It’s time we get involved. We’ve drank our green juice, done our yoga, oiled our body.. Now let’s cultivate that positive energy and go out there where it’s needed.

In this podcast episode, I explain what is going on in the world in a Vedic perspective and why we as spiritual people need to be the ones who help bring it back into balance. It’s more than just sitting at home with your crystals and doing your meditation. It’s fulfilling your dharma to help this planet. We cannot be afraid of politics because that’s how the people who are ruled by hatred and ego take over.

This is a call to action to all my spiritual light warriors fueled by the power of love.
Let’s go out there and serve our Dharmas to truly become our highest selves.. which is far beyond the self.

Discover your Dharma with my free quiz at https://iamsahararose.com/

Transcription

Episode 037 – Why We Spiritual People Need To Get Out Of Our BubblesAnd Get Involved

By Sahara Rose

Namaste. It’s Sahara Rose. And welcome back to the “Highest Self” podcast, a place where we discuss what makes you your soul’s highest evolvement. I just got back from the “Lead with Love” Conference in Aspen, Colorado, which was so inspiring. It is a transformational, spiritual/business empowerment conference that I really recommend everyone to go to next year. And truly, the lecture that I was the most blown away by was Marianne Williamson’s. So I’ve obviously heard of Marianne Williamson a million times, being in the spiritual community, but I actually had never read any of her books, nor had I seen her speak. So I really didn’t know what to expect.

And oh my god, was I blown away, and this woman has literally set a fire under my ass. And I am feeling so motivated, so inspired, so pumped up to make a difference on this planet than I ever have before. So I just want to share with you some of the things that she spoke about, and add in my own opinion as well. So this is not really an exact reiteration of what she said, I really recommend. She does a live stream every single Tuesday if you just go on her website, mariannewilliamson.com, you can find it. And she’s a great speaker, she talks a lot about comparing what’s going on now with what was going on in the time of Jesus, and Buddha, and Moses, and with the Apartheid, and many historical events. So I really recommend listening to her about that.

So I want to talk a little bit more about what she spoke about, about spiritual activism, but from a Vedic perspective as well. Because that’s what my background is, and about how really being your highest self is so much more than this sort of—I have to say it, it’s a narcissistic thing that what it sort of turned into. And not you guys, but the spiritual community at large. So what I noticed—and I’m sure you have noticed—is a lot of this self-help, spiritual development world is about the self. Of course it’s about the self, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But the thing is, we need to expand our self to what is going on around us.

You see, according to the Vedic texts, the Vedic texts are the world’s texts written in Sanskrit, written over 5,000 years ago, passed along for even thousands of years before that. So predating about 7,000 years ago. And they’re the texts that Ayurveda, yoga, Vedanta, and many other incredible sources of knowledge of based off of. And the word Veda literally means knowledge. So according to the Vedas, the world is an extension of us. There’s really actually no difference between the world and us. So whatever’s going on internally is going to show up in the outside world.

So right now, we have to talk about what’s going on in the outside world. And I have been one who has been trying to kind of stay away from it, and I now many of you guys have, too of just not wanting to get involved in like just all the craziness on the news, and politics, and the racism, and Trump administration, and all of these things. And it’s like every time you turn on the TV or go on Facebook, you’re like bogged down by negativity. So I totally understand not wanting to be a part of it, and I myself was totally like that. But it’s really important right now that us, as the spiritual people, as the awakened ones, the conscious ones who, you know, do the yoga and drink the green juice, it’s time for us to step in. And if we are not going to be involved in what’s going on in the world, if we the people who have done the self work, who’ve meditated, who looked within. If we are not willing to step in, then the people who are unaware are going to rule the planet, and that is what is going on right now.

So what happens to a lot of people, they live just normal lives, and then they start to, you know, practice yoga, get more spiritual, and they realize, wow, there’s a lot to this. And they go down the bandwagon, maybe they do a yoga teacher training, and they start reading Osho, and you know, different things come, and it’s beautiful, beautiful process. But then it becomes only about the self, and the thing is, you’re never going to become happy all the time. That doesn’t exist. No ancient text has ever told you that you are meant to be happy all the time. In fact, at the core of every single ancient text is that suffering is something that humans are constantly having to battle. What Buddhism is saying is that human nature wants to suffer, and we have to find a way past the suffering. But nowhere does it say do we have to be like joyful and jumping for bliss all the time. That’s actually not human nature either.

