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November/December 2009 Featured Stories
Be a Sacred Activist

by Andrew Harvey

Andrew Harvey

You can respond to current global challenges right now using sacred activism, which is the transforming force of compassion-in-action that is born of a fusion of deep spiritual courage and passion with wise radical action to birth a new world. Sacred activism is the force that will midwife the transformation necessary to preserve the world.

Here are ideas you can do right now, or within the next 24 hours, to start to align yourself with the power and hope of sacred activism.

Write down now one thing that today has made you feel grateful to be alive. Set aside a small notebook and make the commitment to write down one thing every day that has lit you up with joy. At the end of a month sit down and read the list out loud, slowly, to yourself. You will discover it will awaken in you a passion for life and a hunger to protect and preserve it.

Now write down, without editing yourself, just “off the top of your heart,” 10 things you would say are sacred to you. Today my list is: friendship, justice, cats, the first roses of summer, all religions, wise elders everywhere who share their wisdom tenderly and tactfully. What is your list? You will find that just by writing it down you will start to be inspired by your deepest values, beliefs and sources of emboldening joy.

Think of someone who has hurt you or betrayed you and make a commitment to work on forgiving them. Imagine them, now, in front of you, surrounded by light, happy and well, and pray for them to realize their life’s purpose. Just to do this once with humble sincerity will unveil in you your innate strength of compassion.

Make now a real commitment to spiritual practice. If you do not yet have one, start now, simply. Just sit, with your back straight and watch your thoughts for three minutes and allow your mind, however briefly, to fall silent. In that silence is your greatest treasure, one that will unfold its gold in you if you commit to 20 minutes of simple sitting in the morning and evening before you go to bed.

If you find sitting and watching your thoughts boring, try this visualization that I was given by a great Tibetan master who recommended it to be used anytime, anywhere:

Imagine that love and compassionate action has transformed you into a large brilliant diamond that radiates diamond-white light. Send that light to all the four directions, praying, with whatever words you choose, that all sentient beings everywhere be happy, well and protected.

Strengthened by prayer, practice and inspiration, turn now to your life and the people in it. Everyone, especially in a time like ours, has friends who are in grief, or ill, or looking for a job, or are in real financial difficulty. Commit now to ringing one of them up, and ask him or her what you could do to make their burden easier. Do this soon and be happy that you can.

Make a commitment to miss one meal in the coming 24 hours. Send a check for the money you would have spent on it to a reputable organization dealing with world hunger, such as the Buddhist Global Relief (BGR). The organization focuses on providing food aid to the third world and supporting projects aimed to develop better long-term methods of food production and management (see www.buddhistglobalrelief.org). Any donation will help. Never forget that almost two billion people live on less than a dollar a day.

The world-wide financial crisis we are now in is plunging people everywhere into financial distress. There will be families in your immediate vicinity who are suffering. Make a commitment to find out who they are and what they might need and ring six of your friends to make a commitment with you to begin supplying them what they require. In acting like this, you will be helping to activate the kind heart of your community. In my experience, more people than you may imagine are longing to be of help. Take the first step now yourself, and be surprised and heartened.

Make a commitment today, even if you are in financial difficulties, to tithe between five and 10 percent of what you earn to a cause of your choice. I recommend choosing one particular cause that deeply moves you and sticking to your commitment, whatever happens. Over time, tithing like this will give you a great and healing sense of being of use and the cause you are helping will become more precious and personal to you, and you will want, naturally and simply, to do more.

Make a commitment to always have some small change in one of your pockets so you can always give something to one of the growing thousands of homeless in our streets. I learned this habit as a child from my grandmother in India, and over the years it has brought me into contact with some extraordinary people. Outside a temple in South India, there was a long line of desolate looking beggars and among them a very old woman, dressed in a ragged and filthy sari with no shoes. I gave her what I had on me, about a dollar. I watched in amazement as she walked unsteadily over to the nearest food stand, bought herself a handful of chapatis, broke them carefully in two, and shared them with a dog as emaciated as she was.

If we all knew what that penniless old beggar knew, the hundreds of children who have died of starvation while you were reading this would still be alive.

Andrew Harvey, author of The Hope: A Guide to Sacred Activism, is the founder of the Institute of Sacred Activism. Visit www.andrewharvey.net. Reprinted by permission of Hay House at www.hayhouse.com.