Beyond the appearances of history there is a great and glorious unfolding plan for the destiny of nations. According to mystical traditions, God carries this plan within His mind, seeking always, in every way, channels for its furtherance. His plan for the evolution of humanity, and the preparation of teachers to guide it, is called within the esoteric traditions the Great Work.
Contribution to this work is not unique to any one nation or people. On every continent, in every age, there have been spectacular contributions made to humanity’s journey toward the fullness of our being. Worldly institutions are useful in advancing God’s plan for the enlightenment of the world, to the extent to which the ideals of that institution reflect the highest philosophical truths. The Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and other great beams of American light have reflected and furthered the evolutionary arc of humanity’s progress.
Yet no mortal, and no nation made up of mortals, is immune to pride or ego or selfishness or greed. Where immoderate ambition or brute power take hold, the fragile bond is broken between the spirit of the Great Work and the structure that contained it. The work continues; it always continues. But it leaves behind what becomes unworthy of it and gravitates toward truer hearts.
In modern sociological terms, there is a phenomenon called the “local discontinuity of progress.” The next step forward in a system rarely comes from a predictable place. Grace is not logical, nor can brilliant insight be rationally formulated. Where human beings pride themselves, the spirit of God departs. Human arrogance is not a container for God, nor will it ever be.
When a particular group or structure fails to keep faith with the spirit of love—not measured by its words but by its actions—that structure then loses the privilege of guardianship of the Great Work. The plan passes on to other groups or structures. Human beings cannot stop or pervert the work of destiny, but we can dissociate ourselves from its higher enfoldment. Having done so, then we will cease to share in its blessings.
America has been a vessel for the Great Work from its inception. Now, however, we have in many ways lost our conscious contact with the greatness of our destiny. We ignore invisible principles yet obsess about all manner of visible pursuits. We allow our time and attention to be frittered away in a scramble for things too shallow to satisfy us even if we can attain them. Having overcome so many forms of external dysfunction, we are now bound up by internal ones.
But powers greater than we continue to minister to humanity. Today, as always, any heart or institution that surrenders itself becomes a channel for the vibrations of love still emanating from the mind of God. It is never too late to change our minds, to self-correct, to embrace the notion that all men are brothers, that indeed we are one, that what we do to anyone we are doing to ourselves, and that in time we will come to see this and know this and live this in truth.
America keeps trying to find the right drivers, when instead we should be questioning what road we’re on. Contrary to what we are told, the road that we are currently on is not full of just light; the road ahead is full of consequences. But there is another road that America can take, a road of high and enlightened purpose for both our abundance and our genius.
Material expansion will take care of itself if we take care of all things true and beautiful. For those whose hearts respond to this thought, it is time to break through the superstitious thinking that might lead us to believe it’s too late to change. We can change; in fact, we are changing. That is our destiny. A question that faces us is this: can we re-create politics and society to reflect these things, or must the pursuit of higher truth remain separate from the public sphere? This moment is one of opportunity for the creation of a new civic force field. It is up to each and every one of us to decide where America goes now.
OUR TASK IS to create a political context for higher questioning, for national self-definition beyond economic and military power, for national purpose beyond increasing our economic status, and for national compassion as a value upon which our nation stands. The essential question of our day is this: Do we lead with our values, or with economic and military might?
If love comes first, then money comes second; and if money comes first, then love comes second. Those who see economics as the primary determinant of our “vital interests” aren’t always looking for the loving solution to domestic or international problems. If love came first, we would use our financial resources to create jobs to help people live well instead of building more prisons to punish them when they do not; if love came first, we would value human rights at least as much as economic rights; if love came first, we would seek to educate and help rather than to prosecute our children violently screaming out for attention.
• FUNDAMENTAL QUESTION: Do we, as a nation, really want to be a small portion of the world’s population consuming the lion’s share of the world’s resources, calling our absolute right to do so our “vital national interest,” thus sowing seeds for our own inevitable comeuppance?
