Today and everyday I praise and celebrate this King! He IS a hero! For a few months I've been listening to his sermons (from A Knock at Midnight), many of them recorded before he became the famous civil rights leader we all know now. And I have to say, as much respect and admiration as I had for him as a leader of a the people, the Love I have for him and his message has grown to such a depth as I have no words to express it! The truth as he understood and relayed it was full of Light and Love as any words I have ever heard or read. The changes he was a catalyst to are cause for great recognition. The message of his heart is a cause for unflinching action! There is nothing more important than accepting Love of all creation! I love you all!
I'm posting just a few clips, as you have access, you can find many more if you choose. I've also got an excerpt on my page that I think say enough to change the world, if we all took it to heart.
I had a discussion with some friends yesterday, wherein on man said that he respected Dr. Martin Luther King, but that sometimes he thought that he was on the side of the system. I have to say I was pretty shocked. He went on to say that he was on the side of the system because he preached non-violence, and therefore acceptance of oppressive violence against us. I completely disagree. Violence cannot stop violence. Hate cannot stop hate. Only Love can heal us. When you are harmed with violence, and do not retaliate with violence, you plant the seed of Love. WHen you tell the one who has harmed you that you Love them, you nurture that seed. When that person, or that person's children Love you, or have an opportunity to at least SEE your light, you reap the fruits of that seed. When you plant the seed of Love, but then retaliate against hate with hate, violence with violence, you only mash up the Earth. You make the ground and seed infertile. Love cannot grow there.
My new friend went on to say that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was not "All the way over here", meaning on the side of black people. With this I whole heartedly agree! And it is obvious in Dr. Martin Luther King's message! And I would hope that people of all faces would celebrate him for that! Any supremacy or power movement only feeds the struggle and strife! If any one chooses a SIDE, or a single categorization of human to fight "for" they are feeding into an illusion that Babylon perpetuates to keep us fighting one another. The idea that we are separate. The idea that we can hurt someone we perceive as outside of ourselves and not suffer. They truth being that we are ONE, the You are Me, I am You, and We are God, of God, within God, and God within us.
This brought up another point that is a bit of a tangent in this blahg, but it completes the discussion. One of the people with whom we were chatting stated that she did not believe in "God", but she believes in all sort of other spiritual tenets including reincarnation, karma, Universal oneness, etc... Now, I don't often find it necessary to discuss God conception, but to believe in these things and say you don't believe in "God" made me laugh. Not at her really but at how slick our minds are and how we rebel against a WORD, and how much power words have in our lives. The hang up with so many people, and I have been one of these people, is that this word has so many stories around it that we do not seek our own definition. It's really such a representation of what's happened with a lot of religion. We are told what God is, so we do not feel compelled to seek God ourselves. Now for me, I will always seek it. At no point will I be able to say "I know God" and rest with that knowledge. For, the way I understand God, It is INFINITE, and therefore I can never grasp it in the 3rd dimension. It is an ideal that guides me to know God and God's will as intimately as possible though, and this is where my faith lies. My conception of God is Life, Love, Energetic Spirit, the Force, and the Source. It is in everything and everything is of it. It nurtures us and guides us and responds to our voices. It is the Universe and it is You! Not only is God in us but we are in It. With Infinite expanse comes infinite potential in all beings. We re not small, any more than we are enormous. It's all relative. We are part of a Universe we perceive and infinite Universes are part of us! In short we are all divine aspects of a One thing which is always happening, and which we are always accepted, neither as good or bad, but Loved simply because we are. Now this is my story, and my hope is that you seek YOURS, and Love me for seeking mine, and Love others for theirs, and know that whatever your way of relaying and relating our experience in that seeking is as valid as yours. I believe that if you truly seek, we will all understand, as the mystics of the past have understood that we are all in this together, and only by raising this consciousness and living it can we sustain Life as we know it on this planet. 'Cause Life never ceases, that is God. We as a people might though, if we don't wake up.
War | A Knock at Midnight | RFK's Announcement | Historical Perspective
Monday, January 15, 2007
King/God
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3 comments:
I'm feeling that.
I have to comment on the non-violence thing and why it is such a human dilemma.
To respond to violence with love you gotta have serious patience and be willing to loose the immediate battle.
sometimes humans perceive the immediate battle as so worthy that it must be fought for now. and i can understand that.
but you're right, with that you must also accept the long term truth that you are ultimately doing harm to the world by perpetuating violence.
it's hard though when it is someone you love whose survival you are fighting for.
and usually violence is a result of the fight for survival.
interesting enough, violence happens naturally in nature and in the "way of things" but it is balanced.
i think to imagine a world without violence is a very valuable vision.
but realistically I would be content with a world where violence was balanced more.
the main issue with today's world is the mass and extreme manifestations of violence that we have.
guns, bombs, wars that kill hundreds of thousands of people.