So what’s happening is that in this quest for spirituality, we’re looking for this permanent state of ecstas—ecstasy. And that state doesn’t exist, so we keep going to new healers, and doing more seminars, and you know, doing the trauma release, and the past lives regressions. And you know, getting a crystal for that, and burning sage, and doing a fire ceremony. All these things that these things are great, I do all of these things. But we should be doing them so we could take that fuel, take that positive energy, and bring it out into the outside world. And that is where we’ve shut down. You know, we’ve taken this positive energy, and then we just let it sit inside of ourselves. And we don’t bring it out to the places where it’s need most. To the low income areas, to the political sphere, to Washington, to the stock market, to all of these places that the light has not yet penetrated because we are afraid of going there.

Why are we afraid? The reason we’re afraid is because we’re afraid of it breaking down our high, our buzz, our post-yoga glow. And you know, after you did, you know, yoga, and you got a colonic, and you put oil all over your body, you don’t want to, you know, start talking about the environmental crisis. That’s not going to make you feel good. So we don’t talk about it. And what happens is, these lobbyists have no problem talking about it. They’re talking about it all day. The racists have no problem talking about what they want to do. They’re talking about it all the time.

But us spiritual people, we’re like, “No, no, no, no, no, no, I can’t go there. Politics is dirty. I don’t want to—you know, I just came back fro ma retreat, I’m trying to keep my vibes high.” So we ignore it. We can’t ignore this anymore, guys. This is serious. Like we are having our own democracy being swept under our feet with this administration. And if you don’t like politics, if you’re a Trump supporter, then I still urge you to keep listening. Because life isn’t all rainbows and butterflies. Spirituality is not an easy journey. And if anyone’s ever told you it’s supposed to be easy all the time, they were lying to you.

Part of the spiritual journey, moksha, liberation, is when you’re free from the body you see sutta, truth. What is sutta? Sutta is what is going on without the judgments of your mind. Okay? What’s going on in this world right now is we have too much rajas, aggression. Rajas is a guna, a quality. Sattva means purity, clarity. It’s the way that the world was in the vadic times where there was no pollution, garvisha. And pollution is not just through the environment, but it’s through our food, and it’s through our language as well. We were living in more sattvic times.

And now, pitta has increased, inflammation has increased in our bodies, but also in society. Our society is dealing with a pitta imbalance. The world has gone wild. And it’s a battle of the egos, and who’s bigger, and who has a stronger army, and who can drop that bomb first. And we’re seeing literal children with big pockets and a lot of power ruling over our countries. And I mean we can look at Donald Trump, it’s so obvious he has a pitta imbalance. I mean, like all of the symptoms he has. I mean you can even tell his prakriti, his natural dosha constitution is pitta because, well the red hair, the redness of his skin, and he just has so much inflammation when he speaks. It’s inflammation, it’s aggravation, it’s irritation. And he’s creating this environment for our planet, which creates rajas, aggression. And that’s not how we can live sattvic, pure lives.

So it’s time for us to get involved. And we can’t let imbalances rule the greater world. Because if we let this happen on a global scale, it’s also happening on a singular scale. You know, ignoring what’s going on in this world is like ignoring a cancerous cell on your body. And you’re saying,  “Oh, I’m over here in the brain, and you know, that cancerous cell is down on the feet, so why would it affect me?” Eventually, if you don’t address the cancerous cell, it will multiply, it will spread. Because it’s out there. It’s out there in rallies, and protests, these neo-Nazis, these people fueled by hate. They’re not quiet. They’re not sitting at home. They’re not just meditating, they’re doing the polar opposite. They’re out there screaming, and it’s up to us to approach that with love.

We need to love as loudly, as courageously as they are hating. You know, Marianne Williamson brought a really great point up, and she said that every time a terrorist attack happens, the president always says, “It was a cowardly act.” And she said, “A terrorist attack is a despicable act. It’s a disgusting, cruel, evil act.” But she wouldn’t call it cowardly. Because cowards stay home, and they don’t do anything and they’re shy. But hatred comes with a fervor. Because when you hate, you have this passion, this fire lit under you that you go out there and you spread your hatred. This is what we’re dealing with, guys. People who are fueled by hate.