• FUNDAMENTAL QUESTION: Should corporate power drive the financial engines of the world, pushing more and more corners of the planet in the direction of uncontrolled economic growth while, in fact, the natural resources of the earth are already maxed out?
• FUNDAMENTAL QUESTION: Are we content responding to the rage and despair of millions of underprivileged Americans with an ever more lucrative system of punishment rather than a committed system of education and “economic revitalization?
• FUNDAMENTAL QUESTION: What is the state of our democracy today, and can we make it through the crises that confront us?
These are important questions, of course. And they will only be answered adequately if we, the American people, are willing to ask and answer them for ourselves.
THE QUESTION BEFORE us is: how do people who have reclaimed their spirituality best effect political change? We have already established that only nonviolent resistance is acceptable to the spiritual seeker, and ultimately it is the only kind of resistance that is truly effective anyway. When a power dominates the physical world, it is in looking beyond the physical world that we find our victory.
Just as David took on the giant Goliath, there is an emerging gestalt of spiritually based activism around the world, ready and willing to form a wave of resistance to multinational corporate dominance of the planet and its peoples. As usual, Goliath is bigger than we are. As usual, Goliath is totally armored and defended. As usual, Goliath laughs at his critics. As usual, Goliath taunts his enemies.
But consider this as well: as usual, Goliath moves slowly. As usual, Goliath is not as smart as he thinks he is. As usual, Goliath’s Third Eye is uncovered; one hit in the middle of his forehead, and the giant will go down. Make your words your slingshot. Make his conscience your bull’s-eye, and he cannot help but transform.
The evil, as well as the ultimate vulnerability of the giant, is that it is not human. Its life force is not the spirit at the center of the universe, but merely corporate papers filed away somewhere. A corporate mentality whose bottom line is money, not love, is a thing—it is not a human. Of itself it has no heart or soul, or conscience. It cannot cry, or fall in love, or conceive a child, or feel pain. That is what makes it a dangerous guide to human affairs, and also what makes its days so numbered. A force that is not alive is now ruling the world, and nature will not endure that forever.
To be sure, there are human beings who run that corporate machinery, but they themselves are often slaves to its functioning. I’ve been told by corporate CEOs who fully agreed with me in theory that their policies were at least potentially threatening to the planet and its peoples, “Marianne, I know what you’re saying, but I’m answerable to my stockholders. If I bungle it this quarter and don’t increase their bottom line, I’ll be out, and the person who replaces me will probably be worse than me.” Until stockholders make it clear to corporate powers that we don’t want our investments to yield financial profit at the expense of the quality of human lives, then many corporations will continue to place economic values before human ones. Socially conscious investors hold a key to the development of corporate conscience.
Until the 1980s, it was commonly appreciated that corporations had a responsibility to something beyond their financial shareholders; that they were accountable to stakeholders that included workers and the larger society as well. Yet in the 1980s there was a huge shift in this country, as the very idea of short-term economic gain became a new American god. And now we have to shift things back. We either serve a god of money, or a God of Love. We cannot have it both ways.
The person of conscience, deeply committed to a radical change in human civilization—from a dangerous, unsustainable order to a veritable garden for our children and grandchildren—must be willing to risk being considered a whiner, or worse, by polite society. Living a meaningful life is not a popularity contest. If everything we’re saying always receives applause, then perhaps we’re not saying all the right things yet. And there’s nothing unspiritual about yelling “Fire!” if the house indeed is burning down.
The nonviolent revolutionary in fact has a responsibility to be a thorn in the side of a complacent status quo. The person of conscience holds up a mirror to the world, which must include him- or herself. The lover of humanity is an agent of awakening, in a world where there is a collective urge to sleep.
Who is going to change the public conversation from shallow economic inanity to passionate human concern, if not you and me? It is true that in many environments, to bring up the unnecessary suffering of millions—and the policies that perpetuate that suffering—might quickly get you slapped with a label of “bleeding heart.” Or, these days, “snowflake.” But there’s an answer to that: Any time someone calls you a snowflake, tell them to expect an avalanche.
