Am No Longer a Light Worker

2. Spiritual Sovereignty: Tell the Lords of Karma That You Are Sovereign

https://www.wingmakers.com/content/neruda-interviews/

http://www.trufax.org

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcCYT4OpA7g - Taanath

http://wespenre.com/site-map.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYfyI0CZX5A Peggy Kane

http://in5d.com/how-to-exit-the-reincarnation-system/ Greg Prescott

http://riverbankoftruth.com/2014/03/23/the-final-trick-by-greg-calise/

The Active Side of Infinity - Parts 1-4 (youtube)

Karma: Not The “Mainstream” Version – The Real One

Arjun Walia, Collective-Evolution Waking Times

Karma is a concept taught by various cultures throughout human history, and is an idea that dates back thousands of years. Despite its proliferation, the idea of karma seems to be generally misunderstood and frequently tossed around without any real understanding of its true meaning.
 

What is Karma?

In the Bhagavad Gita (one text out of many from multiple cultures that speak of karma), there are constant dialogues about how to attain what’s referred to as “moksha”. Moksha is the release from the cycle of rebirth; a sort of transcendent state or freedom from the world we currently know – a world in which our senses deceive us. It’s a state of bliss that can only be attained when we have freed ourselves from the web of Karma. Once we reach that point our soul is ready to move on to another experience that goes beyond rebirth.

According to Hindu philosophy, the only “higher” activity one can engage in other than performing selfless, fruitful action is the quest and cultivation of spiritual knowledge, contemplation and truth.

Let’s take a look at what karma really means:

“The Principle of Karma requires that the experiences of the individual being, based on his actions during the lifetime, are imprinted in the subtle body, which will therefore have to possess some organized structure of fine matter as mental state within it, and will accordingly be impelled to move to specific locations for rebirth. The principle of Karma is fundamentally based on this very concept that the deeds of today shape the future events for man – the most intelligent of beings is gifted with the discriminating ability in addition to the instinctive habits that all other creatures possess.” – Paramahamsa Tewari (source)

The general idea is that every time we perform an action a cause is created that will have corresponding effects. Again, Karma literally translates to “action” or “deed” and included within that action are your thoughts and intentions. The karma principle makes it clear that the universe will respond to you in this life and/or the next. Actions have “consequences,” and thoughts do as well.

I personally like to leave out “good” and “bad” when it comes to the consequences of our actions. For example, a human being can have what we call a “good” experience or what is perceived as a “bad” experience. The truth of the matter is that they are experiences, regardless of how we perceive them and choose to label them. We can either choose to grow from these experiences and learn from others, untangling ourselves from the web of karma, or we can continue viewing them as “bad” (for example) and prevent ourselves from moving forward.

According to some Indian philosophies, like Jainism, Karmas are invisible particles of matter existing all around us. Our souls attract these karmas through various actions. For example, every time we get angry we attract karmas, just as when we are deceitful or greedy. Likewise, every time we kill or hurt someone we attract karmas. According to Janism these karmas form layers upon layers over our souls and keep us from realizing our true potential and our ability to hear our soul’s voice.

I find it very interesting that the philosophy and concept of karma is discussed in various ways by multiple cultures, religions and philosophers over a period spanning thousands of years.
 

Karma Yoga

Again, karma is all about action. In Hindu philosophy, it’s believed that purified minds will be the ones to partake in jinana yoga, what is also known as the yoga of knowledge. As mentioned earlier, this quest for truth and contemplation was believed to be a superior act of being as opposed to performing karma yoga (good deeds without care for their rewards or consequences, selfless acts), but both are paths to the same destination.

Performing karma yoga is all about performing acts that can benefit the planet(s), acts that stem from the heart’s intent strictly for the benefit of the world(s) or others. This is important to remember, because many can perform good deeds in order to benefit themselves, reap the rewards, get to a specific destination or to “look good” in the eyes of others. Performing acts from an incorrect place within your heart is not “doing your karma,” but rather, performing a selfish act in the disguise of good deeds – something that might actually cause you to accumulate more karma instead. Karma is all about the place you are coming from within, which brings me to my next point.
 

The Difference Between Karma and the Mainstream Idea of It

When I refer to the “mainstream idea of karma” I am more so referring to the idea and energy behind the statement “they’ll get what’s coming to them” as well as the idea that performing good deeds will provide you with good rewards.

Although “good” deeds might come full circle and have positive fruition, just as “bad” deeds do, karma has absolutely nothing to do with people “getting what’s coming to them” as a result of their “bad” actions. It’s about learning from your experiences, not about receiving the consequence of your negative action for the sake of receiving it. The focus needs to be on achieving personal growth as a result of your deeds; even if we are not consciously aware of it, there is growth occurring at the soul level. Karma is an opportunity to move forward. If you see somebody hurting another person and then you see that aggressor hurt or suffer afterwards, it’s not your place to point your finger and say “karma,” or “they got what was coming to them.” Karma is accumulated so we can eventually rid ourselves of it, learn what we need to learn from this human experience, and move on. It has nothing to do with the energy of judgement and blame.

Furthermore, if you do good deeds while under the belief that good deeds will be reciprocated, you are completely contradicting the idea of Karma. Why? Because performing karma is all about action that comes from a selfless place within your heart, for no reward, for the good of the world. If you have the idea in your head that you will somehow be rewarded, or you are engaging in acts of good will for others to see, or trying to move forward in your career or other aspects of your life, you might in fact be wrapping yourself up in even more karma. The most important thing to consider is the intent and the reasons behind your actions.

“Actions performed without desire for rewards with spiritual consciousness contribute to the fulfillment of liberation. When fulfillment is achieved one attains the ultimate consciousness and liberation is automatically included. By performing actions in this manner a living being becomes verily a being of non-action. Renunciation is relinquishing the desire for rewards attached to appropriate actions. Performing actions in spiritual consciousness without desire leads to liberation.” (source)

There is a quote I saw that was floating around the internet not long ago that stated:

“Karma, no need for revenge. Just sit back and wait, those who hurt you will eventually screw up themselves and if you’re lucky, God will let you watch.”

