In the depths of my hopelessness and despair following the election, the existential question for me was: “What do we do when evil wins?” Gradually, what got me out of bed was that I can and should prioritize helping and protecting those I love who are the most vulnerable and in the most danger. Another thing I can and should do is support those who have the ancestral wisdom and ability to help at least a small remnant survive what’s coming. And I can prioritize in my life cultivating gratitude and finding joy and beauty in the multitude of blessings that surrounds me.

This answer worked on the worldly level. However, it didn’t address the spiritual ramifications of that question. While much of the definition of evil is subjective (what is immoral or nefarious to one person can be quite different to another), proven guilt, deceit, and dishonesty are objective facts, especially if proven in a court of law. The quote from George Orwell, “In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act,” seemed both relevant and a warning.

Yes, on a spiritual level, I can see the essential goodness in everyone; I can sense that love, creativity, and beauty are central to humanity, but then the question arises, “Why is our current reality what it is?” I know enough to stay away from that question on the mundane level because the answers there are a plethora of landmines and rabbit holes and circular firing squads, blaming this person or this group or this idea, which doesn’t get us anywhere positive. On a spiritual level, though, the question of why can lead to a spiritual transformation or a crisis of faith.

bell hooks wrote, “A culture that is dead to love can only be resurrected by spiritual awakening” and “All awakening to love is spiritual awakening.” In an interview, she said, “If I were really asked to define myself, I wouldn’t start with race; I wouldn’t start with blackness; I wouldn’t start with gender; I wouldn’t start with feminism. I would start with stripping down to what fundamentally informs my life, which is that I’m a seeker on the path… a path about love… If love is really the active practice — Buddhist, Christian, or Islamic mysticism — it requires the notion of being a lover, of being in love with the universe… To commit to love is fundamentally to commit to a life beyond dualism. That’s why love is so sacred in a culture of domination, because it simply begins to erode your dualisms: dualisms of black and white, male and female, right and wrong.”

As I held the question “What do we do when evil wins” in my heart, the revelation that settled on me was perhaps I had been thinking too small. While it’s good to see and value the essence of all that is good, the love and compassion found in humanity, there’s a whole universe out there. Almost certainly, other life forms are also part of this whole. Understanding this means that humanity is not the end-all and be-all of spiritual awareness and connection.

Yes, our world’s humanity, individually and collectively, has a piece of the Light, but thinking small limits that which is without limit. Beyond the duality, Into the infinite wholeness of being — the protons, neutrons, and subatomic electrons — is that which is beyond human comprehension. This way, I can understand and feel present in the power of infinite wholeness and thereby expand my mind, heart, and soul from small consciousness to the understanding that there is a whole, a oneness greater than any of us can ever know. ~rch 11/10/2024