Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. — Martin Luther King, Jr.
Today is Martin Luther King Jr. day in the United States. It is a holiday that commemorates Dr. King’s life and work. He led a movement for racial justice and equality and embraced nonviolent action as a powerful revolutionary force for social change. He employed Gandhi’s philosophy of nonviolence as the means to confront racist laws and discrimination in America. His work made a significant contribution to President Lyndon Johnson signing into law the historic Civil Rights Act, and he was the youngest man to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964.
Dr. King’s legacy continues to offer inspiration to live in accordance with the values of love, tolerance, and cooperation. There is still much more to be done to create a society in which human rights are equal independent of skin color, gender, sexual orientation, gender identification, economic status, and religious affiliation.
With the current state of affairs, it would be easy to get discouraged at the lack of progress towards equality and tolerance.
With the U.S. government shut down because the president wants $5.7 billion for an unnecessary border wall to address a problem that does not exist. As indicated by the Washington Post article Two Charts Demolish the Notion that Immigrants Here Illegally Commit More Crime. The article cites two studies that offer some of the strongest evidence so far that immigration, legal or otherwise, does not lead to rising crime. A quote I have seen floating around on social media sums it up nicely: “If you are going to use a handful of crimes by undocumented immigrants as a reason why we need an idiotic wall then you better as hell use the 325+ mass shootings in America last year as a reason why we need gun control. One is an actual problem, the other is manufactured.”
A wall is also not going to address the real humanitarian concerns that have people coming to the border seeking asylum, safety, and a better life. Nor is it going to magically solve the heroin epidemic ravaging parts of this nation as the president’s address suggested last week. If the government really wants to look toward a solution for America’s drug problem, they could learn from the transformation Portugal has experienced through decriminalizing the possession and consumption of illicit substances and providing comprehensive harm reduction support for those struggling with addiction. Portugal was able to stabilize its opioid crisis and have drug-related death, incarceration and infection rates plummeted. Portugal’s drug mortality rate is the lowest in Western Europe — one-tenth the rate of Britain or Denmark — and about one-fiftieth of the U.S. The results aren’t perfect, but the Portuguese have made tremendous headway through treating addiction as a disease and not a crime.
The wall is also a being used as a vehicle to spread lies and to stir up fear, racism, and xenophobia in the American public. In addition to the government being held hostage over the wall, we have an elected representative making the racist comment, “White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization — how did that language become offensive?”, and a president who makes frequent offensive and insensitive remarks about women, migrants, black people, Native Americans, and other minorities.
And today I am reading about non-Native youth wearing #MAGA hats taunting and disrespecting Native elder Nathan Phillips, Vietnam Veteran and former director of the Native Youth Alliance while he was singing the AIM Song in Washington, DC during the Indigenous Peoples March.
These are just a few examples of intolerance in the current climate of the U.S. It is clear there is a long way for America to go to actualize the greatness of Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream, and I am still hopeful.
Someone asked me recently how an understanding that our experience is created internally might be helpful in the face of the institutionalized racism. It seemed they felt it was not relevant in the face of inequality. For me, it is the most important direction to look in because we live in a world that is the by-product of our thoughts and beliefs. Therefore, it is going to be through shifts in our understanding that we will individually and collectively create change and live into the full potential of love, peace, and harmony available to us.
Understanding how the mind works wakes people up to their innate potential. This is true for every human being independent of the package we come in and the preferences we have. Seeing this allows us all to experience more deeply the wisdom that lies beyond our habitual and conditioned thoughts. It allows us to open our minds and see beyond our current limitations. It is going to be from that source that solutions arise.
It feels more important than ever to point in the direction of the human potential that is inside of each one of us. The world is a reflection of our thoughts and our thoughts can change.
People like Daryl Davis who convinced 200 Klan members to give up their robes, and journalist and filmmaker Deeyah Khan whose has two documentary films on Netflix White Right: Meeting the Enemy and Jihad: A Story of the Others where she engages with extremists human to human and seeks to understand, are examples of this. As Khan states, “it’s much more difficult to hate up close and personal.”
Martin Luther King Jr. pointed the way forward to heal the division and anger that are present on both sides of the political divide in this country. Judgment and animosity only serve to increase suffering and do not offer solutions on how to move forward. Instead, as Martin Luther King, Jr., clearly expressed:
Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.
We can raise our voices for what we believe and stand for the principles of justice and love internally and externally. I am grateful for the blessing of Martin Luther King Jr.’s leadership, and his demonstration of how change is possible even in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. We can be the change we want to see in the world. It starts within and it starts with us.
