The Invitation .
Channeled through The Oriah Mountain Dreamer
(an Indian elder).
It doesn't interest me what you do for a living..
I want to know
what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting
your heart's longing.
It doesn't interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will
risk looking like a fool for love, for your dreams, for the adventure
of being alive.
It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon.
I want to
know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow,
if you have
been opened by life's betrayals or have become
shriveled and closed from fear of further pain!
I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own,
without
moving to hide it or fade it or fix it.
I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own;
if you can
dance
with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your
fingers and toes without cautioning you to be careful,realistic,
or to remember the limitations of being human.
it doesn't interest me
if the story you're telling me is true.
I want to know
if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself;
if you can bear
the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul..
I want to know if you can be faithless and therefore be trustworthy.
I want to know if you can see beauty
even when it is not pretty every day, and
if you can source your life from God's presence.
I want
to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand
on the edge of a lake and shout to the silver of the full moon,
"Yes!"
It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have.
I want to know
if you can get up after the night of grief and
despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done
for the children.
It doesn't interest me who you are, how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will
stand in the center of the fire with me
and not shrink back
It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied.
I want to know
what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.
I want to know
if you can be alone with yourself, and if you
truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.
NAMASTE
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The inertia and acquiescence which allows the almost complete suspension
of our liberties would once have been unthinkable.
The present ignorance
and indifference is appalling and almost unbelievable.
That little which
is worthwhile in civilization and culture is made possible by the few
who are capable of creative thinking and independent action, with the
grudging assistance of the rest.
When the majority of men surrender
their freedom, barbarism is near; when the minority surrender it, we are
in the dark ages.
Even the word liberalism is suspect through the
unmitigated effort of fuzzy heads who believe it synonymous with Russian
boot-licking, and humanism is no more than a front for the totalism of
the church.
Science, that was going to save the world back in H.G. Wells' time, is
regimented, strait-jacketed, scared shitless, its universal language
diminished to one word, security.
In this 1950 view, some of my more hopeful utterances may appear almost
naive. However, I was never so naive as to believe that freedom, in any
full sense of the word, is possible to more than a few.
But I have
believed and do believe that these few, by self-sacrifice, by wisdom, by
courage, by continuous and tremendous effort, can achieve and maintain a
free world.
The labor is heroic, but it can be done; by example and by
education, it can be achieved. This is the faith that built America;
this is the faith that America has surrendered, and this is the faith
that I call on America to renew or perish.
We are one nation, and one world. The soul of the slums looks out of the
eyes of Wall Street, and the fate of a Chinese coolie determines the
destiny of America. We cannot suppress our brothers' liberty without
murdering ourselves. We will stand together, as men, for human freedom
and human dignity, or we will fall together, simians all, back to the
swamp.
In this late, this very late hour, it is with solutions that we must be
primarily concerned. I seem to be living in a nation that simply does
not know what freedom is.
We believe that it is a word, a piece of paper - something we are told
that we have - that we tell each other we have. Indeed, it is more - far
more than that.
It is to that object to the definition of freedom, to its understanding,
in order that it may be attained and defended, that this essay is
devoted. I need not add that freedom is a dangerous thing. But it is
hardly possible that we are all cowards
