How many times we have all sung the song, “America the Beautiful.” The line, “And crown thy good with brotherhood,” remains poignant throughout the generations.
I heard the late U.S. Congressman Walter Capps tell the following story. It is a traditional rabbinical tale.
A rabbi was giving instruction to some children, when he posed this question: how do you know the night is over and the day has come? Puzzled, the children took some time to answer. Then one of them ventured, “You know the night is over and the day has come when, at dawn, you look out at a tree, and you can tell whether it is an apple or pear tree.” The rabbi acknowledged this response, but repeated the question. A second student offered, “You know the night is over and the day has come when you see an animal in the distance, and you can tell whether it is a donkey or a horse.” The rabbi acknowledged this response, too, then repeated the question. At this the students, too puzzled to know how to answer, asked the rabbi to solve the dilemma he had posed. The rabbi said, “You know the night is over and the day has come when you look into the eyes of any human being, and you see there your brother or your sister; for, if you do not see your brother or your sister, it is still night—the day hasn’t come.
Are we, the citizens of this planet earth, brothers—or are we not? That is the fundamental question underlying world events. How we answer that question will make all the difference. If we are not brothers, then it is reasonable to continue to live as we live now. If we are brothers, after all, then we must rethink our world. In the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., “We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.”
We have ample evidence that our social and political systems are critically stressed. What we need is the ample wisdom to deal with it.
We have the information we need; what we need is the ability to process that information in a more meaningful way. We have much data, so much in fact that it feels more at times like tiny points of mental bombardment than as illuminating bits of information. We have a lot of dots; what we need is a way to connect them.
The consciousness that will provide a navigable path through the turbulent waters of our current history is not simply one of increased data, but of increased love. Not just love that unites us in moments of tragedy, but one that impels us to avoid them. Not just one in which we are united in fear, but one in which we are united in courage. Love and love alone is the unifying factor that will bring us together as a species, and allow us to prevail.
What can we do to hasten the day when the state of love underlying all things becomes the dominant consciousness of the world? We need to find that place and live there, cleave to it and pray never to leave. For it alone is our only safety. And that is why our culture is in peril. We have created in America a culture that is dedicated to a financial rather than a humanitarian bottom line, and until that is addressed we will continue to move in directions that do not serve us.
Perhaps we should be thinking less how to educate our children than how to protect them from the teachings of our modern world: the teaching that things are everything, that money is worth compromising our integrity to procure, that anyone’s life is cheap, that other people “aren’t like us,” that anyone’s suffering doesn’t matter, that war is okay as long as it’s somewhere else, and that violence is somehow fun.
We want to teach our children to grow up to be leaders, and that is good. But what kinds of leaders? Leaders who exploit great masses of people so that the standard of living of their own people can remain high? Leaders who increase a financial bottom line at the expense of human and natural resources?
Or do we not want to raise our children to rise up in their time, and with their voices mighty, exclaim, “Enough of that now. There must be another way.”
There are leaders in the world who are trying to find that way, and succeeding. And we must join them. Our task is to create a strong enough field of consciousness in the world to form the necessary firmament, a grid of possibility, to turn the human tide from violence to love. To create a world in which our leaders will experience a common eureka, a common moment of searing vision and electric understanding. They will see the glorious possibility of a world in which we fight no more, and mothers cry in anguish no more, and children starve by the millions no more, and peace will be ours at last.
When will this occur? That depends totally on the state of our consciousness. For consciousness trickles up, not downward. When we ourselves are clear that love is what we want our leaders to stand for, then such are the leaders we will choose and empower. We will no longer buy, and our leaders will no longer try to sell us, the mad delusion that the world will survive even a hundred more years if we simply rely for our security on our armies, our military, our economies, or external means of any kind.
Such a fundamental change is huge, but it is doable. In fact, it is the only sustainable option. We tend to ask, like Job, “How long, oh God, how long?” But what’s really happening is the opposite of that: surely God is asking, “How long, oh people, how long?” How long will we wait before the preciousness of all human life is placed higher on our list of values?
