A Story of Sacred Activism
This article is excerpted from the author's new book The Hope: A Guide To Sacred Activism, recently released by Hay House and used by permission. Read our second excerpt from this book here.
An elderly black woman was brought by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission face to face with the man, Mr. Van de Broek, who had confessed to the savage torture and murder of both the woman's son and her husband a few years earlier. The old woman had been made to witness her husband's death. The last words of her husband had been "Father forgive them."
One of the members of the Commission turned to her and asked "How do you believe justice should be done to this man who has inflicted such suffering on you and so brutally destroyed your family?"
The old woman replied "I want three things. I want first to be taken to the place where my husband's body was burned so that I can gather up the dust and give his remains a decent burial." She stopped, collected herself, and then went on. "My husband and son were my only family. I want, secondly, therefore, for Mr. Van de Broek to become my son. I would like for him to come twice a month to the ghetto and spend a day with me so that I can pour out to him whatever love I have still remaining with me. And finally, I want a third thing. I would like Mr. Van de Broek to know that I offer him my forgiveness because Jesus Christ died to forgive. This was also the wish of my husband. And so, I would kindly ask someone to come to my side and lead me across the courtroom so that I can take Mr. Van de Broek in my arms, embrace him, and let him know that he is truly forgiven."
The assistants came to help the old black woman across the room. Mr. Van de Broek, overwhelmed by what he had just heard, fainted. And as he did, those in the courtroom -- friends, family, neighbors -- all victims of decades of oppression and injustice -- began to sing "Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me."
The first time I read this sacred story, one detail leapt out and felled me with its truth: "Mr. Van de Broek, overwhelmed by what he had just heard, fainted." Nothing in his brutal and degraded past could have prepared Mr. Van de Broek for what the black woman to whom he had given such pain gave him in return, not fury, nor a call for his execution, but unconditional forgiveness and a reclaiming of him into the human family as a whole and into her own immediate family. And the sacred power, flowing through her because of her humility and faith, did not merely "move" Mr. Van de Broek; it fell on him like invisible lightning from a dimension of pure love he may never have begun to suspect existed. In that moment, two extraordinary journeys, both terrible in different ways, intersected in an explosion of grace.
You can read this story and be deeply moved by it but think that its relevance to the gritty problems of world affairs is marginal. This is a mistake. Anyone who has been involved with the Palestinian/Israeli and the India/Pakistan conflicts -- the two most dangerous conflicts in our world -- must know by now that any purely political solution, a changing of boundaries, exchange of money or power, has only a very small chance of working. In such extreme situations -- and extreme situations characterize increasingly all realms of our world -- only extreme solutions born from another dimension of truth and compassion have any real chance of being effective. There will be no end to the potential horror in the Middle East and in the India/Pakistan conflict in Kashmir until a great many people on both sides have made the amazing and humbling journey of the elderly black woman to unconditional forgiveness, not from a position of weakness or defeat, but from a mysterious inner experience of the nature of God as being one of all-embracing Mercy. While dauntingly difficult, such a journey is by no means impossible; countless numbers of anonymous and so-called ordinary beings have made it throughout history and are making it now in Serbia, Rwanda, Darfur, Cambodia, the Congo, and Zimbabwe even in the middle of storms of terror.
Such a height of unconditional forgiveness and embrace is also essential to the success of all the major activist adventures in our world. Savage denunciation -- of corrupt corporations and lazy politicians, and of a media in bed with "systems of cold evil" that want to keep exploiting the earth - - may have truth in its fury. But it has two main disadvantages in practical affairs; the excitement of projecting onto others your own unacknowledged darkness blinds you from seeing just how implicated you are and ensures that your advocacy of your case increases rather than heals resistance. Human beings are never going to be convinced to change their ways by other human beings who try to humiliate them through self-righteous contempt. In almost every case, such condemnation only reinforces the behavior it is trying to end: when someone is accused of something they know they are guilty of by someone whom they can see has contempt for them, they nearly always retreat even further into their self-destructive behavior, or if they do change, it is from fear, or even hypocrisy, and not from their own truth.
One of the main reasons that the environmental movement has been so disappointing in its overall public effect is because of the fierce moralism of many of its pronouncements, and the implication of many environmental activists that they and they alone are "right" and that the rest of humanity is almost worthy of the extinction they are creating for themselves. It is hard to avoid such self-righteousness and disdain when speaking to people you feel are continuing outrageous abuses. Only radical shadow-work and incessant prayer open the doors to the kind of humility in which those opposed to what you believe cease to be "other" and call out from you respect and compassion. The most effective negotiators in situations of extreme danger or conflict are always those whose experience of their own continuing inner conflicts make them human and humble and who work not to exclude anyone -- even those who have continually indulged in acts of brutality and destruction -- from the circle of humanity and forgiveness.
It would be sentimental to imagine that negotiators who work in this spirit always succeed. What you can say, however, is that their path shows us the way to the only solutions that could be permanently effective because they are rooted not only in a rearrangement of rational demands, but in a fundamental change of heart that can, when the circumstances are right, effect a shift as profound as that which felled Mr. Van de Broek to the ground.
Let me give you an example from my own experience in which I was myself inspired and changed by the story of the elderly black woman. Last year, a man who had read my book on Rumi, The Way of Passion, wrote to me and told me about his life and about how he had ended up getting a twenty-year jail sentence for torturing animals. He said that he knew that the same horrifying impulses that had led him to such brutality still lived in him and he wrote to ask me for my help.
I can still remember my sorrow and horror at reading his letter. The torture of children and animals torments me so much that I know I have difficulty keeping any kind of balance on either subject. But I know, too, that any kind of disgust I allowed to linger in my heart toward this man would pervert any words of comfort or encouragement I could offer him. I would have no hope of helping him if I did not aim for the height of unconditional love that the black woman in the story spoke from. If she could forgive the man who had murdered her own husband and son, who was I not to try and forgive him?
I prayed for days to be given the strength to approach the man who had written to me in a way untainted by self-righteousness or disgust. I had to come to face three things: that an animal torturer existed also in me as it does in anyone who, however momentarily, enjoys power over the weak or helpless; that the man who had done these terrible things had, from his own account of his life, had terrible things done to him; that while the animals he had tortured and killed were dead, he was still alive and in need of understanding and compassion and needed them even more now that he was beginning to see and feel just how horrific his actions were.