The idea that one can take joy in another persons misery is not at all indicative of the theory of karma. Judgement has no place with regards to the theory of karma. It’s all about lessons and opportunities for spiritual growth.
 

Collective Karma

“The universe that we inhabit and our shared perception of it are the results of a common karma. Likewise, the places that we will experience in future rebirths will be the outcome of the karma that we share with the other beings living there. The actions of each of us, human or nonhuman, have contributed to the world in which we live. We all have a common responsibility for our world and are connected with everything in it.” – The 14th Dalai Lama

Just as we accumulate karma as individuals, we do it on a collective level. Our actions as one giant human race will have consequences, and we’ve seen that time and time again. One of the biggest examples is how we are operating here on planet Earth, as well as our relationship with the environment and other life forms that share the planet with us.

I think it’s important to question what exactly we are doing here – what we are thinking and how we are acting, and to then examine what type of reality we are manifesting as a result of those thoughts and actions. After all, quantum physics is shedding light on just how important human consciousness is, and how factors associated with consciousness are affecting our physical material world. You can read more about that here.

I will leave you with this quote, as it is a completely separate topic yet still related to the idea of karma in some way.

“Broadly speaking, although there are some differences, I think Buddhist philosophy and Quantum Mechanics can shake hands on their view of the world. We can see in these great examples the fruits of human thinking. Regardless of the admiration we feel for these great thinkers, we should not lose sight of the fact that they were human beings just as we are.” – Dalai Lama (source)

**This is a very brief, condensed explanation of Karma according to Hindu Philosophy. Please keep in mind that the idea of Karma is present in various ancient cultures that have roamed the Earth through various stages of human history.**

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His Ancestors Were Slave Traders and Hers Were Slaves

We embarked upon a journey to test whether two people —could come to grips with deep, traumatic, historic wounds and find healing. We had no idea where we would end up.

 Sharon Leslie Morgan and Thomas Norman DeWolf

May 20, 2015

Sharon’s Story

I burst into tears in the parking lot of the Lowndes County Interpretive Center in rural Alabama. Tom and I were five days into the 6,000-plus mile “healing journey” that informed "Gather at the Table", the book we wrote about healing the many wounds Americans inherited from the legacy of slavery. We had just crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma where, in March 1965, John Lewis (now a 15-term U.S. congressman) and more than 600 protesters tried to begin a 54-mile march to Montgomery. On a day that came to be known as “Bloody Sunday,” Alabama state troopers confronted the peaceful marchers and viciously attacked them with billy clubs. I watched these events unfold on television as a 14-year-old child embraced in the warm comfort of my family home in Chicago.

My great-grandparents were enslaved in Lowndes County, Alabama, which is at the heart of the historic march route. They lived a lifetime of Bloody Sundays. My great-grandmother Rhoda Reeves Leslie was alive when I was a child. I knew her. I loved her. I had no concrete idea, until that very moment in the parking lot, what anguish she and other members of my family had suffered as slaves, and then as people who were terrorized by Jim Crow laws, disenfranchised from voting, and kept from becoming full citizens in “the land of the free and the home of the brave.” In 1965, there were zero black voters in Lowndes County because of voter suppression through poll taxes and intimidation. Even today, it is deeply impoverished. Tom’s face morphed into a representation of all white people and everything they had done to people like me.
Photo by Kristin Little.
 

Tom’s Story

I didn’'t know what to say. So I said nothing. I sat in the passenger seat next to Sharon while she sobbed. Twenty minutes earlier, on the drive from the Voting Rights Museum, I had asked her, “What would you do if you had lived here then?”

“I would kill them,” she said, staring straight ahead as she drove, clutching the steering wheel in a death grip. I watched the first tear roll down her cheek.

I am often accused of being a Kumbaya kind of guy. I believe seriously in love and peace and want everybody to get along. I also believe that people are born with a basic sense of humanity that can enable them to change—not just themselves but the communities in which they live. I know Sharon shares that belief, but it is sometimes hard to keep the faith.

We first met in 2008, through Coming to the Table, a nonprofit organization founded by the descendants of both slaveholders and enslaved people in partnership with the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding (CJP) at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Virginia. [Tom is currently executive director of Coming to the Table.] The founders were inspired by the vision of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in his historic March on Washington speech that one day “the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveholders will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.” The work of Coming to the Table is to acknowledge and heal wounds from racism that are rooted in the United States’ history of slavery.

We were just lost souls looking for direction and relief.

In 2009, Sharon and I embarked upon a journey to test whether two people- —an African American woman from South Side Chicago who is descended from enslaved people, and a white man from central Oregon who is descended from the largest slave-trading dynasty in U.S. history —could come to grips with deep, traumatic, historic wounds and find healing. We had no idea where we would end up. We were just lost souls looking for direction and relief.

So there we were, sitting in a car in Alabama, bearing witness to yet another example of the great American trauma that keeps all of us mired in the misery of racism. Grappling with that awareness isn'’t easy, especially when sitting next to a woman crying her heart out over something I couldn'’t totally comprehend.

The hard truth is that my face does represent the face of oppression. I’'m white. I’'m male. I’'m heterosexual. I'’m able-bodied. I was raised Christian in a middle-class home and community. Until the summer of 2001, when I joined members of the DeWolf family on a mission to retrace the triangle slave-trade route of our ancestors, I was blissfully unaware of my unearned privilege. On that journey I was exposed to horrific truths about the foundations upon which America is built and the systems that continue to benefit people who look like me and discriminate against people who look like Sharon.

In spite of that understanding, what Sharon said did not seem fair. I am not my slave-trading ancestors. I helped expose their sins when we made the PBS/POV documentary "Traces of the Trade" and when I wrote my first book, "Inheriting the Trade".