**This post is a revised and edited version of a post originally published 1/16/17.
Rohini Ross is passionate about helping people wake up to their full potential. She is a transformative coach, leadership consultant, a regular blogger for Thrive Global, and author of the short-read Marriage (The Soul-Centered Series Book 1) available on Amazon. You can get her free ebook Relationships here. Rohini currently has an international coaching and consulting practice based in Los Angeles helping individuals, couples, and professionals embrace all of who they are so they can experience greater levels of well-being, resiliency, and success. She is also the founder of The Soul-Centered Series: Psychology, Spirituality, and the Teachings of Sydney Banks. You can follow Rohini on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and watch her Vlogs with her husband. To learn more about her work go to her website, rohiniross.com.
Christine Heath & Judy Sedgeman – Spirituality and Resilience
When you no longer give authority to the fear-based thoughts in your consciousness, all you are left with is happiness. Through the teachings of Sydney Banks, you can see how your psychological functioning works, which makes you less compelled to follow those thoughts that do not serve you. Becoming more aware of the wholeness and integration of both your human and spiritual natures helps to ground you in the unchanging essence of who you are, and ride out the ups and downs of your emotional experience more gracefully. Accepting the normalcy of your humanness will naturally reduce your anxiety and fear and enhance your joy and happiness in each moment. By placing less pressure on yourself to feel a certain way or be hung up on self-improvement, you may find that low moods do not derail or debilitate you; instead, you will become much more attuned to your innate wellbeing and peace of mind and experience more happiness as a result.
Greater psychological freedom is the gift that keeps on giving. How grateful would you feel if you no longer had to listen to your negative, self-punishing and painful inner narrative, day in and day out? Understanding the role of thought and recognizing how it creates your feelings of insecurity and self-doubt is truly liberating! You will be better able to hear and heed your inner wisdom and become less driven by the noisy thoughts of fear and constriction. As an ongoing practice, this allows you to more fully experience your resilience and reach a greater sense of clarity about how you want to move forward in your life. As a result, you can live in a way that feels authentic and true in every area, including your career, family, home, creative expression, play, relationships and overall well-being.
Your ability to enjoy life comes from being present in the moment rather than caught up in habitual, negative thoughts that take you out of the Now. Sydney Banks’ wisdom supports you in becoming aware of how you get seduced by your limited personal thinking and thus, create a painful reality of misunderstanding, fear and restriction. When you recognize how and why this happens, you can step free of the pattern. This understanding assists you to dismiss unhelpful thoughts and not take them seriously. Unlike traditional self-help or therapy, experiencing more psychological freedom and enjoyment does not rely on techniques. There are no magic bullets on the path of well-being. All you need to do is follow an internal compass that points to the truth of who you really are—beyond transient thoughts to your unchanging, formless essence.
In our culture, success is often associated with hard work and narrowly defined as material gain. However, authentic success, as shared by Sydney Banks, includes such intangibles as happiness, well-being, love, joy, compassion, and peace of mind that are innate in each one of us, along with outward goals and achievements. It honors the whole person in all walks of life, whether you are a professional, leader, executive, solopreneur, employee, mother, teacher or student. From this knowing and experience, you can access the infinite wellspring of love that is your essence, then share your gifts with the world from a place of fulfillment and meaning, through a profound understanding of the interaction between your psychological and spiritual natures. While conventional success can deplete you, authentic success only fills you up.
Are you self-critical, hard on yourself, and constantly trying to “fix” whatever you think is wrong with you? Perhaps you have tried all kinds of different personal growth techniques and spiritual practices in the hope of solving all your problems. This cycle can be exhausting and never-ending, because there will always be something to improve about yourself, from that mindset. Sydney Banks’ teachings can help you to see how your humanness is normal and not something that needs fixing: as a spiritual person, you don’t need to change or eradicate your humanness! Seeing yourself as normal allows you to love and accept yourself exactly as you are—warts and all. Adopting this perspective naturally brings out the best in you and helps to find peace with your personality. Self-love and self-acceptance is your natural state, and any disconnection from your true nature is only temporary. What a relief!
One of the first areas people often experience profound transformation from the teachings of Sydney Banks is in their relationships, both personal and professional. While it often seems like another person’s irritation, anger, indifference, insensitivity, rudeness, etc., directly affects your experience, in reality your disturbance is a product of your own individual thinking. By making someone else responsible for how you feel, that person automatically becomes the cause of your suffering. Once you understand that you always have a place of well-being inside, independent of another’s behavior, it is easier to maintain equanimity through their changing moods and behaviors. Romantically, you may experience deeper love and intimacy with your partner, but the teachings benefit all relationships. This awareness supports more authentic connection and expression, while facilitating greater understanding, improved communication, reduced reactivity, more acceptance of self and others, and improved ability to work out differences and find common ground. Best of all, just one person shifting in a relationship is enough to transform it.
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