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Yogis: The Swing Vote in 2004
by Robert Rabbin
 I
live in Marin County, California?a hotbed of healers and psychics who constantly
channel information from their guides, angels, and assorted invisible spiritual
mentors. Intuitive predictions about everything under the sun are common
currency in most conversations. I've even been known to bounce a ball or two off
of those backboards myself. And yet I am incredulous when anyone makes the kind
of bold declaration I am about to make: the Democratic nominee will win the
White House in 2004. I guarantee it.
Here's how it's going to happen. I'm going to appeal to my 20 million
brothers and sisters who meditate and practice yoga?yogis! These yogis
represent a potent political force for peace and justice, for dignity and
freedom, for wisdom and compassion. They are the swing vote of 2004! I'm going
to ask them to take their practice to the voting booth. I'm going to ask them to
take their practice into the world and make gardens and forests of beauty and
goodness.
Actually, my appeal is to all people of faith, conscience, and
goodwill, to people of all religions and spiritual traditions. I speak to all of
you, but I speak particularly to my yogi brothers and sisters because I share
their path and practice. I know their language and metaphors. I know the sights
and sounds of this journey. But I speak to all, even though I use a language
that reflects my own background.
An Appeal to my Yogi Brothers and Sisters:
We have all taken to yoga or meditation for one reason or another. It doesn't
matter which one. And it doesn't really matter if you practice Zen, Vipassana,
or Dzogchen; it doesn't matter if you use a mantra, koan, or silence. It doesn't
matter if you practice Ashtanga, Iyengar, or Bikram. These are all superficial
differences that barely mask the one transcendent urge we all share. It is
simply an urge to experience the freedom of our own essential nature, to feel a
part of the whole of creation. It is a longing to yoga, to yoke, to join:
mind with silence, matter with emptiness, body with spirit, self with other,
heart with action. We want to mix all the separate parts until they become one.
We want to experience and express our wholeness of being and connection to
others. And so we practice.
And then one day, our practice ripens all at once: suddenly everything is in
perfect relationship and balance. Our mind, attention, gaze, breath, shoulders,
arms, fingers, chest, hips, thighs, knees, and toes?everything shows its natural
face, its true character. We settle and sit with that in a calm, yet
exhilarating, perfection of being. We enter a timeless and weightless world of
presence and beauty, a world of naturalness and ease. Eternal stillness, simple
pleasure?and joy, as though hundreds of children had come alive in our soul,
singing and playing and coloring way outside the lines.
Everything sparkles after the ripeness has fallen from the bough of
aspiration to the ground at our feet. Tiny lights flicker from within things
we'd never even noticed before. We feel a bond of friendship towards everyone. A
deep calm pumps something wonderful throughout our body and mind. There is a
tenderness and respect towards others, isn't there? And we know that we are
always and forever joined with this wonderful presence that saturates and
sustains all human beings and all beings in creation, equally.
Now, my brothers and sisters, it is time to bring this beauty into the world
in a big way. We can't stay in our own communities. We have to bring our
practice to the world outside our zendos and ashrams and dojos and studios.
Perhaps in the past we have practiced for ourselves in order to fulfill our
personal longing. But that time is past; now we must practice with and for
others, for the world. Why? Because the world needs us. The world needs what we
have been studying and practicing: clarity, stillness, insight, strength,
kindness, tolerance, patience, empathy, authenticity, simplicity, and courage.
Yes, courage. It takes courage to do what we do, to face what we face, to learn
what we learn. And now we must take this courage into the wider world.
I appeal to you in the name of the heart of yoga and meditation to bring your
practice into the world this next year. I ask you to turn your steady gaze and
deep concentration to the world around you. I ask you to beautify the world with
the inner beauty you have been building for years. In the same way we have
opened to the deep dimensions of the inner world, I ask you to open to the broad
expanse of the outer world, from which we are not separate. We can not hide from
this world, nor escape it, nor transcend it. We can only embrace it and love it
and beautify it. Now is the time for this meditation, for this asana.
The freedom, balance, beauty, and sanctity we have found on the inside are
being threatened on the outside. Truly speaking, we know there is no inside and
no outside. There is only one existence, and though it is immense, even eternal
and utterly transcendent, it is also small and fragile and transient and very,
very specific. It is in the faces and names of people, in the details of their
lives, of our lives. These details of our life and the lives of others need our
attention and care.
If we open to the world, we will feel a lot of pain, even if it isn't ours.
There is pain in the world. There is a lot of violence and war, a lot of despair
and hopelessness, poverty and hunger, oppression and fear. Things are very
unstable: collectively, we are not sitting upright nor holding a steady posture.
We have to work together to make this situation better. We have to stabilize and
beautify the world. We can do it. It is ours to do. This is why we have been
practicing. For ourselves, yes; and now for others and the world.
We can not have a true practice if it excludes the world. The inner and the
outer are more than mirror images of each other: they are each other.
There is no separation, no difference, no distance between them. This is what
our ripe practice teaches us. We can not have inner freedom without freedom in
the world. We can not have inner peace without peace in the world. We can not
have love, or kindness, or joy?if we do not actualize these qualities in the
world.
We must make a new world, one in which inner and outer do not exist as
separate or distinct from each other. We do not need to be afraid or suspicious
of this new world. We will not lose what we have learned; instead, we will
become it. Let us join together and create this new world, and together let us
beautify and sanctify it with our love, care, and attention. We must act
quickly.
This year, we will elect a president. This is of immense importance to us
all. I want one who is committed in thought, word, and action to what I have
come to value through yoga and meditation. I know you do, too. So we have to do
two things.
The first is to clarify and articulate the values of yoga and meditation, in
very specific and concrete terms, in ways that connect to our actual day-to-day
living, in ways that are telling and demonstrative. Certainly those values will
include peace, kindness, generosity, openness, tolerance, patience, respect, and
reverence for all life.
The second thing we have to do is find out whether this current president
represents our values. If not, we must work diligently to elect another
president. We must make this our new practice. I can tell you this: the current
president is a holocaust to our values. But don't take my word for it; do as the
Buddha said, Be a light unto yourself. Find out. You'll see I'm right.
But find out. And when you do, I know you will join me in voting for the
Democratic nominee in 2004.
 This
article is written by the author of Igniting the Soul at Work, ?2002, by
Robert Rabbin.
"Another Rabbin book offering insight and clarity, simply! Real truth, wisdom
and heart. This book is very warm and easy to read."
Info/Order this book.
About the Author
Robert
Rabbin is an author, speaker, and catalyst for
clarity. In 1969 he began to research the world's mystic traditions while
practicing meditation and self-inquiry. Since 1985, Robert has been lecturing
and leading Truth Talks throughout the country, mentoring professionals and
corporate leaders, and designing spirit- and adventure-based retreats for
executive teams and organizations. He is the author of numerous books and
articles. Robert is also the cofounder of Global Truth Publishing, publisher of
The Spiritual Wisdom of Kids. For more information, please visit
http://www.globaltruthpublishing.com or his own
website
www.robrabbin.com
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