Let Love Be Your Operating System

There is no holier side in politics. I've been both conservative and liberal over the years, voted for individuals on both sides, and rode along both emotional bandwagons. Luckily, nowadays I have been able to detach from the never-ending political drama and see the game objectively.

In 2020 it's becoming more and more clear the dysfunction of the two-party political system. Two sides are attacking each other profusely over a wide range of issues, riling up the masses, and creating two massive political gangs ready to rip each other apart. No matter what ideas the other side proposes, the other side will automatically shut it down. Both sides are eager to convert people, and if there is any indication that an individual doesn’t align politically, that individual is seen as aiding the enemy. What's scarier is that these are the two collective forces running our country and making decisions that affect all of us personally.

This is the most toxic I've seen American relationships in the last twenty years. Many people would agree. It's beyond party politics to stop the dysfunction at this point. It’s a much deeper issue. It’s a culture war, and neither side has the power to eradicate the other. The hostility has been brewing for years, and little has been done to change the collective conversation away from hatred and division. Blame, chaos, anarchy, racism and civilian unrest are rising and media outlets are doing nothing more than encouraging the drama.

This was self-created, America. Oh how we took our lives for granted! 

What has caused this massive culture war?

EGO: The Driving Force of the American Dualistic Culture War 

Richard Rohr, a Franciscan monk who founded the Center for Action and Contemplation, said the following:

"Everything has to be understood in opposition to something else. For some dang reason, the ego prefers to make one side better than the other, so we choose. And we decide males are better than females, America is better than Canada, Democrats are better than Republicans. And for most people, once this decision is made, it is amazing the amount of blindness they become capable of. They really don't see what's right in front of them. Once you see this, it's an amazing breakthrough, and that is the starting place for moving away from dualistic thinking."

Dualism is the division of something into two opposing or contrasting aspects. A defining feature of the EGO, dualism is driving the American culture war. 

"My way is better than your way."

"My beliefs are right. Your beliefs are wrong." 

"It's either us or them."

Both sides of our two-party system are driven by this dualism. There are strong feeling of superiority on both sides. One side is considered wiser and smarter than the other, one side holier and better. There’s no backing down or collaboration. Both sides can't stand each other. 

Dualism separates self from other. 

The symptoms of dualism: competition, war, hatred, dysfunction, sorrow, dejection, destruction, and closed-mindedness, opposite of community, peace, understanding, order, joy, happiness, encouragement and open-mindedness. Why be it so difficult to discern which destroys and which grows the soul?

The EGO (individual and collective) has driven human behavior since the rise of civilization, unlike our hunter-gatherer days, where we spent 90% of our existence, where community and connection to all things was most important. The EGO has created endless wars and massive destruction. It has separated humans from all other living beings and one human being from another. No animal, plant or fungi has the pride and the same driving force to eradicate its own kind.  If you and your actions produce the fruit of dualism, the EGO is your operating system. EGO is in control.

Perhaps there's another operating system we can emulate. 

Love: A Different Operating System

Mother Teresa, the Albanian-Indian nun and missionary, once said,  "The greatest disease in the West today is not TB or leprosy; it is being unwanted, unloved, and uncared for. We can cure physical diseases with medicine, but the only cure for loneliness, despair, and hopelessness is love. There are many in the world who are dying for a piece of bread but there are many more dying for a little love. The poverty in the West is a different kind of poverty- it is not only a poverty of loneliness but also of spirituality. There's a hunger for love, as there is a hunger for God." 

If you wish to “be the change you wish to see in the world”, LOVE first. 

LOVE is the energy from which we all came. LOVE was our first energy. LOVE is at the core of our very being. 

Young human beings can’t survive without the love and care of another. LOVE drove our earliest hunter-gatherer ancestors to form the first nomadic communities. Love was the human operating system for 90% of our species’ history. 

Then the Agricultural Revolution happened. Being able to grow our own food, our ancestors started to settle in one spot. Soon claims of land ownership led to social inequality. Whoever had the most fertile land became rich. Those who didn’t became poor and relied on the rich for survival. The human population boomed. Cities rose. War became common. LOVE became secondary.

It’s time for a shift in consciousness. 

You, your innermost consciousness, are already connected to LOVE. If you want to change the world the first thing you must do is allow LOVE to flow from within you. This means loving yourself. Only by loving yourself will you know how to love another. Once you love yourself you will know beauty. Once you love yourself you will know peace. From within to without; whatever you are radiates into the world. 

LOVE is connection to another, not division. LOVE is building one another up, not tearing another down. LOVE is understanding. LOVE casts out all fear. LOVE is God.

As Dr. Wayne Dyer teaches, "If you have a choice between being right and being kind, choose kind." How would news reports, Facebook posts and responses look different today if LOVE drove consciousness? 

Go beneath all the bullshit you read and hear on the news and social media, and find that which connects you to your fellow human brother and sister instead. 

Dr. Martin Luther King said it best:

The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy, instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. 

Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. 

Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. 

In fact, violence merely increases hate. 

Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. 

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. 

Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

LOVE should be promoted in all houses of worship. LOVE should be promoted in all schools, colleges and workplaces. LOVE should be promoted in every family home. LOVE should be promoted in the military. LOVE should be promoted by every individual if we truly are looking for change.

It's time to focus on the welfare of every individual, not one particular group over another. Go beneath skin color and the various histories, socioeconomic statuses and religions. These are manmade institutions. Connect on a deeper level. 

This does not mean we shouldn't be involved with politics. Take action! What's happening right now is needed. We do need systematic change, based on millenniums of EGO-driven collective thinking and action. But it starts with your inner transformation, of loving yourself first and seeing a transformation from EGO-driven consciousness to LOVE-driven consciousness. Resemble the lives of the protesting greats like MLK and Gandhi.

What can you do to make a difference? LOVE. It's that simple.

To all my fellow humans beings: may LOVE be your operating system and driving force as you embark on your life journey to positively change the world. 

ONE LOVE.

Quotes:

"You can't heal people you love. You can't make choices for them. You can't rescue them. You can promise that they won't journey alone. You can loan them your map. But this trip is theirs." 

Laura J. Truman

"A mind open to alternative perceptions is a mind aligned with love." 

Unknown

"If you don't go through life with an open mind, you will find a lot of closed doors." 

Mark W. Perrett

"If only closed minds came with closed mouths." 

Unknown

"The best political, social, and spiritual work we can do is to withdraw the projection of our shadow onto others." 

C.G. Jung

"One wonders how far spiritual and political leaders can genuinely lead us without some degree of mystical seeing and action." 

Richard Rohr

"Hypocrisy is the audacity to preach integrity from a den of corruption." 

Wes Fesler

"Open-minded people don't care to be right, they care to understand. There's never a right or wrong answer. Everything is about understanding." 

Unknown

Never allow politics to become your spiritual food because, at the end of the day, our lives have far greater meaning." 

Ben Carson

"Compassion is the radicalism of our time." 

The Dalai Lama

"Open-minded people embrace being wrong, are free of illusions, don't mind what people think of them, and question everything, even themselves." 

Unknown

I was told to challenge every spiritual teacher, every world leader to utter the one sentence that no religion, no political party, and no nation on the face of the earth will dare utter: "Ours is not a better way, ours is merely another way.'" 

Neale Donald Walsch