(8) Promoting Peaceful Co-Existence and Harmony within the Community

The Truth has been there right from the start in each one's soul. Not tomorrow, but here today each Man may be happy and whole! The creator has filled each moment of every year with gladness. And in his thought there is no room for His beloved child to feel torment from sadness.


 - Space of Love (book 3)




We want Santosha to be a place of divine creation, where people feel happy and free and each day brings exciting new challenges! We have many grand ideas of what life will be like, living on our domains, and I am confident that they will all come true! All of the amazing feelings of inspiration that you felt when reading the Ringing Cedars, we hope to embody that energy with our gardens and our way of life. 


In the process of creating Santosha, I have done a lot of research into other eco-communities, particularly those in Russia. Its amazing how many flourishing domain communities already exist in Russia, inhabited by conscious beings who feel their connection to the earth. Many children are being born in these communities. Gardens have been planted!


However, in the mixture of all this positive news, there have also been reports of failed communities and conflict. From my research, I have ascertained that the main cause of this has been poor planning. The organisers of these communities were not realistic in their expectations for how people would relate to each other. We all know that we are returning to our pristine origins, and soon every interaction and relationship will be spiritually fulfilling. Having said that, I don't believe it helps to be hopelessly idealistic. People sometimes have disagreements. Even 'spiritual' people have gotten into arguments before. 


In this blog post what I want to talk about is how we plan to minimise conflict and promote harmony within the community. Our focus will be on Freedom and Prevention.




Freedom

Im a big fan of freedom. Montessori education (where I have worked and studied) is based on the philosophy that each individual child knows best what to study, and so they are granted that freedom. In this way, the child maintains a passion for learning and embraces the responsibility of shaping their own destiny.


The philosophy of liberty communicates great respect to those granted freedom. I have made mistakes before in my life, but those close to me did not forbid me from making those mistakes. They trusted me. They believed that I could learn from every experience and so did not try and control me. If a parent is overly controlling of their child, the child senses that their parents to not really trust them. 


We feel that is is absolutely essential that each person at Santosha can stand up their own domain, feel their connection to the land and KNOW that they are free. 


Santosha is a community. However, the word community can mean many different things. In my research I came across a domain community that was being formed in New Zealand, where every person was going to be an employee of the community. There would be mandatory work hours in the collective fruit orchard amongst other things, and people would be allocated a wage. Perhaps this kind of arrangement might suit some people, but it is very different from Santosha. 

We envisage a domain community as a union of independent families. Each family is given their freedom and autonomy. 


To this end, Santosha will not be a place with a lot of rules. Some rules perhaps are necessary. For example, no genetically modified seeds will be allowed, because the wind will blow them to the next domain and compromise the neighbours ability to grow healthy produce. 


For the most part though, there will be as few rules as possible. Santosha must grow organically, based on the voluntary actions of people expressing their creativity. 


Leonid Sharashkin gave the example of one community that mandated that every person meet in the community hall every morning for a group meditation. Great idea! I think group meditations are wonderful, and I would enjoy participating in an event like this. However, just because I think this message has a lot of merit, I would never want to create a rule FORCING people to attend.


What if someone doesn't feel like meditating one morning? Will there be some kind of punishment? Ridiculous! hahaha!!


Events like this need to be organised on a voluntary basis. If I think it would be a good idea to have group meditations in the morning, I will suggest the idea and encourage people to join me if they choose. They are completely free in their decision. I would not go to the shareholders meeting and try and enforce participation by the creation of a rule. The philosophy of liberty encourages us to trust individuals and feel confident that change is best affected by voluntary means, not coercion.




Prevention


Two people can read the same book and get two completely different interpretations. Just look at Christianity. Although all Christians claim the bible is the source of their religion, there are over 39 000 different denominations operating in the world today!

In a similar way, people may have read the Ringing Cedars series and foresee a completely different future for themselves than what we are creating with Santosha. That is wonderful! There is nothing wrong with diversity. How dull the world would be if everyone was the same. I believe that Santosha will be a very diverse place, with each family expressing their freedom in their own unique way. 

However, it may happen that the differences between our vision and someone else's may be so vast that it makes more sense that we each 'do our own thing'. If we have vastly different ideologies operating within the same community, there is potential for conflict. It would be preferable that we both say to each other, ''I fully respect your right to live your life however you choose but it makes practical sense that we live in different communities. That way, we can admire each others differences from a distance rather than butt heads as neighbours.''