The combination of these three perspectives, meditated on for days, finally gave me the strength and peace and inner balance to write to him sincerely and without, I hope, any trace of condemnation. I told him frankly about how I had felt when I read his letter and also of the journey his honesty had compelled me on. I thanked him for it because without being forced to take it, I would still have been unconsciously separating myself from people who had done the things he had, imagining myself to be superior and incapable of such brutality. We wrote to each other several times and with each growing account of what he had undergone as a child and in the various criminal institutions he had lived in most of his life, my compassion for him and admiration at his passion for transformation grew. Would I have had the courage to believe I COULD change after doing what he had done? Would I have had the stamina to undo the kind of lacerating self-hatred he had had to endure? I am not sure. The compliment that he paid me in the last letter he wrote me I will cherish and try to live up to: "thank you above all for making me feel that I have given YOU something. You will never know what that has meant to me. It has meant everything. It has given me a hope that saves me again and again from drowning in despair."
Two weeks after receiving this last letter I had the occasion to sit down with the head of one of the most environmentally destructive corporations in the world. Because I had studied the record of this corporation in certain South American countries, I knew much more than I wanted to both about the CEO and the snaky dealings of the corporation. I had no illusions, of course, that an hour spent with Andrew Harvey would affect a change of heart and result in an immediate world-wide change in corporate energy policy. I did know, however, that this was a cynical man who had the lowest opinion of "whiny self-righteous environmentalists" and an even lower one, if possible, of religious leaders whom he referred to contemptuously (he was British) "as a bunch of hypocritical and bone-headed wankers." He had consented to see me because he was intrigued by my Oxford professorial background and had heard one of my tapes and thought it "almost interesting" which for him I gathered was high praise.
In the days before we met I found myself asking the question, what would the elderly black woman do faced with such a man, who in his own way had committed or abetted crimes perhaps even greater than those of the Boer torturer? The more I asked the question, the more its answer became clear to me. She would go in and sit opposite him and see him as he really was -- not as a criminal, but as the lost and bewildered human being he must also be to go on choosing to be enslaved to the religion of power. She would sit before him knowing that he was an aspect of herself. She would sit before him and pray to be the empty channel of a love and mercy and intelligence she knew was far greater and wiser than her own in the hope that they would know what to say and how to say it.
I prayed for days before the meeting to be worthy of the elderly black woman's example. In the event the heavens did not open, this man certainly did not faint and there was not even an inaudible and invisible chanting of Amazing Grace. But because of the attitude I walked in with (and no doubt also because of his own genuine goodwill) two small subtle miracles did take place, which neither of us could have imagined. We genuinely liked each other; freed of the need to condemn him I could appreciate his brilliance, his wit, his love of cricket and classical music, the genuine if sporadic charm that flashed out from his incessant need to dominate and manipulate. Because I did not attack or humiliate him, he was able to admit at the end of our conversation that it "was essential to start up a conversation about ethics in corporate activity." I have no idea if he will make good on his promise or even whether what he said was another way of winning the day ("these religious wankers are so vain and stupid they'll believe anything"). What I do know is that for moments we were able to be free of our mutual prejudices. In those moments, the beginnings of a spontaneous dialogue beyond both of our roles -- his as a Capitalist conquistador and mine as Sacred Activist Scourge -- flowered. What I also know is that it is from moments such as these that new kinds of conversations between people who have been "opposed" to each other can begin with potentially transformative consequences.
Unconditional love and forgiveness of others is not only for saints and Buddhas. If you think like that you will never explore your own capacity to love and forgive in far wider ways than you have ever imagined. The sublime courage of the African woman is more accessible to us than we think, once we have the heart-intelligence to realize its necessity, and the humility to ask the Divine to help us realize it. One of the things my life has persuaded me of is that we are all capable of both greater acts of destructiveness and of heroism than we want or dare to imagine.
Andrew Harvey is an internationally acclaimed poet, novelist, translator, mystical scholar, and spiritual teacher. He is the architect of a modern day spiritual movement known as Sacred Activism. He has published over 20 books including Son of Man (Tarcher/Putnam) and The Return of the Mother (North Atlantic Books) . Harvey is the Founder/Director of the Institute of Sacred Activism in Oak Park, Illinois, where he lives. His website is www.andrewharvey.net.
©Copyright 2009 Andrew Harvey
Andrew will give a lecture on Sacred Activism and the World
Crisis, and sign copies of his new book, The Hope: A Guide to Sacred Activism, at One Spirit Learning Alliance in New York City on September 24, 2009 from 7 - 9:30PM. One Spirit Learning Alliance is at 330 West 38th Street (between 38th and 39th), Suite 1500.
Teaser photo by Tapperboy, courtesy of Creative Commons license.
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Put off by this
I met Andrew for a Thai meal in Chicago and truly enjoyed his company. However I admit that I am struggling with this book and his perspective, and I wonder what other people think about it. This idea of unconditional love and unconditional forgiving not only seems like an impossible and non-human ideal, it also seems to me that it feeds into what John Lash calls the "victim - perpetrator bond" that was written into the Bible.
Lash's perspective in his amazing book, Not In His Image, is that the Judeo-Christian tradition was created intentionally as a deviation that took people away from the proper path of spiritual development. Lash writes from a Gnostic perspective, arguing that the Gnostics were the holders of ancient mystery school knowledge, and they recognized that Christianity was designed to imprison humanity in the spell created by the Archons and the Demiurge. Christian constructs such as "love thy neighbor as thyself,""turn the other cheek," and the underlying concept of "original sin" secretly function to keep people enslaved in a culture based on domination.
This is most obviously the case with "turning the other cheek": This extreme form of masochistic, passive resistance allows the perpetrator of violence to have the upper hand, while the cheek-turner maintains a sense of moral superiority, despite the violence being perpetrated against them and others like them. According to Lash, such extremes of masochistic passivity coupled with idealized moral superiority were written into the Bible code by the Archons and the dominators to prevent the overthrow of the dominator culture by the oppressed, who far outnumber the oppressors, and could potentially make use of the means of violence to address their victimized state.
I remember when I visited the Hopi elder and I asked him what should be done with the CEOs and boardmembers of the coal company that was destroying their land and ruining their culture. "Cut off their heads," he calmly replied. I was shocked by this at first, but then as I thought about it over time, I could see his point of view.
Even Gandhi, who is associated with nonviolence, promoted "active nonviolence," direct action against the oppressors, and he also said that in situations where "active nonviolence" could not be effective, violent resistance was preferable to "passive nonviolence." What Harvey seems to advocate in his book is a toothless, passive nonviolence that will ensure a personal sense of moral superiority but have no meaningful effect on changing the underlying structure of society, which is based on domination and oppression.
