I am inspired to bring this particular blog back to life after first being published over a year ago in The Gathering for Justice. Gibran Rivera’s words remind me that it is important to have the infrastructure of LOVE and a clear intention, so that we can reflect on and balance out the turmoil caused by injustice and reactive emotions. Especially now.
After reading this article three or four times, I felt an increased sense of hope and a strengthened faith in my own abilities to change the world. With deep gratitude, I am thankful for the reminder that LOVE is what conquers all and to never give up on what is most important.
A Taste of King’s Truth
Posted by Gibran Rivera in The Gathering for Justice
on February 8, 2009
In a world of hyper-marketing and overabundant information we can tend to become immune to the power of words – this is probably a good defense mechanism, something to protect ourselves against the myriad corporate claims on our psyche. But sometimes words speak such truths, and challenge us in such ways, that we can actually evolve by honestly contemplating them.
I relate to Reverend King as a prophet, a truth teller of our age, and this recognition invites me to welcome his words as I do scriptures, or the words of my master. The yogic tradition speaks of something called “caitanya,” the idea that the words of an awakened being actually carry his or her intention, and that the intention of such a soul is so loaded with love and with truth that it can transcend time and space, it is this intention that pierces our own hearts and in turn helps us wake up.
When the Interaction Institute for Social Change selected this quote and underlined it with a bold, multicolored “HOPE,” I felt we were making a similar claim. There is something mightily subversive in King’s refusal to accept the chains of injustice as if they were a matter of course, as if they were a historic and inevitable fact of human nature. Reverend King’s words stir our soul not because they are a sweet dream fantasy, but it is because they resonate with our deepest truths.
Our humanity has witnessed moments of brotherhood and peace, and we shall see them again – but these moments demand our belief if we are to call them into being. The truth that Reverend King can speak of, is a truth that he has seen, it is a truth that holds a light so factual and a resonance so vibrant that it can stand bare and unarmed, self luminous and self sustained.
His call is uncompromising, it is a call for unconditional love and nothing less than unconditional love. In a world where the profit motive has so wildly expanded as to dig a hole in our own souls, as markets try to define who and how we are, as they attempt to shape our likes and dislikes, as they tag our garments, taint our food, and claim our children and our friends, as they show up in every corner of our living space, in the psychic violence of such a world, it is only unconditional love that can take us all the way, because it’s the only type of love can not be bought or sold.
To read more of Gibran’s blogs, please go to: http://gatheringforjustice.ning.com/profiles/blog/list
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