It's hard for me to dictate which is "best" between a more balanced state and a more "utopian" world where violence doesn't exist at all in nature.
That ultimately is a choice we must always be talking about and making together as communities.
We have to decide if we want to use violence at all... even as to killing animals... if we choose to use it, we must know that nature will balance itself out.
For everything we kill we win something but we also loose something.
The question is whether what we want to win is worth what we'll loose.
Even eating vegetables is a violent act. But we plant seeds to give back.
We cause violence when we eat (hopefully) in the spirit that we are thankful for what had to die for us to live. And so we spend our own energy to give life back.
While I think the utopian state where violence does not exist is very worthy, personally I just think that balance is the state that I wish to see us in. I at least have a reference as to what that looks like and can really put my faith in that being achievable.
I definitely understand the intellectual emotional dilemma. But the immediate battle is ultimately a selfish one. Fought for me, now. There is undoubtedly merit in that, but the altruistic fight is for us, as a people, as a species, as a planet. You do have to have patience. You do have to have an understanding and a deep compassion for the people who are harming you as well as those being harmed. You have to know that people would not hurt you were they not also suffering, albeit in an often less visible way.
As for balance: it is teh LAW of teh Universe. Whether we understand or percieve it balance exists always. Violence is in balance with peace now. The balance works like this (in my story): the more violence there is, the less peace. So the fact that we have such violence going on contribute to the fact that we have places suffering such little peace. There is no way for there NOT to be balance. I think that the idea that a vision is utopian is just a way of saying it's a fantasy. Just as there is no point in my Life when I will say, "ok that's enough Love, I won't seek to Love any more" or "that's enough understanding. I've got it now" I will neither ever say "that's a sufficient amount of peace" Peace as a movement should be a focus on total peace. The fact that there will always be some violence is not a reason not to idealize it. Whatever our ideal it will be moderated by natural(and unnatural)opposition. So, there is no reason, in my mind to shoot for less than perfection. We know we cannot be perfect while we are alive, but if there is no finite end to our goal, then we always have room for progress!!!
LOVE!!!
PS: Nice edit on the picture! Thanks.
I think my use of the word "utopian" was a mistake. There seems to be a focus on that, which is not what I intended.
I'm not attacking idealism and certainly am not saying I'm not for striving for peace or non-violence.
I'm not saying that I value realism over idealism either.
In many ways what you're saying might come out of my mouth on any given day too. But I'm also pointing out that even when I say such things I still have to try and connect with people's realities.
And the weakness of "peace" rhetoric (like I said that I might even use at times) is that today's versions of it do not seem to address anyone's situation directly -- it's often vague and proverbial. Which is not wrong, perse, but it could be made more effective.
Instead it seems to ignore them in exchange for a far-off future where peace all of a sudden becomes the norm because so many of us were living examples and I guess we convinced everyone else by being examples and eventually they came around. I'm not necessarily saying this was MLK's style, but I am saying that this is what we pretty much have today... people who talk about peace as if it were heaven.
I'm not belittling it either. I believe too.
But I'm saying that I don't concern myself with "peace" or "perfection" as my everyday thing that I can do in this world.
As an American, I can't DO peace right now. As a human, I can't do perfection, probably ever.
I think it is vital that we start to call ugly what it is and say that god don't like ugly. I think many people use "striving for perfection" as a way to admonish themselves from their own sins. I say, admit your sins. The truth brings peace, and "sets us free" too, by the way!
If you are an American typing on a computer at home you are being violent (even according to MLK's theories on "violence" including perpetuating poverty).
We need to focus the dialog more on the way that we are being violent and start to counsel ourselves and heal outselves.
What I can do is "honesty" and "respect" and believe that if people can do those things as well then maybe there can be "more" peace.
I don't know what "perfect peace" is or looks like and I've not seen an articulation of it.
If you're saying we need more peace, infinitely... sure I guess I can dig that. Or that we ought to "strive for peace"... sure why not? But ultimately I have to defer and admit that I don't know.
I do wholeheartedly agree that we need more peace now... and we need less violence... that I can say knowing that I am being totally honest with what I truly know from my experiences and observations on earth...
And some great tangible actions that I could go tell the first person I see and they'd understand very clearly -- that get us more peace in our lives are honesty and respect with and for ourselves... and with and for eachother -- which perhaps comes with being still. Which perhaps is the starting point of all counseling.
What we need is counseling. lol. All of us. Cause we are all being very violent -- even those of us at our computers, typing away while thousands of women and kids die in Somalia and Iraq... and 15 people get murdered in Minneapolis 19 days into the first month of the year.
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