Four Arrows, aka Don Trent Jacobs, is a champion of the Indigenous Worldview, has been endorsed by some of the world’s most noted thinkers, and has received the Martin Springer Institute’s Moral Courage Award.

4arrows.jpg

Four Arrows

<h4>
 FOUR ARROWS,
 aka
 DON TRENT JACOBS, Ph.D., Ed.D., is the author of numerous books, peer-reviewed articles,
 and chapters on applications of the Indigenous Worldview as a proven
 solution to our existential world problems. Former Director of Education at
 Oglala, Lakota College, and currently professor of professor at the School
 of Educational Leadership for Change at Fielding Graduate University, his
 academic work, spiritual life, and social/ecological justice activism have
 received international recognition. In part 3 of this series, he speaks with
 JUDITH NELSON
 from the Heartfulness Institute about how to work with worldviews and be the
 best person you can be.
</h4>

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 Q:&nbsp; You’ve spoken already about indigenizing our systems, but can you
 talk a bit about how to do that?



 4A: I believe
 that the Indigenous and Dominant worldview reflections can be taught along
 with the CAT–FAWN methodology. CAT stands for Concentration
 Activated Transformation. You can think of it as self-hypnosis or spontaneous
 hypnosis. FAWN is Fear, Authority, Words, and Nature. All we have to do is
 say, “Okay, we’ve got this challenge, whatever it is – making money, stopping
 pollution, or whatever it is. Let’s use CAT–FAWN to get in touch with our
 world.”



 We start with CAT –
 Concentration Activated Transformation. All right, what do we
 know? What are our assumptions, and are those assumptions true? Where do they
 come from? Most of our assumptions about life come from early childhood, but
 there are also things that have been taught by the authorities during times of
 fear. During times of stress, all creatures become hyper suggestible to the
 communication of a perceived authority figure.



 So, we look at meta-cognition. “What am I thinking about thinking? What is the
 source of this?” And, if necessary, we think about how that idea came to us
 and why we believe it.



 We hold on to that CAT idea, and now we go to FAWN and we
 start with Fear. What are we afraid of? How does fear – in
 any of its forms, from apprehension to paranoia – influence what we’re doing,
 what we’re deciding?



 In the Dominant Worldview, fear is to be avoided. We don’t like it; we don’t
 like the taste or smell of it. In the Indigenous Worldview, once the
 fight-or-flight mechanism of fear is over, it becomes an opportunity to
 practice a virtue – patience, courage, generosity, fortitude, humility,
 honesty, persistence – the great universal virtues. Fear is an opportunity to
 practice those things.



 Then, courage turns into fearlessness once we take action. Fearlessness means
 that, whatever the outcome, we’re fully engaged.



 Now let’s take Authority. In the Dominant Worldview,
 authority is almost always external – the papa, the preacher, the Pope, etc.
 In the Indigenous Worldview, the highest authority is your personal reflection
 or lived experience, with the understanding that everything is connected.
 People think of Indigenous people as collective, and the Western people as
 individualistic. No, not really. Have you ever seen a more individualistic,
 autonomous individual than an Indigenous person?



 Indigenous people have non-hierarchical cultures, so their authority,
 ultimately, is their own reflection; and the goal of their individuality is to
 help others, to help the community.


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 Okay, now let’s take Words. What words are we using? In the
 Dominant Worldview, we’re in a post-truth world; words are deceptive, children
 are using them deceptively, presidents are using them deceptively. It is
 commonplace. Books have been written saying it’s a survival thing to use
 deceptive words, right?



 In the Indigenous Worldview, words are sacred vibrations, so you’ve got to do
 your best. Truth is multifaceted, and you do your best to communicate. That’s
 why a verb-based language is easier because it’s always flowing; it’s harder
 to concretize it.



 As you begin to do the work, you can ask, “What words are we using?” When I
 taught hypnosis at UC Berkeley, a man came to me because his armpits sweated
 profusely whenever he was going to a meeting. I asked, “What do you say
 to yourself before you go to the meeting?” He said, “I don’t know, I look
 at my watch and go. I guess, ‘I have to go to this meeting.’” I said,
 “Just change ‘I have to go to the meeting’ to ‘I want to go to the meeting’
 and see what happens.” He thought I had hypnotized him, but I didn’t! All
 hypnosis is ultimately self-hypnosis, and that’s how powerful words are.



