New Times Naturally!

[Transforming the consciousness and soul of America.]

The most critical metapolitical issue in America today is the numbing and suppression of personal power within the individual American citizen. Political power ultimately derives from the personal confidence and courage to express oneself. Where a social system has failed to adequately educate its citizens, has bombarded our nervous systems with an overstimulation of mindless entertainment, has promoted consumerism as the primary social activity, and has accepted the numbing of the resultant pain with massive use of antidepressants as a substitute for questioning the pain itself, personal power becomes the purview of a lucky or courageous few. The game of the culture has been to respond to our feelings of disempowerment by exploiting those very feelings Ð trying to convince us that if we buy this or that product, or elect this or that official, our feelings of well-being will be miraculously restored.

Americans as individuals tend to be spunky and eminently decent. We are great to sit next to on airplanes. As a group, however, we have a capacity for denial and grandiosity that makes us increasingly easy targets for manipulation by the media, politicians, or false advertising campaigns. We have become completely taken in by the business of public relations.

Much of our education was training in passive acceptance of someone else’s perspective rather than development of the ability to create our own; television has all but destroyed our capacity for critical thinking; our linear thought processes are jumbled like crackling cereal; and we are left with a dangerous propensity to be taken for a ride by anyone who can afford a specialist at scrambling our brains even more.

We have been lulled to sleep by an official culture that speaks nonsense to us as though it were reasonable and have been trained since childhood by a consumer culture to conspire in our own psychological bondage. The lullabies are compelling, but waking up is better.

As we meditate and pray, we begin to awaken. As we read good books, we begin to awaken. As we eschew bad television, we begin to awaken. As we serve our community, we begin to awaken. As we journey toward psychological health, we begin to awaken. As we think for ourselves, we begin to awaken. As we communicate more freely, we begin to awaken. As we take up the philosophical mantle of concern for the future of life on earth, and apply it as best we can to our social, professional, and political endeavors, we begin to awaken ourselves and others. And in that awakening lies hope for all of us. Mass awakening from our entrenched delusions is the only hope for America’s healing...

I’m not a conspiracy buff in the traditional sense. The conspiracy that concerns me is our very way of life, our conspiracy of silence about things that matter most. It’s an invisible foe because it’s the tenor of our collective being. There is no one to oppose because there is no monolithic power source that spews out all the poison of our forgetfulness. We want to forget, after all, because there are a lot of things we don’t even want to know. Direct confrontation, even if we knew all the ins and outs of America’s deepest, darkest secrets, is not an option. What we have got to do is rise above, begin thinking again and feeling again like the passionate, authentic, brilliant human beings we were created to be. From that place we will cast a web of insights and manifestation that will disperse malaise and malice, and bring us back to life. The only way to ultimately counter antidemocratic forces is to foster democratic ones...

The American propensity to rise up out of oppressive situations and do what we can to transform them sleeps in us, but has not died. And when we awaken, we awaken big. You give a group of Americans a thumbnail sketch of an issue that demands our involvement, a 101 overview, and we’re jumping up and down on chairs, organizing activity, creating solutions, preparing to act. We leave no doubt that we are indeed the psychological heirs of the men and women who, over two hundred years ago, had what it took to recreate the world. As Thomas Paine proclaimed regarding the American Revolution, “We have it in our power to begin the world over again.”

We need a new American Revolution now, a revolution of consciousness and soul.

This begins with our taking responsibility for the abdication of our citizen authority, particularly its moral and spiritual dimensions. We abdicate our power every time we allow ourselves to surrender to the myriad forms of mind-death that pass for culture in America today. If we want a healing in this country, then we will have to take our minds back.

If enough Americans would say, “I will no longer watch too much TV;” if enough Americans would say, “I will read the books I know I should read;” if enough Americans would say, “I will seek my spiritual nature;” if enough Americans would say, “I will vote in every election;” if enough Americans would say, “I will do the things that I know in my heart I should do, and make a passionate stand for the changes that I feel are important” Ð then America would transform. We’ve forgotten our identities as the source and protector of power in America, and as a consequence that power is seeping like blood from our wounds...

