Cempaka Culture and Tourism: The Thinker: Nyepi, The Ultimate Earth Hour Offering

"The Recalibration of Awareness – Apr 20/21, 2012 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Old Energy, Recalibration Lectures, God / Creator, Religions/Spiritual systems (Catholic Church, Priests/Nun’s, Worship, John Paul Pope, Women in the Church otherwise church will go, Current Pope won’t do it), Middle East, Jews, Governments will change (Internet, Media, Democracies, Dictators, North Korea, Nations voted at once), Integrity (Businesses, Tobacco Companies, Bankers/ Financial Institutes, Pharmaceutical company to collapse), Illuminati (Started in Greece, with Shipping, Financial markets, Stock markets, Pharmaceutical money (fund to build Africa, to develop)), Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Women, Masters to/already come back, Global Unity.... etc.) - (Text version)

“… The Shift in Human Nature

You're starting to see integrity change. Awareness recalibrates integrity, and the Human Being who would sit there and take advantage of another Human Being in an old energy would never do it in a new energy. The reason? It will become intuitive, so this is a shift in Human Nature as well, for in the past you have assumed that people take advantage of people first and integrity comes later. That's just ordinary Human nature.

In the past, Human nature expressed within governments worked like this: If you were stronger than the other one, you simply conquered them. If you were strong, it was an invitation to conquer. If you were weak, it was an invitation to be conquered. No one even thought about it. It was the way of things. The bigger you could have your armies, the better they would do when you sent them out to conquer. That's not how you think today. Did you notice?

Any country that thinks this way today will not survive, for humanity has discovered that the world goes far better by putting things together instead of tearing them apart. The new energy puts the weak and strong together in ways that make sense and that have integrity. Take a look at what happened to some of the businesses in this great land (USA). Up to 30 years ago, when you started realizing some of them didn't have integrity, you eliminated them. What happened to the tobacco companies when you realized they were knowingly addicting your children? Today, they still sell their products to less-aware countries, but that will also change.

What did you do a few years ago when you realized that your bankers were actually selling you homes that they knew you couldn't pay for later? They were walking away, smiling greedily, not thinking about the heartbreak that was to follow when a life's dream would be lost. Dear American, you are in a recession. However, this is like when you prune a tree and cut back the branches. When the tree grows back, you've got control and the branches will grow bigger and stronger than they were before, without the greed factor. Then, if you don't like the way it grows back, you'll prune it again! I tell you this because awareness is now in control of big money. It's right before your eyes, what you're doing. But fear often rules. …”

Saturday, March 28, 2009

The Thinker: Nyepi, The Ultimate Earth Hour Offering

The Jakarta Globe, Desi Anwar, March 27, 2009

Today, the 28th of March, the world is supposed to participate in the Earth Hour program, a time when major cities everywhere are expected to switch off nonessential electricity, particularly lights, for one hour in the evening.

Supported by the WWF, the aim is to raise global awareness about the importance of saving energy and reducing carbon emissions.

For the first time since the event started in Australia a couple of years ago Jakarta is taking part in the lights-out campaign. Companies and households are encouraged to switch off lights while city landmarks like the National Monument, the Hotel Indonesia traffic circle and the water fountain will forgo illumination for sixty minutes.

According to Jakarta Governor Fauzi Bowo, this activity will save enough energy to light up ninety villages and goes some way to reducing the city’s carbon emission.

While I heartily laud the objective behind this exercise on a global scale, going without nonessential electricity for an hour is hardly a challenging feat for the average Jakartan who is used to planned and unplanned blackouts that can last for several hours — and I mean total electricity blackouts that defrost the fridge, turn the milk rancid and force you to fumble in the dark for candles.

As a matter of fact, for as long as I can remember the whole island of Java is regularly subjected to a mati lampu , or “lights out” on a rotational basis — the current electricity supply being often no match for the country’s increasing demand. The frequency of these blackouts got to a point when companies and factories had to reorganize their shifts and working days in order to minimize losses and disruption to their production.

Only the other day, the street where I live experienced yet another unplanned three-hour-long blackout — as it happened on the weekend — that ended up wreaking havoc on my daily schedule as I was unable to take a much needed shower or do anything else in the house other than slowly melt into my sofa while waiting for the air conditioning to come back on.

Yes, quite a bit of energy was saved; however, I also wasted a lot of it in the form of an energy-consuming bad temper.

If the objective of Earth Hour in Jakarta is really to raise awareness of the need to save the planet by changing people’s behavior and bad habits, why stop at just an hour-long lights out? So the city’s fountain will be dark for an hour. Big deal. Most of the time it’s unlit anyway because the lights and the water fountain itself don’t work.

And there really is no point in telling Jakartans to switch off their lights for an hour between 8:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. on a Saturday night, because they won’t.

This after all, is their time for watching television after a long hard week, or for their family evening of eating out or strolling at the mall.

The city might as well impose more blackouts on a regular basis if the objective is to save energy. However, this will hardly raise people’s awareness of the need to reduce carbon emissions and save the planet from global warming. Or even change them into environmentally conscious human beings, as Earth Hour is intended to do.

It does, however, raise people’s awareness about the country’s inability to create effective energy policy and its ineptitude when it comes to meeting supply.

Much more effective perhaps, and a lot more appealing in many ways, would be to adopt Nyepi, the Hindu Day of Silence, ushering in the Saka New Year, when for an entire day Bailinese Hindus refrain from speaking and activity and instead spend the time at home foregoing entertainment and travel, all the while going without any form of light.

It is a time for meditation and contemplation. A time for embracing spirituality and practicing the most noble of all human values : respect — for self and for the planet.

And while doing so billions of rupiah are being saved in electricity and thousands of tons in carbon emissions are reduced.

Imagine if Nyepi was carried out in Jakarta and the positive impact it would have on the quality of our air and the amount of energy saved.

But more important than this is the lesson that the Nyepi can teach us: We can live perfectly well on this planet without having to consume, destroy or pollute.

Desi Anwar is a senior anchor based in Jakarta. She can be reached at www.desianwar.com.