 Kipling said that words are humankind’s most powerful drug. That opinion comes
 from a Dominant Worldview, and it’s true, but Indigenous people would not use
 those terms. They would say that words are sacred prayers. So, if a woman
 is obese and she comes to me to get healthy, I say, “What do you say when you
 look in the mirror?” She replies, “I see a fat person, I’m fat.” And
 I say, “Let’s look at the words and your accuracy. Is it possible? If you were
 fat, you’d be in a jar. I don’t understand how that can be.” Pretty soon
 she’s got the idea, and she says, “Ah! I see myself in the mirror as a
 beautiful woman who happens to have more adipose tissue than she wants and is
 good for her health.” Ta dah! Now we can work with that. That’s how
 powerful words are, and it changes everything.


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 Technology is the balance between worldviews, and we can use
 technology to say, “If that’s what these ants are doing, it
 confirms that we need to be more dedicated to working together.”
</h4>

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 The last one is Nature. What are we learning from nature
 about how our organization can move forward, how our family plans can move
 forward? Nature is all around us. Something will show up: a line of ants will
 appear, or you’ll look out into the yard and see a fox. Something will come,
 trust me on this. Just open yourself up to it. Learn as much about that
 creature as you can. That is something we’ve lost. Technology is the balance
 between worldviews, and we can use technology to say, “If that’s what these
 ants are doing, it confirms that we need to be more dedicated to working
 together.”


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 Q: I’m really struck by the common threads between what you’ve been saying
 and Heartfulness. For instance, you practice self-hypnosis and we practice
 meditation, and we also use beautiful, positive ideas and affirmations to
 see the world in a different light, to see people advancing, to see them
 develop, etc.



 4A:&nbsp; Yes,
 it’s the same thing. Meditation with affirmations is self-hypnosis; meditation
 without affirmations is being receptive to whatever comes. There are two sides
 to that coin. When you bring affirmations into meditation, then it becomes, by
 definition, a hidden hypnotic phenomenon. In Yoga, they do that very often.
 Often, it’s just tuning in, and other times it’s sending out love to the world
 through affirmations.



 So, if we could look at this series of worldview assumptions using
 affirmations, in one generation we would see changes happen. The Neusiok/Miwok
 Indians had lost their language, they were alcoholics, they couldn’t grow
 things, and some of the women thought, “We can bring back our ways.” In one
 and a half generations, they brought back the language, the ways of being, and
 now their sheep grow bigger, their corn grows bigger, and there’s hardly any
 alcoholism. Theoretically, we can return to our original worldview and live
 the heart-minded way. That’s one of the worldview precepts – living with the
 heart, following with the head, rather than the other way round. I think the
 yogic traditions are helping to bring us closer and closer to that also.



 Everyone can change, and they can do it from whatever tradition they wish. If
 we look at the religions – let’s take Christianity. An expert on Western
 Christianity showed me how the Church has created racism and maintained
 racism. But you can also look at Christianity and find things that resonate so
 beautifully with our worldview. So, a person can stay a Christian, because
 Jesus did many things that relate to this.



 Any culture can keep its unique diversity and find the place where it can
 include this worldview.


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<h4 class="has-text-align-center">
 Meditation with affirmations is self-hypnosis; meditation without
 affirmations is being receptive to whatever comes.
</h4>

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 Q:&nbsp; I understand that, as I come from a religious background and ended
 up in a meditation practice because I wanted to understand life from a very
 different level. Meditation leads to a meditative life, a meditative state,
 in a way that I think you’re describing the connection to everything. If
 practiced well, you realize the connection with everything.



 It’s interesting that there are many threads working toward the same ends.
 It’s exciting to see how many systems are trying to connect to the same
 thing from different angles, because we’re not all the same. I picked up
 from your interviews that it’s about honoring our personal experience,
 instead of following someone else because they are an authority
 figure.



 4A:&nbsp;&nbsp;
 You’re absolutely right. Ultimately, it’s the experience. That’s where our
 teachings come from, not from somebody telling us; we have to experience it.


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 Q: Are there any practical ways to reduce our footprint and environmental
 destruction, rather than waiting for governments to solve this for us?



 4A: Well,
 everybody can live with a light footprint. Just do your best. Buy locally
 produced food, be mindful of what kinds of products you buy, know the
 corporation’s footprint, etc., and all those consciousness activities.


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<h4 class="has-text-align-center">
 A healthier definition of hope is the certainty that whatever you’re
 doing is worth doing regardless of the outcome.
</h4>

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 But I’ll close by saying that I don’t think we’re going to be able to turn
 things around. I was at the University of British Columbia the first time I
 said that, a year before the pandemic. The audience didn’t know whether to
 throw things at me or cry! Then the logical question came back, “Then why
 are you here? Why are you doing this work? Why are you writing these
 books?” And I answered, “Because I want to continue trying to be the best
 human being I can be.”