By nature, I support nonviolence and pacifism. However, it may be that situations arise where violence - or at least the threat of violence - is the only answer to interrupting a cycle of domination. To cede the capacity for violence to the oppressors is, potentially, to give up any hope of making real change. I find it troubling to think these thoughts, yet I feel these subjects must be examined impartially and scrupulously, so that greater clarity can be attained.
Several people recently brought to my attention the connection between the Tibetan Buddhists, who promote nonviolence, and the CIA. Is it possible that the Tibetan Buddhists are given so much cultural cache in the West because of their principled stand of nonviolence, which also renders them helpless when facing a militarized regime? If we do away with moral absolutes and deal with the world as it is, we may have to find that there are times when violence is a necessary evil - for instance, against the Nazi regime during World War Two.
On an abstract and absolute level, one can "unconditionally forgive" Nazi torturers, Chinese armies, or corporations that profit off of the desecration of land and people. On the relative level of human actions, however, these malignant forces still need to be dealt with if we ever want to see our world thrive in peace. It may require means other than prayer or Harvey's rather meek brand of "sacred activism" to bring them down.
I am curious to hear others' thoughts on this complex, delicate, and extremely important issue.
personal --> social nonviolence
Daniel,
Before taking Deepak Chopra's "vow of nonviolence in thoughts, speech, and actions" (http://itakethevow.com), I wanted to know the practical ramifications of taking such a pledge. On the questions page, I found Deepak's views to be enlightening as to an application of nonviolence on a personal level. I think his anecdote, reprinted below, affirms your view concerning incidents of necessity. The challenge is to apply the vision to the larger context of social groups.
QUESTION
How is the vow supposed to work in difficult or life-threatening situations?
ANSWER
In difficult life-threatening situations you must respond instinctually to protect yourself. I would like to give you two personal stories as examples. The first is an incident that occurred when my daughter Mallika was only 6-weeks old. We were living in a tenement apartment in a very poor section of Boston. I was a resident in Internal Medicine at Boston City Hospital. My wife Rita had gone to the grocery store and I was baby-sitting. Mallika was in a little basket next to me and I was reading a medical journal. The doorbell rang and when I opened it a 6’ 11’’man suddenly entered the apartment wielding a baseball bat in his gigantic hands. I let out the loudest scream in my life. It was so piercing and shrill I’m surprised it didn’t shatter all the glass in the place. The baseball bat fell from his hands. Without thought, I instinctively picked it up and hit him in the back. The next thing I knew, he was crumpled on the floor and police sirens were wailing outside. It turns out he had just escaped from prison where he had been incarcerated for multiple murders. The police handcuffed him and took him back to prison. The next day my photo appeared in the local newspaper as a hero.
The second situation occurred only five years ago. After giving a lecture in a Southern city, I was walking back to my hotel through a dark alley behind a theater. Suddenly I found myself surrounded by four male teenagers. One of them had a gun which he held against my head. This time, I remained calm and centered. It had been approximately 30 years since the first encounter with violence and I had been practicing meditation for much of that time. I took out my wallet gave my terrorist “friends” all the cash I had. Then I found myself saying to them “You don’t want to be in prison for murder for just a $150. Will you please allow me to keep my credit cards as they will be of no use to you? If you throw the gun away and run as fast as you can, I promise you I will tell no one about this episode except my wife.” They hesitated, and I said “Please throw the gun away, and run quickly.” The apparent leader of the group then threw his gun away, and they ran off. The next day I went to an ATM and took out $150 to replace the cash. I kept my promise and did not tell anyone but my wife about this episode for 6 months. If you stay connected to your soul the right response will occur as it needs to happen.
Dalai Lama
Daniel: The Dalai Lama addressed this basic question in the documentary "10 Questions for the Dalai Lama." He said that violence is acceptable as self-defense at the moment the attack is happening. Once the attack is over and the damage is done, though, violence is no longer an option.
(Not that I take the Dalai Lama's pronouncements as gospel, but it's an interesting view from a pretty awake being.)
self-defense
Since the attack is currently happening all over the planet, then is violence justified as part of the response?
"Will the transformation."-Rilke
forgiveness and nonviolence
Do not conflate nonviolence with forgiveness. They are orthogonal: there is nonviolence both with and without forgiveness. There is forgiveness both with and without violence.
Forgiveness is better for the forgiver than the forgiven.
Forgiveness eliminates hate. Hate is attachment. Attachment steals energy and motivation.
Forgiveness is visceral. There is no abstract forgiveness of Nazis, or torturers, or heartless corporations.
Only people can be forgiven. It is pointless to talk about forgiving a corporation, or a nation, or a gang, or a religion.
well...
It’s a tough call, because there’s really nothing other than our own internal guidance system to indicate the “correct” way to handle any challenging situation we encounter in life.
Andrew Harvey’s story is but one sliver of example. It was what worked for him in that situation with that person, and I don’t know if there’s anything about Sacred Activism that tells you how you are supposed to act in any different situation (I’m still reading the book). And forgiveness, I find, takes many forms.
Perhaps there are times when violence might serve a greater cause. There’s no way to gauge that on a practical level. I recently watched the movie “A History of Violence” again, which shows how horrific violence may have ended a history of violence entrenched in a family’s ancestry. But how can we know when something has “ended”? Seriously. The movie is open-ended in that something was ended, but what the surviving characters choose to do with the rest of their lives and their capacity for violence is unknown. Maybe it worked. Maybe it didn’t.
Our global historical track record has shown that violence doesn’t really end violence, but then again one giant nuclear blast could certainly end it all pretty efficiently. :\ History has shown that love isn’t really the answer, either. After all, we still have problems.
That’s what’s fascinating and frustrating and enflaming about the times we live in. Thousands of years on in human culture, we still don’t have answers. Some things work for some people, and other things work for other people. What I like about Sacred Activism is that Andrew Harvey is advocating for each of us to take action in the place we are individually called to take action, in the way we are called to take action. Following your heart-break has the potential to open up compassion inside each of us, because we will remain sensitive. We won’t be numbing out anything. It’s too easy to use mystical truths as an anesthetic and slip into passivity. You know, “radical forgiveness” can be the easiest excuse to see everything in a foggy bliss of endless wonderfulness. Blech!
But the key is to find the fire inside, the burning, the ache, the place of friction, which is a place of intense aliveness. And a disciplined spiritual path is necessary to keep one constantly conscious of how that kind of friction and fire and intensity can so easily slip into violence. At the level Andrew Harvey speaks from, I feel there is a paradoxical fine, fine line between violence and passivity. But overall, when you walk that line, there’s nothing passive about it. It’s a call to action that has far more repercussions than we can possibly tell by looking at how small or large the action might seem in the moment.