One great revelation along the way came from Coming to the Table co-founder Will Hairston, who said to me, “Guilt is the glue that holds racism together.” We build walls with bricks of denial to protect ourselves from feeling it. In the end, guilt is divisive and counterproductive. Instead of the destructive feeling of guilt, what I do feel is profound grief over the enormous damage done. I feel a responsibility to acknowledge and address the consequences of our historical inheritance. That is why I dedicate myself (and encourage other white people to do the same) to using my privilege to expose the truth and make a positive difference.

During the three years after that day in the parking lot, Sharon and I drove thousands more miles and waded ever deeper into the morass of history. Along the way, we laughed, cried, argued, and shared transformative experiences that changed the way we both look at the world. We subsequently participated in STAR trainings (Strategies for Trauma Awareness & Resilience) through CJP to seek ways to make sense of it all. Through STAR, we learned about terrifying social patterns exhibited by deeply traumatized societies and what we can do to heal their effects.

 
Photo by Kristin Little.
 

The hidden wound

In 1970, poet, essayist, and environmentalist Wendell Berry published “The Hidden Wound,” a 137-page essay on race and racism. He wrote: "“[Racism] involves an emotional dynamic that has disordered the heart both of the society as a whole and of every person in the society."” He said, “"I want to know, as fully and exactly as I can, what the wound is and how much I am suffering from it. And I want to be cured; I want to be free of the wound myself, and I do not want to pass it on to my children. … I know if I fail to make at least the attempt, I forfeit any right to hope that the world will become better than it is now.”"
 

People of color fall on the negative side of virtually all measurable social indicators.

A foundational American belief is that certain people are less than human, singled out for disdain, undeserving of respect, and certainly not entitled to equal representation in the “American Dream.” The short list of atrocities that define the African American experience shows those beliefs in action: African people were enslaved in all 13 original colonies. Ninety-five percent of all American trans-Atlantic slave-trading originated from northern ports. Rhode Island, home to the DeWolf slave traders, was responsible for 50 percent of it. More than two centuries of brutalization during slavery were followed by 100 years of Jim Crow. Slaves were formally liberated, but African Americans were subjected to the terrorism of the Ku Klux Klan, lynching, and other atrocities. Beginning in 1910, in two waves over 60 years, more than 5 million people joined the Great Migration from the South. They sought opportunity in the “promised land” of the North, but found only a veneer of equality. The Red Summer of 1919, a wave of riots initiated by whites against blacks in both Northern and Southern cities, proved the point.

Today, relative to white people, people of color fall on the negative side of virtually all measurable social indicators. In 2014, the Pew Research Center reported that “the median white household was worth $141,900, 12.9 times more than the typical black household, which was worth just $11,000.” Poverty rates for African Americans are more than 160 percent higher; unemployment is double. White and black Americans use and sell illegal drugs at remarkably similar rates, but African Americans are incarcerated at 10 times the rate of whites for drug offenses. Seventy-six unarmed black people were killed by police from 1999–2014, including—just in the last year— Michael Brown (Missouri), Eric Garner (New York), and John Crawford (Ohio). According to ProPublica’s analysis of federally collected data on fatal police shootings, “young black males in recent years were at a far greater risk of being shot dead by police than their white counterparts —21 times greater.”

 

Cycles of violence

The STAR program emerged in the aftermath of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks of September 11, 2001. As described in "STAR: The Unfolding Story 2001-–2011", the Center for Justice and Peace building at Eastern Mennonite University and Church World Service partnered to create a training program for religious leaders and caregivers working to support traumatized communities. The program evolved into trainings that were useful to anyone working with traumatized individuals and communities. It is grounded in a multidisciplinary framework that integrates neurobiology, psychology, restorative justice, conflict transformation, human security, and spirituality. More than 7,000 people working in more than 60 locations around the world have received STAR training.

No one can “just get over” traumatic wounds. That’s not how our bodies and brains work.

The illustration below of the “Cycles of Violence” shows how people typically respond to traumatic wounds. We become caught up in a seemingly infinite loop of victimhood and aggression that is fueled by reenactment. Our conscious and unconscious beliefs about how and why we'’ve been harmed and who caused the harm often result in a desire for retribution. As STAR trainers say, “hurt people hurt people.” Traumatic wounds result from a variety of sources and impact individuals, families, communities, and societies. These impacts fester in wounds that have never healed—like the legacies of slavery, racism, sexism, and religious intolerance. Trauma affects the well-being of the whole person: body, mind, and spirit.

No one can “just get over” traumatic wounds. That’s not how our bodies and brains work. If we don’t do the work we need to heal, we end up trapped in cycles of violence. But that’s not inevitable. The STAR approach offers ways to break the cycles.

 

Recovering from trauma and building resilience

Without intervention, our thoughts and feelings become beliefs. Our beliefs direct our actions and inform the reality of our everyday lives. If we are stuck in cycles of violence, our thoughts, beliefs, and actions become mired in fear. Breaking cycles of violence and building resilience requires fully engaging our brains with the conscious intention of healing.

The actions that lead toward healing and reconciliation center on acknowledging the harm through mourning, confronting our fears, hearing the story of the “Other,” choosing to forgive, and incorporating principles of restorative justice in ways that proffer dignity for all who have been harmed by stressing responsibility and restitution.

The STAR approach connects personal and community healing with organizational and societal well-being. It rests at the foundation of the Coming to the Table approach to healing the lingering wounds that emanate from the American institution of slavery. The four interrelated activities involved in the Coming to the Table method are:

First: Researching, acknowledging, and sharing personal, family, and societal histories of race with openness and honesty. Truth and reconciliation commissions in countries like South Africa, Brazil, Colombia, and Canada are model attempts to reveal the whole truth of egregious wounds that afflict modern societies. They are typically combined with attempts to implement restorative justice to correct the wrongs.
Breaking cycles of violence and building resilience requires fully engaging our brains with the conscious intention of healing.