 I wrote a little book called
 Sitting Bull’s Words: For a World in Crisis. Sitting Bull didn’t have
 hope: all the buffalo had been killed, smallpox was wiping people out, and he
 was being chased. And yet, he never stopped being generous, he never stopped
 laughing, he never stopped writing songs, he never stopped his spiritual
 practices, he never stopped resisting, and he never stopped caring for the
 future of children.



 I don’t think hope is the certainty that things are going to turn out okay. A
 healthier definition of hope is the certainty that whatever you’re doing is
 worth doing regardless of the outcome. I find that people feel liberated by
 that and they have less burnout. They say, “I see what’s happening with the
 oil spills, I see the wars, I see the injustices and the political corruption,
 but the direction I’m going in personally, experientially, in my work, makes
 sense.”


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 The practical thing is to live our lives as best we can, and that means
 personal health and vitality, compassion, and empathy for others. I believe
 that we’re bodies inhabited by spirits, and our spirits can practice this and
 learn the lessons that we’re uniquely given in this life. Then, the chances
 are that when we rebuild, it won’t be like the post-apocalyptic movies, with
 guys with machine guns raping women. We’ll see people living according to our
 original worldview.


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<hr />

<h4 class="has-text-align-center">
 The practical thing is to live our lives as best we can, and that
 means personal health and vitality, compassion, and empathy for
 others.
</h4>

<hr />

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 Q: Thank you. That’s a lovely note to end on, because you’ve given a
 positive and helpful ideal for people who feel overwhelmed with all that’s
 going on. If we understand, “I can change myself. I’m not responsible for
 everything out there,” it provides a calmer sense of our part in this. As
 you say, if everybody does this, it will make all the difference.



 It reminds me of something one of our Heartfulness teachers said when he
 was asked, “How do I distinguish between right and wrong?” He replied,
 “Just ask yourself, ‘What if everybody did it?’ and you’ll get the
 answer.” He made it so simple. If we ask ourselves “What if everybody
 loved?” it would be fine; “What if everybody killed?” it wouldn’t be
 fine.



 Thanks again Don for a fascinating interview.
 


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<hr />

<h4 class="has-text-align-center">Interview by JUDITH NELSON</h4>

<hr />

Live life the best you can

Kinship and interconnectedness

<h4
 id="h-four-arrows-aka-don-trent-jacobs-ph-d-ed-d-is-the-author-of-numerous-books-peer-reviewed-articles-and-chapters-on-applications-of-the-indigenous-worldview-as-a-proven-solution-to-our-existential-world-problems-former-director-of-education-at-oglala-lakota-college-and-currently-a-professor-of-education-for-change-at-fielding-graduate-university-his-academic-work-spiritual-life-and-social-ecological-justice-activism-have-received-international-recognition-including-a-book-on-his-work-by-dr-michael-fisher-entitled-fearless-engagement-of-four-arrows-in-part-1-of-this-series-he-speaks-with-judith-nelson-from-the-heartfulness-institute-about-worldviews-and-complementarity">
 FOUR ARROWS,
 aka
 DON TRENT JACOBS, Ph.D., Ed.D.,
 is the author of numerous books, peer-reviewed articles,
 and chapters on applications of the Indigenous Worldview as a proven
 solution to our existential world problems. Former Director of Education at
 Oglala, Lakota College, and currently a professor of education for change at
 Fielding Graduate University, his academic work, spiritual life, and
 social/ecological justice activism have received international recognition,
 including a book on his work by Dr. Michael Fisher entitled
 Fearless Engagement of Four Arrows. In part 1 of this series, he
 speaks with
 JUDITH NELSON
 from the Heartfulness Institute about worldviews and
 complementarity.
</h4>

<hr class="vertical-space1" />


 Q: A very big welcome, Don. Can you tell us a bit about your
 background?



 4A: I was born in
 St. Louis County, Missouri, USA. My mom was Irish-Cherokee, and my dad was
 Irish, but my Cherokee background was ignored, except once a month when mom
 would talk about it. Her dad had committed suicide, and it was not something
 to have as a positive.



 I went into the Marine Corps during the Vietnam era. When I got out, I had a
 chip on my shoulder about the falsities of that war, and I took it out on
 adventures like wild-horse training and white-water rafting. I tried a river
 that had never been ascended before, the Rio Urique in Copper Canyon, Mexico.
 The canyon was 8,000 feet down, and I had a near-death experience where the
 river disappeared into an underground hole.



