beyond the dream

"I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life’s roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life’s highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.

A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say: "This is not just." It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of South America and say: "This is not just." The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.

A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war: "This way of settling differences is not just." This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation’s homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

......

A genuine revolution of values means in the final analysis that our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies.

This call for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one’s tribe, race, class and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all mankind. This oft misunderstood, this oft misinterpreted concept, so readily dismissed by the Nietzsches of the world as a weak and cowardly force, has now become an absolute necessity for the survival of man. When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. I’m not speaking of that force which is just emotional bosh. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. This Hindu-Moslem-Christian-Jewish-Buddhist belief about ultimate reality is beautifully summed up in the first epistle of Saint John: "Let us love one another, (Yes) for love is God. (Yes) And every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love." "If we love one another, God dwelleth in us and his love is perfected in us." Let us hope that this spirit will become the order of the day.

We can no longer afford to worship the god of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate. As Arnold Toynbee says: "Love is the ultimate force that makes for the saving choice of life and good against the damning choice of death and evil. Therefore the first hope in our inventory must be the hope that love is going to have the last word."

We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with a lost opportunity. The tide in the affairs of men does not remain at flood—it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is adamant to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words, "Too late." There is an invisible book of life that faithfully records our vigilance or our neglect. Omar Khayyam is right: "The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on."

We still have a choice today: nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation. We must move past indecision to action. We must find new ways to speak for peace in Vietnam and justice throughout the developing world, a world that borders on our doors. If we do not act, we shall surely be dragged down the long, dark, and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight.

Now let us begin. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter, but beautiful, struggle for a new world. This is the calling of the sons of God, and our brothers wait eagerly for our response. Shall we say the odds are too great? Shall we tell them the struggle is too hard? Will our message be that the forces of American life militate against their arrival as full men, and we send our deepest regrets? Or will there be another message—of longing, of hope, of solidarity with their yearnings, of commitment to their cause, whatever the cost? The choice is ours, and though we might prefer it otherwise, we must choose in this crucial moment of human history.

...

And if we will only make the right choice, we will be able to transform this pending cosmic elegy into a creative psalm of peace. If we will make the right choice, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our world into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. If we will but make the right choice, we will be able to speed up the day, all over America and all over the world, when justice will roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream."

MLK

Affirmations for Life

I am safe and secure at all times.
I am divinely protected and guided and my way is made smooth and easy.
I love my feet. They show me the way.
I love my legs. They give me support.
I am open to expanding my awareness of life.
I am willing to release all my old patterns of fear and insecurity to live with joy and well-being now.
I know that I belong. I know that I am safe.
People now support me in an easy and pleasurable way.
It is safe for me to enjoy my life now.
I am willing to be my own good mother and look after myself properly at all times.
I am responsible for the quality of my life.
I am open to new ideas, new thoughts, and new people in my life.
I am willing to consider the possibility that there are new approaches to enjoying
life which will enhance my sense of being alive and give me pleasure.
Life is good.
I trust life supports me in fulfilling my purpose.
I have a right to be me, just exactly as I am.
I have a right to express myself and manifest my dreams.
I can have pleasure.
I trust in the process of my life to unfold for my highest good and greatest joy.
I love my life just exactly the way it is. I am free to make whatever changes are necessary for my future.
I can risk doing what I feel is right.
I am a life enhancer.
I am creating a healthy foundation on which creativity can flourish.
I unconditionally love and approve of myself at all times.
I trust in my own perfection.
I am good enough to have what I want.
I release my negative attitudes which block my experience of pleasure.
It is safe to have life easy and pleasurable.
I allow pleasure, sweetness, and sensuality into my life.
I allow abundance and prosperity into my life.
I am in control of my own sexuality.
I give myself permission to enjoy my sexuality fully.
I trust the Infinite Intelligence to give me everything I need for my growth
and development.
I am enough. What I do is enough. What I have is enough. Who I am and
what I do is enough.
I open myself to the beauty, joy, and harmony of the Universe and I enjoy it.
I trust the process of life.
I love myself exactly as I am right now.
I deeply love and approve of who I am.
I am worthy of my own-self-love.
I love and respect myself at all times.
I trust in love.
I trust my worthiness.
I am worth my weight in gold.
There are no failures. I learn from everything I do.
I believe that everything is for my highest good and greatest joy.
I love life.
I listen to and trust my deepest insights.
I am worthy of the very best in life.
I release judgment and let my life flow.
I deeply and truly love and approve of myself.
I am adequate at all times to do that which is required of me.
I love who I am.
I am willing to love everything about myself.
I trust in love.
I open my heart to love.
I forgive myself
I forgive those who need forgiving for not being what I wanted them to be.
I acknowledge my own loveliness.
I am pure, good, and innocent.
Love is the purpose of my life.
Love is everywhere.
I open myself to the healing powers of love.
I follow the path of the heart.
I am confident that the healing power of God's love will heal my mind,heart, and body
I am able to harness my will power to control addictive influences in my life.
I am ready to put my negative habits to one side and openly develop my
creativity.
I substitute love, joy, and creative expression for old patterns of addiction
and abuse.
I willingly give up (smoking, alcohol abuse, dope, overeating and unhealthy
dieting) to enhance my own creative gifts.
Love opens the door for me to feel whole and complete.
Everything I do is an expression of love.
It is now safe for me to express my feelings.
I love and trust my creative gifts.
It is now right for me to express the best of who I am now.
I release the fear and doubts which block the way to my creative expression.
I am confident in the healing power of love to open my throat for greater
self-expression.
I think positive thoughts about myself and everything around me.
I open myself to my intuition and deepest knowing.
I acknowledge I am the source in creating my life the way I would like it
to be.
I accept that I am an unlimited being and that I can create anything I want.
I focus on what I love and draw it to me.
I release all the impediments which block my growth and development.
I am open to new ideas, people, and situations which will enhance my joy
and happiness.
I live in the truth of my grace, beauty, and intelligence.
I am responsible for the quality of love and happiness in my life.
I rethink all negative thoughts about myself and others and change them to
positive energy.
I create clarity and unlimited vision for myself about my life.
I trust whatever comes to me is for my greatest joy and highest good.
I am open and receptive to all life.
Love is eternal.
Love makes me free.
I am willing to go beyond my limitations to express and experience greater joy.
I am always willing to take the next step in my life.
I am divinely protected and guided.
I am safe and all life loves and supports me now.
Love surrounds me, protects and nourishes me.
I go beyond limiting beliefs and accept myself totally.
I acknowledge that the source of love is within me.
I am willing to be responsible for the quality of love and joy I have in my life.
The more love I give the more there is to receive.
I am open to the goodness and abundance of the Universe.