Second: Connecting with others within and across racial lines in order to develop deep and accountable relationships. As an example, the original intent of the founders of Coming to the Table was to connect “linked descendants”—people who have a joint history in slavery (i.e., descendants of slaves and their slaveholders)—with a goal of engaging them in communication with one another and coming to terms with their shared history. In our own case, we are not as directly connected as that, but were able to find a way by “making friends on purpose” to cross the breach.

Third: Exploring ways to heal together. Support groups help people build meaningful relationships by sharing stories about traumatic experiences and responses. Rituals related to acknowledgement of the past help create connections between past and present in order to understand where harms originated, how they affect us in contemporary times, and how we can move forward to healing.

Fourth: The model challenges us to actively champion systemic change that supports repair and reconciliation between individuals, within families, and throughout society. The persistent inequality between races results from structural systems in which people are treated differently based on difference (race, power, privilege, etc.). From the recent Department of Justice report damning the pervasive, discriminatory policing practices in Ferguson, Missouri, to the persistent disparities between black and white people in wealth, education, health, employment, and housing, the effects are before our eyes if we are willing to see. The greatest challenge is eliminating disparities so that all people are treated equally and without prejudice based on their race, religion, gender, or sexual orientation.

There is no particular sequence to these four activities. In the final analysis, all are essential to move forward from trauma to healing. With regard to racism, white people often want to rush toward reconciliation without doing the necessary hard work that is required along the way. We are here to tell you: The road is not easy, but the benefits are enormous.
 

What you can do today

Racism. Sexism. Religious intolerance. Inequality. Violence.

It is easy to feel overwhelmed.

What can one person do?

Engage your rational brain. Think about things in different ways. Examine your subconscious beliefs. Act in ways that lead toward positive change. Open your eyes to the injustices around you. Open your heart to see others, not as the “Other” but as brothers and sisters in the human family. You will find that others who believe as you do will congregate together and build social and political power to change the institutions that presently seem to control our fate. When people’s hearts and minds change, collectives like Coming to the Table can be empowered to bring change to society at large.

In 49 B.C., Julius Caesar stood on the northern bank of the Rubicon River in Italy, leading an army in defiance of the Roman Republic. It was an act of treason. The phrase “crossing the Rubicon” has survived to refer to any individual or group committing itself irrevocably to a risky or revolutionary course of action. It has come to mean “passing the point of no return.”

In 1965, John Lewis and more than 600 others crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge, the Rubicon of their day. We stand on the shore of today’s Rubicon—the Rubicon of racism. We have a choice to make. We can choose the difficult task to acknowledge and heal our nation’s historic, inherited wounds and break free from the Cycles of Violence. Or we can do as our ancestors have done to us: pass the wounds on to our children.

How will you choose? 

Sharon Leslie Morgan and Thomas Norman DeWolf co-authored Gather at the Table: The Healing Journey of a Daughter of Slavery and a Son of the Slave Trade (Beacon Press). Sharon is a pioneer in multicultural marketing and a founder of the National Black Public Relations Society. She is founder of OurBlackAncestry.com. Tom is the author of Inheriting the Trade (Beacon Press). He is executive director for Coming to the Table, a STAR Practitioner, and a Certified Trainer for “Infinite Possibilities: The Art of Changing Your Life.” Sharon and Tom thank Elaine Zook Barge, Assistant Professor of the Practice of Trauma Awareness & Resilience, for her invaluable input to this article.

 

http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/make-it-right/healing-historys-wound?utm_source=YTW&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=20150522

What Do You Mean by Karma?

Karma implies, does it not, cause and effect, action based on cause, producing a certain effect; action born out of conditioning, producing further results. So karma implies cause and effect. And are cause and effect static, are cause and effect ever fixed? Does not effect become cause also? So there is no fixed cause or fixed effect.

Today is a result of yesterday, is it not? Today is the outcome of yesterday, chronologically as well as psychologically; and today is the cause of tomorrow. So cause is effect, and effect becomes cause, it is one continuous movement: there is no fixed cause or fixed effect. If there were a fixed cause and a fixed effect, there would be specialization; and is not specialization death? Any species that specializes obviously comes to an end. 

The greatness of man is that he cannot specialize. He may specialize technically, but in structure he cannot specialize. An acorn seed is specialized, it cannot be anything but what it is. But the human being does not end completely. There is the possibility of constant renewal; he is not limited by specialization. As long as we regard the cause, the background, the conditioning, as unrelated to the effect, there must be conflict between thought and the background. So the problem is much more complex than whether to believe in reincarnation or not, because the question is how to act, not whether you believe in reincarnation or in karma. That is absolutely irrelevant.  
(J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life)

Spirit of Gangaputra

Spirit of Gangaputra 

by GreatGameIndia

A Gangaputra is Born
 

Everyone born in Ganga river basin is a Gangaputra,
however it is only through one’s own karma that he actually becomes a Gangaputra.
- From the upcoming book of Kaushal Kishore, author of The Holy Ganga

On a bitterly cold morning on 19 February 2011, Shivananda’s disciple Nigamananda sat under a mango tree in the ashram compound and started an indefinite fast. He was protesting the stay order by the high court Bench that had allowed Himalaya Stone Crusher to continue its activities. Matri Sadan’s allegation was that the stone crusher was functioning in the Kumbh Mela area, which, according to state government regulations, should be free of any stone quarrying or crushing activity.

This was Matri Sadan’s 30th Satyagraha against illegal sand and stone mining over the past 14 years. Nigamananda had previously participated in five of them — fasting for extended periods, which on occasion stretched into a couple of months.

Over the past 10 years, the state government had sent Shivananda and his disciples to jail thrice for staging agitations.

Nigamananda (who had studied in Delhi and, poignantly, left a middle-class home in Bihar in 1995 in search of ‘truth’) and Matri Sadan, the ashram he belonged to, had been waging a humbling and heroic battle against Haridwar’s mining mafia.