I take the idea behind Sacred Activism to be that if we each walk this line (as many people on earth as possible), the combination is nothing short of revolutionary and transformative.
Overcoming the action/reaction dynamic
Hi Daniel,
I found this approach in a fascinating book - suggested by J. Lash - :
"To discharge all karmas, without gaining more, requires the practice of humility, selflessness, and constant forgiveness. That means that wrong has to be met with neutral goodness, the practice of which starts to disorganize the fragmented mind of a normal person". pag.182
Kali's Odiyya, by Amarananda Bhairavan
It's a complex matter.
I'm thinking of Sri Aurobindo, not precisely a meek mystic, who apparently made an occult resistance against the nazis: In the end we need to align with the Supermind, in aurobindoan terms, to solve these dynamics from a different frame where have been created (Einstein dixit)
"The SACRED (whatever that means) is surely related (somehow) to the BEAUTIFUL (whatever that means)..."
Gregory Bateson
Kali
I admire someone who is able to commit himself to this path of radical forgiveness. I find this kind of humility inspiring- and only to a degree because I could not or would not choose such an extreme path as the one the author admirably describes. I believe forgiveness should be reserved for those who actually apologize and feel remorse. I believe that to forgive someone who does not feel true remorse is to give energetic permission for that person to perpetrate again. People who are not accustomed to taking personal responsibility for their actions don’t start taking responsibility because they get away with a crime. They become more enthusiastic criminals.
I remember once during a soul retrieval when I was being called by the archangels to ask for forgiveness. I apologized, but in my heart, I did not feel the wrongs of how I had hurt people, especially my ex-husband. He had hurt me so badly, I felt justified in lashing back. Daniel knows the man of whom I speak. I will love him forever- but from afar until hopefully we become friends again. I can forgive him now that I healed my own heart. I got a kind of “rejection” notice from the archangels until I felt true remorse. Then through sheer will at wanting back the parts of myself that I had lost in my narcissistic fury- the empathy kicked in- and I could start to see things from the hurt perspectives of the people I had harmed. That was a necessary part of the soul retrieval. People give away parts of their souls when they commit atrocities or give their power away. So what makes someone think that by forgiving someone who has given away their soul that things are going to be better just because someone has forgiven them? That person needs to take responsibility for himself.
If I still believed in humanistic psychology, I would say, “yeah! If you treat someone as their highest self- they will want to become their highest self.” But someone who murders? Come on. That elderly woman is amazing- and I’d give her a million bucks if I had it- I’m serious- but to invite the man who murdered your family in as your own son? That’s just stupid. Maybe she subconsciously wanted him to do her in too now that her family is gone. You know what would have been amazing? If she had forgiven him and then he died from cardiac arrest right there in the court room. That would have been justice. God was like, “yeah- he’s done this before- you can forgive him- but they finally caught the asshole- I’m taking him now.” If someone murdered MY family- I’d make sure he was put in jail for life and sodomized by a guy with a tear tattooed on his face. And that’s only because I wouldn’t have the balls to kill him myself. I do have a soul I wouldn’t want to waste on swine like that.
Listen- I’m speaking from personal experience. My father was murdered. I am not immune to the heart-breaks of first degree heart-fuck. I would be happy if I knew the guy that killed my dad had a gun held to his head and was dragged out to the desert and hung on a tree. Sorry- I know this eye for an eye stuff is so last season.
I personally believe it is the power of the dark goddess Kali (that ultimately has no name) that will mop up some of the toxic people on this planet and all their toxic tendencies. Any time I have gone down a bad road- I have gotten my ass so tremendously kicked that only a true masochist would continue on the same road knowing what the consequences were. And it took extremes like that to set me straight. People like the CEO- who are spoiled lying manipulators used to getting their way have no reason to change unless they start to feel personally affected by their actions in a way that makes them personally suffer. I've been a spoiled manipulator (albeit always a radically honest one), so I am not immune to this kind of filth or the ways in which someone grows out of it. Don't give the kid the cookie. For the ones we can't personally train- let the Universe take care of it. I think the crashing economy will be the corporate CEO's hard lesson learned.
If one is truly a channel for Divine Will- then one’s mental notion of what is necessary for change must also be given up to become a truly empty channel for the divine to come through. I have many times become a channel for Divine Will- and seen a side so wrathful come out that it’s as if I were observing myself from inside myself going, “WHO IS THIS BITCH?” But I tell you truly- this side of me never comes out but with the biggest assholes who don’t seem to be able to learn their lessons any other way than emotional violence. I feel that some of these abusing dominating alpha males need to be shamed or embarrassed into doing the right thing. I have seen the biggest assholes turn into puppies after facing a comeuppance with me- even if just to save face. At least their behavior is modified and they’re causing less harm. Is that not divine will? My hope- in this kind of crazy non-dualistic thinking- is that if they experience a reaction sooooo extreme and uncomfortable, the emotional memory of that lesson might make them think twice before trying something like that again.
This is just my style or my essence or my role or whatever. Ultimately- everyone has to choose what feels authentic to their own heart. I'm also a very kind, inspired, and generous person who prays for people every day and tries my best to heal and protect my friends. I need to say that since I've made my shadow so obvious. Nobody grows by hiding anything. If this style of radical forgiveness works for you- then God bless you and more power to you. I mean it sincerely and wish you blessings upon blessings for radical change in peoples' lives.
Not put off by this
ForGiving is Hard to Take
Well, in the example set by the elderly black lady (shall we just call her EBL?!) it's important to note that it wasn't just forgiveness she offered: she bound him to a contract that would pretty much force him to come to some kind of realisation over time, to regularly confront the consequences of his actions, maybe even eventually take responsibility.
She forgave him, sure, but she gave him the terms of repayment at the same time. So it's not so simple, at least in that case, as clear-cut 'radical forgiveness'... what we actually have is a case of the victim making her own rules as to how she would like the crime to be atoned for / the perpetrator to be punished (and it is punishment, just a more appropriate & thought-out/felt-out form).
This wouldn't work in the case of, say, Israel/Palestine because the conflict is so entangled that it's no longer clear who is the victim - probably certain aspects of both parties are both victims & perpetrators (though I'd say Palestine is much more clearly the victim, but obviously that's debatable! ha).
