The 9 Petalled Flower Of Peace: Petal 9. Family And Gender

Domestic abuse is on the most commonly experienced forms of violence, it can take many forms, including verbal, mental as well as physical violence – usually it is caused by lack of self knowledge on the part of those indulging in it, and can be remedied by learning, communication skills, study and spiritual practices; successful families are often those which have a daily or weekly spiritual practice built into their schedules. When I was growing up, although not a church-going family, my parents would organise every Sunday readings from Shakespeare, or poetry readings., or a piano concert. Whenever we had difficulties, we would be able to go and talk things through. My parents were both in their own way Peace Campaigners, and their work lives on in the Daffern family trust, which commemorates their ideas (see http://daffernfamily.wordpress.com) Every family ought to find what unites and brings harmony to its raison d'etre, rather than focusing on the things that drive us apart in family quarrels. More extreme problems such as child abuse, neglect, are faced daily by social workers worldwide. Sometimes, sadly, there is also elder abuse, as old grandparents are neglected by the younger generations. Peace begins in the family. For this reason Acharya Mahapragya and A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, former President of India, co wrote an important book The Family and the Nation (Harper Collins India, 2009) in which they stated that: "The third principle of the application of the philosophy of non-absolutism is reconciliation and concordance. Man's life is a museum of paradoxes and contradictions. One cannot expect to see complete uniformity in it. If a person thinks that all should have identical dispositions, identical attitudes, identical ethical norms and identical behaviour, what is it but a daydream?.. The golden principle of living a happy and congenial life, notwithstanding the contradictory and paradoxical situations, is reconciliation...." So many quarrels and family rows are caused by one party thinking the other is absolutely wrong and they are absolutely right; if one adopts non-absolutism (anekantvada) as a guiding principle for peacemaking, then one can always harmonise conflicts based on the view that all are partly right.. At present however, faced with an epidemic of domestic and family abuse, the social services are only using separation and prisons as the remedy, and equipping policeman to intervene; what is really needed is consciousness raising, awareness workshops and family mediation services being made available, truth, honesty and above all research into the nature of familial love.

Gender violence is at the root of much social and family unrest; some cultures simply try to solve this by giving all power to the male head of the household, as the Taliban do in Afghanistan, and also certain forms of Christianity, but then this can lead to the women living in fear and submission, and fear cannot be the basis of peaceful gender relations. Other more modern cultures in the West have seen women take most of the power from the men, and men can also fall victim to verbal and psychological violence. Instead of violence and conflict between the sexes being seen as normal or acceptable, we are asking for a genuine equality based on our spiritual inter-dependence; male and female principles are both aspects of the one Divine reality, and together we make a completeness. Lets replace gender violence with gender peace by thinking through the complexities of gender, and how each of us also carry within us aspects of both sexes, as Jung said, the animus and the anima within

The wording "lawful" is carefully chosen: in some countries homosexuality is legal, for instance, and in some countries it is not; some countries have even gone so far as to legalise homosexual marriage, whereas others have not. The Jaipur declaration simply urges people around the world to adhere to whatever are the ruling legal requirements in any given culture, and also to adhere to basic norms and values which are universal to all cultures. If you don't like the laws you currently live under, then you can also work to have them changed, non-violently

Sexual experience can be a powerful vehicle towards enlightenment, as in Indian tantric teachings, and in the esoteric teachings of most cultures, but this can only work if both parties are dedicated to that outcome, and abstain from all violence and manipulation. Sexuality can also be a great force of disruption, and unhappiness and emotional violence in our lives, as in cases of infidelity, marriage cheating, and extremely so in cases of rape and forced sexuality etc. However, just as sex is the vehicle of our embodiment into incarnation, tantra teaches that sexuality can also be the vehicle of our liberation (moksha). See the authors talk on the IIPSGP YouTube channel at IIPSGP1, called Tantra: An Academic Overview (2009). Traditionally, pagan religions have always had a more favourable relationship to sexual experience as part of our birthright, and this is perhaps one of the reasons Nietzsche, among philosophers, was so strong in arguing for the rebirth of paganism, which he saw rightly as underlying the roots of European civilisation

This is a crucial phrase – instead of allowing the correlation of sex and violence, as portrayed by the media and endless Hollywood films to stand, we are asking for a revisualisation of sexuality, as something of divine beauty, which is intended to bring peace and joy to mankind, not suffering; in ancient Indian art, eroticism was seen as something which ultimately celebrates the creative energies behind existence, and lovemaking was seen as a sacred service to the Gods themselves, allowing Lila, or divine play, into our lives; so rather than being a source of violence, cruelty and hatred, sexuality ought to become totally non-violent in its flowering and men and women should be empowered to go on falling in love with each other, free of the curse of Romeo and Juliet, according to which lovers often came to a violent ending.