- The Book of Chakras, Ambika Wauters

Oneness is Abundance

I think that the human individual awakes to meaning in many ways, but, essentially we awake to meaning when we find relationships that we can dedicate our own freedoms to, and I think one of the things that makes this hard for us to be able to do so is the fact that we live in an economic system that makes competition a necessity; that our currency system says, "in order for this currency to be valuable, it has to be scarce." So scarcity is part of our economic world view, means that people are forced to compete and produces self interest. We don't wake up in a world of abundance.

Oneness is abundance. It has no limits, in the sense it is such a powerful motivation for community life, if it's seen as we're working for one goal mutually, to reinforce each persons value in it. 

But all that is compromised by our currency system. It's not designed for everyone to have; and it's designed, for someone who can work out a better plan, to be more efficient at eliminating others from the game - to be a monopoly, and to actually have a greater control over the resources.

How many people live in a world where their word no longer matters because they don't have money? They can't participate, whether it's in a democracy, or, they can't participate, whether it's in any other form of economic process, because they lack the basic means of participation.

Now, the thing is that a small portion of the world claim the rights to what the majority of the world produces every day, because of some, you know, what we call now "intellectual property", ownership of history. Because for me, white people owned my ancestors, and they produced some things that are still benefiting a group of people exclusively while the descendants of that group have nothing.

Now i'm not saying we're required to have economic compensation. I think we're required to have the right to produce, that's all i'm saying. We have the right to produce - everyone should be given the right to produce.

We should not be consistently limited by an economic system that has made slavery worse in the 21st century than it was in the 17th century. Because people expect to participate and count; people expect to experience a world of oneness and count. Because every system tells them they're free, and that is not true.

But, you know, it's either that the system decides to redistribute it's wealth in an equitable way by building and investing in human development; because i think this is the most appropriate process for our current world economics - human development.

We're a disposable culture and as a result of that we are challenged to get resources to where it needs to go - real healthy social, cultural, and human development.

The economic process is meeting a certain threshold now, in that, people are awakened to the fact that they can create other alternative agreements to our current monetary system, and, if these agreements are made, I think the system itself could collapse, because it doesn't have the participation of probably, well, a lot of people. A large percentage of the world could decide to do something different out of a collective inspiration. We can't underestimate the human potential when it comes to this power of awakening.

What allows a group of people at one point to say, "enough!", and create a revolution? We're not thinking of revolution any more as violence, we're thinking revolution as the power of agreement. That a group of people could one day say, "this is what we prefer to have", and they create that."

-Orland Bishop