So we can’t ignore this. We can’t say, “Ah, I need to close my ears. My ears can’t handle hearing the word hate.” If you’re too sensitive to even hear what’s going on in the world, then you haven’t really made it far in your spiritual journey. Because true spirituality is being able to look at the shadows of yourself and of the world. And say, “You know what? This is going on. This is part of me. This is part of the planet. And I’m going to step in there and make myself better so I can make this world a better place. Because she is my mother.”

So the solution is not to come at these people with hate. The solution is not to scream at them, to throw rocks at them. Because then we start playing their game. Just like what Michelle Obama says, “When they go low, we go high,” and she is so right about that. But going high doesn’t mean ignoring it. It doesn’t mean staying in your bubble, in your retreat, in your festival and coming back and saying, “Oh, can’t wait till next year. That’s it. Going to continue shopping at Whole Foods and pretending the whole world is fine because my world is.”

We are lucky. We are the lucky ones that we are even having these conversations because that means we were given a lot of opportunities to change before this, to get here. Most of the world is not here because they were never given the love, they were never given the exposure. So it’s up to us as spiritual warriors, as light workers, as teachers to use our dharma, to go out there and change this planet.

Now, what Marianne suggested, which is something that I hadn’t thought about in a long time, is that more of us need to be involved in politics. So my background is my whole life I wanted to be an international human rights lawyer. As soon as I could apply for college, I applied to George Washington University in D.C., I got in early, and I enrolled in the Elliott School of International Affairs, and I wanted to become an international human rights lawyer. And I always knew it was my dharma to help people, especially in third world countries with child trafficking, sexual trafficking, child labor, and things like that. And I started working in various NGOs, and Massachusetts Immigrant Refugee Association. Many amazing causes.

But I was feeling that I wasn’t really using my strengths. I was sitting in a cubicle, working on spreadsheets, trying to make money for the next fundraiser, and then the fundraiser would happen, and then we’d spend all that money on the next fundraiser, and I didn’t really feel like we were doing anything. So, because of this, I started to, you know, try to figure out what I could do, and I went through this long period of, you know, a year of really having no idea what I want to do with my life, and being really depressed about that. Knowing so badly that I want to help people, but not knowing how. And I think a lot of you guys probably studied international relations, political science, woman’s studies, all of these amazing things, and the same thing happened to you of not knowing how to put this into a job and really make a difference.

So during this time, I started blogging for fun. And eventually, I started to get more passionate about my blog, and more people started reading it, and my blog took over, and I went into this route, this nutrition route, which was never something I expected. It wasn’t even something I was interested in growing up. But then I got sick, that introduced me to Ayurveda, and you can hear my whole story on some of the other podcast episodes about how I got into Ayurveda, and wrote “The Idiot’s Guide to Ayurveda,” so save that for another podcast. I think it’s episode two explains it, and another one in the teens.

So this political side of me kind of just died because I got, you know, I realized well, I can help people by helping them get healthier. And you know, if they eat well, then they’re going to feel better, and that’s what the world needs, and I was doing that. I actually worked with Michelle Obama, I spoke at the Let’s Move campaign at Harvard Medical School. And as I mentioned, teach inner city kids about health and wellness, an I love doing that, but the political side of me, the activist side of me that was, you know, going to protests, and calling my senators, and things like that, died. Died for many, many years.

And I thought, you know, to be spiritual you have to be all peace, and you know, there’s no—there’s no good, there’s no evil, and just let it be And you know, let the universe take care of it, and I’ll just sit back and like keep living my life, and things will figure themselves out, right? And really what Marianne’s talk reminded me of is just how small-minded I was. And how me expecting someone else to fix the problem is being part of the problem.

And of course this voice in me that especially in the past year has known that my dharma is not just to help people, you know, dry brush, and like drink, you know, whatever smoothie. That’s not my dharma. It’s to uplift people, it’s as a priestess to share that message. And it’s important to bring politics into that because politics, unfortunately, is how change is made on a mass scale. We can change ourself from the internal scale, from the one-on-one, you know, with your friend, with the people in your community, and that is so important as well, so important.

But the place that we are missing is in this political sphere. You know, we’ve done really, really great  getting into all other different parts of business, but for some reason when as soon as we become more enlightened, we step away from politics. So what I want you to think about is for yourself. Where can you make a difference? It can be as easy as just showing up to your local congressional meeting and just saying, you know, anything going on in your community whether it’s the arts and sports being cut out of your public schools. Like this is a local issue that is so important that if all of us went out there to our local districts and said, “I refuse to have arts cut out of our budget,” then change will happen.