For example, we have noted differences from some of the people we have chatted to regarding our emphasis on freedom. One person felt that we should make it mandatory that every person in the community is vegetarian. Another felt that we should have tight restrictions on intellectual property, so that neighbours don't copy each others techniques for growing vegetables etc.


I understand that some people might be passionate about being vegetarian, and there is nothing wrong with that. I suspect that some time in the future, vegetarianism is something I too will consider. However, if I ever made the change from eating meat to being vegetarian, I would want to make that decision myself, not because some rule forced me to or because someone made me feel guilty. To exercise my freedom to make that decision would be an empowering experience. 


The main tenet of our strategy of prevention is a process that we call 'dialogue'.




Dialogue


A dialogue is the last step before making a deposit. Its where you sit down with Emily and I and we chat about life, and about Santosha. It is designed to see if we are on the same page about what we want out of a Domain Community. It is our hope that by ensuring that we have like minded people in the community, inspired by the vision of freedom, that we will have a very peaceful and harmonious future.  


We will have questions for people, and we hope that they have questions for us! Joining a community like Santosha is not a small decision. We want people to feel comfortable to ask any question they like, to bring up any concern. We also encourage people to make suggestions of their own. Of course, we have our own vision for Santosha, but there is great freedom within that vision. 


If we picture very different things for Santosha, it will quickly become clear during the dialogue and at that point we will part ways. There can be numerous Domain Communities throughout the South-West, each with a different focus. They can co-exist in cooperation, rather than competition. Such is the beauty of freedom.


We will now share some of the things we will be talking about during these dialogues.






The Ringing Cedars Books


Santosha is a domain community inspired by the ideas of Anastasia and Vladimir Megre. The philosophy that guides our vision is contained within the Ringing Cedars series. We have had one person ask us why the Ringing Cedars, why not just an eco-community? Its because we LOVE the Ringing Cedars!!!

These books have changed my life. I feel as if I have found some piece of myself that I lost long ago. My appreciation of nature, my views on children, on God! It is my soul that feels this connection, but the Ringing Cedars pointed me there. The Ringing Cedars contains a complete philosophy of life. 


Before a dialogue it is essential to have read the books. We will talk about the concepts contained within. Was there anything in the books that you did not agree with, or any parts that have got you especially excited?




Children


Emily and I are especially interested in discussing how to raise children, if you have children already or if you have plans to start a family. When I first read what Anastasia said about raising children, my heart sang with joy. It was such a revelation and it resonated so strongly with me. Her insights into the nature of children, along with conception and birth, are so incredible, she may be the first person in thousands of years to elucidate a philosophy so beautiful.

The potential for raising happy children, eating food grown on your own domain, in close connection with nature is extremely exciting. From one perspective, her ideas seem utterly simple. Be authentic when talking with children. Allow them to communicate with nature. Avoid interrupting their thoughts. Listen attentively when they speak. Honour the purity and wisdom that every child is capable of expressing. 


However, from the perspective of the old paradigm, this method of child raising could be seen as bizarre or even extreme. See what Anastasia says about playing with toys:

Anastasia, along with all her forebears, treat a newborn as a deity or an immaculate angel. They consider it totally unacceptable to interfere with a child's thought process. Anastasia says that the very moment I observed little Vladimir contemplating something in the grass, he was becoming aware not only of the bugs but of all creation.

According to her, a bug is a more perfect mechanism than any manufactured product. A child provided with the opportunity to communicate with these perfect beings will himself become more perfect than through communication with primitive lifeless objects. Artificial objects have no connection to the universe and do not arrange priorities and values in the child's brain in the right way.

 - Space of Love (book 3)

You might think that this is common sense to anyone who has read the Ringing Cedars, but we feel it is an important area of discussion. Emily and I once visited a family who was setting up a kin's domain along the lines of the Ringing Cedars series. They were a lovely family, and the father spoke very eloquently about the ideas of the Ringing Cedars. One thing that we found strange, however, was the number of toys in the house. We felt it would be impolite to ask about them, but we wondered why this family had all these toys for their child? It seemed to be antithetical to the philosophy that guided the rest of their lives.

The lesson I took from this experience is that, just because two people have read the Ringing Cedars books does not mean that they automatically agree on how to best implement those ideas. 