Um. So yes, scale up old EBL's solution to a complex conflict like "Is(he)Really a Pal(of)thine" and there are so many factors to take into account that it's probably just best to let things carry on until the chaos settles into some kind of equilibrium, or everyone dies, or the right people die & everyone chills out - which ever comes first...
Bless.
Self-directed vs. Other-directed Forgiveness
I've been thinking about what I see as a disconnect between those who get Harvey's point about unconditional, absolute forgiveness and those like Kali above who see forgiveness in somewhat more relative terms: "I believe forgiveness should be reserved for those who actually apologize and feel remorse."
When I first read about The Forgiveness Project I had an immediate recognition of the deep truth such unconditional forgiveness contains. Still, when I think about people who have committed heinous acts, the idea that my forgiveness should absolve them of responsibility seems counter-intuitive, or even repugnant. So I agree with both sides of the debate. How is that possible?
It occurred to me that the type of forgiveness that Harvey talks about is an act essentially aimed at the Self. It's a process by which the forgiver comes to terms with reality as it is, with the perfect suchness of the one being forgiven, and with the core truth that the act being forgiven must be fully accepted into the reality of the forgiver's personal universe. It seems to have much less to do with the one ostensibly being forgiven, and more to do with the forgiver's surrender to the truth of the reality in which they live.
The second kind of forgiveness, the one that demands change or reparation from the perpetrator, is not about the Self, but about the Other. Where the first interpretation of forgiveness makes no demands on the forgiven,this interpretation definitely does. There is a price tag attached to this kind of forgiveness, either implicitly or explicitly. While it is intrinsically impossible to violate the terms of the first kind of forgiveness (since there aren't any), violating the terms of this kind cause a breach of trust.
The two forms of forgiveness aren't mutually exclusive, as they are directed at different objects. In fact, the elderly black lady demonstrated remarkable intuition when she wrapped both types of forgiveness up together into a package that had much more transformational power than either form of forgiveness would have on its own.
A single connection is the quantum unit of the sacred.
words
I really hate words, all they ever do is wreak of vanity.
I really didn't find much sense in the Harvey article above as advertisement, or activist piece, and Daniel's words just read as persuasion for violence.
I understand the frustration, and the need to recognize that the time for active nonviolence and, if necessary, violence, is now, but that "if necessary" line is a difficult one to draw. Certainly, the people will rise up violently if that line is crossed, but I believe we can still create the peaceful revolution we wish to see. We just need more active nonviolence that truly takes the form of an action and does not get lost in meaningless words.
Watching this community the past few years has been a frustrating experience, as all I've seen and felt were words.
When I meet members now, and observe what 2012 is becoming among those desiring change in our world, it seems to me that many, including myself, are getting lost in vain dreams of future glory, and this is precisely the most dangerous problem within any revolution, violent or nonviolent.
Someone always wants to rule once prior leaders are removed, and this revolution must be different. If we attack violently, once pushed beyond the "if necessary" line, we have to be ready to relinquish power after triumph. Even for triumph without violence, everyone must be empowered and remember that the unconditional love Harvey desires above is all that can remain in a continuously peaceful world.
"Will the (personal) transformation" - Edit of Rilke.
What about justice?
I think that the idea of radical forgiveness works very well if you are dealing with an individual that has the capacity to accept it.
If someone takes great pleasure in causing pain, if someone understands what they are doing is wrong and just doesn't care, if someone completely and absolutely believes that their happiness is more important than the very life of any other person, radical forgiveness will not work on them. Ever.
For me, that is why I am reluctant to completely embrace radical nonviolence and forgiveness because there are people out there(around 6 million in the USA, btw) that would kill me, then kill someone else, and so on and so on until they are stopped by someone who removes them from society. And even then they will not regret what they did. My forgiveness of them would not stop them from killing.
Forgiveness and mercy must always be balanced by justice. Otherwise those individuals that cannot accept forgiveness will make you die for the gift that you offer them.
Would he were fatter! But I fear him not:
Yet if my name were liable to fear,
I do not know the man I should avoid
So soon as that spare Cassius. He reads much;
He is a great observer
Context
I think questioning so-called 'scripture' as 'pure truth' is part and parcel to just regular instinct.
'Idea' as 'virus' is only just now becoming recognized as 'weapon' and a form of war-fare or component in an 'armamentarium'.
Appropriation of any idea, some nucleus as seed that can crystalize about itself eventually a 'super-structure', can be understood in that tale of a drip in the dike.
So, then, all ideas require examination . . . imaginatively.
Yet we are beings with sentiments, feeling and emotion.
Linking ideas with feeling: wow! much more powerful!
The natural delay that any thoughtful person might otherwise exersize might be short-cutted by embuing any idea with, say, heroism (sex), nationalism (ownership/selfhood) etc.
Me? I take the decalogue very seriously as a wisdom that is both iconoclastic and natural or instinctual: I AM (consciousness) alone is good (G-D) and alone worthy of worship (naturally! it is very life itself!); and even the very name or word used to represent that: none better!
And as work is best cure for all sorrows, while not all in all, a day of 'rest' to remember this core . . . rejuvination. Strengthening.
This 'I AM' as 'father and mother', lengthening of 'days'. Or as perhaps is often the case in the way the ancients recorded things dual: next best object of devotional character: worship Mom and Dad.
All the other issues of the decalogue emanate from this first 'table'. If they aren't respected, all the other sins are guaranteed to issue from the un-reigned-in or reckless, unattended individual.
Despite all the idiocy of the writers, the intent of the Law has always been: none are unattended.
What else is always there with each one?
With regard to Word or the 'Law', this is what was intended in the parable of the 'sower' and the 'tares'. After the information stream became a political tool or subject to the perverted non-sense of power-grabbers, 'sifting' was advised. That, at least, got through.
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Whatever I said: maybe the opposite! Or the opposite of the latter. You decide!
PS:
Prior and local history, right here in the good ol' USA, provides grounds for wonder.
Dams and generation of power therefrom don't just speak to current demands: these can be seen as preparation for extended vision or purposes.
The dam on the Yangste has already been deemed an act of war by the military analysts. Yet they have not said as much publically.
Many Chinese citizens, however, have expressed it as an internal assault.
Some have interpreted the placement of US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan as simply preparation for presumed explosive or world-wide beligerance by China.
Strategy and methods of war techniques have limited divulgence of analysis.
Evidently a form of intelligence or divulgence mocks such 'secrecy'. Some crop circles suggest awareness of these strategies and tactics.
The local 'natives' (near the dams) didn't think displacment was indicative of kindness or goodness, either. It was a form of internal war-fare on a people. On people, period. There were other ways available (Tesla showed it) that were kept away from public consciousness due to proprietary interests. And these were labled as 'issues of National interests'.
