Too much good work becomes violence
Too much good work becomes a violence to ourselves and, finally, to those around us.
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Our job is to learn how to be honest, but with love and respect. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. taught us that before we go out to witness for justice, we have to make sure that we can love and respect those with whom we disagree.
Imagine the surrender necessary for those who have been oppressed for hundreds of years to continue to work peacefully for justice. Frankly, I don’t know how anyone can do it without contemplation. How do we get to that deep place where we do not want to publicly expose, humiliate, or defeat our opponents, but rather work, as King said, for win-win situations? Seeking win-win solutions, not win-lose, takes a high level of self development and demands self conversion.
When we are hurt, we want to hurt back. When we are put down, we want to put down the opponent. This is our ego’s natural defense mechanism.
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True contemplation is the most subversive of activities because it undercuts the one thing that normally refuses to give way-our natural individualism and narcissism. Once we are freed from our narcissism that thinks we are the center of the world, or that our rights and dignity have to be defended before other people’s rights and dignity, we can finally live and act with justice and truth.
https://cac.org/change-comes-from-the-inside-2020-07-27/
(I edited out his references to the Gospels and God, because they hinder the universal point he's trying to make.)
It's as though we've all put ourselves on eternal jury duty, thinking it is our job to judge and punish others, instead of to find common ground with others.
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Our job is to learn how to be honest, but with love and respect. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. taught us that before we go out to witness for justice, we have to make sure that we can love and respect those with whom we disagree.
Imagine the surrender necessary for those who have been oppressed for hundreds of years to continue to work peacefully for justice. Frankly, I don’t know how anyone can do it without contemplation. How do we get to that deep place where we do not want to publicly expose, humiliate, or defeat our opponents, but rather work, as King said, for win-win situations? Seeking win-win solutions, not win-lose, takes a high level of self development and demands self conversion.
When we are hurt, we want to hurt back. When we are put down, we want to put down the opponent. This is our ego’s natural defense mechanism.
-----
True contemplation is the most subversive of activities because it undercuts the one thing that normally refuses to give way-our natural individualism and narcissism. Once we are freed from our narcissism that thinks we are the center of the world, or that our rights and dignity have to be defended before other people’s rights and dignity, we can finally live and act with justice and truth.
https://cac.org/change-comes-from-the-inside-2020-07-27/
(I edited out his references to the Gospels and God, because they hinder the universal point he's trying to make.)
It's as though we've all put ourselves on eternal jury duty, thinking it is our job to judge and punish others, instead of to find common ground with others.