 I had a vision during that experience, which brought me to studying the
 Indigenous worldview. It was not just the vision but also the Rarámuri people.
 They saved the lives of my friend and me by getting us out of the canyon.



 I called that vision CAT-FAWN. CAT stands for Concentration Activated
 Transformation. You can think of it as self-hypnosis or spontaneous hypnosis.
 FAWN is Fear, Authority, Words, and Nature. The CAT was the mountain lion that
 led us out of the cave as the river rose from flooding; and the FAWN was one
 that the Tarahumara had been carrying over their shoulder. They had run it
 down – you may have heard of the Tarahumara as being great runners. Those two
 animals turned into the words “CAT-FAWN.”


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 I got a second doctorate with an Indigenous worldview cognate, and I was
 convinced from the vision and subsequent work that the changes that happened
 to me were about remembering our original worldview. As soon as I graduated, I
 was hired as Director of Education at Oglala Lakota College for the Pine Ridge
 Reservation. I found individuals who still held onto the old ways, and I
 became a Sun Dancer. One of the seven sacred ceremonies of the Lakota is the
 making of a relative. I was made a relative of the Medicine Horse Tiospaye,
 and I commenced writing about the Indigenous worldview, one that belongs to
 all of us, one that guided us for 99% of human history up until 8,000 years
 ago. That’s been my life’s passion.



 Q: How did you come to have the name Four Arrows?



 4A: I got the
 name Four Arrows during the relative-making ceremony. I did a
 Hanbleceya (vision quest) prior to that and had a vision of a lake
 with four arrows shooting from the middle of it. Each arrow went in a
 different direction – west, north, east, and south – and when it hit the
 ground it turned into an animal. When I came back, I burnt my clothes, went
 into the lodge, and told them my vision. I was given the name Four Arrows.



 Q: Can you explain what you mean by worldview?



 4A: Experts like
 Kotlko-Rivera essentially say that it’s a fundamental belief in our human
 relationship with Nature and with the supernatural. It undergirds all our
 beliefs and philosophies. I follow the theory of Robert Redfield, known as the
 father of social anthropology. Working out of the University of Chicago, he
 brought the German idea of Weltanschauung to the academy in a more
 meaningful way.



 In the early ’30s he said that there are only three worldviews: The Eastern
 worldview, which the yogic traditions come from; the Western worldview; and
 the primitive worldview. Later, he decided that the Eastern one had largely
 been subsumed in terms of operations, governments, schooling, etc. So he said,
 “There are only two,” and he called one the metropolitan or civilized one, and
 the other the mythological or indigenous one.



 He believed that the greatest tragedy to happen in human history was the
 destruction of the Indigenous worldview by those who colonized and
 operationalized the dominant worldview.



 One definition I came upon on for worldview is that it’s really about how to
 understand the norm of opposites that exist in the world – night
 and day, in and out, up and down.


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<hr />

<h4 class="has-text-align-center">
 One definition I came upon on for worldview is that it’s
 really about
 how to understand the norm of opposites that
 exist in the world – night and day,
 in and out, up and down.
</h4>

<hr />

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 In the dominant worldview, there’s a rigid either-or, whereas in the
 Indigenous worldview there are night and day, in and out.
 These polarities certainly exist, and we recognize them in our language, but
 the Indigenous worldview looks at complementary duality.



 There’s a quote in Hillary Webb’s book1, where one of the Andean
 Indians says something like: Well, it’s crazy not to recognize what is bad as
 bad, but the trick is being able to recognize what is bad in a way that brings
 forth harmony. How can you look at “This is healthy, this is not healthy” in a
 way that’s harmonious? Very, very tricky idea!


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 Carl Jung came up with something similar when he said that the understanding
 of duality is an art that realizes the living rhythm that comes from finding
 balance between opposites.



 So, I came up with a Worldview Chart based on research around forty precepts.
 Most of all, the cultures in the world under the dominant worldview have this
 anthropocentric view that humans are at the “center.” No matter how much you
 love animals or pets, you still operate according to you – everything is about
 humans. Capitalism essentially is about humans – everything else on Earth is
 utilitarian.



 In contrast, there are the Vedic traditions (I practice Kundalini Yoga, and
 this is just a theory now, on my part). They have attempted to bring us back
 to our nature-based worldview, to an understanding of our interconnectedness,
 but they have done it as “postvention” instead of prevention. They say, “Well,
 this is what we can do from where we are,” whereas in the Indigenous
 worldview, as Webb shows, 78% of all pre-contact cultures were peaceful
 societies. They were living and maintaining their societies through
 ceremonies.



