With the current president in office and the dysfunctional political climate in the country, it would be easy to focus on nothing but our current problems and how to move the country back to a state of sanity and rationality. While that is of utmost importance and so must consume much of our time and effort, we/I would be negligent if we did not also continue to reflect on the larger issues that impact our society.
Human history has been a story of the powerful and the oppressed, the haves and the have nots. The drive for survival focuses man on gaining power, the more the better, since when you’re fighting for survival one can never be secure enough. And since having power by definition means having power over others, that sets up the age-old dynamic of human society.
This power dynamic is evidenced at all levels of human interaction. Even within the family, while usually not oppression, there’s often a power struggle between husband v wife, sibling v sibling, or parents v children. In school it’s mean girls/bullies against those they consider “lesser” beings. In the larger world, it is or has been men v women, Christians v Jews, WASPs v Catholics, whites v blacks. Go to any country and you will find the same dynamic, even in Buddhist Myanmar. The list is endless.
In our society we have tried to lessen the impact of this dynamic, to free people from oppression, through the establishment of rights. The effort has not been to change the oppressor’s mindset in any direct way, but to change his or her way of interacting. To end discrimination. And to provide a legal recourse for those who are discriminated against.
This has been a worthy effort to make our democracy and human relations more just. But the effort has two major shortcomings.
First, we can pass all the legislation we want, but if we do not change people’s attitude towards the group in question, discrimination will still occur on a regular basis. It’s true that giving people rights has had some impact on the oppressor’s mindset, but there has been little fundamental change, especially where the bias runs strong and deep or the oppressor feels threatened by the oppressed’s potential. Yes, there will be less overt discrimination, but much will still exist and only that which is called out through a law suit will be stopped.
The fact is that we have not even discussed the underlying mindset that creates these problems. We as a nation have never really had a discussion about race or women. We’ve had a bit more discussion about sexual orientation in recent years and are starting to have a discussion regarding gender identity. Until there is a nation-wide, humanity-based, discussion about these issues, nothing fundamental will change.
Second, while the passage of rights laws has been a critical necessity, we have done little to assist the oppressed to improve their lives regardless. It is a maxim of spiritual teaching that we each have the power to change how we experience life, regardless the circumstances. Thus, for example, the serenity prayer, with my exposition (…), says, “Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change … which is the way my life is right now at this moment. The courage to change the things I can … which is how I relate to myself and the world around me. And the wisdom to know the difference.”
The first part of the prayer is usually met with substantial push-back from anyone who approaches it. We don’t want to accept the way things are. But the prayer does not mean or require that you don’t attempt to change the environment in which you live; it just means that you accept that right now at this moment it is the way it is. It is an essential step if one wants to experience peace in the moment rather than mental stress.
The second step of the serenity prayer as it normally appears, “The courage to change the things I can,” is usually just greeted with a shrug. Because it is interpreted as meaning changing the circumstances we live in and having the courage to do that. That is a tall order in many if not most circumstances. And so it leads many to feel that they are failures because they don’t have that courage or ability.
Yet this is not the real point of the second statement at all. The universal spiritual teaching is that all we have the power to change is how we relate to ourselves and the world around us. That is what gives us the power over whether a situation causes us stress and unhappiness or whether we are at peace regardless.
Before going further and discussing this powerful teaching, let me first talk about the word “peace” which I’ve used several times. It’s not a word that we usually think of as possibly applying to ourselves in any practical way.
As an example, let me quote from my forthcoming book, How to Find Inner Peace:
“Peace. What a completely foreign concept this was to me. How can anyone be at peace or serene unless they’re a saint? Since I was a young child my life had been filled with inner turmoil, despite an outwardly happy home and relationships. And in looking around at my peers and family, and at the images of the larger culture, I didn’t see anyone who was at peace. … Yet I knew in my gut that peace and happiness, a life free of suffering, was a rational, reasonable goal. The question was not whether but how?
…
“First then, what exactly is peace? Peace is the absence of fear, anxiety, hatred, guilt, shame, doubt and confusion … or better put, it’s not the absence of these emotions but not being controlled by them. It’s also being free of an intense desire for things you don’t have or to be someone other than you are.”
So how do we as individuals and as a collective group change the way we view ourselves and the world around us so as to experience peace and happiness, rather than fear, anxiety, frustration, anger, etc.? Books have been written by many, including me, to answer this question. But let me try to answer it briefly by looking at some specific examples.
Feminism: The founders of feminism understood that if the lot of women was to improve, it was not just a matter of gaining certain rights vis a vis men; women had to change their attitude about themselves, what was possible, not be controlled by the confines that men had set for them. So even without or before gaining rights, women could improve their life experience by changing their self-image.
Blacks: At the turn of the 20th century, well before the real push for civil rights, Booker T. Washington led a movement to improve the lives of blacks through self-help, both in education and business. But because he did not confront the oppressive regime, his was a one-pronged approach and he fell out of favor and influence.
Later, while the push for civil rights was going on, there were others in the community that were addressing how blacks could improve their life experience by changing their self-image and stop resorting to destructive behavior both towards themselves and other blacks. They sought to build a supportive community. One such movement was the Reverend Jesse Jackson’s Operation PUSH and PUSH-EXCEL. The other movement was the Nation of Islam.
While the central goal of Operation PUSH was to improve the economic position of Blacks through various means, in his weekly sermons Jackson preached the uplifting of his people. Nina Simone’s song, “To Be Young, Gifted, and Black,” became an anthem of the movement. And through PUSH-EXCEL he sought to improve Black and minority student performance in inner city schools and help them stay out of trouble.
A more divisive, although in many ways effective, approach was taken by the Nation of Islam. It believed that Blacks could only improve their lives if they disassociated themselves from the surrounding White culture. Instead, it sought to have Blacks adopt the strict morality of Islam to improve their lives and support one another. While the Nation achieved many good things for its people, it was unfortunately built upon hatred of the white man. And nothing good spiritually develops from hatred.
LGBTQ: For the LGBTQ movement, the spiritual emphasis, while pursuing legal rights, has been changing the self-image from one of shame to pride. And as more and more LGBTQ people responded to that message and came out to family, friends, and colleagues, people found out that LGBGQ were a part of their everyday lives, that they were in essence no different from themselves, and so more people came to support the movement for equal rights. Coming out created the environment for equal treatment, not changes in the law.
The point of these group examples is that regardless what the rest of the world is doing to you or how they are reacting to you … and this applies to individuals as well as groups … you have the power to change your life experience for the better. By believing in yourself, by treating yourself well, and by having the courage to move forward with the things that makes life meaningful for you, that speak to your heart.
In my post, “The Next Wave of Feminism,” I discuss the need for each woman to enter into an exploration of who she really is, as opposed to who they’ve come to think they are based on their life experiences and our culture, so that she can truly decide what is best for her. Every group must help their members free themselves from the confines that the rest of the world has placed on their narrative story.
With women, for example, it’s not a simple matter of saying “no” to motherhood or being a housewife; that is more a statement of rebellion, not of deep inner exploration. One must be truly free of the past in order for each individual to decide what choice is best for them … for some it will be being a housewife and mother; for others it will be going into business or the professions.
There will always be lots of obstacles, with or without legal rights, but if you are true to yourself you will always be at peace. For you will be one with your heart, and you will not allow anyone to take that feeling away from you.
