Eckhart on the American Elections
What can we do to improve the quality of our consciousness when the news media is showing us people from opposite sides shouting at each other?
This week Americans will elect hundreds of legislators for both houses of their Congress. In the American press there has been much interest in whether President Obama, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009, will be stopped by the opposing party in Congress. And the media has further commented on the enormous amounts of money being spent on attack ads, which do not inform voters but simply slander the other candidate.
Some Americans have been asking, "What does this have to do with me and my standard of living?" For those of us on a spiritual path, a more important question is, "What is this doing for my state of consciousness and what does this have to do with the Present Moment?"
In a word, the problem is the ego, for the ego always stands by its intractable position, "The Present Moment? I'm against it." The real party of "no" in American life is not the Republicans, but the ego with its incessant rejection, criticism, self-absorption and non-cooperation. Doesn't that describe the tone and intent of this campaign season?
What can we do to improve the quality of our consciousness when the news media is showing us people from opposite sides shouting at each other? It doesn't matter if it's Republicans and Democrats in America or protestors on the streets of Paris criticizing changes in the French retirement age. All of it comes from ego, who's mantra is: "I'm against it. What ever it is, good, bad or otherwise,... I'm against it."
If we are to build a better world representative of the Power of Now, we must realize that that world is created moment-to-moment in the Now. The Now has no agenda, the Now has no opinions, the Now is direct access to Truth and the evolutionary impulse of the universe. If we want true representation in our governments, we must first embody those qualities which build consensus, cooperation and progress.
As long as we're "against this" or "against that", we are doomed to the suffering of the ego as expressed in the pain-body of attachment to the past and idealizing the future.
Inside the infinity of the present moment lies infinite possibility. Let us all help each other from the inside out to create nation states of consciousness that resolve the dualism of opposing forces.
Let us celebrate and seek repose in what is inside the power of silence that dwells in each conscious being. That still, quiet voice has all the answers, including how to govern.
We will change our nations, our governments and the world for the better by a slow but steady process. The agent of this change is consciousness itself. Your consciousness.
Improving the quality of your consciousness, by living more and more in the present moment, is the most powerful act of social activism you can offer to your community, your country, to humanity.
On election day, and every day, be a beacon of Presence. It will make a difference, not only within you, but around you.
