Finding Grace in American Hypocrisy

Americans are wont to look at "third world" countries as places below. We titter and gnash our teeth about their politics and their policies and their culture - but where is the grace in that?

Is there really something superior? Or inferior? Like, when we are dead in the ground or our ashes floating through the air - will there really be a ranking that matters?

Americans talk down the caste system in India, smugly indicating such a thing would never be found on American soil, but it is there - if you have had a child, you are a pre-existing condition, if you have been ill or have a disease, you have become the American "Untouchable".

We like to harp on our "Freedom of Speech" and our "Freedom to Carry Arms" - but does it give us the right to lie and to kill? Does freedom of speech give us the right to be traitors against our government? Does it mean we can speak venomous lies? Does freedom to carry arms give us the right to act as if we own the land, the animals and as if our own commotional emotions were substantial enough a reason to kill, kill, kill? Does it give us the right to kill for sport? Does it give us the right to annihilate an animal kingdom for fun?

We laugh at the quaint or unusual customs of others, but how often do we immerse ourselves into where those unusual customs derived from? How often do we live and breathe that culture until we know it inside out? Tourists visit us and speak our language. We visit them and - - speak our language.

It is sometimes hard to find grace in modern American society, but it is possible. Perhaps the biggest tool of the age is the first of the Aquarian sutras Yogi Bhajan once gave:
Remember that the other person is you.

If we can just remember that when broken down into dust and molecules, we are One, perhaps we can remember that when we judge others we judge ourselves, when we hurt others (and this includes our precious planet and its resources) then we hurt ourselves, and that when we refuse to acknowledge one another we are refusing our own humanity.

Because in humanity, lies our grace. In humanity, not society. Dare to trod the path unbeaten, dare to think outside of the war raging out from those seeking power and greed. Is more really what you want? How about real? truthful? peaceful? loving? kind? Isn't that where grace is?

And grace is a choice we can make everyday.

Blessings.
- Darshan

© 2009 Darshan F Jessop