And take heart. All you need is one person in the room to say, “Actually, I agree with that,” and we’re starting to act like participants in a broad-based social change.
Just saying those things is not enough, of course; there is much more we need to do than just talk. But once the words have left your mouth, they tend to be more alive within you.
Anthropologist Margaret Mead gave us a perfect slogan for such times as these: “Never doubt that a small group of concerned citizens can change the world,” she said. “Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
This isn’t going to be easy, because the war against the fundamentals of our democracy has been extreme recently. Only a massive citizen uprising—among other things at the polls in local, state, and federal elections—will be able to turn back the tide of undemocratic forces now unleashed among us. But while the days ahead might be difficult for our country, I would still bet on a long-term positive prognosis for America. For while Americans are often slow to wake up to problems in our midst, we slam it like nobody’s business once we do.
FROM CORPORATE AGRICULTURAL giants turning the American farmer into an economic serf, to the injection of all manner of potentially dangerous chemical and genetic elements into our food production processes merely to increase corporate profits, to the displacement of people throughout the world to smaller and smaller corridors of economic and social opportunity when they no longer serve the machinery of international financial institutions, to the suppression of democratic protests against such economic dominance, to a system of corporate welfare that makes it so much easier for the rich to do business in America than for the poor to even get started, Americans are seeing things that are clearly antithetical to the ideals on which this nation was founded.
Indignation among people of conscience is rising—among both conservatives and liberals. Democracy itself is not a Left-Right issue. A coalition of the decent is now forming in America and hopefully it will restore the souls of both major political parties. As it does, and most particularly as we the people awaken to the dangers in our midst, the chains that now bind our national conscience will be broken, because David could sing and David had a slingshot and David loved the Lord with all his heart and all his might. He knew that “the Lord saves not with sword and spear.” The Lord saves with love, as all of us know in the depths of our souls. We must love the oppressed and we must love the oppressor, but we must refuse to participate in the oppression itself. We must name the game, tell truth to power, and rise above the battlefield not in anger but in love, not in fear but in hope, not in cynicism but in absolute conviction that here, in these United States, we have always risen to the challenge of justice, and now, in our day, we will do the same. The game isn’t over. It has only just begun. We do love justice and we do love democracy; we do love our children enough to make a stand for their safety against the environmental encroachments of an invisible order; and we do love America enough to turn our attention back to politics and reclaim that realm for our most honorable impulses, compassionate feelings, and noble thoughts.
When this book was first published in 1997, I wrote that there was a storm ahead, or an awakening ahead. Alas, the storm is upon us. But even now, in the midst of our national turmoil, there is an awakening as well. People are remembering the radicalism of the American experiment, the drama and power of democracy as well as its fragility. It cannot long survive in the absence of a population awakened to our responsibility to vigilantly protect it. Americans were sleeping but now we’re waking. A giant has been aroused that was too long napping. Among the rich and among the poor, among men and among women, among old and among young, among people of all colors and all faiths and traditions, millions and millions are looking at what’s happening in our country and are saying, with genuine passion in our hearts, to all the forces that would destroy our democracy, with courage and with conviction, “Hell no.”
“PLATO SAID THAT “to philosophize and concern oneself with politics are one and the same thing.” Many now expand our political activism to include spiritual growth work, in order that we might ourselves become facilitators of change. And many now expand our perception of spiritual practice to include political activism, that we might most profoundly extend our compassion into the world.
A path of love takes conscious effort. Many Americans have the unfortunate habit of waking up every morning and surrendering their lives to fear. Newspapers, TV, or Internet assault our nervous systems and hook us into the anxiety-ridden miasma of contemporary culture before we’re even out the door. And that will need to change, if we are to rise to the occasion. The only way we can create a more peaceful world is if we are able to become more peaceful people.