But there is a secret that every mystical revolutionary should know: The beast has no power whatsoever against the divinely illumined mind. In our hearts and minds lies the power of nonvio-lence, and that is the power of God alive within us. When har-nessed for the collective good, there is no power in the universe that can stand before its might.

Know that, and revolution becomes an effortless accomplishment. The heart-filled mind knows no defeat.

But without the strength of an enlivened mind, we become passive observers to our own lives, easy to sell to and easy to control. Thus, the onset of our national disease: citizen anemia. The American people have been spiritually weakened. We know more about fashion at the Oscars than we know about issues that vitally affect our daily lives.

Why should we be aware that Gwynneth Paltrow broke up with Ben Affleck, but not be aware that despite our bounty America stands almost alone among industrial nations in not providing free basic health care for all, and that 40 million Americans have no access to health care at all? Why should we be aware that Monica Lewinsky wore thong underwear, but not be aware that hunger lines in the United States are growing many millions of people longer every year? Why should we be aware of every model, actor, or celebrity who entered rehab over the last five years, but not be aware that thirteen American children die from gun violence every day?

One is reminded of George Washington’s comment that “Americans have almost amused themselves out of their liberties.” American popular culture is starting to look like an exercise in assisted suicide.

American democracy carries with it extraordinary rights to express ourselves. It is not a political repression of our voices but a psychological and emotional invalidation of our opinions that poses the greatest threat to universal participation in our democracy today. Some of the people with the greatest gifts to give at this time would feel the most insecure about trying to do so. One of the brightest, most technologically capable and materially gifted citizenries in the world is full of people going around thinking, “Who am I to have an opinion? Who am I to make a difference? Who am I to change the world?”

That’s when you know they’ve got you.

America, in fact, has no dearth of genius. What we could do if we wanted to, is nothing short of miraculous. If we applied a fraction of the energy we now use to increase the perceived value of consumer products, to the amelioration of human suffering, we would be a different country and a different world. What we lack is an evolved sense of collective purpose for our talent and intelligence. Our awesome creativity is applied to mainly unimportant ends...

With the new millennium, there is a yearning among us to apply our talents to collective ends. Millions go home at night, to nice apartments, nice houses, nice furniture, nice electronic equipment, even nice bodies beside them, and yet deep in their hearts say, “God, I’m bored.” We long for a more genuinely passionate life, and for a deeper purpose to living it. We want to throw off the invisible chains of a wealthy slave condition, in which our genius has been co-opted to serve no higher god than mammon, which is no god at all. We’re grateful for where we’ve been, but we want to start a new cycle now. The current America just recycles the old; the new America is truly new.

As long as we are living, we have the greatest God-given power: the power to choose again. Many signs Ð from CEOs of oil companies beginning to speak of the importance of environmental consciousness, to greater local citizen activism occurring throughout the United States, to, most important of all, the intense activation of spiritual consciousness here and throughout the world Ð make clear that a time of awakening is truly at hand. We are ready to wake up from a very, very long nap. We are ready to get back to the Great Work of being alive...

While earthly resources are finite, spiritual ones are not. In all of us there is divine potential and the natural propensity to reach for it. In a nation of 266 million people, there is a stunning collection of unmined spiritual gold. As we each mature into a deeper understanding of our lives and why we’re living them, that understanding itself becomes the womb of a new America. As each of us awakens to the preciousness of our individual right to make a difference in this world Ð and the cosmic momentum that will support us when we try Ð we become a powerful wave of resistance to the forces of fear. It is not just our capacity to say no to what we don’t want that is our power to renew the world around us. It is our deeper power to say yes to our own creative abilities and yes to the light within others, which is the healing balm for the American soul. Each generation brings forth new life, physically and spiritually, or life will have to stop. Each of us might ask ourselves now, “Am I ready to bring forth new life, for myself, for my nation, for my world?”

When enough of us start asking deeper questions, then answers will miraculously appear.

Marianne Williamson is an internationally known author and lecturer, with eight published books, including the bestseller A Return to Love and the newly released Everyday Grace. Appearing at the Mahaffey Theatre. See ad on page 2.