| Yogis: The Swing Vote
in 2004 by Robert Rabbin I live in Marin County, California -- a hotbed of healers and psychics and clairvoyants who constantly channel information from their guides, angels and assorted invisible spiritual mentors. Intuitive predictions about everything under the sun are common currency in most conversations. I've even been known to bounce a ball or two off of those backboards myself. Still, I am somewhat incredulous when anyone makes the kind of bold declaration I am about to make: the Democratic nominee will win the White House in 2004. I guarantee it.... Here's how it's going to happen. I'm going to appeal to my 20 million brothers and sisters who practice yoga and meditate -- yogis! These yogis represent a potent political force for peace and justice, for dignity and freedom, for wisdom and compassion. They are the swing vote of 2004! I'm going to ask them to take their practice to the voting booth. I'm going to ask them to take their practice into the world and make gardens and forests of beauty and goodness. Actually, my appeal is to all people of faith and conscience and goodwill, to people of all religions and spiritual traditions. I speak to all of you, but I speak particularly to my yogi brothers and sisters because I share their path and practice. I know their language and metaphors. I know the sights and sounds of this journey. But I speak to all. I appeal to all. An Appeal to my Yogi Brothers and Sisters: We have all taken to yoga or meditation for one reason or another. It doesn't matter which one. And it doesn't really matter if you practice Zen, Vipassana or Dzogchen; it doesn't matter if you use a mantra, koan or silence. It doesn't matter if you practice Ashtanga, Iyengar or Bikram. These are all superficial differences that barely mask the one transcendent urge we all share. It is simply an urge to experience the freedom of our own essential nature, to feel a part of the whole of creation. It is a longing to yoga, to yoke, to join...mind with silence, matter with emptiness, body with spirit, self with other, heart with action. We want to mix all the separate parts until they become one. We want to experience and express our wholeness of being and connection to others. And so we practice. And then one day, our practice ripens all at once: Suddenly everything is in perfect relationship and balance. Our mind, attention, gaze, breath, shoulders, arms, fingers, chest, hips, thighs, knees and toes -- everything shows its natural face, its true character. We settle and sit with all that in a calm, yet exhilarating, perfection of being. We enter a timeless and weightless world of presence and beauty, a world of naturalness and ease. Eternal stillness, simple pleasure -- joy as though hundreds of children had come alive in our soul. Everything sparkles after the ripeness has fallen from the bough of aspiration to the ground at our feet. Tiny lights flicker from within things we'd never even noticed before. We feel a bond of friendship towards everyone. A deep calm pumps something wonderful throughout our body and mind. There is a tenderness and respect towards others, isn't there? And we know that we are always and forever joined with this wonderful presence that saturates and sustains all human beings and all beings in creation, equally. Now, my brothers and sisters, it is time to bring this beauty into the world in a big way. We can't stay in our own communities. We have to bring our practice to the world outside our zendos and ashrams and dojos and studios. Perhaps in the past we have practiced for ourselves to fulfill our personal longing. But that time is past; now we must practice with and for others, for the world. Why? Because the world needs us. The world needs what we have been studying and practicing: clarity, stillness, insight, strength, kindness, tolerance, patience, empathy, authenticity, simplicity and courage. Yes, courage. It takes courage to do what we do, to face what we face, to learn what we learn. And now we must take this courage into the wider world. I appeal to you in the name of the heart of yoga and meditation to bring your practice into the world this next year. I ask you to turn your steady gaze and deep concentration to the world around you. I ask you to beautify the world with the inner beauty you have been building for years. In the same way we have opened to the deep dimensions of the inner world, I ask you to open to the broad expanse of the outer world, from which we are not separate. We can not hide from this world, nor escape it, nor transcend it. We can only embrace it and love it and beautify it. Now is the time for this meditation, for this asana. The freedom, balance, beauty, and sanctity we have found on the inside are being threatened on the outside. Truly speaking, we know there is no inside and no outside. There is only one existence, and though it is immense, even eternal and utterly transcendent, it is also small and fragile and transient and very, very specific. It is in the faces and names of people, in the details of their lives, of our lives. These details of our life and the lives of others need our attention and care. If we open to the world, we will feel a lot of pain, even if it isn't ours. There is pain in the world. There is a lot of violence and war, a lot of despair and hopelessness, poverty and hunger, oppression and fear. Things are very unstable: Collectively, we are not sitting upright nor holding a steady posture. We have to work together to make this situation better. We have to stabilize and beautify the world. We can do it. It is ours to do. This is why we have been practicing. For ourselves, yes; and now for others and the world. We can not have a true practice if it excludes the world. The inner and the outer are more than mirror images of each other: they are each other. There is no separation, no difference, no distance between them. This is what our ripe practice teaches us. We cannot have inner freedom without freedom in the world. We cannot have inner peace without peace in the world. We cannot have love, or kindness, or joy -- if we do not actualize these qualities in the world. We must make a new world, one in which inner and outer do not exist as separate or distinct from each other. We do not need to be afraid or suspicious of this new world. We will not lose what we have learned; instead, we will become it. Let us join together and create this new world, and together let us beautify and sanctify it with our love, care and attention. We must act quickly. This fall, we will elect a president. This is of immense importance to us all. I want one who is committed in thought, word and action to what I have come to value through yoga and meditation. I know you do, too. So we have to do two things. The first is to clarify and articulate the values of yoga and meditation, in very specific an concrete terms, in ways that connect to our actual day-to-day living. Certainly those values will include peace, kindness, generosity, openness, tolerance, patience, respect and reverence for life. The second thing we have to do is find out whether this current president represents our values. If not, we must work diligently to elect another president. We must make this our new practice. I can tell you this: The current president is a holocaust to our values. But don't take my word for it; do as the Buddha said, Be a light unto yourself. Find out. You'll see I'm right. But find out. And when you do, I know you will join me in voting for the Democratic nominee in 2004. Robert Rabbin is a writer and speaker whose twin passions of spiritual wisdom and social justice are expressed in his column of social commentary. To contact Robert and to read more columns, visit his website at www.robrabbin.com/sc. Copyright © 2004 Robert Rabbin. All rights reserved |
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Feb 2004 |
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