You see, we feel like we are helpless. And that change is made somewhere else, and there’s nothing we can do about it, so let’s just stay here. But if we were to think like that, then we would still have slaves in this country. And Marianne talked about how the whole Abolitionist movement against slavery really started with the Quakers. Because the Quakers knew that all men and women are created equally, and how wrong it is for someone to be enslaved. So they are the ones who actually started the movement to get rid of slavery.

Now right now we still have remnants of slavery going on. Slavery has not died, my friends. And if you think it is, you’re asleep. It’s alive. It’s just taken a new form. And what we’re seeing right now with police brutality, what we’re seeing right now with this whole race crisis going on, why do you think that black people in this country are so unhappy? You know, let’s open our eyes as spiritual warriors and say, “How can I support you? How am I maybe part of the problem?” Let’s take away the blame and say, “Oh, it’s all because of the people, the uneducated people who, you know, voted for Trump, it’s all their fault, now I’m just going to have to wait.”

No. Trump was not elected overnight. It was years and years of unhappiness in these small towns where they felt like their jobs were being taken away, and they felt like they didn’t have a place in this country anymore. And years and years of that feeling helpless is what made them rally after this man who they believed would fix their problems. It didn’t happen overnight. And creating a new system, at least going—not going backwards in history, at least staying in place, or maybe moving a little forward, that’s going to take time, too.

And as the spiritual community, we need to be the ones who lead it. We can’t wait for someone else to take over. We all know that our doctors are giving us drugs. We all know what’s going on with the pharmaceuticals. We all know about GMOs, but why don’t we talk about what’s going on, on a political sphere that’s funding these systems. There’s a reason why things are like this. And it’s up to us to become more vocal and active so we can do something about it because we can, and we have, and we will. It’s just a matter of when.

Let’s not wait until more and more damage has been done. Let’s start using our power, this beautiful kundalini power that we have created through our bodies, and let’s permeate it into this outside extension of us. And the way that you are going to sere is different from the way that your neighbor is going to serve. And that is up to your dharma, which changes over time. Because in the grander scheme of things, all of our dharmas are to raise consciousness. We were all put here on this planet to do that. However, each of us has a different strength to, which is in our dosha, which is in our archetype which is in our past life, which is in all of these things. But it doesn’t matter where it comes from, it matters what you do with it.

So get the self-knowledge, learn about yourself, read about yourself, go inward, but don’t just stop there. Because if you think the height of the spiritual mountain is to master your own breath, you haven’t really looked around you. You know, I look at the Tibetan monks in China, who are being oppressed, who are being brutalized, who are being killed. And even when it’s going on, they continue to remain in a state of meditation. They are standing in front of the Chinese military and saying, “This is my land.” That is heroic. It’s taking that internal power and using it as a force for change. They’re not throwing their hands up, “Oh, you know, if it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be. I guess Chinese government’s going to kill us all and no more Tibet. Bye, temples,” you know. “Sorry, didn’t work out.”

No. That’s not spirituality. That’s being passive. You know, I think a lot of us, we’ve misunderstood spirituality to sit back and do nothing, and just let things happen. And yes, if we lived in a world that everything was sattvic, and we still lived in the times of the Vedas where we weren’t fighting against these huge forces, then we could just sit back and breathe and meditate all day because we wouldn’t have to make change, we wouldn’t have to have jobs, we wouldn’t have to make money. We wouldn’t have to do anything. We would have the luxury to sit and just chill and meditate all day.

But even back then, society still had roles. Now today, we are in a situation that it’s not the first time we’ve been in. You know, we’ve been through the Vietnam War, we’ve been through crisises before, but we’re in one right now. And we need to rise up with the power of love. So don’t underestimate yourself. So many of us play small. We say, “I’m too young, I can’t make a difference. I don’t have my Master’s degree. I can’t, you know, go to Congress. I don’t know anything about laws, how can I call a senator? I don’t have time, I have a 9:00 to 5:00 and I’m exhausted after. I can’t, you know, try to save the world now.”

You doing this is actually making your own personal power smaller in everything that you do. When you rise up, you are healing yourself. When you’re fighting for a cause that’s greater than you, you extend the boundaries of who you are. When I was living in Bali, I would see these people and all they would do is go to one healing workshop to another and another and another, and it was so focused on the self, that they didn’t want to hear anything going on in the outside world. This, my friends, is just as narcissistic as someone who just spends their money shopping at the mall all day.