The cultivation of hallowed silence, meditation, or prayer; even a small amount of inspirational literature, a minimum amount of yoga or mindful technique; these are things that counter fear and help lift us above regions of low-grade hysteria. After we meditate, we’re ready to read the paper; after we’re inspired, we’re better prepared to be informed.
Politics can be a tremendous temptation to stray from our spiritual center. One more crazy tweet, and we’re angry. One more Congressional action that belies the whoredom of our political system, and our judgmental mind goes off the charts. The ego within us loudly proclaims both our anger and our fear. No louder voice, but only silence itself, can stop the noise within. What we most need to hear today, we can only hear when the mind is quiet.
Devotional silence is a powerful tool for healing hearts and healing nations; as any of us grow closer to God, all of us grow closer to each other. The true religious or spiritual experience, through love and forgiveness, unites instead of separates. Now, a global grassroots movement—made up of people from all religions and no religions—is gathering to forge an experience of universal oneness. This movement, spontaneous, international, and inspired—will ultimately join all hearts.
POWER DOESN’T FLOW from the top down, but from the bottom up. Wisdom doesn’t flow from the outside in, but from the inside out. Both of those spiritual tenets are at the core of a highly functioning democratic process. Where a top-down, authoritarian power holds sway, democracy is diminished. Where people get their guidance only from external sources, as opposed to the goodness of our own hearts, democracy is diminished as well. Disconnection from our internal selves produces a decrease in personal energy, and where personal energy diminishes, the last thing we feel we have time for is participation in the democratic process. Tired people don’t do democracy, and that is why a distracted, burdened, overstressed population is literally a threat to our liberty. President Eisenhower said, “Politics should be the part-time profession of every American.” But tell that to someone who already has two or three part-time jobs!
One way to reconnect our personal and political energy is through a process called Citizen Circles. These are small, spontaneous groups, in which two or more join together to hold the vision of a healed America. To “hold a vision” is to hold a thought, and thought is the most powerful, creative force in the universe. We are, as a species, only beginning to tap into the true power of our spiritual imagination—the wings we have been given but have not yet begun to collectively use. A thought grows more powerful the more people hold it. “An invasion of armies can be resisted,” wrote Victor Hugo, “but not an idea whose time has come.” The Berlin Wall came down because the love of freedom literally overcame the physical and political structures that resisted it. We, too, can make a bloodless transition to a better social order. We can so consciously embrace a world of justice and compassion, that such a world will literally be magnetized into manifestation. Such is the miraculous power of the human mind.
Citizen Circles open with a prayer or inspirational quote, remaining both religiously and spiritually inclusive. Twenty minutes of silence follow. For some people this is a time for prayer or meditation, while for others it is merely a time for personal reflection. Our wisdom, being rooted in silence, is then more clearly brought to bear upon our social and political lives.
There is a power in stillness that counters the cacophonous, hysterical energy that dominates so much of our popular culture today. Sharing silence in groups is a powerful way, in the words of Gandhi, to help “make politics sacred.” At the beginning of the devotional silence is a Quaker-type exercise, in which those who feel so moved say, “I see an America in which . . .” followed by their vision of a healed nation. We might see a nation or world in which all children are safe and happy and educated. Or see a world in which the earth is healthy and the water and air are clean. We might see a world in which all nations live together in peace. Or an America in which the races live in harmony and joy together, and so on. This process gives all participants an opportunity to speak their sacred word, and thus exercise their spiritual power to re-create the world. People’s hearts long to create the good, the true, and the beautiful.
Words spoken in normal speech do not necessarily carry spiritual power, but words spoken in sacred process, emerging from silence and with heartfelt dedication to the common good, carry moral authority for both the speaker and the listener.
Seven principles guide our spiritual/political practice:
1. The powers within us—mind and spirit—are greater than all powers outside.
2. Forgiveness and love are both our goal for the world and our means of achieving that goal.
3. We do not look away from the problems of the world, for that is negative denial. Rather, we look toward them and pray to be agents of positive change.