We cannot save the world without God’s help, and neither can He save the world without ours.
I’VE LED SEVERAL group tours abroad. It has been one of my most satisfying professional experiences, watching it dawn on a group of Americans that the world outside our borders isn’t quite what they had thought. Americans have a unique perspective, inhabiting a very large continent surrounded on two sides by huge oceans. For a long time in our history this provided relative safety from foreign enemies, and independence from the vital concerns of most of the rest of the world. But those days are over. Our fate is now intrinsically tied up with the fate of all humanity, and the destructive weapons that make up the arsenals of the world today would have little trouble making it over the oceans. We have an entrenched perception of separateness, even superiority, regarding the rest of the world. Transforming that consciousness is very important if we are to prepare the way for peace in the century ahead. If 9/11 proved anything, it’s that if someone hates us enough they can get to us.
There is no greatness in the absence of humility. In the larger scheme of God’s universe, the United States is just a little dot on a very little planet. Even one of our most boastful presidents, Theodore Roosevelt, knew the value of this enlightened perspective. He used to bring guests at his home, Sagamore Hill, on Long Island, out onto the lawn on a fine, clear summer night and say, “Look, look at the stars.” They’d just stand and look for minutes or even hours. Then Roosevelt would flash his famous grin and say, “All right, I think we feel insignificant enough now—let’s go to bed.”
There is no advance in consciousness, personal or collective, without humility. We are a two-hundred-year-old society in the habit of giving lectures about high civilization to people who have been around for hundreds, even thousands of years. We have a higher standard of living in this country, but not necessarily a better standard of living, and everyone except us seems to know this.
The average American is less well read and informed about world events and situations than are our European counterparts, our children are less educated, and we imprison more people than any other nation (including Russia and China). While the United States represents about 4.4 percent of the world’s population, it houses around 22 percent of the world’s prisoners. We are the only Western industrialized nation that does not have universal health care. We lecture others about human rights (sometimes legitimately), while other nations regard health care as a human right. We go about singing the praises of democracy, but we don’t ask ourselves why, if we love it so much, we don’t make it easier for people to vote; in fact, voter disenfranchisement and voter suppression, plus a chipping away at the Voting Rights Act, have become the new order of the day. We talk endlessly about family values in this country, while taking less care of our children than any other nation with similar resources to do so.
“I am certain,” said President Kennedy, “that after the dust of centuries has passed from our cities, we, too, will be remembered not for victories or defeats in battle or politics, but for our contribution to the human spirit.” I foresee an America in which our contribution to the human spirit is our highest national concern. And when enough of us foresee that, then that is what will come to pass. The magnificent gift of who each of us really is, and what we came to earth to give, is awaiting our expression. It will genuinely be the New Order of the Ages proclaimed on our Great Seal, when America remembers the greatness of her purpose and every American feels they have a part in making it manifest.
America has a historic mission, important not only to ourselves but to all the world, relevant not only to this day and age but relevant to the ages. That mission is to stand for hope and possibility for all humanity despite whatever challenges exist.
Over the last few decades we have forgotten our mission and we have strayed from our purpose. We have been lured into a seductive web of lesser, self-centered goals, as individuals and as a nation. But a most radical blessing bestowed upon humanity is our capacity to change; an activation of heart and mind accompanies the willingness to remember. None of us is perfect, as individuals or as nations. But when we have forgotten we can remember, and when we have fallen we can rise back up.
It is time for America to rise up now. It is time for America to remember. It is time for America to return to the path of our historic charge, to be a place where dreams can come true not just for some but for all, not simply for the purpose of getting anyone anything but for the purpose of glorifying what is possible on this earth during the time that we are here.
Some of us see this as a charge from God. Some of us see this as an ethical responsibility to our children and our children’s children. Some of us see this as simply a better way to live our lives. From whatever angle we approach the idea, let us return to America’s soulful purpose as a servant to and beacon of human possibility. That alone is the light of democracy, the inextinguishable torch within all our hearts. Let us again become the home of the brave, dedicating our lives to that which we have learned most painfully can never ever be taken for granted: that this be a land of the free.
