"Don't Make Me Come Down There!"

Radical creativity is crucial in order to live in a world where “freedom rings.” It’s changed a bit, but racial and other discrimination still exist in this country. Yes, there are some complex political and social issues tied to our country’s discriminatory tensions, but what it boils down to is compassion and respect—love for self and for those around us. The very first yogic principle of Ahimsa helps us practice expanding our vision of what’s possible for social equality.

Ahimsa, or nonviolence, written about in the Yoga Sutras almost two thousand years ago, addresses our current social problems squarely. If I truly understand the lesson of nonviolence, I learn that I must refuse not only to harm someone (including ourselves) but I also must refuse to hate that person (paraphrasing Dr. King). The ultimate evolution of the principle of nonviolence is love. With love, nothing is impossible, not even a solution to this country’s immigration issue, or gay rights issue, or gender inequality issue, or religious tensions issue. Certainly it was radical creativity that gave Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. his dream. And whether we know it or not, the Glenn Becks and Jon Stewarts, the Sarah Palins and Gabrielle Giffords, as well as all of us, we are all a part of Dr. King’s dream and we all have a responsibility. Wherever we fall on the political spectrum, our responsibility, as I see it, is to pay forward the gratitude for the sacrifice and work of people like Dr. King (and Ghandi and Nelson Mandela and others) by perpetuating this radical creativity and dreaming of a country driven by love, where all people receive complete and abiding respect regardless of that person’s ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or financial or legal status. First dream, then act.

Failure to recognize oneself in another is the form of ignorance I call “the autoimmune disease of humanity,” one part of the organism fighting another in some backward way of finding wholeness. Be kind to Self by being kind to others. Through practice, the possibility of yoga is to slowly recognize our true nature by unraveling the layers of ignorance until we truly see. With radical creativity we envision, just like Dr. King, what’s possible with nonviolence, nonharming, and nonhating, by seeing the big picture that we’re all in it together and that we all need to change—but that social equality is possible. That vision gives us the strength and perspective to work and practice tirelessly until it happens. One way of practicing social equality is with yoga. Yep. If Dr. King were alive today, I’m confident he would approve of practicing yoga, practicing Ahimsa, on the day set aside to honor him. This week, I invite you to find ways to practice Ahimsa, nonviolence (therefore love), to self and others.