Swami Nigmanand’s humble adobe Matri Sadan in Haridwar
 

It was finally shut down only after the Uttarakhand High Court ordered its closure on 26 May, 25 days after Swami Nigamananda had slipped into a coma and 16 days before he passed away.

The order by the two-judge high court Bench headed by Uttarakhand Chief Justice Barin Ghosh is full of censure and tells its own strong story. The Bench wrote:
 
The crusher owners got their license renewed from time to time by the executive authority concerned despite the resistance raised by several social activists… representatives of the surrounding villages. One of the most prominent resistances was manifested by the saints of Matri Sadan Ashram whose location, as it appears, is not far from this crusher. But their voice proved to be a wild-goose chase against the influence of the crusher owners, gen was perhaps an outcome of this high profiteering calling. Under the garb of lifting boulders, the crusher owners started to dig the floor and banks of national river Ganga, causing deleterious affect not only upon the entire surrounding society but also upon humanity at large.

Everything the court said upheld the allegations Matri Sadan had leveled for more than a decade.
 
“Due to consistent digging and mining in the Ganga by Himalaya Stone Crusher and others, the river has become deepened and as a result the groundwater level has depleted in the thousands of acres of surrounding land. Even hand pumps in the villages in the area have been without drinking water in their borings.

Because of dust emanating from the crushers, the agricultural production in many villages has been reduced to nullity. So is the case in surrounding orchards, especially of mangoes, forcing the farmers to sell their lands to crusher owners. The illegal mining has also caused soil erosion in large swathes along the Ganga.

The Himalayan Stone Crusher was being run in violation of the Mining Policy 2001, which mandated that crushers should be at least 5 km from any human habitation. The suspended particles released by the crushers are causing diseases like tuberculosis, asthma and other respiratory diseases to local villagers.

The crusher, located in the agricultural green belt and also ecologically fragile zone, was never granted the NOC by Haridwar Development Authority.”

Finally, Nigamananda died on 13 June 2011, in the same hospital, in the same ward where Ramdev was being treated in the ICU, after just seven days of fasting. Baba Ramdev knew how to catch attention. Infamously, he also knew how to run. Swami Nigamananda didn’t know how to do either. While Ramdev was hogging national attention with emotive issues like declaring all black money stashed abroad as “national wealth” and threatening to hang the corrupt, far away from media glare, Nigamananda, 38, had been fasting for a mind-boggling 68 days for something much more concrete — and of even greater national implication. Nigamananda was fighting to save the Ganga.

Briefly, the glaring ironies around the stories of the two men created a furore. But soon — in death as in life — the real and urgent cause Nigamananda had been fighting for was quickly forgotten.

But it would be a great mistake to leave it as forgotten. What Nigmanand did lit an eternal flame; the spirit and conviction of which was ignited in another unwavering saint Baba Nagnath who took on the bastion from Gangaputra Nigmanand and continued the heroic struggle for the preservation of Mother Ganga.
 

Tapas of Gangaputra
 

Some try to find the Guru by shaving their heads at the Ganga,
but I have made the Guru my Ganga.
- Shri Guru Granth Sahib

Tapasvi Gangaputra Baba Nagnath aka Pappu Bhaiya

After the death of Ganga Putra Nigamananda, the Ganga Mukti Movement reached in its second phase. There is a thin-line demarcation between the two phases of the Ganga Mukti Movement. The line draws with the fact that all life the martyr was denied from any recognition for his contribution, as if the goddess exacted from him the very last part of his individual surrender. In the second phase of the movement the entire world knew that there is a Gangaputra somewhere in a corner doing austerity like the King Bhagiratha.

Many prominent experts and activists gathered to discuss the issue of the Agony of Ganga in Delhi between 14th and 15th July 2012. The press release of the conference clearly states that the participants unanimously agreed for the Aviral and Nirmal Ganga (free and uninterrupted flow). In addition one more Baba emerged out of this program.

Shri Arun Kumar ‘Panibaba’ declared the Avahanam as a campaign of penance for the sins committed in order to pollute the Ganga. Panibaba campaigns with Swami Anand Swaroop (Anand Pandey) in different places on the banks of the Ganga.

On 13 June, 2013 to commemorate the death anniversary of Swami Nigamanand (his associates alleged he was poisoned at the behest of powerful stone crusher lobby), the 80-year-old former IIT professor, who is now known as Swami Gyan Swarup Sanand (G D Agarwal) started his fast.

Swami Dayanand of Matri Sadan Ashram said Agarwal resumed his fast because despite repeated assurances of the government, 18 proposed mini and major hydropower projects on the Ganga and its tributaries have not been scrapped.

Swami Sananda operates under the banner of Ganga Seva Abhiyanam and his guru is the head of this mission. Swamiji comes from western part of Uttar Pradesh with a scientific background. Dr. Agarwal successfully stopped some of the hydro projects of Uttarakhand when he has initiated his struggle.

The third face was Baba Naganath, who hails from the ancient streets of Kasi and lives amidst the burning pyres of the Manikarnika Ghat. He started his tapas on November 29, 2008 and stopped taking foodstuff with a sankalp to see the natural free-flow of the Ganga. Naganath did not eat for more than last four years, and police forced him to hospital many times during this period. He was on glucose drips and medication. After 5 years, 7 months and 12 days of fasts almost 2050 days his body became stiff, he could hardly bend his hands. In order to support the protest or tapas of Naganath the doms of Manikarnika stopped burying the dead bodies for a couple days on several occasions in these last five years.
 

“This is a dam built with our tears” - Sunderlal Bahuguna

The Tehri Dam – is the highest dam in India and tenth tallest dam in the world. It is a multi-purpose rock and earth-fill embankment dam on the Bhagirathi River near Tehri in Uttarakhand, India. The dam is a 260.5 metres (855 ft) high rock and earth-fill embankment dam. Its length is 575 metres. Tehri Hydro Power Complex (2400 MW), comprises the following components:
Tehri Dam & Hydro Power Plant (1000 MW)
Koteshwar Hydro Electric Project (400 MW)
Tehri Pumped Storage Plant (PSP) (1000 MW) (Total capacity 2400 MW)

Tehri Dam Uttarakhand – the highest dam in India and tenth tallest dam in the world

Tehri Hydro Development Corporation (THDC) is a joint venture of the Government of India and the state government of Uttaranchal. In 1986 an Indo-Soviet agreement brought Soviet expertise and aid of approximately $416 million to the project. In 2001 the German export credit agency Hermes guaranteed loans to Voith Siemens Hydro to provide generating equipment for Tehri.

