Behind your image, below your words, above your thoughts, the silence of another world waits. A world lives within you. No one else can bring you news of this inner world.
—John O’Donahue, Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom
Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “what lies outside you matters little to what lies within you.”
There are few in the world that really get this. Said differently in all the religious faiths, by primarily the outliers or esoteric of the religious beliefs, those mystics have recognized that God, Spirit, Divine Mother-Father, Wakan Tanka, or whatever you choose to call It, is the energy behind all that exists. It (God) adds order to what would otherwise be an unordered universe. We, as humans, have the power to make decisions that affect our lives immediately. We also have power to excel and grow, succeed and thrive, limited only by our own willingness to give away that power to others or have it taken away by those who would disenfranchise those they find different by ethnicity, culture, or Religious beliefs, to name a few.
They can never take away power from people in these disenfranchised groups, if these individuals aren’t willing to give up their power. This is evidenced by men such as Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela. These men have been major voices for equality and peace for all peoples in spite of major campaigns to discredit or silence them.
They are equally flanked by powerful women like Harriet Tubman, Susan B. Anthony, Rosa Parks and many others throughout history who put their lives at risk to fight for equality in their own right.
Try as they might, the powerful white men of history have always been unable to silence these powerful people of history. They could diminish their power somewhat by their control of the press and media and by silencing them with incarceration or death, but their spirit always lived on in others, and their banner was picked up and the struggle has always continued.
Now, white men are either claiming they have been misunderstood or maligned, but there is no place their lust for power and control over others can be misinterpreted. They, and as a white man I should probably say WE, have been responsible for most or all of the ills that exist in the world today. We are responsible for annihilation of entire peoples, all the wars in the world, the enslavement of many worlds of peoples, and for keeping peoples around the world in poverty, while they wallow in mountains of money that have kept themselves untouchable and uncaring for millennia.
Most of these men have claimed to be Christians, but as such have ignored, and flaunted their hypocrisy of the Golden Rule, the basic tenet of all spiritual philosophies, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” They have ignored Jesus’ tenet, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” They have also cast aside his words to, “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. They don’t understand the historical context of the phrase, “to one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also.” They think it means to be submissive.
So, what does this say of the inner world, the soul upon which we base our good? It speaks volumes to how the world looks today and to the differences in the ways people respond or react to challenges. By in large, men still focus on “might” with those who challenge them, where women use logic, and their more sublime power of numbers to assert a greater influence. They speak from love, rather than what their money can buy.
Ultimately, this will make all the difference, because “Love conquers all.”