Whether it be external chains of slavery or economic servitude, or internal chains of narcissism and greed, may all the chains be broken now that would delay our return to a path of a greater destiny. It is time for America to course-correct. We have done it before and now, in our time, we are preparing to do it again.
We are living in troubled times, made this way by the sleep of our forgetfulness. But this is not the time to fall more deeply asleep. This is a time to awaken, to be active, and to be glad. There is a promise that was bequeathed to us, which is ours to hold and then pass on to our children. It is a sacred promise. We are part of the American river of destiny, running through time and carrying with it the extraordinary gift of one great idea: that there can be a land where all are free to be and to become their essential selves. This is more than an inspired idea: it comes straight from the Mind of God. Keeping faith with it is keeping faith with the divine.
WHEN KING SAUL saw that young David, unskilled in the ways of war, was the only Israelite courageous enough to take on the giant Goliath, he offered him his armor to wear in battle. David put on the king’s armor but then removed it. The armor would only slow him down and weigh him down. It would not be armor, but lack of armor, that would empower David in facing Goliath.
Israel’s warriors had been taught the ways of war, and yet when the ultimate test came along, they were not brave enough to face it. David, on the other hand, was young, a musician, a shepherd—not a warrior. What looked like his lack of preparation for taking on the force of evil turned out to be simply a different kind of preparation—a preparation of the spirit.
David could not imitate what others had done, but he knew to trust himself and his own abilities, to wage battle in another way. And that is what is happening in the world today. There is a new Davidic impulse, a renaissance of hope, and it cannot express itself through the old, tried, world-weary ways. It’s not imitating something old but rather creating something new. It is a mystical revolution that will usher in a mystical age.
In some ways, history is something to respect. In other ways, it is something best interrupted. In this new millennium, peace will be forged not only by those who study war but also by those who study peace. The peaceful warrior has an expanded, not a diminished, skill set. Health is much more than the absence of illness; it is the cultivation of health. And peace is much more than the absence of war; it is the cultivation of peace.
From racial healing workshops and youth initiatives in the inner city, to peace-building projects throughout the world, to meditation meetings at military headquarters, to social and emotional learning in our schools, there is an emerging global movement toward an alternative mode of peace creation. It is nothing short of an unstoppable force, and every day people are joining the ranks.
Commentator Matthew Albracht put it succinctly in an article published in 2016: “Teachers are bringing conflict resolution education into classrooms; community programs are dismantling gang violence; restorative justice programs are effectively modeling new methods of dealing with criminal justice; programs in prisons are helping inmates turn their lives around; sophisticated policies and practices are averting violence from erupting in international conflict hotspots; and parents are learning new skills and taking daily actions toward being more supportive and connected with their children. There are countless options and examples offering powerful alternatives to many of the more punitive, less effective methods we have traditionally relied upon when dealing with conflict and violence.”
Often we call members of our military “peacekeepers” and I have no doubt how many of them would wish to be. The armies and police of our future will include conflict resolution as a part of their training, and in some places they already do.
Peace is more than the absence of conflict; it is the presence of peace. And to create that, we need new tools. Conflict resolution, nonviolent communication skills, and community building are to peace what guns are to war. Highly effective peace-building initiatives are routinely quenching the fires that rage within troubled hearts and hotspots around the world, addressing on the level of cause the scourge of violence that takes such a dangerous toll. Yet these initiatives are universally underfunded and underutilized. The full actualization of their potential power, therefore, remains on the horizon. As a loving critical mass coalesces, as hearts around the world continue to yearn and work for peace, these new forms of peace building will gain greater credibility. They will continue to be important components in the manifestation of a new planetary vision.
This new wine, however, cannot be put in old bottles. The old bottles of political formulation, mere relics of twentieth-century thinking, are inadequate for the task at hand.
Old-paradigm thinking responds solely to circumstances, while the enlightened mind responds to vision. Traditional politics is locked into reaction to how things are; with spirit added to the equation, we are free to create something else, to proactively serve a vision of how things could be. The choice is between the human race merely repeating our past, or freeing our future to be something entirely new.