Although land acquisition started in 1979, resettlement of affected people is far from complete. There is no master plan for rehabilitation nor even a clear estimate of the number of people affected. Past estimates range from 67,500 to 97,000. This estimate excludes a large number of people who will lose their lands but have not been officially recognised as project-affected.

Among those officially recognised, only half of the fully affected, and very few of the partially affected families have been resettled. In most cases the land allotted is of poor quality or with multiple ownership claims.

Tehri Dam has met strong popular resistance from its earliest days.

In 1978 a Committee to Oppose the Tehri Dam or the Tehri Bandh Virodhi Sangharsh Samiti (TBVSS) was formed. TVBSS succeeded in pressuring authorities to review the project on several occasions.

The project was abandoned in the mid 1980s after being sharply criticized on environmental grounds by a government appointed review committee.

In 1987 the project was again referred to a committee of the Ministry of Environment to assess its safety and environmental and social impacts. This committee unanimously ruled against the project but the Indian government overruled its findings and restarted the project.

After a 74-day hunger strike in 1996, Sunderlal Bahuguna, a Gandhian activist and long-time opponent of the dam, forced the government to set up a review of the seismic, environmental and rehabilitation aspects of the project. The Hanumantha Rao Committee submitted its report and recommendations in 1997. The government has failed to implement most of the committee’s recommendations, especially those concerning rehabilitation.

In 1992 environmentalists filed a case in the Supreme Court alleging that project authorities had not acquired the mandatory environmental clearance for the dam. The petition addresses environment, seismicity and rehabilitation issues. The case is currently pending.

Since November 29, 2008 Baba Nagnath was on fast demanding uninterrupted flow of the River Ganga that was affected owing to the construction of the Tehri Dam that was built over the Bhagirathi River, which is also considered a part of the Ganga in Uttarakhand. Lately he had been admitted in ICU of Banaras Hindu University Medical College in Varanasi.
 
I have been on an indefinite hunger strike since November 29, 2008, for the uninterrupted flow of the River Ganga. During this period, I wrote many letters to the authorities to attract attention to my cause, but till now no action has been taken. There was also correspondence with the administration, but it was again of no use. Due to this, I am in this condition today.

Nagnath further stated that his cause is very important to him and he does not mind dying for it.
 

I can give up my life but cannot leave my resolve for the uninterrupted flow of the Ganga. And if I die without achieving my cause, then the government will be responsible for this.

Gangaputra Baba Nagnath passed away early this morning on 11th July 2014 after an epic struggle of 2050 days fast at a hospital in Varanasi.

At this juncture we would like to pause and understand what drove these great sages; the vision these modern day Gangaputras were actually fighting for.
 

Legend of Ganga
 

That end which a creature is capable of attaining by penances, by Brahmacharya, by sacrifices, or by practicing renunciation,
one is sure to attain by only living by the side of Bhagirathi(Ganga)
and bathing in her sacred waters.
- Mahabharata, Anusasana Parva, Chapter 27, Verse 26
 

Once King Sagar – the ruler of Ayodhya and an ancestor of Lord Rama successfully performed the Ashwamedha Yagya for 99 times. Each time, he sent the horse around the earth it returned to the kingdom unchallenged. However, Indra – the King of God’s became jealous of King Sagar’s success. So when King Sagar performed the sacrifice of the 100th time, Indra kidnapped and hid the Yagya horse in the hermitage of Kapila Muni.

In search of the horse, sixty thousand princes from Ayodhya reached Kapil Muni’s hermitage. They mistook the sage to be the abductor and attacked him. An enraged Kapila Muni burnt the 60,000 princes to ashes. On hearing about the plight of his father and uncles, King Bhagiratha – one of the grandchildren of King Sagar requested Kapila Muni to grant a solution to the problem. Kapila Muni advised that the waters of the river Ganga would miraculously bring back the dead princes to life.

King Bhagirath left his kingdom and began to mediate for the salvation of the souls of his ancestors. It is said that Bhagirath observed a penance to Brahma for a thousand years, requesting Ganga to come down to earth from heaven and wash over his ancestor’s ashes to release them from a curse and allow them to go to heaven. Pleased with the devotion, Brahma granted Bhagirath’s wish but told him to pray to Lord Shiva, as he alone could sustain the weight of her descent.

Accordingly, Lord Shiva held out his thick matted hair to catch the river as she descended. The meandering through Shiva’s lock softened Ganga’s journey to the earth and the holy waters of river Ganga thus washed away the ashes of Bhagirath’s ancestors. A modified version of the legend says, what reached the earth were just sprinkles from Lord Shiva’s hair. The Ganga, thus, became an attribute of Shiva. This manifestation of Shiva is known as Gangadhara.

The legend is re-enacted by devotees of Lord Shiva as they give a bath to the linga during worship. And for this reason, many devotees prefer to take a dip in the holy water of river Ganga on a Shivaratri day.
 

River of Life
 

Maano to hai Ganga Mata, Na maano to behta pani.
One may, by putting forth one’s best powers,
count the stones that occur in the mountains of Meru
or measure the waters that occur in the ocean,
but one cannot count all the merits
which belong to the waters of Ganga.
- Mahabharata, Anusasana Parva, Chapter 27, Verse 97

There is no scripture in our vast body of spiritual literature from the Vedas, Mahabharat and Ramayan to the eighteen puranas to even the Holy Quran and Shri Guru Granth Sahib that do not mention the purity and glory of the Mother Ganga and several have elaborate hymns in her praise.

