1 RW grew up in a small town in Sumatra. 2 He is old, and he has memories of a kinder and gentler world. In our haste to create an artificial manmade world, we have thrown out much that is part of our heritage as creatures on this planet. 3 He began studying book on primitives, and found them similar, peaceful, nonviolent, nonaggressive.
4 The Sng'oi of Malaysia radiated unconditional love. They experienced the world directly, rather than through layers of concepts of what the world should be. 5 His work took him through SE Asia and the Pacific, recording information on primitive healing and herbal medicines. [He also worked for the government as a psychologist, writing reports about the beliefs and opinions of different groups.] He wanted to record the information before it was too late. 6 He expressed this fear to a lady in Tonga. She assured him that when the knowledge was needed, someone will remember the ancient knowledge. The information is in our head and heart, where it is accessible.
20 In the old indigenous world, we had simple lives, and few choices. Today, we have way too many choices. 21 We spend much of our time choosing. Simple folks rarely choose, "Life is what is in front of you." 22 We are bombarded with new stuff, and can't make intelligent choices, often we can't trust our experts, either. 23 Having so many alternatives devalues them all. 24 Our existence on the planet is threatened, because we have made mistakes, and continue to make mistakes. We live too fast, and don't consider the consequences of our actions. "Stress is the price we pay for afßuence, an afßuence that in the end is little more than a glut of increasingly meaningless choices."
29 Western folks see the universe as orderly. In Bali, they think "the cosmos is unknowable, unpredictable, changing according to no rule or law of man, or even of gods. "So, we must always live in the here and now, because that is all there is. And we must be prepared to deal with change.
41 Etiquette in rural Malaysia. Never embarrass someone else.47 Nobody tells anybody what to do. Exception: adults can tell kids younger than two what to do. 48 You never talk directly to someone, or look them in the eye. You do not raise your voice.You always speak in general terms, as much as possible, talk in allusions. Outsiders can't tell rich from poor by appearance, because nobody wants to stand out, no conspicuous consumption (fancy houses, fancy clothes, etc.).
52 Native healers do two things, behind the ceremony, dress, and ritual, they take away barriers to healing, and they strengthen the sick person's power to heal (immune system). 54 Modern medicine is not designed for healing.Healing is what the body does, not the medicines and interventions.Medicine has replaced healing.55 We get two messages: (1) The body is a complex machine, which must be entrusted to the care of specialists, (2) Medicine does best with extreme cases, we invest vast amounts of time, energy, and money in prolonging the lives of people whom the previous generation would simply have allowed to die.
62 For Malays, healing is about restoring harmony.The whole society is about maintaining harmony between the community and the environment.Do not rock the boat, make gentle movements, do not offend or embarrass others, walk carefully, speak softly. 63 To aborigines of Malaysia, illness is a signal or warning, you are doing something wrong, stop and change.The wrong might be a behavior, a thought, a feeling, or a word.You heal yourself, no one can do it for you. Someone else might provide a diagnosis, but you have to heal yourself. Someone else can open channels for healing, pass healing strength to the sufferer.
69 RW spent time with the Sng'oi (or Senoi or Sakai).They call themselves the People. They are called the ancient ones, for they are believed to have lived on the Malay Peninsula for a very long time. 70 They are semi-nomadic, moving every few years. 72 They lived in simple huts built on poles, accessed with a ladder.The huts were only used for sleeping, life is lived outside, in the open during daylight. 78 They rarely plant food.They gather wild foods. When food gets sparse, they move.
83 The Sng'oi rarely sat down for meals together, they nibbled throughout the day. They considered every human to be a part of their family. They gather, don't hunt much.They were five feet tall, and lean, never fat. They didn't keep track of their age. 86 They didn't work hard in gardens, and didn't work to get ahead. They weren't stressed. There was nothing they had to do. They enjoyed living, smiled a lot, laughed a lot, joked a lot. They sang almost all the time. They were striking for their contentment and joy.Voices were never raised in anger. They had childlike innocence. 87 Evening was a time of reßection, gentle communication, being together.
108 Outsiders wanted to come in, cut the forest, and plant rubber trees.The Sng'oi refused.They said that the soil would only support one generation of rubber trees, and after that, the soil was shot.Rubber trees lasted about 40 years.The plan would harm the generations to come.They weren't interested in getting rich. 109 The whites were confused.The Sng'oi didn't believe that the land could be owned (or sold), but they claimed to own the trees.Well, the trees belonged to them like their names belonged to them. You couldn't sell your name.You couldn't sell your legs.
111 Moderns have many distinctions, which are identified by names, African American, Amish, etc.The Sng'oi call themselves the word in their language for human. 114 Van der Post suggested that primitive people had not been caught in the tyranny of numbers, the idea that there is strength in numbers (might makes right).