4. We embrace both the love and the sorrows of the world, for what is embraced with love is automatically delivered to realms of more positive unfoldment.
5. We will take constructive political action, in accordance with the opportunities afforded us as citizens of a democratic society. But we do not act only in order to oppose what is; we act in order to make another, more positive choice for the future.
6. We seek peace within ourselves at all times, for lack of peace within us will be reflected outside ourselves.
7. We see citizenship as a moral responsibility, to be used in love’s service, for the creation of a better, more just, more compassionate world.
CIRCLES CAN HELP to ground new political energy.
The key to a successful Citizen Circle is that we speak from the heart about subjects that matter. The agenda includes:
1. Silent meditation or nondenominational devotion.
2. Discussion or visualization of what we as individuals would wish America, or the world, to be like.
3. An educational element such as group reading and discussion. If the meeting is weekly, perhaps one member of the group brings in an article or chapter of a book for group discussion.
4. Citizen lobbying. With every article or discussion, the group should then plan a specific lobbying action, such as letters to an elected official. Remember, we do not all have to be lobbying for the same things or expressing the same opinions.
5. Part of the value of these meetings is that they provide a chance to hear the views of those whom we know are just as intelligent as we, but see things from a different political perspective. If splinter groups grow out of that, whereby we lobby for common things, that is fine and good. But listening to other people’s viewpoints keeps our own from calcifying.
Many people open their Circles with prayer, such as the following one:
Dear God,
We come together,
different perspectives,
different politics,
different cultures,
to ask that you heal our country.
We surrender to You
the thoughts and attitudes we now hold,
and empty our minds that they might
be filled by You.
Show us to each other,
as You would have us see each other.
Show us the world,
as You would have us see the world.
Guide our listening,
as You would have us hear each other.
Teach us, and inspire us.
Use us on Your behalf.
Amen
In an environment where prayer is either inappropriate or perceived as threatening to some members of the group, a generalized reference to “the spirit of goodness within all of us” or “the love [or light] within our minds” carries with it the power to bring groups of people into spiritual alignment with each other and a higher power.
Martin Luther King, Jr., said, “I am convinced that the universe is under the control of a loving purpose and that in the struggle for righteousness man has cosmic companionship. Behind the harsh appearance of the world there is a benign power. To say God is personal is not to make Him an object among other objects or attribute to Him the finiteness and limitations of human personality; it is to take what is finest and noblest in our consciousness and affirm its perfect existence in Him.”
The greatest power is neither money nor technological device; the greatest power is the power of consciousness. So it is that a new politics centers around the arousal of that power, using prayer and meditation to create a force field of transformation.
The following are some suggestions for the kinds of prayers that break up old political thought patterns:
1. Pray for every one of the fifty states.
2. Pray for help in giving up judgment toward whatever person in public life, or group of people, you tend to judge.
3. Pray for the children of America.
4. Pray for the leaders of America.
5. Pray for the poor in America.
6. Pray for America’s incarcerated population.
7. Pray for all drug addicts and alcoholics.
8. Pray for America’s sick.
9. Pray for America’s relationship with all other nations.
10. Pray for atonement and amends toward those who have been wronged by us as a nation.
11. Pray for racial healing. Atone for the systemic racism that permeates our social policies today, and surrender your own thoughts as well.
12. Pray for parents and children in America.
13. Pray for husbands and wives in America.
14. Pray for all lovers and friends.
15. Pray for America’s environment.
16. Pray for the American economy.
17. Pray for American education.
18. Pray for American health care.
19. Pray for America’s homeless.
20. Pray that you might become a better American citizen.
The following are some prayers that might assist your efforts:
Dear God,
There was born on this land
a possibility of freedom
more expansive than the world had ever known. And the promise still exists.
There is freedom here
for some,
dear Lord,
but clearly not for all. And the promise still exists.
Help us, Lord,
to free our country from the chains
of our hardened hearts. And the promise still exists.
