Sustainable Positive Change
Guest Blog Post from Andrew Harvey
As the world plunges into deeper chaos, even the hardiest of souls can experience despair and lose hope that their efforts to bring about change matter. This is when your love of the Divine and spiritual practice are most critical.
As Robert Kennedy said in 1966 so eloquently and accurately: “each time a person stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he or she sends forth a tiny ripple of hope. And crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.”
A Sacred Activist is someone who is starting to experience the inner joy and outer effectiveness of this force, who knows that the profound crisis the world is in is challenging everyone to act from our deepest compassion and wisdom, and who is committed to being, in the face of growing chaos, suffering, and violence, what Robert Kennedy called “a tiny ripple of hope” and a “center of energy and daring.”
If this ‘inner joy and outer effectiveness’ is absent right now or you’re lost in despair for our world, recommit to your spiritual practice or start a new spiritual practice now. If you do not yet have a practice, start now with simple meditation. Just sit with your back straight and watch your thoughts for three minutes. Allow your mind, however briefly, to fall silent. In that silence is your greatest treasure, one that will unfold its gold in you if you commit to 20 minutes of simple sitting in the morning and again in the evening before you go to bed. Don’t believe me; try it.
If you find sitting and watching your thoughts boring, try this visualization that I received from a great Tibetan master who told me it could be used anytime, anywhere: “imagine that love and compassionate action have transformed you into a large, brilliant diamond that radiates diamond-white light. Send that light to all the four directions, praying, with whatever words you choose, that all sentient beings everywhere be happy, well, and protected.”
Over time, this meditation will awaken you to your own deepest sacred desire to see all beings living in harmony and true realization, and to your deepest sacred courage to express this desire in action. When you have begun to experience the beauty of this practice, start doing it at different times in your day—anytime, anywhere. You will be amazed at its power to bring you home to your most compassionate self.
(Excerpt from The Hope: A Guide To Sacred Activism by Andrew Harvey, published by Hay House Inc.)
About Andrew Harvey
Andrew Harvey is Founder Director of the Institute of Sacred Activism, an international organization focused on inviting concerned people to take up the challenge of our contemporary global crises by becoming inspired, effective, and practical agents of institutional and systemic change, in order to create peace and sustainability. Andrew has written and edited over 30 books, including The Hope which received the 2011 Nautilus Silver Award for its influence upon social change.