A critical mass of the world’s population meditating on a new vision for the world, and devoting ourselves to its emergence, would tip the planetary field of energy in the direction of peace and justice for all. If enough of us pray for and commit to this peace on a daily basis, holding the vision in sacred silence for at least two minutes, then a miracle will occur. If we imagine a world lit from within, filled with happy people living whatever lives they choose and unburdened by the violence of a world gone mad, then our minds will become conduits through which love can work. Holding the vision of a world in which everyone is loved will lift our minds and hearts, make brilliant our thoughts and tender our emotions. The vision itself will cleanse and transform us, making us who we need to be in order to bring it forth. Such is the work that lies before us now.
And so it is, and will forever be: love reasserts itself, every morning, every time.
IMAGINE IF EVERY member of the United Nations kept one delegate permanently stationed there to spend all day silently blessing every other nation of the world. Imagine humanity committed to universal love, meditating on peace, studied and practiced in the cultural, educational, artistic, philosophical, and diplomatic arts of waging peace. Imagine a world in which war no longer exists. That world is just around the corner, as soon as we turn a corner.
Only a new political sensibility arising throughout the world can counter the war machine always lurking in the background of international politics. Perhaps we will become bold enough to create what kind of world we want, instead of always trying to accomplish small gains within a system we know is ultimately destructive.
Traveling in India in the 1990s with a group of fellow Americans, I spent quite a bit of time in meditation and prayer near the Taj Mahal. There is a mosque right next to the Taj, and all true houses of worship, of whatever religion, hold spiritual power for people of faith. We had already found that, while we were meditating, Indian people would frequently come and join us, sit down in the group, and start meditating with us as though it was the most natural thing in the world. One particular day, as we came out of a deep period of silence, a line of about thirty or so Indians stood, at the edge of the patio where we sat. We stood as if in a trance and faced our Indian counterparts. What followed in a sublime silence was an exchange of mutual honor and respect that was almost mind-altering. All of us were profoundly moved.
In a meeting with His Holiness the Dalai Lama, I learned some things about foreign policy. His Holiness told me that a German physicist had said to him that we should remove the concept of “foreign policy” from our minds and think of all nations as our “domestic partners.”
We shouldn’t be overly impressed by terms like “foreign policy,” and government departments that play the world like a giant chessboard and view it as no more than a game we’re trying to win. Our consciousness should drive them, and not the other way around.
According to the esoteric wisdom of the ages, every nation carries with it a facet of divine light as it streams from the Mind of God to earth. The soulful function associated with the United States is to “light the way.”
America needs to reclaim our own inner light. “The people of the world,” the Dalai Lama told me, “no longer look at America as a champion of democracy. Too many times we have seen you take the side of undemocratic forces.” We are known as the great underminer of communism, to be sure, but that is far from synonymous with always being a champion of freedom. We have sabotaged democratic governments as well as communist governments when they did not move in the direction we wanted them to move, and even today we sell out oppressed democratic forces for a greater market share of their country’s economies.
In our international relations, we have become in most ways just like any other world player, seeking political and economic advantage, manipulating events according to what some would call our “vital national interests,” though those interests today seem clearly defined more by economics than by values.
But what if we, the American people, were to change our minds about that? We shouldn’t underestimate our power. The entire world would shift.
I originally published this book in 1997, at a time when many of the horrors in the world today were mere threats on the horizon. I ended the book then with what turned out to be a tragically prescient story. I repeat it here:
ANOTHER INTERESTING THING happened to me at the Taj Mahal. The Mufti—Egypt’s highest Muslim cleric—was visiting Agra at the time, and happened to pass our group as he walked through the area with his entourage. Seeing a group of Westerners meditating at the Taj Mahal made him curious, and he asked who we were. Upon being told we were a group of Christians and Jews from the United States, many of us clergy, he asked if he could meet with a small group of us later at his hotel.