Amen
Dear God,
Please bless our children,
and the children of the world. May their innocence remain.
Dear God,
Please bless their tender souls.
Lead them away from harsh stimulation
and the violent ways which hurt them.
Cast out of us the things which offend
the spirit of love
in all of us.
Make our children free of all the darkened things in life,
and make us free as well,
dear Lord.
Make us free as well.
In these United States
and in the world,
may only love remain.
Amen
Dear God,
We are the richest nation,
the most blessed of places,
we praise you, Lord, and thank you.
Surely the bounty You have given us
is meant by You to bless the world,
Please show us how,
dear God.
Please re-create our culture,
renew our tired lives.
Let light and love
flow down on us,
our country
and our world.
Amen
Dear God,
We bless the souls of those who founded these United
States, of all who came before us,
and who struggle still today,
to bring forth all the greatness
and the glory of America.
Thank you, God,
and them.
Amen
Dear God,
Please bless the people of America,
and all people throughout the world.
Use me, God,
in whatever way
You would have me serve.
Show me how to live my life
in such a way as to spread the love
which feeds and redeems us all.
Amen
Dear God,
May the angels
of America
burst forth across this land,
healing hearts and
blessing souls.
May they awaken yet
the cry of freedom
in one and all.
Release us from bondage,
release us from fear.
Amen
Dear God,
Turn back the fist
that sits upon the process of our furtherance,
limiting our good.
Remove it from our hearts,
remove it from our streets,
remove it from our government,
remove it from our land.
Thank you, God.
Amen.
Dear God,
Please forgive this country
for the racism,
past and present,
which so hides Your light.
Take from us any thoughts we hold,
or feelings we have,
which make firm the wrong.
Please show us how to create anew
American society,
that truly we might be as brothers.
Thank you very much,
Amen
Dear God,
We don’t even know
all the things which are wrong in this country,
but You do,
dear Lord,
You do.
Please reveal to us
what You would have revealed,
and take from us what You would take.
Thank you, God.
Amen
Dear God,
May our essential nature
as a country
and a people,
awaken on this day.
May the glorious possibilities
of our miraculous beginnings
once more enchant our hearts and
set us free
of limitation.
Break the chain
of dominance
which false power holds upon us still.
Renew the spirit
of freedom and love
which are Your truth within us.
Amen
Dear God,
Please help us change America,
from a land of violence
to a land of love.
Where there is separation,
please bring union.
Where there is distrust and pain,
please bring reconciliation of our hearts
with each other,
and with You.
May all be blessed
and prosper,
here and throughout the world.
And so it is.
Amen
Dear God,
Lead us
where You would have us go,
show us
what You would have us do.
Guide us
in what You would have us say,
and to whom,
that we might serve You best.
Give us hope
that there is yet
another way.
We are open,
we are willing,
we are waiting for Your hand
upon our shoulders and our hearts.
May Your will still yet be done on earth,
as it is in heaven.
Amen
Dear God,
Please give every mother’s child
enough to eat,
in America
and everywhere.
Give every mother’s child
good work to do,
and the strength to do it,
in America and everywhere.
Give every mother’s child
the wisdom to see,
and the courage to act,
and the heart to forbear,
in America and everywhere.
Use us to help You, Lord,
to make these things so.
Amen
Dear God,
Please forgive us
for how we offend Your spirit,
ignoring the poor,
yet feeding the rich,
not fostering peace,
yet making fortunes
on the instruments of war.
Please turn us around, dear God
and heal our minds
and hearts.
Please open our eyes,
transform our minds,
that we might be
instruments of love.
Amen
Dear God,
I know not where to go,
but You do.
I know not what to do,
but You do.
I know not how to be,
but You do,
to change this world,
to heal this country.
Please show me, Lord,
for I would do my part.
Amen
Dear God,
Please bless our Congress,
our President,
our judges,
and all elected officials,
and the people of the United States,
with wisdom
and light
and love.
Please bless those who have no voice,
and lend them mine.
