we are not human beings in search of a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings immersed in a human experience. 



...now, what to do from this point of departure? 


::sigh::        oh life.

I have much to learn from you.

Martin Luther King Jr. Speech Contest - NYU

A Commitment to Satyagraha

I’d like to begin this speech by offering up a word that characterized Martin Luther King Jr’s struggle for justice;

Satyagraha.

 It is the philosophy and practice of nonviolent resistance. In its literal sense, it is a synthesis of two Sanskrit words; truth and insistence. In essence, Satyagraha is the steadfast pursuit of unconditional, agape Love of one’s friends as well as one’s enemies. It is a commitment to a form of Love that acknowledges the fallibility of man, yet remains committed to acknowledging his innate goodness. According to Martin Luther King Jr., using it as a form of protest against the evils and injustices that drive apart our world will ultimately redeem us.

Martin Luther King Jr, beyond being an advocate for the rights of Negroes, concerned himself with the cause of Love. He saw agape Love as the force that would drive the nation, the world, and the people that comprise it into peaceful harmony with one another. It is this idea of a peaceful, persistent struggle that formed the foundation upon which his fight for equality was built. And Love has the unique capacity to serve as a methodology that transcends national borders, historical time, and geographical space, making it just as powerful today as it was back in the mid-20^th century.

 Martin Luther King Jr. was not proposing that we shouldn’t have enemies. On the contrary, the friend-enemy duality is what humbles us, what reminds us that we are human, and what allows us to realize how important it is to remain steadfast in the ongoing struggle to pursue love.

What he was proposing was a commitment to this struggle. It is a struggle that both marks the infinite plight of man’s inhumanity to man and identifies the inextricable bond that we share as citizens of a global world. We are in conflict, because we are united.  

As a nation, we have made sweeping strides in the way of equality. Obama, more than being a black president, is a president whose appeal to “change” stands for all of us. In this sense, we have reached the point at which race has become secondary to the content of one’s character. The great majority of Americans agreed that change was necessary when they changed the way we thought about politics by voting the first African-American President into office. This change, in the Obama-esque sense of the word, begins at home. If we want to, as Martin Luther King’s mentor Ghandi says, “be the change we wish to see in the world,” then this is exactly what we must seek to do; live our personal lives according to the values that Martin Luther King espoused through his commitment to Satyagraha. Change begins with our own selves. “Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.”

Today, we measure progress in economic terms. But there are other forms of progress too; moral and spiritual progress, cultural and social progress.  It is these forms of progress that Martin Luther King Jr. was concerned with. Today, they are still a concern. Progress must be made to be measured differently. Ethics and morality must increase exponentially with scientific and technological progress. Morality has to be fabricated as a form of measurable progress and as something indispensible to the lives of men.

According to Ghandi, “as human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world, as in being able to remake ourselves.” So who will we inspire to dream? Hopefully, and most importantly, ourselves. We can inspire our own selves to allow our dreams to rise to the rafters where they can sing songs of social equality and demand that morality and ethics be integrated into the curriculums of schools and reform movements the world over. 

We can inspire NGOs to realize that culture, religion, and rituals are not always signs of backwardness.

We can inspire developing countries to dream of pursuing democracy in a way that respects their heritage and contextualizes their struggle.

We can inspire our blossoming businessmen and economic reformers to pursue the ideal of equality in economics.

And most importantly, we can inspire each other to appreciate the humble fact that we cannot control the ebb and flow of life, that we must remain committed to Satyagraha as a means of protesting the infinite inequalities that mark our common humanity.  

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.”