Deep inside each of us is a yearning for unity—a desire to live in harmony with one another. We want to see an end to war, crime, injustice, and economic tyranny. Yet these changes, we are told, require hope.
Every election cycle, our leaders tell us that change is just around the corner. We are told that change is on the way and that all we need to do is hold on to hope, yet our experience tells us otherwise.
Our experience tells us that change does not come from hope; it comes from truth.
Hope Is Truth Postponed
It seems that change occurs only after all hope is lost. Only then can truth finally emerge. The more we cling to hope, the further we are from change. Hope consoles, medicates, and returns us to sleep, but it does little, if anything, to bring about change.
Only when we are willing to face truth do the changes we seek have a chance of being realized. Hope can never be a substitute for either truth or change. For example, we can hope to end economic tyranny, but without knowing the truth behind our economic system, and without knowing the truth behind the interests who benefit from the status quo, all we can expect is more of the same. And what we expect, we get.
We need more truth, not more hope. For many of us, confronting truth can be both alarming and disorienting, for it requires us to awaken and to make right what we have suspected to be wrong for so long.
The first step is to awaken from the illusion-of-separation. When we do this, we awaken to ourselves as the whole, and we discover the truth behind war, peace, and social injustice.
The Truth about War and Peace
When our country is at war, our leaders ask us to hope for peace. They have told us that war is often necessary to secure peace. The truth, however, is that war brings more war and peace brings more peace.
Once a country is at war, its government engages its people in illusions. Under the guise of promoting regional stability and national security, we are told that the enemy of our enemy is our friend.
A prime example of this reasoning was our 1967 installation of the Iranian leader Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. This “friend” of America turned out to be the catalyst for Iran’s revolution and the birth of one of the most oppressive and dangerous theocracies the region has ever seen.
A more current example is the decision by the United States and the United Kingdom to forcibly remove Saddam Hussein from power through war. This decision was made under the pretenses of national security and regional stability. Based on the falsehood that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, most of the western world entered a war that cost hundreds of thousands of lives, and cost nearly four million people their homes.
When truth is pushed to the side, rest assured that the next word our leaders will utter is hope.
From the book Henry’s Puzzle – Awakening to Infinity (2011) All Rights Reserved.