When it goes on elsewhere, the 'knowers' know what it means, and they become 'nervous'.
What's good for the goose is good for the gander.
What's a 'gander', anyway?
'Cause, after all, the dishonest and the liars are going to have to admit it. Despite it all. Knowing this, they will want their names dissassociated from the past calumny. So some 'classification' is merely out of respect to evil-doers with public name and fame.
I think it's funny. I laugh. Don't you?
The nations roar. There is a tumult.
Just laugh. But don't forget to scour. Knit brow. Rebuke.
Then laugh again.
You don't have to believe me, being nothing and no-one. Still, we're all going to laugh again. Don't worry. It will all be okay. And with divulgence and forgiveness in the offing, admitting evil is also okay. Forgiveness being insured. Of course it is. It still is no permission to knowingly do evil. All evils, no matter by whom or any forgiveness inevitable are still going to carry everlasting shame. Or what? It has to be so. That we do them not again. That's part and parcel to learning. Such lessons enter into character. While we make friends with outer 'forgivers' (they may be guilty too): the inner witness is relentless. That's the One to be made peace with. That's the one to Obey, formerly ignored.
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PPS:
As regards the Buddha, or Dalai Lama: He spoke the age-old dictums of diplomacy and not one word was variant from them. He spoke age-old law. Tried and true. They are mathematically and humanely correct. Even these United States applied these rules before withdrawing from Kingdom, finding Kingdom at fault and untrue to these dictates of polite society.
Physical violence, however, is the last step. The last or extemity of patience.
Read Mahabharata to find the oldest extant known delineation of Diplomacy. It holds unto this day. Even the Khans respected this rule.
And ere we move into space, we must learn it. More than by mere rote.
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Whatever I said: maybe the opposite! Or the opposite of the latter. You decide!
That's why it's called Radical
It's RADICAL forgiveness. From the word 'root,' we're talking about fundamental change, i.e. change at the base and beginning.
You can take any number of actions and create a back and forth energy.
If you want something radically different, you can step back from the motion, out of the wave patterns already moving, and re-enter the situation from a different point.
Any moment is ripe with possibility. Letting go of the past and the need to revenge, to forgive, etc. allows for many more choices.
If you then choose violence, warranted or not, you start a new wave pattern likely to return violence. We humans have done plenty of this; how about we try something new now whenever we can?
It is never required to allow someone to injure you; nor is revenge or violent punishment required to alter someone's future behavior.
Absolute/Relative
Some of the disagreement in this debate revolves around the tricky issues of relative/absolute values and what constitutes violence/nonviolence.
The radical forgiveness that Harvey speaks of, in its profound acknowledgement of the same absolute essence or Self behind all forms, is crucial to any movement towards a world with less violence and exploitation. In recognising our inseparability from EVERYTHING, including the destructive forces in life, we can begin to deal with them in a way that doesn't tend to deepen and perpetuate conflict.
Nonviolence is not the same as turning the other cheek. It seems that what's most important is the intention on which our actions are based. Of course it's sometimes necessary to defend oneself, or others, or the biosphere - and this can take myriad forms. But if we're coming from a position of revenge or hatred or division, what will result is surely more of the same.
Without having read the whole book I can't comment on whether Harvey advocates "toothless passive nonviolence", but he does make some good points in the above excerpt. Among them is the fact that activism rooted in a sense of contemptuous moral superiority is counterproductive on many fronts. Nobody's perfect, and in fact all those people out there doing heinous things to each other are as much a part of the divine All as rainbows and hugs are. But if we want to foster growth away from atrocities and hatred, we will have to consciously love and forgive. It doesn't mean enabling destructive people or systems - sometimes compassion is fierce. Within that we can still keep ourselves rooted in a motive to heal rather than hurt.
This deepest type of altruism is often found when one experiences directly the underlying unity of all being. A nondual teacher named Adyashanti has said that “Love even loves those who don't love. The only chance that those who don't love have to change, is to come into contact with that Love.”
In the absolute sense, everything is perfect. In the relative sense, there are some things we want to change. We bring whatever's inside of us to that change. More and more we are seeing work on both the inner self and the outer world is converging. Can we be willing to look at what resides in the depths of our own psyches and work to transform ourselves as well as society?
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I've written a lot on this topic, if the above strikes a chord please take a look at my website. (Publishers especially welcome)
<a href="http://www.niallfahy.com">www.niallfahy.com</a>
Daniel and Andrew - A Study in Parodxes and Ambivalence
Greetings everyone, It's nice to see such an intelligent and searching discussion. I've enjoyed reading your comments. This book is of particular interest and meaning to me as I am close with the author and consider him a mentor. Most of you also know I've worked with Daniel for the last few years. Both of these men have been ardent sources of support for my work, and both have had a profound influence on me as a person. I have nothing but love and gratitude for both.
The dinner Daniel mentions in his comment where he met Andrew was arranged by me, specifically so that these two great thinkers could, among other things, meet and discuss the concept of Sacred Activism. This discussion has been going on since back in the Fall of '07, shortly after Andrew had given his first real workshop on "The Seven Laws of Sacred Activism" while the concept was in its nascent stage and nary a word had been written in the book. The workshop was given at the bi-annual conference of the Institute for Noetic Sciences. It changed my life and my reality, and set me on the path to a deep and meaningful friendship with Andrew, while on the way to redefining my entire concept of activism.
This was not because of any earth-shatteringly original ideas in Andrew's philosophy of Sacred Activim--the practice of spiritual activism itself has been around for thousands of years, says guys like Jesus, Buddha, and Mohammed--but rather, because it, for me, opened a door to understanding how relevant, and how important, a spiritual identity is when wanting to advocate for change. It set me on the path to some profound inner work, which has only made my life better, and made me a better activist.
Now, I have to qualify all that.
I must first state that I am quite ambivalent about much of this, because I agree with both Daniel and Andrew. As a longtime activist who has gone up against the power structure head to head, I am all too familiar with the power paradigm being employed, and how the ruling powers are light years ahead of any resistance movement in terms of brutal suppression and sheer force. And when you look at that force on a global scale, its hard to see any way to remove them but by a greater force.