As parents, and couples, we have a moral duty to build families where our children can feel safe and loved and supported; one of the most tragic spin-offs in families where the parents are always quarrelling, is that the children can feel undermined and end up with very low self-esteem. The film Monsoon Wedding shows the raw reality of some families who quarrel up close – but even that film has a happy ending, in the pouring rain!

All of us would probably agree that there is nothing more important than love, yet ironically it is something that academics have somewhat neglected. The current author launched the Muses Love Journal in 1993 to act as a focus for academic research into the nature of love, and it is still the only academic journal dedicated to love research in the world! There are many kinds and types of love: familial, parent-child, sibling, friendship love, love for abstract ideals, Platonic love, love for one's country, love for animals, love for the Gods and for the Spiritual Source of existence, erotic love, humanitarian love and philanthropy, love for one's culture and its traditions, love for one's rulers or monarchs, love for the poor, love for the sick, love for books and learning and literature, love for music and the arts, love for the sciences and scientific knowledge, love for wisdom and so on. All these types of love are important. Perhaps only when mankind learns to love peace sufficiently will it actually arrive here on earth. As long as we go on loving to fight, more than we love to make peace, so long will our wars and conflicts continue. As Acharya Tulsi put it so eloquently, the goal of the anuvrat project, of which the 9 Petals of Peace of the Jaipur Declaration can be seen as another flowering, is to "inspire people to cultivate self-restraint irrespective of their caste, colour, creed, country and language, to establish the values of friendship, unity, peace and morality, to create an unfettered society free from exploitation" see Tulsi, Acharya Anuvrat: A Code Of Conduct For Moral Development (New Delhi, 1988)

As father to three daughters, now in the 20's, I know from personal experience that parenting is indeed a hard road. But it is a worthwhile and wonderful one. All parents deserve a medal for the hard work they have gone through when their children were smaller, as unless you have done it yourself you hardly realise how demanding of one's time and energy small children can be. Yet in turn, they teach us patience, kindness, love and generosity, all essential spiritual qualities to learn in the long run.

Sometimes in the West at least, it seems that all the emphasis has gone nowadays on children's rights and parents rights have been subsumed; but in fact, children also have duties towards their parents, just as parents have duties towards their children. Mutual love, responsibility and care seem to be the covenant at the heart of this bond, and it is an ongoing mystery in which all of us are always beginners. If you believe in reincarnation, as the Jains, Buddhists, Hindus, Theosophists, esotericists, Sufis, Kabbalists, Druids, spiritualists, Wiccans and many other spiritual believers do, then we no doubt take turns at being parents and children to one another, and everything balances out in the long run. But the law of ahimsa and love should underlie the whole wheel of being as it spins, for such is the glorious law underlying all existence. "Honour thy Father and Mother" is the fifth of the Judaeo-Christian Ten Commandments, and explains why families in both Jewish and Christian cultures have always been important. The commandments in order are: 1. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. 2. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 3. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; 4. Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. 5. Honour thy father and thy mother: 6. Thou shalt not kill.7. Thou shalt not commit adultery.8. Thou shalt not steal.9. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.10. Thou shalt not covet Qabalists and philosophers have interpreted and explained this list in various ways to universalise and generalise their admonitions in ways which dovetail with the ethical codes underlying all; other religious traditions. The prohibition on imagery, for example, should not be taken literally to mean all art is forbidden (as iconoclasts do) but rather that the essence of Spirit is beyond the form; the actual energy of Apollo or Shiva is not the statue, but rather the spirit that the statue points to, as Hegel points out in his masterly Aesthetics. Likewise, the admonition to honour our parents can also be interpreted to mean we should honour the source or "parent" of everything, for in so doing, we manifest the law of love in action. Philosophically, perhaps the best way of explaining the 10 Commandments is to say they are intended to inculcate in us, certain virtues. In the Hindu tradition, the Chāndogya Upaniṣad has 5 core virtues, listed as Ahimsa (non-harming), Satyavacanam (truthfulness), Arjavam (sincerity), Danam (charity), and Tapo penance/meditation). The The Sandilya Upanishad lists ten virtues (forbearances): Ahimsa (nonviolence), Satya (truthfulness), Asteya, Brahmacharya (sexual restraint), Daya (dgenersotiy), Arjava (uprightness), Kshama (repentance, self-reformation), Dhriti (resolution), Mitahara (moderate appetite) and Saucha (purity). In Buddhism there are 10 paramitas to practice: 1.Equanimity (upekkha); 2.Generosity (dana); 3.Morality (sila)-virtue, integrity; 4.Renunciation (nekkhamma) 5.Wisdom (pañña); 6.Energy/Strength (viriya)- effort; 7.Patience (khanti); 8.Truthfulness (sacca); 9. Resolution - determination (adhitthana); 10. Lovingkindness (metta). In Jainism there are 10 Punyas (virtues) which we should all try to follow at least a little: Supreme Forbearance, Humility, Straightforwardness, Perfect Truthfulness, Purity, perfect Self-restraint, Austerity, Complete Renunciation, Nonattachment, and Sexual self -restraint (celibacy). Punya in Jainism means spiritual merit, while its opposite is papa (spiritual demerit) and both can be either of the dravya type (physical) or bhava type (mental). If mankind is to progress spiritually, we have to learn to cultivate far more punya than papa, and it is a kind of ethical accountancy that we need to begin doing on the planet. Unfortunately there are too many people committing papa actions, and acquiring collective bad karma (papa) for mankind. This has to rectified and balanced by more people committing Punya actions and thoughts. As we can see then, each faith path has a route map how to improve our global situation. The purpose of comparative global philosophy is to compare and contrast these maps and to get common agreement among the world's spiritual elders on how we can work together instead of against each other in guiding mankind away from Kali Yuga back to Satyuga. Peace will only come when our punyas collectively far outweigh our papas. The Jaipur declaration is a clarion call to this end. Honouring our parents (the source) is a good place to start and one that all cultures, all religious paths, can surely agree.