116 The Sng'oi were quiet.Smiled rather than guffawed. Never argued. Conversations were slow, each took turns, seemed telepathic, knew each other's unspoken thoughts. They did not live in a tangible reality (of moderns) but in a spiritual reality, where things were known outside of thinking. 117 Whenever RW hiked in to see the Sng'oi, he always met someone waiting for him in the jungle, though his coming was unannounced.They didn't have a vision that he was coming, they were just led to go somewhere, be there, and do what happened. When RW appeared, they realized that they had been there to escort him into the village.
118 RW couldn't figure out how the Sng'oi knew things.When he told them this, they laughed.They couldn't figure out how civilized people knew things. 119 People would live by feelings.They didn't stay in camp much, just wandered in groups of two or three, often alone.Didn't spend a lot of time gathering food.They did not have the notion that they always had to be engaged in doing something.
120 RW's reality was in his head.He created roles, structures, activities, agendas, schedules.They just lived.They didn't plan.They didn't say "today I will do A, B, and C. "Each day was a blank page. 121 RW had a hard time listening to his intuition, inspiration, inner voice.From earliest childhood we are taught to plan, think about the future, know what we want, and how to discern between the "real" and the "imaginary."
One day, RW decided, as a scientific experiment, not to think, just be.122 All day, his mind raced.The day ended with him exhausted from roaring mind.Some days, he could ßoat, and he quit hearing his mind, he started seeing and hearing and smelling things that he had never noticed before.He found a mango tree loaded with fruit, and his mind said to take as many as possible.
He decided to live in the moment.He ate some fruit, and sat down.He became part of the scene, not just an observer.He couldn't inventory or name things. All he could do was experience. It took him many months of practice to learn how to be. 127 While with the tree, he saw a monkey and its child. Later, one of the Sng'oi mentioned this event, that RW had told nobody about, they knew of things that they hadn't seen.
157 Ahmeed began taking RW on long walks in the woods, with no food, water, or words. RW asked what he was supposed to learn, and they laughed. Just walk, you will learn.When he was thirsty, he felt which direction to move in.He found water collected in a big leaf.
"My perception opened further. I no longer saw water, what I felt with my whole being was a leaf-with-water-in-it, attached to a plant that grew in soil surrounded by uncounted other plants, all part of the same blanket of living things covering the soil, which was also part of a larger living skin around the earth.And nothing was separate; all was one, the same thing: water, leaf, plant, trees, soilâ animals, earth, air, sunlight and little wisps of wind.The all-ness was everywhere, and I was part of it.I cannot explain what went on inside me, but I knew that I had learned something unbelievably wonderful. I felt more alive than I had ever felt before. All of me was filled with being."
158 He had put aside his mind, and used other senses for knowing. 159 He tried to talk, but couldn't.He couldn't be afraid, because he was a part of the all-ness.He didn't have to shout for Ahmeed, he could set aside his mind and know which direction to go.He knew that Ahmeed was not far away.
162 They returned to the group, and RW was happy, filled with love for them.They were his people.We were one whole.163 He learned that he could communicate without words, telepathically.When Ahmeed asked who had brought him back, he realized that a tiger had brought him back.166 Ahmeed sometimes knew of things before they happened.169 Over the years, RW's sense of knowing grew stronger, became a lifeline, made him feel safe.He regained a sense that being human is being a part of the natural world.It is a sense of belonging modern people have lost.
172 Modern Americans have their own bedrooms, own beds, own bathrooms, own cars.They are careful not to touch one another.They have more private physical space than anyone in history.But they are very alienated from each other, and from the Earthâ more than anyone in history. 173 Scientists think that primitives learned medicinal qualities of plants by trial and error. 174 They learned through inner knowing. 175 When he had headaches, he saw the plant he needed, and how to prepare it. It worked.
176 This inner knowing is very real.There are times when he wishes he could turn it off.He could sense what people were feeling, and this became overwhelming in crowds of strangers."I learned that I did not want to sense what people were feeling.It was frightening to discover how many people think nothing at all, but feel waves of anger, resentment, and bitternessâ although they act as if they are deaf and blind to their own feelings.Often our environments are so full, so busy, that allowing all senses to be open will result in overload."
186 Malays make up half of the population, but almost none of them are in mental institutions.Lots of Indians, Chinese, and some whites. 188 They went to Malay villages and asked.No one had ever heard of a person who was crazy.There were strange ones in the community, but they belonged there, they could not be sent away.They could not send a strange old lady away to a nut house, because she belonged to the community.Likewise, they would not call the police on a thief, because he belonged to the community, and it would be wrong to have him sent away to jail.
193 "In other areas of the world people know from experiencing their world as a living, organic whole, where everything relates to everything and where we blend in as but another part of that whole. That experience is not seeing, or hearing, or measuringâ it is a direct experiencing of all that we are."