After years of "protesting"--channeling my societal discontent into oppositional energies directed towards ostensible loci of power--I came to see its futility, given present conditions. There is absolutely nothing a protest can accomplish these days. There is little lasting or real, substantive change a grassroots campaign can accomplish. And under the anachronistic model of protest still in use today--endless "Robert's Rules meetings to plan marches, rallies, lots of shouting, maybe a few puppets and clever sign, a marching band, soime bean-salad and then go home and write your Congressman--the so-called "movement" is easily encircled and neutralized by security forces, while the media, when they are present (which is rare), are generally only looking for violence, or freaks, to report on. No one is on message, no one even knows what the message is because most dont even know why they are there.
And here is where we come to the difference. Daniel doesn't trust sacred activism because, as he stated in his comments, he thinks its part of a larger detailed plan to keep us from really rising up against the dominator paradigm. And to an extent, I agree. I know for a fact that the CIA thought that peace and LSD would keep baby-boomer youth (the largest generation in American history with the power to completely overthrow the order) from revolution, and in many ways, it did. The revolution was cultural, and it was allowed to happen because it was a necessary social steam valve: let them have their drugs and sex and clothes and Hollywood, it will keep them occupied. And now, the security apparatus is so much more powerful, and deadly, that it's simply nothing but folly and idiocy to go against it head to head unless you can literally outgun it.
More to the point, a disorganized and ego-driven resistance will spend more time fighting one another than the Dominator. This was my experience to the T with radical politics, both within an established party and in organization and coalition settings. Daniel used to joke with me about sounding like the old Communist nuts who rant in Union Sq on Sundays. And its true. It's passe, its ideological, and its useless. Nothing we understand or have in practice now will help us overthrow something that knows us better than we know ourselves. And when its more important for the resistance to have a focus point to project their anger at, rather than a unified goal and purpose for the movement, nothing but the endless cycle of violence will come out of it.
So, Daniel is right in the sense that it will take something more powerful than the Dominator to overthrow the Dominator. I think that it boils down to how you define "more powereful." I also agree with Daniel in the sense that yes, if your goal is to remove, say, the National Security Regime here in the US, you need to somehow either conquer, or cause the collapse, of that system. But if your goal is more than that, evolving the species and being able to remain inhabiting this earth, well then, in my opinion you need to expand your paradigm and purview.
This is where Andrew comes in. Most activism these days is driven by fear and rage. it's not a movement "for" something, it's generally an "anti-" movement, against something it fears, and which makes it angry. It becomes a singularly reinforcing vicious cycle...professional activists always have to find something new to oppose or they dont eat. The key words in that last sentence are "professional" and "eat." Professional is problematic because it means that the Ego is generally calling the shots, which means that often the best interests of the largest possible number of people go sublimated to personal success. Eat is problematic because any attempt to turn activism into an economic engine immediately loses it any altruistic intentions it might have had.
But Sacred Activism is about getting to that place where you are actively working to create change out of a genuine altruistic love, and doing so because it benefits the most number of people, even if putting you into some form of hardship. It means real sacrifice. And im not talking about some trite idea that getting gunned down for your beliefs is the most noble sacrifice, for in my opinion, that's just a waste of a good life that could have lived to make a lot more change. Am I willing to die for my beliefs? Depends on which beliefs you are talking about, but generally, pretty much, no, because there is a thin line between "beliefs" and "ideology. I'm willing to die for my loved ones. Not for an idea, per se.
The gift Andrew gave me was the recognition of my own shadow and the knowledge that I needed to go through the "dark night of the soul" in order to purge the deleterious effects my Ego was having on my activism (which I now try and call "service work"...there's also a lot there to think about...juxtaposing the intention behind "activate" with the intention behind "serve.") as well as my writing.
The anger and rage I felt towards the "system" was blinding me from seeing a path through to a tangible solution. I was living a projective pathology geared towards avenging all the abuses perpetrated against me in the past. I didn't even know what I was angry about until I met both Daniel and Andrew. Then, over time, I became more grounded, balanced, and contemplative. Now I do, and the anger is gone, and I can see clearly. Simple, yes. Trite, perhaps. True, definitielty.
Now, when politicians or CEOs bloviate, I laugh. It's funny to me now. And when I see true suffering--animal cruelty, poverty, war--I cry, instead of scream. And soon it passes through me.
More importantly, since I brought the spiritual into my work, my work has finally begun to reach others in a way that my self-righteousness, outrage, intellect, and indignation never could have dreamed. If humanity is to survive and save this planet, it will have to find a way through love. I simply dont see any other way around it. Any violence will simply feed the violent paradigm and it shall then perpetuate. Any continuation of the idea of human supremacy will damn us. Any continued adherence to secular ideology will kill us. What is needed is a way, a process, a truly mass-movement to have the power of love literally shut down the machine. But on the way to that, there are a lot of creative direct actions than can be put together to keep us busy and engaged.
Rather than say one or the other is *right*, I say both Daniel and Andrew are *right*. What we need is a bit of both. We need Daniel's hard realism and analytical skepticism, and we need Andrew's consistent mysticism, classical grace, and message of love and Divine truth. What we need is for both to join together in a spirit of mutuality, and share both of their visions equally, and allow people to pick what they want from each and leave what doesn't serve them. Both of these men have tremendous gifts to offer, there's no reason on earth we should diminish anything either says, particularly in dogmatic argument with each other.
I saw the Left in this country devour itself in an orgy of narcissism and greed. The best and brightest couldn't agree on anything, and everyone wanted a piece of the glory for themselves. Now, they're a joke, and will never achieve any lasting change. The Right is effective because they dont think for themselves, are driven by fear and prejudice, and can stay on point really well because they all agree on god and country.
We freaks here in the Reality Sandwich meme represent the transcendent minds and voices that can take this whole thing to another level. You're doing it already! But do not be fooled...this revolution is as much spiritual as literal, and there is nothing less than the survival of the species at stake.
I thank you profoundly for your indulgence.
Charles Shaw
Author of Exile Nation
Soon to be published on Evolver/Reality Sandwich
Just as always from me
In a way this thread is a rehashing of the good/bad dichotomy, and to forestall endless and pointless semantic debates, I could just as well have said non-suffering/suffering, enlightenment/ignorance, gnosis/error etc. Likewise I will at the present avoid any effort of localising the origin of this dichotomy (suggestions range from individual consciousness to local or universal cosmic dysfunctions to a mad creator).
As Daniel Pinchbeck, to my surprise and pleasure, started the comments by referring to John Lash, I would like to carry that line of thought further, to some degree even further than John Lash himself does.
What surprises me is, that so many different 'answers', comments and opinions are presented, with practically no-one taking up the pivot point: Can we expect to find correct 'answers', before we have learned to put the correct questions?
