When I look at the problem of racism and ask myself the question ‘What can we do about racism?’ I always look for a spiritual solution.

I pulled up the verse 3.1 in the Tao Te Ching (translated by Ellen M. Chen). It addresses the problems that occur when a society establishes value systems; seeing certain humans as more or less worthy.

Or values certain goods higher, adding higher price tags, to make them more desirable.

Living by ideas of superiority or worthiness creates tremendous trouble in our day to day lives

as we can see first-hand in current events.

 

So, what to do?

Because life is lived practically, as my mother used to say.

I believe that any decent change starts inside of us, of every woman and every man. We are the change.

The main problem is the value system that we have absorbed and internalized in our dominator culture. Everything is seen in the light of more valuable or less valuable, literally everything. And everything is measured and compared.

In spiritual terms we call that duality: good or bad, higher or lower, valued or not valued. That is truly a troublesome way of thinking.

What we need is: Togetherness in freedom. We need unity, togetherness and true democracy. We need to live by an adaption of Tat Tvam Asi*: I am valuable, you are valuable, all this is valuable. This is a much better way to be in this world.

What can we do right now? Let’s awaken to a model of being, feeling and thinking that drops value systems. We can use the current events as a wake-up call to become aware of where we still hold on to inherent judgment and value systems. In this verse the Tao Te Ching reminds us to not see people in terms of more or less worthy. Instead we can shift to ‘I am valuable, you are valuable, all this is valuable.’

I actually believe that this is how we grow consciousness of connectivity! We notice what happens on the outside and that shows us what needs to change on the inside. Then we create this change on the inside for our own good and the good of the collective consciousness as well.

Please join me and have the courage to look inside to find the value systems that we must drop to harmonize ourselves with nature! I know it takes courage to look at your own judgments, I myself was shocked more than once—but let me remind you that this is where self-love comes in. Only this way can we pull out the weeds so to speak. All we need is the courage to say: “Yes, I used to believe that, but not any-more!”

 

 

*“Tat Tvam Asi a Sanskrit Vedic phrase: I am that; You are that; All this is that.
I took the liberty to create the above adaption regarding the current events: #georgefloyd #blacklivesmatter #alllivesmatter