If we are to take the enlightenment journey seriously, as we are asked to by all spiritual traditions, then the fact that most of us spend most of our lives in some kind of family context, means we have to transform our families into vehicles and temples for that enlightenment journey. In the past, many people thought that to practice spirituality you had to abandon the family, and become a wandering and homeless ascetic, as did Buddha and Mahavira, and Jesus or St Francis. But this is hardly realistic for all of mankind to adopt as a model. Perhaps the solution then, it to transform our families into temples and places for spiritual work.

Whilst social security is a great thing (as pioneered by among others Sir William Beveridge, a British economist who was born in India) it has developed along ways not quite foreseen by its founders, in that it ends up being more economically advantageous for families to split up in the UK, and perhaps in other countries, than to stay together. This could and should be changed, as it should in other countries where this situation prevails. The long term economic costs of raising children in single parent families far outweighs the difficulties of changing the bureaucratic machinery that would need recalibrating to make this change a reality. Indian economist Dr Amartya Sen, has pioneered research into the philosophical and economic principles underlying welfare economics, and comparisons have been made to Jain teachings in which the ethical and spiritual basis off economics are examined in detail, see Shah, Dr. K R The Philosophy of welfare economics of Dr.Amartya Sen and Jain Philosophy (Trafford Publishing, 2011).

As stated previously, most of us spend most of our lives in some kind of family context, so appreciating our family members as part of the enlightenment journey seems to be a priority for mankind; sadly, many families end up in conflicts, violence, disputes and arguments – if we transform our family into a vehicle for enlightenment, that alone could usher in a transformed world of peace.

Sadly, some parents bully their children, and some children bully their younger siblings; sometimes, even children can bully their elder parents or relatives. The lives of many people around the world are made miserable by these behaviour patterns. The Jaipur Declaration is asking that we cease and desist from these actions

In this, we honour those who choose a life of celibacy and spiritual work, monks and nuns or saints in all faiths, who dedicate their lives to prayer, meditation and charitable works. With 6 billion people (and counting) in incarnation on this planet at the present time, some people may prefer to remain childless and to dedicate their lives to other works than parenting. This choice deserves honouring since such monks and nuns or spiritual activists, priests or priestesses, are still part of the wider human family, and their work should be honoured and supported now and in the future as it has in the past. The author has also written a work in which he proposed a new approach to relationships, in which deep and meaningful spiritual friendships should be accepted as valid forms of seeking closeness and intimacy, and in which people on a spiritual path can also enjoy the fruits of love responsibly, see Daffern Thomas Wisdom Affairs: Towards A Cartography Of Enlightenment, Enlovement And Joyism For Wisdom Lovers (IIPSGP Publications, USA, 2009)