If not discussed, this issue could become an area of conflict between families. One family may be keen to create a natural environment where their children play with animals and plants. Another family might fill their environment with plastic toys. This might concern the first family, that their children will be playing and their child will be exposed to objects that they had wanted to limit.

As we stated already, we don't believe that rules would help this situation. A rule such as 'No toys' would just generate resentment from people who don't appreciate being told how to live. I personally would not want to join a community that had such strict regulations. 

Having said that, we hope that we can avoid conflicts like this arising through the dialogue process. By ensuring that everyone is on the same page, there will be no unexpected surprises when we get to Santosha!

Organic Food

Man uses the fruits of nature for food, and if he begins to feed himself with mutant fruits, he will be gradually transformed into a mutant himself.

 - Who Are We? (book 5)

As I stated before, I assume that most of this is common sense for people who have read the Ringing Cedars books. We are interested in growing healthy, organic produce without the use of genetic modification or harmful chemicals.

Television

Of course there won't be any rules about use of television in Santosha, but we are curious to know peoples views on this. Personally, we don't plan on having a television in our house. I consider that for most of my life I was actually addicted to television. For many years I could not fall asleep without the TV on, which I'm sure was very harmful. 

In the Ringing Cedars series, television advertising is described as aggressive mental suggestions. We are particularly vulnerable to this kind of programming while watching TV, as we are in a vulnerable state. 

Ultimately, we want our children to be raised by nature, not be television. Television and video games are very seductive for children. One family having a playstation may have an influence that ripples throughout the whole community. 

Drugs and Alcohol

I have the personal belief that people should be allowed the freedom to use whatever substances they wish. I'm disappointed that our government thinks it is necessary to regulate what we put into our bodies, especially with regards to natural substances. Even though I don't use any of these substances, it seems bizarre that medicinal plants made by God are illegal.

Of course, there will be no rules against things that are already against the law. What we want to talk about is about peoples specific views on drugs and alcohol. Personally, the message Emily and I want to portray to our children is that there is no need alter their consciousness. There is nothing wrong with how they are already :)

Pets

Everyone loves animals, and as we talked about in our previous note '(5) The Property' part of the community is set aside specifically to keep animals. What we really want to chat about is cats and dogs.

This is mostly from the perspective of protecting peoples property rights. We want people to know that they don't need to worry about the neighbouring dog coming onto their domain and digging up their vegetables. Cats are known killers of native wildlife, and we want to ensure that Santosha is a sanctuary for native animals. 

None of this means that there can't be cats and dogs at Santosha. We want to make sure people are aware that it will be necessary to contain their pets by some method to their own domain.

Living on your Domain

One of the areas that I came across in my research which I had never really considered, that caused a lot of conflict in some of the Russian communities was the issue of kinsmen vs townsmen. 

A kinsmen is someone who is living on their domain all year round. A townsmen is someone who owns a domain, perhaps has a holiday there, but otherwise lives in the city. It turns out that these two groups have very different interests. According to my research, townsmen are often very reluctant to spend community funds, since they are not living in the community. Townsmen are also more idealistic about solutions, while kinsmen, living on their land, are more practical. 

Our solution to this problem is to make sure that we only attract kinsmen to Santosha. In the dialogues we will talk about our plans and intentions. We want to make sure that people who are signing up to Santosha are going to be living there. We want beautiful neighbours and children for our children to play with!

Your Questions!!

We do have a list of dialogue questions, and in our dialogues so far they have all stimulated fascinating discussions. However, this process is about more than our set list of questions. We want to get to know you, and we want you to get to know us. We are curious to know if there was anything about Santosha that you have heard or read about that concerns you or are interested to know more. 

We want to hear your questions!

In our experience so far with the dialogue process, mostly it has consisted of lots of creative energy and lots of excitement. There have been heaps of ideas about what we'll create in the future, lots of fun really. It is such a pleasure to be around people passionate about the Ringing Cedars. Especially when these people might be your future neighbours!!

Look and see, see the power of a woman, the power of pure love. At the very last moment before death it is capable of giving new life. Capable of lifting up any Man, rescuing him from the tenacious paws of darkness and carrying him into the brightness of infinity. Capable of surrounding him with the Space of Love and giving him new life, which is life eternal.

 - The Ringing Cedars of Russia (book 2)