The Yogic Principle
Discover more from SONIA TER HOVANESSIAN
The Yogic Principle
Article One of The Abundance Series
I’m in a paradise, a paradise island. Beautiful, pristine, crystalline, peaceful waters, gently lapping small bays, that are delightfully desolate, waiting silently for the summer hoards. I’m staying at a friend of a friend’s who’s got the most incredible off-grid property, a farm he’s painstakingly developing, building it up all on his own, with Wwoofers where possible, but really, it’s him, a one-man project. He’s got the ideas, he’s got the focus, and to make money in order to fund all of this in the tourist season he works at the local beach, Jerusalem, as captured above. Money is getting tight because since he inherited this land from his father, they’ve introduced extra laws and taxes in Greece, evermore to squeeze us into submission, resulting in a tax bill on his land of exorbitant levels. And so, to make ends meet he works at the nearby beach renting out sun lounges and parasols, and all the while he’s got fields of wheat, olive groves, oregano, garlic, so much that needs tending to; the property that needs building, and maintenance of existing and new projects, all sorts of things requiring his attention back home. And yet this beach job is what he does in the tourist season, catering to us holiday-makers who come and lie like beached whales on these peaceful shores.
And here I am staying on his property, a very spontaneous decision to come here, from one day to the next, quite literally, with a good friend who could see I was in a pickle and I needed a break and some healing. And I come here and yesterday I went running down to this beach. I’m running back and forth, back forth, doing my laps on the flat bit down there, cos this island certainly not flat, and hills are quite the challenge. And as I’m running along I see the shores littered with colourful bits of plastic and I’m horrified. You know, I’ve seen it get worse over the years, in my time working in travel, in places like Puglia, which is surrounded by coast. I’ve spent time there where when I’ve gone into the waters, seemingly to relax and just have a little swim around, use my snorkel to have a look at the fish, I end up looking at the plastic, and then picking the plastic out of the water, one bit after another. And it’s endless.
So here I am, I get back to the farm from my run and I report on how much plastic I’ve seen on the beach.
“Yeah, I know, we haven’t gone out to clean before the season hits yet”
It’s an organised effort. Has it got anything to do with the government? No, of course not. It’s an initiative done by local people, local businesses, because the authorities don’t step in.
Remind me what our taxes are for?
And on my second morning here, I come down to the beach with a massive black bin liner, a grabby stick and blue gloves and in my mind I had thought I’d be able to clear a lot of the beach. I managed to do perhaps a quarter of it, at best, and really only what my eyes could spot on the surface. As I went along, methodically picking up plastic, piece by disintegrating piece, I could still see plastic left behind, pieces so small that it had become indistinguishable but for its colour, from the natural beach. And honestly, I just don’t know how to pick this plastic up without taking away all the stones too. And that’s just on the surface, and what my natural eye can spot. I dread to think about the microplastics.
What are we doing people?
And I’m not talking solely about each individual who leaves their rubbish behind, their little plastic cups behind on the beach. It’s not so much the beach dwellers, most of this plastic is pushed onto the shores by the sea itself. It comes from beyond the sea, beyond these shores, almost as if mother nature is trying to expel it from her calming waters, as our bodies do any toxin our system may encounter. How did it get there? More than individual people polluting, most of this plastic comes from big industries, shipping containers, big businesses, hotel chains, and so on.
What are we doing?
Do you see your governments talking about this or are they just going on at you about how diesel and petrol vehicles are terrible? And their proposed lithium-powered cars and solar panels and wind turbines is their solution? Really? Let’s apply some critical thought to this.
Do you know how long a solar panel lasts and do you know what happens after its lifespan? From my research, I learned that on average solar panels last 25-30 years and also that there are legal requirements that must be met when getting rid of them, since they contain toxic waste materials. They can’t just be sent to landfill, as landfill sites are not equipped to deal with these hazardous components. Therefore, in the UK at least, solar panels must be recycled.
Toxic waste materials.
Have you ever driven by a field of solar panels?
And what about wind? I have been up close and personal with the wind industry through a relationship of mine and seen from up-close how humungous they truly are. What do you do with fifty-metre-long blades when their lifespan is through? And you’ve got three per wind turbine and sometimes hundreds of turbines in a wind farm? What do you do with them afterwards? And did you know that wind turbines require electricity that is not produced by wind in order to run, ie. from the grid? It might be common knowledge that wind turbines don’t run if there is too little wind, but did you know that they also don’t run if there’s too much wind?
It's a farce people. It’s a money-laundering farce. Electric vehicles? Thank God so many people that I speak to realise that it’s a load of bull$h!t. We realise it, but there are many people who feel powerless to do anything about it. And so, despondency comes in and cynicism. We’re powerless. We’re powerless. We’re powerless. This is what I’m sensing in so many places, especially in places like here, where you look around and mother nature is Goddamn beautiful. We should just be peaceful. But we’re not. We’re not.