Yet in our ‘modern’ age we seem to be forgetting this uniqueness and considering this holy river no more than a flow of water to be harnessed for hydro power. 

Ernest Hanbury Hankins
 
Around last decade of eighteenth century a British bacteriologist, aeronautical theorist and naturalist Ernest Hanbury Hankins carried out research on the water of the divine river Ganga.

His research was interesting! He found that ‘vibrio choleri’, the virus causing the epidemic cholera, dies out within three hours when treated with the water of the Ganga. The results were published in Annales De Institute Pasteur, No 10, pg 511-523 in the year 1896. Earlier, such types of researches were performed by different researchers on a number of rivers in Europe and America. Prof. Krylov earlier recorded that vibrio choleri lived for nearly 568 days in water of the Russian river Volga, Prof. Smitowich reported that it lives for several months in the wells of Russia. Japanese scientist Yano found that the vibrio remained alive in sterilized water for 245 days! But, Prof. Hankin’s research was a complete surprise as he reported that the vibrio in no case lives more than three hours in the water of the river Ganga!

The British government in India invited Prof. Felix D’Herelle, who was nominated for Nobel Prize eight times during his life, to study cholera. It was 1927. He was accompanied by Dr. Malone, from McGill University, and Dr. Lahiri. He repeated the experiment of Prof. Hankin extensively in terms of time and number of samples. He found that not only vibrio choleri but also B. Coli, which causes dysentery, dies out within four hours when comes in contact with the water of the river Ganga! His findings were published in Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine, Vol 1(4), pg 195-219. From Prof. Felix to Prof. C S. Nautial many researchers studied the virus/bacteriophage nature of the water of the Ganga and published the results in different high impact journals.
Double-Blind Test of the Effects of Distant Intention on Water Crystal Formation

Dr Masaru Emoto, the Japanese scientist and water researcher, revealed the true nature of water and how thoughts and vibrations affect the molecular structure of water. In his years of water research, through high speed photography of thousands of water crystals, Dr Emoto has shown how our thoughts and intentions can alter physical reality.

Experiments over the past four decades have investigated whether intention affects properties of water. This question is of interest to complementary and alternative medicine research, and especially for therapies involving intention, because the adult human body consists of approximately 70% water. The question has been studied by comparing the effects of intentionally “treated” water versus untreated control water on the germination and growth of plants, including barley, wheat, rye, beans, cress, radishes, and lettuce. Other properties of water that have been examined include rate of cooling, molecular bonding as reflected by infrared spectra alterations, Raman spectroscopy, scattered laser light, and pH level. Although formal metaanalyses have not been performed on these studies, overall, the experiments provide evidence suggesting that various properties of water may be influenced by intention.

Interest in this topic has been rekindled recently by claims suggesting that intentionally influenced water can be detected by examining ice crystals formed from samples of that water. The specific claims that positive intentions tend to produce symmetric, well-formed, aesthetically pleasing crystals, and negative intentions tend to produce asymmetric, poorly formed, unattractive crystals.

Microphotographic Analysis

Using a new method of investigation called ‘microphotographic analysis’ tests were carried out on 9 samples of Gangajal from Gangotri to Haridwar taken during the ongoing Kumbh. These were sent to Switzerland, Acquaviva where the Ganga crystals were photographed by people totally unconnected and unaware of our traditions and cultures.

What followed was astounding not only to them but also to us. The Ganga crystals form a hexagonal structure that is found mainly in pure spring water. The beautiful hexagonal structure of the crystals remained largely unaltered over the large stretch of approx. 300km despite being dammed and polluted. It is also important to note that usually rivers or waters with hexagonal structures get altered once they come in touch with contamination.

In Tehri dam one can see the contracted almost suffocated image of the crystal and then it manages to expand again at Haridwar where Acquaviva investigators felt it takes the form of a ‘crown’ – through their own intuition. It is no coincidence in our mind that at Har ki Pauri where indeed she is most worshipped as a Goddess especially during the Kumbh the crystal reveals itself like a crown.

The researchers reach the same conclusion that our scriptures speak of – ‘polluting substances or other negative energies do not contaminate it due to the great amount of worship and prayer of which it is recipient.’
 

Even if thousands and thousands of sinners
touch the dead bodies and bathe in thee,
all those will be destroyed
when devotees and worshippers will come and touch thee.
- Devi Bhagvatam, Skanda 9
 

Introduction and Explanation of Micro-Photographic Analysis of Water
by Tiziano Paolini, Aqua Viva

The pictures of the water crystal are taken examining a droplet of frozen water under the microscope. The crystal appears on the tip of the droplet and one must have the ability to choose the right spot and moment to take the picture. The dimensions we work with are in thousandth of a millimeter therefore precision is a very important factor.

The shape of the crystal is given by the union of molecules through the hydrogen bond. Molecules receive an ‘order from above’ to arrange themselves in a certain way and this ‘order’ is a high-frequency wave which no scientific device can perceive while water can.

If we expose grains of sand lying on a metal plate to the vibration of a violin bow we will observe the grains arranging themselves in a specific geometrical form (more on this in later articles, see video to understand the concept).

If by analogy we substitute the grains of sand with the molecules, and the sound vibration with a ‘vibration from above’ (a super-sensory/celestial vibration), we will have the pictures you are looking at. In fact water has the ability to make visible a dimension of reality which has been upto now unknown.
 

Excerpt from the letter by the Aquaviva lab that carried out the study:
 
On our side there was a bias when we began this work, as previous information had described the Ganges as one of the most polluted rivers in the Planet.

It was therefore a surprise and a wonder that in nearly all these tests the water has manifested the shape of an hexagonal crystal that is normally found only in pure spring waters. The presence of this hexagonal shape means that this water maintains its original characteristics through contact with its source and that polluting substances or other negative energies do not contaminate it due to the great amount of worship and prayer of which it is recipient.

