Two years ago, during a meditation, I began to concentrate on my soul, looking for where it is in my body.

I now believe that my soul is not a place: it is all of who I am.

While sitting quietly that morning, watching my breath, the term “soul force” came to mind. This was the term Gandhi used when he led millions of people in India to defy the rule of Britain over their country. He won a war with little violence and the Brits went home.

Gandhi called this movement Satyagraha, which also means “truth force.”

What we witnessed in the Occupy movement is soul force in action. The revolutions we witnessed in Egypt, Libya, the American Revolution, are examples of the soul of humanity collectively coming awake inside millions of people. This kind of collective action shows that they (we) have had enough of the wrong doings by a few to the many.

Today, millions demonstrate to right the misguided ways of Monsanto. In my mind, this is not about fighting against something but about fighting for what is right. What is right is clean food for humanity and the right for farmers to choose and save seed.

It doesn’t take a visionary to see what is occurring around the world. What happened in the Middle East a few years ago and what will continue to happen in one form or another is that the human psyche’s aspiration for right is being moved by the soul, the divine aspect of our beings, to bring equanimity to our world. We are only seeking balance.

There was a segment on TV about Native American life on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. The show depicted the poor conditions in which they live. We see the same thing in many places on our planet. We get accustomed to seeing starving babies in the media around the world, accustomed to watching bombs being dropped on innocents. We accept a decision made by a few to tear down a perfectly good hospital rather than leave a small part of it for homeless people. Really, isn’t someone ashamed?

As human beings, we think we’ve become accustomed to not being the true human beings we wish to be. But our soul does not adapt to life that way. Inside she is crying out that something has to change. Our soul, manifesting in our conscience as “truth force,” knows right from wrong.

Hopefully, the Occupy movement will revive, or take on another form another name and the movement will continue in peaceful resistance as it manifests satyagraha.

Any rationally thinking human being can grasp that life on this planet has gone way askew. From how we have treated the earth to how easily we can accept children going hungry, it brings tears to our hearts. We can only deny this for so long, and that period of denial is over. Our conscience has shed tears for too long. We know we can do better.

And we are going to do better. We have no choice. We want to live in a world we see as our deepest truth.

 

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Assistant Ed: Renee Picard / Ed: Brianna Bemel