And so that leads me to think about the fact that if the government isn’t doing anything about this plastic problem and they’re just imposing more taxes, more control, rules and regulations, I can’t help but ask myself whether we need governments at all. We would need them to make a concerted effort to actually do something about this problem on a practical level, and not just make the individual even more impoverished. If you still vote or have any inclination to, I encourage you to seek out the Independents in your local area and vote for them in local council elections. Below is a list of Independents standing in my hometown of Brighton & Hove. Whichever town you may be in, I urge you to at least listen with an open mind and open heart to these good men and women, our fellow brothers and sisters, who are working hard to raise awareness to some serious issues and how the main parties are not working for us, the people.
These individuals are one way how we can make a change within a system that is crumbling. It no longer works and people have lost confidence. The percentage of people who actually vote is now so low, and it’s convenient that it is like this, perhaps one might say this is the desire outcome, to maintain power and a certain level of passivity among the populace.
“Give the people bread and circuses”
They’re all in bed together: all the political parties, big industry. Why are there not heavy sanctions on industry for polluting the waters, for overuse of plastic, etc.? The next time you go into a supermarket, and you see that absolutely everything is wrapped in plastic, including bananas, ask yourself how come this is allowed. You know there are solutions to the plastic problem? We don’t need to be using petroleum. Did you know that discarded prawn shells can be turned into a product that acts just like plastic yet is completely biodegradable? Check it out here and here. I remember reading years ago about this company making bottles from seaweed. These are just two examples plucked from the top of my head (what an expression), but there are so many ingenious and truly eco-friendly solutions just waiting for decent financing and to become mainstream. If we have this technology, can we please start using it and move away from plastic and petroleum? And also move away from these big supermarkets. Do you know that sales at Tesco rose 6.6% during Covid and pre-tax profit jumped, even as operating costs rose? In fact, Tesco spent £533m over the first six months of 2020. As a result, operating profits fell 4.5% to £1bn. Costs were offset by higher sales and a temporary tax relief worth £249m. Tesco benefited from business rates relief from the UK government, which meant it did not have to pay tax on its UK store estate.
Read that again.
Tesco. Did. Not. Have. To. Pay. Tax. On. Its. UK. Store. Estate.
Are you kidding me!?
And why, pray tell, aren’t their excess profits going back into our communities? Why is that just going into stakeholders’ pockets? And this applies to all of the big supermarkets the world over. Did you know that these recent years have seen the biggest wealth transfer in history? This is a small puzzle piece to that transfer and it is not good news for the everyday person.
So, this article was meant to be about abundance, and it still is in a way, but it forms part of a series of writings on the theme of abundance, also some beautiful ones from my time here in Greece, so it’s not just doom and gloom, to serve as a reminder to get out of the lack mindset and back into one of abundance, sovereignty and personal power. Yet it is necessary to look the truth straight in the face, even if it’s unpleasant, and then looking at how amazing and beautiful we are, and finally looking at what are the real problems and the real solutions?
I’d start with a few important ones that have a broad effect:
Turn off the TV
Stop listening to the politicians
Stop abiding by fraudulent rules and so-called laws that you don’t agree with, and deep down in your heart you know is not right
Really do your research, which honestly doesn’t take a long time, into the money connections that pull the puppet strings – these big companies, who are they owned by? Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola, for example, direct competitors or owned by the same people? Spoiler alert: they’re all owned by the same stakeholders. We have an illusion of competition in this “free market”.
We know that industry, big tech, big pharma and politicians are all in bed together. So, instead of us being divided between Labour and Green and Conservative; black and white; Muslim and Christian and atheist and pagan; instead of all of these differences setting us apart, why don’t we unite, despite our belief systems, despite the colour of our skin, despite which party may be affiliated to? And hopefully one day we might not even feel the need to be affiliated to any particular party but more to local, every day individuals who actually represent our community, with us recognising we are sovereign individuals who can and must take responsibility for our communities and our actions.
This is the way we will move forward. And we can do this already. People are doing it. There are beautiful initiatives happening all around the world, by individuals and small, local businesses.
So, what can you do now, today, right now? The next time you go down to the beach, or to a public place of nature, pick up some plastic, take a bag with you and just leave the beach a little bit better than when you arrived. That is a yogic principle that I remember learning off of David Svensson at a great yoga workshop I did years ago, and that is the real role of a yogi. It’s not how flexible you are, the yoga sessions or even style you do, this is missing the point of what happens off the mat. Here in the West, they’ve sold us an all-too-often superficial version of something which is profoundly spiritual at its core.
So, if we’ve been somewhere, leave that place a little bit better than when we arrived. If we meet someone or some being, leave that person or being a little bit better than when we first encountered them.
If we can do this, then the world starts to heal. One beach at a time. One person at a time. One community at a time.
