It's no secret. Experts everywhere say people who have community live longer, healthier, happier lives. In times like these, community can make the difference between joy and depression. Read below about how to bring more community into your life.
If you spend much of your time tuning into news from most media, the world is in a very sad place, and it can take you down with it.
That's why Deborah and I like to get a regular dose of positivity on some channels that have made it their mission to provide good news. Check out the links below to learn about things happening all around our planet that are making a difference and changing our future.
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Building Community as a Foundation
Community is the people who are there for you during the good times and the bad times. The ones who care for you when you're down, and who receive your loving care. It can include both your dearest friends and more distant acquaintances. It represents the proverbial fabric of our lives, the essence of person to person connection.
So the question becomes, how do we bring more community into our lives?
Start with your circle of friends, the ones who feel closest to you. Create a circle and then widen that circle. Open and invite people in. Find new friends by joining other circles, such as those with a common interest, a shared routine (such as yoga, exercise, hiking).
Use food and sharing meals as a way to find an easy common denominator that dissolves differences and pushes aside petty disagreements. It can be as easy as a potluck, hosting a party, or using a shared meal as a fundraiser for a cause or a non-profit close to your heart.
The Farm teaching has been that work is the material expression of love. When we work together on a task, a project, or in service to something greater than ourselves, we bond with those around us and build community.
At Krishna Das concerts, everyone sings together.Music can be another way to bring people together in a shared vibration. It’s the reason people are drawn to concerts and festivals, for the experience of communion. Music in community can provide a deeper healing or uplifting energy, changing you from within, making it possible to send the same energy back out and allow it affect others.
You can go a bit deeper, with a shared spiritual practice.
A recent podcast of talks by Ram Das, author of Be Here Now, features his thoughts on community, taking excerpts from lectures across several decades to see how his views evolved. He told an interesting story about ashrams, spiritual enclaves usually focused around a specific teacher or practice. In India, a young tree is protected by the village by placing rocks or small fence around it to keep it from being trampled by the wandering sacred cows. In turn as the tree matures, it provides the cows withshade from the hot sun.
One of the primary purposes of an ashram or a Sangha, a spiritual community, is to provide a nurturing place for people on a shared path. We provide support and help each other stay focused on our growth and the development of a life of kindness and compassion, something that's easily beaten down by the negative energies of the materialistic world. Find your Sangha through meditation groups, and other practices, as I have done, through the Dances of Universal Peace.
Not everyone is well suited for the intensity of community at a place like The Farm. Find what works for you and grow it into something bigger. As a friend once said to me, “If you want a friend, be a friend.” If you follow a path of kindness, anything is possible.
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