The meeting was very formal and the Mufti spoke through an interpreter. His basic message to us was this: “I am aware that for most Americans, when you hear the word ‘Islamic,’ you usually hear the word ‘terrorist’ in the same sentence. I wanted to speak with you to make sure you understand that Islam is a religion of peace.
Every people has a dark element—a group which does not represent the larger group well. Obviously, we have ours. But please do not think that Islamic terrorists represent true Islam, any more than Christians who commit violence in the name of God represent true Christianity, or Jews who commit violence in the name of God represent true Judaism.”
After meeting with the Mufti, as I made my way through the lobby of the hotel, one of the Egyptians who was attending His Eminence tapped me on the shoulder and asked if we could speak. In the most gentle, gracious tones, he said that he wanted to tell me something.
During the very week that we were in India, a group of Indian women threatened to burn themselves alive in protest of the Miss Universe pageant being held in New Delhi. What they were protesting was the imposition of Western standards of beauty on Indian women, expressing the resentment that many Indians—indeed, many people throughout the Third World—feel toward America.
The Egyptian diplomat whom I met in the lobby of the hotel in Agra said to me,
I do not mean this as a criticism of the United States. I know the Americans are good men and women. But please try to make them understand: many people in my part of the world feel that they have been forced to try to keep up with you, in a race that we do not really care to run. Your technology is amazing, but America seems spiritually polluted to many of us. Your ways are not our ways, and while we were tempted for a while to think that your ways should be our ways, we do not think that anymore.
This is the problem, Ms. Williamson, and there will be terrible consequences in the world if Americans do not come to understand this. Islamic terrorists have had such success—if you can call their campaigns a success—because they have been able to persuade millions of peasants that America is bad. It was not too difficult to do, Ms. Williamson. All they have to do is describe the television programs you export to this part of the world, and millions of our people are very horrified.
Your government does not understand. They do not see how the people feel. We need the American people to understand. Perhaps you will bring more Americans to our part of the world. If they come to understand us, then they will respect us. We would feel that respect, and then I don’t think that the terrorists would have such success. This is not a job the CIA can do. It is only a job which people can do.
I thanked him for telling me those things, and I promised him I would pass the information along.
In originally writing this book, I tried to do that.
AMERICA IS NOT now the home of the brave, but I think we are the home of those who wish to be brave.
Another story, now twenty years old, is as true today as it was then. Coming back from Cairo to JFK Airport in 1997, I handed my landing card to the agent at the U.S. Customs counter. He read what I had written.
“What do you do?” he asked me.
“I’m a writer,” I replied.
“What do you write?”
“I’m writing a book about healing America.”
He looked at me. “Well, America is shot,” he said. I didn’t say anything.
“You ought to come here for a day, to do research for your book. Come see what I see. These people are terrible.”
I was rather shocked. “Do you mean immigrants?!”
“Well,” he hesitated, “Americans are the worst. But they’re all bad. I came here wanting to like everybody, you know, thinking everybody’s fairly decent. But now everybody’s as bad as everybody else.”
I thought for a few moments, then ventured a comment. “Well, I have an idea that might help.”
“Really?” he asked.
“When people come up to you here, look them in the eye and silently say, ‘The goodness in me salutes the goodness in you.’ ”
He thought for a moment. “Would that maybe really work, you think?”
“Oh, yes,” I said. “Really, it does.”
He smiled and collected my card, showing me which way to exit.
As I reached the door leading out, I looked back at the agent. He was looking at me. We both stood still for a moment, in silence, our eyes locked.
The ancient Egyptians believed the stars in our eyes are reflections of the stars in the sky, and that the stars in the sky are our home. I had heard that in Egypt, but I learned it’s true in America. I saw the stars in my brother’s eyes, and I knew that I was home.
Chapter 2: Dreams and Principles
Chapter 4: An American Awakening
Chapter 5: The Eternals of Finance
You focus on preaching love and meditation as potentially solving the excesses of capitalism with accumulation of massive wealth. However capitalism is all about accumulating enormous weath, with some people struggling to survive. Are you saying love and compassion address the inequality or just that love and compassion are virtues but acknowledging that they will not affect those who struggle economically.