It’s obsession with the self. And as Deepak Chopra says, “Don’t confuse yourself with your selfie, because the self that we’re obsessed with is our body mind, but our soul is eternal, atman, and it’s related to what is going on, on the planet. And when the planet is hurting, if you have a soul, you are hurting. And if you’re not feeling the hurt of the planet right now, then my friend, you have shut down. Because all of our hearts should be hurting a little bit about what’s going on in this planet. Not just a little bit, a lot. It doesn’t make you spiritual to hurt, in fact, it makes you a complete human. If you’re just feeling great, and high, and happy all the time, then you’ve cut yourself off from who you are.

You know, there’s always going to be more self-work to do, more traumas to do, more things to go back upon. But sometimes what we need to do, Marianne says, is put those tears on a shelf. Go out there and change the world. And you can come back and cry a little more. But you sure as hell are going to feel a lot better than if you just sat at home and cried all day.

So, this is my warrior cry to you. Spiritual warriors, warriors of love, compassionate army who’s going to fuel this planet with positive change. This is my call to you. To please, please, please use your power to rise. I need you. Your children need you. The animals need you. The oceans need you. We all need to come together. It’s not just that when one is well, all is well. But it’s also when all is well, one is well. So let’s put a little more energy into helping everyone. Into making a difference, whether it’s going to your local congress meeting, calling a senator, teaching children at a school, making a podcast like this, writing a blog post, being more authentic on social media, educating the people around you.

And by educating, I don’t mean having an argument with your Trump-supporting uncle who’s never going to change his mind. That’s not helping the planet. Don’t even waste your time arguing with people like that. It’s just lowering your vibration, too. Instead, use that energy for positive change. Let those people argue with each other while we are out there creating the framework so in 2018 we’re not stuck with this mess anymore.

And another interesting thing Marianne said is, you know, the Constitution never had a Democrat, or a Republican, there were no parties, and actually warned against these parties. And she herself ran as a third party politician, and she wishes that she had actually run under a democrat. Thought she’s not a technical democrat, but because she would have had more of a chance of winning. And unfortunately, the way that this political system is set up, is that if you’re a third party candidate, they basically give you no chance. And it’s messed up, and I wish it wasn’t the case, but when you vote for a third party, it’s essentially throwing away your vote. And if less people voted for third parties, we would have won at least one more state, which could have prevented Trump from being in power.

So even if you’re not team Hillary, I know Bernie got robbed, I know that all these political things might make you feel uncomfortable, but if you care about your planet, and it as an extension of you, then you got to vote. And not just for the big sexy election of who’s going to be the president, but for all of the smaller elections, too. Because these choices are always being made. You know, all it takes is for about 12 people to call your local senator for it to actually be reviewed and moved up the ladder. 12 people, that’s all it takes.

So whatever causes is important to you, whether it’s the environment, or whether it’s the school system, or whether it’s giving rights to the people in jail, or the firefighters having their jobs taken away from them, there’s so many things right now that we need to be more vocal about. So choose the call that’s important to you. Rally your people and go out there. And don’t underestimate your strength. And once you start getting in that flow, the kriya takes place, and you’ll realize what power you have—not just in the political sphere, but in all areas of your life. Because it’s all interconnected. So I really hope you take this message to heart. I hope it lights a fire under your ass. And together, we will make a difference.

Thank you so much for listening. We can take this discussion further in the “Mind Body Balancers” Facebook group, the link is in the show notes. And if you’re interested in learning more about your dharma, your life purpose, I will be leading my doshas and dharma four-week, online program again in March, and it’s all about finding your purpose. And I’m definitely going to add in more activism in there, and how your purpose is connected with the way that you can serve this planet. So, thank you guys so much. A beautiful organization that I found there is called Yoga Off the Mat and Into the World, so that’s an organization who’s doing work right now. Marianne Williamson is an amazing person to follow, she has many incredible books, “A Return to Love,” and more.

And just keep staying involved. Whatever it is, you really, really, really have a duty to yourself, to this planet, we all do, it’s our responsibility for this planet that gives so much to us to give back to it. If it’s not for you, do it for your children. Do it for the animals, do it for anything, but we all need to get in there. Love you guys so much. Namaste.

Episode 037 – Why We Spiritual People Need To Get Out Of Our Bubbles

And Get Involved