So: Each of the many maps/beliefsystems of existence we produce contain restricting factors, most or all of which are 'assumptions'. Such assumptions limit the operative possibilities of the map/beliefsystem, including the abilty to formulate right questions, and consequently the ability to find correct 'answers'.
E.g, and this is just examples, not specific debate points...It's almost heretic in some circles to doubt the concept of universal 'goodness'; to be 'dualistic'; to question 'intelligent design'. Even here on RS such assumptions are often taken for granted and paralyses communication.
Similarly: Some maps recommend 'love' as THE answer, other maps logic etc. Obviously they can't all be the one and only mastermap, and a lot of time and energy is used on debating the emerging 'answers', more seldom the basic assumptions such maps/beliefsystems rest on, and almost never on: "How can we create maps so much in accordance with the territory (whatever that turns out to be), that we can trust them?"
It's no use to discuss maps preferring logic to 'love' (or vice versa), one 'faith' aginst another, etc. All this has been done over and over again, and it has never functioned to any significant degree.
One psycho alpha-male with a machinegun can make null of a thousand 'bhaktis' and their work, and invertedly one man with equally extreme attitudes on 'permissive' education actually spoiled most of the western world's basic schooling system for generations. 'Logic' scientists create weapons without a thought of the consequences, 'compassionate' ideologists work to get serial killers out of prison.
For me there's little doubt, that insight on 'map-making' per se is essential. Otherwise we can continue to pour assumptions on each other, until humanity implode from its own clever stupidity.
present time
I came out of the jungle yesterday, specifically the Reserva Comunal Amarakaeri. In my volunteer status with Wanamei Expeditions, an agency funded by FENAMAD (La Federacion Nativa del Rio Madre de Dios y Afluentes), my role is to witness and document conversations between FENAMAD (a local grassroots organization devoted to environmental preservation and indigenous cultures) delegates and members of indigenous communities. Hunt Oil is making an illegal push into the region for oil exploration and the Peruvian government has granted them access without consulting indigenous communities, which also breaks various International Labor Laws. FENAMAD is trying to keep a presence in the region to talk to people about what Hunt Oil is planning to do and how their promises of environmental preservation are lies. One of Hunt Oil's strategies for gaining internal support is to make promises of gifts and money to only certain members of communities, thereby creating divisions and fomenting hostility in communities.
Politics aside, as if that is possible, I am worn out. In these recent days, I have seen tracks and tracks of former Amazon forest turned to ash, poisoned rivers where no fish can survive, and brothers fighting in the street. As of two generations ago, most of these people were following their traditional ways. Thanks to the collusion of missionaries and corporate extractive practices, those traditions are quickly being put aside for Coca Cola, Billabong, and satellite TV.
I sent out an e-mail to my friends and family in the states seeking, imagining the compassionate members of my community would be interested in assisting FENAMAD in this important struggle. Out of the 170 people I contacted, six responded. I sent the same e-mail to a Burning Man mailing list I belong to, and was promptly scolded that the mailing list is to be used only for things regarding BM specifically.
This morning, I checked into Reality Sandwich as sort of an oracle. And got what I needed. It is not answers I am necessarily looking for, but intelligent discussion about ways to proceed in the real-time process of activism. Last night, I was down down. Humans do terrible things to each other. The Amazon is going to burn along with all of its inhabitants, so I told myself, why bother be here and witness this? And North Americans, who have so much relative economic power to change things, care more about the party.
Andrew's words lifted me, reminded me why I am propelled into action in the first place- because of the deep love I feel for my planet and for all of the friends I have not yet met. This energetic of love is why I am willing to go to the scary, hard places both within myself and also out into the world. But love alone is not enough to create changes in a world rife with ugliness. Daniel, in his willingness to speak to the tools of change, helps me to move with and through love to action. I still feel a sickness, but here, with the words that doctordewey so lovingly critiques, I find hope in struggle. Today, that will suffice to be the point.
Thank you, Shannon
That was really great. I appreciate your thoughts.
Charles Shaw
Author: Exile Nation
Soon to be published on Evolver/Reality Sandwich
Love and Activism - A Definition
This is a draft definition from the forthcoming Dictionary of Ethical Politics, which I edit. It was written by Michael Edwards, and I think it's powerfully relevant to this discussion:
"Love and politics are usually seen as opposites (especially in Hannah Arendt’s influential work), yet ethical-political leaders from Gandhi to Aung San Suu Kyi have based their philosophy and actions on the marriage of these two forces. Martin Luther King called this “the love that does justice,” signifying the mutually-reinforcing cycles of personal and social transformation that eventually produce the “beloved community” of which he dreamed.
“Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice,” he said, “and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.”
Ethical politics enjoins us to develop both the personal qualities that are required to practice politics in new ways, and the political institutions that nurture the values that underpin a successful, collective future. This may be the only way to liberate ourselves from the constraints of conventional politics and the use of democracy to impose majority views.
"Of course, King and others were not talking about romantic love, or love of and for our children. They were talking of unconditional or unlimited love (or agape in the Greek and Christian traditions), that knows no boundaries of kin or affiliation, expressed through non-violent moral action, radical equality, and a profound respect for others. In this sense, love can sustain political action without internalizing the fear and insecurity that underpins oppression in all its forms, and so starting the self-defeating cycle afresh – the source of a new form of politics that does not try to bury or distance its opponents but looks for opportunities to welcome and engage with those who have a different view, and to struggle with them towards some form of imperfect, continually-evolving consensus.
"Love underpins equality-consciousness, breaks down hierarchies, and respects the self-empowerment of others. Love eschews paternalism for relationships of truth and authenticity, even when they move through phases of conflict and disagreement. Love releases us from our diminished sense of self and gives us hope, optimism, openness instead of closure. As Paul Tillich reminds us, the first duty of love is simply to listen, and deep listening would transform the practice of politics as we know it.
"Gandhi, King and others were practicing ethical politics every day, and their legacy has been taken up by a new generation of ‘spiritual activists’ who know that they can ‘win with love’ as they put it, without sacrificing their goals or principles, a love that seeks not to accumulate power, even in the face of oppression, but to transform it so that ‘victory’ means more than a game of revolving chairs among narrow political interests. In their eyes therefore, love is the wellspring of ethical politics.
"Those interested in ‘spiritual activism’ may want to visit Seasons Fund for Social Transformation. The speeches of Martin Luther King are also essential reading, particularly his last address to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference as its President in 1967, from which the above quotation is taken." (Michael Edwards)
Charles Shaw
Author - Exile Nation
Soon to be published on Evolver/Reality Sandwich