Amen
Dear God,
There are those
who have too little hope.
There are those who try,
yet feel their dreams
shot down.
There are those who love,
yet feel forgotten
in the madness and the crowds.
Please help them all.
Open wide our hearts
and eyes
and ears,
that we might know and hear each other,
in our joy
and in our pain.
Amen
SOCIAL CHANGE EMERGES more from a vertical than from a horizontal axis. A consensus of people joined passionately in an internal shift will do more to affect the conditions of the world than millions of people joined in superficial external changes. The morphic resonance of loving thought is a literal force field, not just a metaphorical concept. It is the sacred of which Gandhi spoke, carrying more potential power than a nuclear bomb or military force. Martin Luther King, Jr., said “We have within us a power more powerful than bullets.” The question is not whether this power exists, or even whether enough people believe that it exists; the question for our time is whether enough of us are prepared to harness that power for the purpose of national and planetary healing. To speak of love is one thing; to sit in silence with others, to pray, to speak from our hearts, to envision a loving future, to forgive ourselves and each other—these are something else altogether. They are the tools of nonviolence and the seeds of a brand-new world. Where some have harnessed fear and bigotry for political purposes, let us now harness love.
Years ago, as I drove past a Planned Parenthood clinic in a central California town, I noticed that on one side of the driveway were protesters with picket signs, while on the other side of the driveway was a woman wearing a bulletproof vest, on top of which was written “Clinic.” I was stunned at the sight of such a thing here in America.
People who are free to debate their views but define that debate as screaming at each other, people who are free to express their opinions but dishonor the opinions of others, are not practicing democracy but are in the process of destroying it. Our forefathers foresaw for us a deliberative, consensus-building, reasonable form of political debate. But a generation for whom a culture of distraction in too many ways competes with a culture of depth has had difficulty developing the social maturity necessary for the authentic practice of democracy. Such practice demands our capacity to speak from our depths and listen from our depths. Cultural cacophony is an enemy of democracy.
A challenge of our time is to create an alternative political culture. If our goal is to do that, then it’s not just the content of our political conclusions but also the process by which we arrive at them that needs to be addressed.
I was once giving a lecture to a large audience when the subject of abortion came up in the discussion period of the program. Tensions began to surface; a rip in the emotional fabric of the room was obvious to everyone. One choice was to go for a false positivism, pretending we’re all so “spiritual” here that we don’t have to delve into issues like that. Such a choice is not transcendence but denial, healing nothing and no one. Another choice was to open the discussion—go for it and see what happens. A third choice offered a different way: I asked those in the room to close their eyes and remain in silence for two minutes. I asked that we look within ourselves and call on the spirit of goodness that resides there. I suggested we ask for the soul’s wisdom regarding this issue, surrendering our perceptions into the hands of God.
After our two minutes of silence, we resumed conversation. Everyone in the room was quieter, more accepting and compassionate toward the views of others, and more eloquent in stating their own views. What came forward, then, was not so much anyone’s particular opinions but everyone’s capacity to communicate more deeply. People were truly heard that night by people who had previously dismissed their views out of hand. The “right answer” is not a particular view on policy, so much as an experience of each other in which the process of meaningful communication is restored.
We don’t need to extend democracy out into the world, so much as to deepen it within ourselves. The day after that lecture, someone who was there remarked to me, “I felt like last night I had an intimate living room conversation regarding abortion with two thousand people.” From that intimacy did come healing, and from that kind of healing will come a new America.
At the deepest level, we don’t want—nor can we sustain—a political culture in which we’re fighting each other all the time. Debating, yes. Having a vigorous contest of ideas, yes. But fighting? Truly opposing one another as has come to be the norm in our society? No. A smug, self-righteous, intolerant Left-winger is no less dangerous to the fabric of this country than is a smug, self-righteous, intolerant Right-winger. We need a politics that rests not on personal destruction, but on imagination and creation. Politics should be an art form, and it should actually be enjoyable.