It is therefore evident that the positive thoughts sent to it by those who love the Ganges prevail over the negative chemical and physical characteristics that occur when the river is mistakenly seen as only matter.

The history of the Maha Kumbha Mela is associated with the story of creation of amrit (the divine nectar) and vish (poison). The water of the river Ganga is like amrit, which is capable of providing a disease-free long and healthy life, as laboratory experiments revealed in recent days. Hence, it is a necessity not only for the four million people of the eleven states situated on the Ganga- Jamuna doab but also for every India from Kashmir to Kanyakumari irrespective of their religion and language. It is our national need. The Ganga was declared the national river in the year 2009. Perhaps, it is the only river that has got such a status. But, we the advocate of mechanical life theory are turning the divine nectar into deadly poison through our passion of making heavy industries.

In view of this it is absolutely vital that the river be allowed to flow undiverted and untrammeled, so that this profound and subtle interchange between her devotees and herself is carried on as it has been for centuries and she can maintain the essential energy and spiritual force that is her gift to humanity. In fact the very word Ganga comes from the Sanskrit root verb ‘gam’ which means ‘to flow’.
 

Spirit of Gangaputra
There is much anguish among the various communities after losing two Gangaputras in a short span of 3 years. What has happened is the concentration of two opposing groups on either sides of the issue. Most of us are already aware of the part the establishment played in the issue through mainstream reporting. However not much is reported about the other side. We at GreatGameIndia interacted with many leaders of the resistance who shared their valuable insight and further action on the subject.

Acutely aware of the dynamics and the phase the Ganga Movement has reached, Deepak Malviya a dedicated Ganga devotee and a life-long revolutionary initiated the Ganga Alliance in association with Servants of the Peoples Society founded by Lalalajpat Rai bringing together many different groups, activists, experts, professionals, politicians and religious heads dedicated to the cause and to carry forward the legacy of these fearless Gangaputras. In a candid talk Malviyaji told us that Swaraj and self-reliance the cornerstones of our freedom struggle and the national consciousness that emerged out of it seem to have disappeared in this age of Entrepreneur Babas and Celebrity Reformers. In such a state what would the government do to the dreams of Gangaputra Nagnath who sacrificed his life demanding Ganga-rights ? That would depend on the kind of reactions that comes up from the common populace on this martyrdom in Banaras. The death of Nagnath is an inauspicious indication to the Hindu Nationalist government, the advocates of Ganga reform.

Dr Onkar Mittal, President of Society for Action and Community Health (SACH) and a prominent grassroot activist in the Ganga Alliance believes Baba Nagnath Tiwari was a saint in the legion carrying the legacy of Gangaputra Nigmanand. All his life thanks to the establishment he lived like a pendulum swinging between hospital and math. Finally his tapasya ended same like Nigmanand in the ICU. This was a second sacrifice after 3 years for the esteem of Ganga.

According to Trilochan Shastri, administrator of one of the most famous temple Tulsimanas Mandir who knew Baba Nagnath personally; Baba aka Pappu Bhaiya had shown a happy surprise at the victory of his favored Loksabha candidate Narendra Modi and was very hopeful after he became the Prime Minister. Baba was overjoyed dreaming of the beginning of AccheDin after 16th May. He truly hoped the new government would leave no stones unturned in achieving his long cherished aim of free and uninterrupted flow of river Ganga. But when no positive indication was found in the new Budget he was hurt beyond repair. The apparent crisis that would arise from the expanding network of tunnels and the perplexity of rail lines started to haunt him. He could not emerge from this deep setback and said his last goodbyes to the world. The sorrowful end to this Gandhian Satyagrahi would always be remembered as symbol of a rude shock to the basic foundations of the Indian Constitution.

Mr Shastri who himself is a renowned astrologer further added that he could not understand why the new government chose to begin it’s regime in the Bhadra Nakshtra believed to be a bad omen to start any new enterprise in; that too amidst fierce protests from orthodox Brahmins. According to him Baba Nagnath was the first victim of the cursed Modi regime.

However there are others who believe that the first victim of the cursed Modi regime; who was arrested dramatically on the very same day exit polls predicted a victory for the BJP was none other than Amaresh Misra the distinguished historian, internationally acclaimed for portraying a fearless and challenging account of the 1857 Revolt in his book War of Civilizations. Also a script writer for the multi-starrer film Bullet Raja, Misra was deeply hurt by the way the establishment treated such great sages and shared with us his unwavering commitment to their noble cause the fire of which he would like to ignite in each and every Indian through the Ganga Alliance.

Another crusader joining the Ganga Alliance is the much revered ecologist Shri Arun Kumar Panibaba. While talking to us Panibaba shed light on the next phase the Ganga Mukti Movement has entered after the sacrifice of Gangaputra Nigmanand and Nagnath. According to him the movement has now reached a point where two different Satyagrahi groups emerge clearly. At one side there are players like Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev while at the other there are Gangaputras and Tapasvis like Swami Nigmanand and Baba Nagnath. Spread apart between two diametrically opposite poles the balance of these movements lay in the hands of the political economy. Finally the frontline spokesperson of the Ganga Alliance and the author of The Holy Ganga Kaushal Kishore shared with us his personal experience with Baba Nagnath at a small and old math attached to the cremation ground at Manikarnika Ghat where he was fasting. As soon as I entered his hut I was presented with heart rending scenes. A medical expert was injecting his lifeless body. After some questioning I learned that since the establishment made him a subject of experiment of medical science his body started to turn lifeless. I looked carefully at his hands that were like lifeless rocks impossible to even bend. Trilochan Shastri and Kapindra Tiwari were at his service. After sometime he turned towards me and said, “Who said Nigmanand is dead ?”. I was stunned after hearing this. He said in a strong voice “I am Nigmanand”. I could never forget that day. The words from Baba Nagnath’s lifeless body were not the least lifeless. The spirit of Gangaputra lives on.
 

Report by Rakesh Misra & Shelley Kasli