Sacred Earth, Sacred Self: A Meditation on Inner Transformation

Only the self liberated from selfishness can bring about the new earth.

Selfish selfhood is a prison. Our prejudices and attach ments to wealth and power form the walls of this prison. Our activism will never succeed unless we simultaneously leave the prison of the “false self” through mindful presence and an open heart. To transform the political and economic systems that currently dominate our lives—systems that have been skewed by the power and influence of profit above all else—we must also focus on inner transformation.

We can root this difficult work in prayers such as this one from my Sufi tradition: “O my God, you are peace, and from you comes peace, and our return is to you, to peace.” What I offer here is an extended meditation on this prayer.

The current economic system is the vehicle of the false self insofar as its only criterion of value is the bottom line of profitability. As a result, it is a blind machine that consumes life and spews garbage. The corporations that rule this system are a result of the alienated self because they are driven to make decisions solely on a logic of their own short-term profiteering rather than on the long-term well-being of human society. For example, they reap fracking profits while escaping the incalculable costs of the destruction that fracking leaves in its wake.

What permits this efficient machinery of death and corruption, this perpetual war, this molestation of nature, this sabotage of health, this desecration of life? The root cause of this desecration is our economic system’s detachment from empathy and reality. This society-wide detachment creates echoes of detachment in all of us as individuals, as well, imprisoning us in selfishness.

The system is unsustainable because it prioritizes financial profits regardless of any cost to the environment and human well-being. It fails to see and acknowledge its own demise. The corporate death machine has no empathy. It turns people into objects. It normalizes violence and cruelty. It blames and victimizes the weak. It projects its own evil onto others. What it considers normality is suicidal.

Awakening Our Empathy

The change that is required is so fundamental that it challenges common assumptions of how life is supposed to be lived. What we need is the ability to stand apart, to be quiet and reflect, to think critically about our situation, and to realize that the steps we are capable of may be only incremental.

How can we collectively come to know that the purpose of life is not to consume but to produce, not to acquire but to share, not to excessively build up our defenses, not to increase our capacity for violence but to awaken the empathy of the fearless heart?

Behind the false self, which is constructed from our own alienation, defenses, pretenses, and disguises, is the experience of the true self, which is fundamentally sacred. We are able to experience the true, sacred self, even without reference to the supernatural, if we are willing to slow down, become quiet, and listen to our own hearts. Recognition of this experience could be the common ground among the spiritual, religious, and secular worlds.

Some experience this true self as a state of transcendence, a foretaste of the divine. At the same time, the experience of the sacred self is likely to be an experience of a self in harmony with the earth. Nature lives deep within human nature. The human self contains its own transcendence. To the extent that we touch that immanent transcendence we step into greater harmony with the earth itself. This inner experience of the self in harmony with a greater whole is an important precondition of sweeping social change, but it alone is not enough—we also need practical knowledge.

Sacred Activism

Most approaches to peace are ineffective because they lack a deep understanding of the forces that contribute to violence. Social movements to change the masses, whether religious or political, will be successful when these social movements transform the self. For example, movements to reshape foreign policy must teach...