ONE NIGHT AT one of my lectures, we did the Citizen Circle process of declaring the America we would like to see. Scores of people were proclaiming, “I see an America in which. . . .” After doing the exercise, I went off the stage for a twenty-minute intermission.
When I returned, it was time for a different part of my presentation: responding to questions handed in from members of the audience. I had been doing this format—lecture, intermission, then questions and answers—for years, yet this night was different. Almost every time I read a question, before I could even say anything in response, someone in the audience would speak up! Not raise a hand, but just blurt out an answer—and always a good one. Something significant had occurred from merely participating in that exercise; people had subtly shifted from passive to active, from a mode where “someone else has the answers” to one where “I have the answers.” People hadn’t just become wise that night, of course, but many had come closer to owning their wisdom that night.”
Within minutes, people were talking—completely unprompted by me—of which companies produce their products in countries where child labor is used; the tenets of socially responsible investing; how to include infant and child care in a corporate environment; economic injustice and the U.S. tax code; the dangers of gutting environmental regulations. It was like tired flowers that had finally been put in water: people are so hungry to participate in something bigger than ourselves, after years of putting our energies into merely self-centered goals. There is such a thing as group intelligence and group conscience, and democracy cannot live without it. Average citizens joined in a dignified environment of deliberation and consensus building—not back rooms where corporate lobbyists get to call most of the shots. That is the engine that should drive America.
Our collective cynicism and citizen fatigue is the biggest obstacle to breaking democracy’s free fall. Some say they don’t participate more because there doesn’t seem to be any one issue to rally around like there was in the Sixties; some say they feel hopeless, and that it doesn’t matter what you do or who you vote for anyway; some say that dark money has it all sewn up, and so on. But in reality, money—as powerful as it is—doesn’t actually vote. Power has been grabbed from the people, that’s true; but it has also been abdicated by the people, and we should take responsibility for that.
There seems to be no one issue to rally around because so many today are fraught with problems. But the deeper issue is within us: a citizen malaise now ending, opening our country to new possibilities because we are opening to something new within ourselves. We are reclaiming what generations before us had, and which we desperately need again: a sense that we, as citizens, actually matter. A sense that what we think, how we feel, and how we vote actually matters.
I don’t think Americans are apathetic, but too many have begun to feel, rightfully so, that nothing they did made any difference. That has produced within us a kind of all-pervasive societal depression, and it is that which needs to heal now. We cannot turn away from politics; we must re-create the field. For as the French often say, “If you don’t do politics, politics will do you.” And boy, it has. But politics is not a rigid institution. In truth, it will be anything we choose it to be, and people are starting to do what we have to do to put America back on track. Call it the nonviolent resistance, call it woke, call it whatever. But know that it’s happening.
Big changes in the world begin with small movements in the mind. And those who first perceive these changes do not reasonably expect applause. When integrative medicine first burst onto the scene, no one asked the American Medical Association’s permission. Medical physicians made fun of many of us, as we held support groups, prayed for patients, stressed the power of forgiveness to boost the immune system, and so on. But it’s a whole new world now—our most prestigious medical institutions now acknowledge the psycho-immunological factor, the effects of spirituality and consciousness in healing the physical body—and former cynics are not laughing anymore.
So, of course, traditional political types will laugh at a metapolitical emphasis where love, atonement, peace, and reverence for life are seen as dominant political values. That’s okay; they won’t laugh forever. Politicians, like medical doctors, aren’t demi-gods anymore. They’re our partners in healing society. What we need in America now is not so much a visionary leader or a visionary media; what we need is a visionary constituency, and that is what is forming. Organizations and projects are popping up all over the country, helping to build that constituency, giving us a framework for meaningful silence, meaningful discussion, and meaningful political action.
Inner activism meets outer activism: Voilà! Holistic politics.
Chapter 8 will be emailed to you tomorrow!
Chapter 2: Dreams and Principles
Chapter 4: An American Awakening