The revolution is within

Seeing Charles Eisenstein speak 2 nights in a row in Port Moody and Vancouver felt like... a Deja Vu experience I've never had. I've seen old footage of Jidda Krishnamurti speaking, and the reaction of the audience to him. Listening to Charles, I was moved on an intellectual and emotional level, but both at once. This has never happened to me listening to anyone before. There was also a very strong positive reaction from the audience to the awareness that came through his words - we all felt it. I'm slightly too young to have been to Woodstock, but I imagine that movement must have felt, in a way, similar.

Jidda Krishnamurti spoke for years of an "inner revolution" of inquiry - of not taking things we've learned as absolute truths. I believe Jidda grew tired of trying to explain "how" to become more conscious. I fear that Charles may have the same challenge. It seems to me that awareness can be brought to a group through an individual's own strength in that regard, but cannot be left behind when he leaves. Charles speaks of a new world of interconnected individuals remembering their deepest connections, and the natural compassion resulting from that remembrance.

The shadow side of a community, or a tribe, or any group is that as it includes it must by nature exclude. Whether it is a group of sports fans, Ashtanga Vinyasa Yogis, or a group of concerned citizens, there rests, embedded in us, an "us and them" mentality of separation. If you are "in" then someone else must be "out" - separation again. Charles has left that behind, heart and mind. As I watched the crowd begin to "whoop' collectively at some of the observations Charles made, a soft alarm bell began to ring in my chest, and that alarm said something like "Each of us must find our own way, and meet further down the trail, where no words are necessary".

It was a blessing to hear Charles speak.