 My students use the Worldview Chart all the time. Whenever something comes up,
 they look at it and ask, “Okay, what are the challenges? Why is
 anthropocentrism creating this problem? What would happen if we truly see,
 let’s say, trees as sentient, and ants and cockroaches in the bathroom as
 sentient? What if we take time to study, to observe, even if we have to use
 Google to find out what they’re all about?” “What if we really have in our
 minds that humans are not superior? How would that affect how we treat people
 of different color, of different sexual identity, of different economic
 class?” Pretty soon, people start to see that all these worldview precepts
 work together.



 My students use the Worldview Chart in every class. While talking about
 sociological, ecological, justice issues, complexities, and problems, they go
 through it and say, “If we could have a sense that competition is about
 developing positive potential, not about winning to feel superior,” or “If we
 could really understand that there are spiritual energies in the world, and
 that experience would allow someone to do such-and-such.”



 I ask people to do an exercise where they choose one thing from the dominant
 worldview list on the left that they are engaged with. Many individuals and
 groups like your own find that they resonate with something on the right-hand
 list – the Indigenous worldview – but I ask them to look at the list on the
 left, and it has really been amazing. At the Boston College of Business, one
 person who had never thought about the Indigenous worldview said, “Wow, I
 can’t believe how easy this would be to do. I can see how even though I
 generally believe people are good, I live in a world where human nature is
 seen as essentially corrupt or evil. That’s what’s operating and I buy into
 that. I buy into social laws as primary as opposed to the laws of Nature.”



 So, people recognize that we live in systems that are essentially guiding us
 via the dominant worldview, and that’s why we’re in such an existential
 crisis. Then we look at the Indigenous worldview, and we talk about “What
 would happen if we had our organization operating according to a number of
 these principles?” So, does that help a little?


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 Q: Yes. In fact, I’m quite struck by the similarity between
 our
 Heartfulness system and its aims, and the Indigenous worldview that you have
 on the right side of the chart.



 4A: I felt that
 when you were first talking about Heartfulness. It’s not unusual, because some
 of the original yogic philosophies were in sync with the Indigenous worldview.
 There’s one world based on Nature and Spirit, and then there’s the
 human-centered materialistic world that we live in, which during less than 1%
 of human history has destroyed life systems, happiness, and everything else.
 It’s a no-brainer for me, and yet there’s a lot of resistance.



 A lot of my colleagues see duality as binary, because the dominant worldview
 is binary, and they can’t understand how playing with the two sides
 is not a violation of the “us-versus-them” thinking. That’s all they know,
 that’show it works. They don’t understand the phenomenon of complementary
 thinking.


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<hr />

<h4 class="has-text-align-center">
 The Indigenous worldview looks at complementary
 duality.
</h4>

<hr />

<hr class="vertical-space1" />


 So, let’s talk about the original myths of twin heroes around the world. There
 are always twins – two men, a man and woman, or two women – who work together.
 One represents the solar energy and one represents the lunar energy. All
 Indigenous cultures have these myths, for example, the Navajo have one called
 Monster Slayer and the Child Born of the Water. Monster Slayer is the solar,
 and the Child Born of the Water is the lunar.



 They come to a monster with long arms, and Monster Slayer says, “No problem,
 I’m a good shot, I’m going to get him with my arrow.” The Child Born of
 Water says, “O brother, his arms are so long, he’ll get that arrow and us.
 It’s not going to work.” Monster Slayer says, “Well, what should we
 do?” And the Child Born of Water says, “I think we should sing to
 him.” So they sing to him. The monster, never having been treated that
 way, mellows out. The lesson is that monsters are those things in us that are
 our greed, our jealousy, our anger, etc.



 Jump forward to the dominant worldview, where all the twin-hero stories have
 been changed. Romulus kills Remus, Jacob steals Esau’s birthright, and so on.
 Everybody knows Hercules, but nobody knows his brother, Iphicles, who was the
 lunar twin. We have dominated in a solar way, and we’ve made that masculine.
 We’ve dominated the feminine, right?


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 So, with this idea of complementarity, people are confused by seeing a duality
 and not immediately saying “Ah! This is what I’m against.” It’s a tricky
 business to be able to say, like the Indigenous Andeans said: It’s crazy to
 think that something that’s bad isn’t bad.


The trick is bringing the awareness and the solution in a harmonious way.

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To be continued.

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 This interview has been brought to you with the collaboration and support
 of the Spirit of Humanity Forum.


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 1 Webb, H.S., 2012.
 Yanantin and Masintin in the Andean World: Complementary Dualism in
 Modern Peru. University of New Mexico Press, USA.