Spiritual Activism: Co-creating The World We Seek

By Carla GoldsteinDirector, The Women’s Institute at Omega

For decades I have considered myself a women’s rights and social justice activist. The word “spiritual” wasn’t in my vocabulary, and I still trip on it.....I realized that approaching our social disagreements through extreme polarization and name-calling was not a winning strategy.

Below is a list of emerging principles for a new model of spiritual activism.

1. AWARENESS, COMPASSION AND LOVE We take action that is born out of awareness, compassion and love, not out of reaction, fear and anger.
2. INTERDEPENDENCE We see relationships to others and the world in the context of our interdependence. We no longer see the “enemy” or “other” as isolated from ourselves. This does not strip away our ability to recognize and name injustice, but helps us understand that the root of both suffering and joy ultimately circles back to us because of our unity as a whole organism.
3. EMPOWERMENT We use power to empower others rather than to dominate over others.
4. THE MEANS MATTERS We bring the intention of love and compassion equally to the means and the ends, understanding that relationships are central to process.
5. MINDFULNESS AND PRESENCE We cultivate mindfulness and the capacity to be present for others so that our relationships and actions are coming from intention and awareness.
6. PARADOX & MYSTERY We accept paradox and mystery, which allows us to see that the truth can be ambiguous, complex, contradictory or unknowable. This, in turn, relieves us from the need to always classify into either/or, right and wrong.
7. SEEKING BALANCE We seek balance in our lives to bring healing to self and others; balance between our inner and outer lives, and between our mind, body, heart, and spirit.
8. OPEN TO SUFFERING We open our hearts to suffering rather than isolate ourselves from it so that we can cultivate self-understanding, empathy with others, and benefit from the wisdom that we gain from seeing reality as it is.
9. BEYOND PROXIMATE CAUSE We take responsibility for our actions and assume a duty to others that stretches beyond our capacity to anticipate consequences.
10. LIVING OUR VALUES We live from our values consistently across all of our social roles, including in both the private and public sphere of our lives. Spiritual activism provides an integrative framework for daily