“All we have to do for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing.”
                                                                                                            --Edmund Berk

I’ve heard that axiom a hundred times. “Wake up!” it says. Awake from your complacent slumber! There is evil afoot!

We know what we want. It’s pretty simple really – peace, inclusiveness, understanding and compassion. And a little sprinkle of love over top. It comes under that familiar heading “Simple But Not Easy”.

Here’s the problem: Those who hate do so with conviction.

That’s the difference. When you leverage any emotion, any act at all, with conviction, therein lays the power – the power of conviction. If we could just love each other with the same or even more passion and fervour as those who hate, we would amaze ourselves at the sea change on this planet.

It’s not enough just to ‘love one another’ in the sense of not despising one another – a sort of neutral mutual co-existence. No. We must make it a practise to actually send love and peace to our neighbours, to our countrymen, and to the world, and this sounds all very fine and good but also very random. I am suggesting we do it deliberately every morning and evening.

It can be the beginning of a spiritual practise, or added to an ongoing one. If it’s the former, take five quiet and alone minutes. Breathe into your heart. (I place my hand on it.) Several deep, relaxing inhales and exhales. Then picture someone whom you dearly love to get the feeling right, and whoosh! Send it to the world, especially those parts of the world in such desperate need of it. And especially to the ones in your own life who are in this desperate need. Co-workers and even family with whom we clash would be the perfect target. Whoosh!

This last ‘simple-but-not-easy’ act will turn up amazing rewards if we do it sincerely and in the name of Love. It will change your day; never mind what it does for the recipients.

Science is making so many new and exciting discoveries about spiritual energy and about the magnificent and all-powerful organ of the heart. We know now that it is so much more than just a pump. It has intelligence and wisdom that we can tune into for true guidance. It knows that fear and hate offer no resistance to love.

But just as we work out physically to support our physical body, we must exercise our spiritual musculature to support the inner ‘us’. That’s why a spiritual practise is so important. Everyday spending a few minutes supporting the person we want to be and the world we want to live in.

Set aside a quiet spot with a candle and something that resonates with your heart, maybe from nature. Be in this space and just breathe. Ask for grace, and compassion, and peace.

Otherwise the random forces of CNN, Twitter and Facebook will take over our mind and coerce our spirit and we will be dragged down into chaos and adrenal fatigue.

When I was buying my laptop a few years ago, the young sales agent wanted to show me all the games available. “I don’t play computer games,” I told him.

He was incredulous. “How do you relax?” he asked.
“I meditate,” I answered.

He was speechless. He was also very young. At that age I too would have had no concept of how that could work. Years of practise later, I am amazed at how it not only works but how it’s changed my worldview and my self.

So, ‘good people’, we need warrior energy today. Nothing great happens without anger. And heaven knows there is a surfeit of that around. It’s how we use it that makes the difference. Funnel your warrior anger into conviction for peace and kindness in your home, neighbourhood, workplace, or school, and ultimately your world will change, because you will embody the change.

Start by sending those love bombs. Embrace mindfulness. Most of the time the present moment is safe and sweet. Be there.

May we continue to give ourselves over to what is deepest and best in ourselves, over and over and over again, encouraging those seeds of our truest nature to grow and flower and – for the sake of all beings near and far, known and unknown – nourish our lives and world from moment to moment and from day to day.
                                                                                                                         -- Jon Kabat-Zinn