This Week’s Quotation:

So I have come to believe that most of humanity is suffering from a psychology of oppression—even those who seem to be in the role of the oppressors. That it is because of that oppression that we have lost the knowledge of the most elemental aspects of our Being—who we are, our relationship to creation, and how our own human capacity works. There is a natural darkness that welcomes the light when it comes. But the darkness of oppression is not natural at all. It is a kind of darkness that hates the light. Rays of enlightened thought and enlightened awareness are the end of oppression, and those who are defending oppression know it.

Becoming a Sun, p. 220-221

The Psychology of Oppression

Though I have had some awareness of the impact of oppression on the human psyche all my adult life, the chapter of my book from which this quotation is taken recounts an occasion when it became glaringly apparent. And seeing the pattern, it was clear how pervasive it is in human culture. My experience is that there are very few people who want to face the impact of oppression or examine the reality of it.

Since that insight landed so powerfully, I have reflected on the origin and root cause of the issue. If we understood that, wouldn’t we have the opportunity to change this dynamic in ourselves? And wouldn’t we be opening the door for our fresh understanding to transform the world?

Here is what I see. It is the human mind that is the pinnacle of oppression in the human experience. It is the mind which attempts to establish by itself the pattern of life—for oneself and for other people. It is the ultimate control freak. And so you have submission to a mentally established pattern, whether it originates in one’s own mind or the mind of others.

The issue is the lack of openness to the unfolding pattern of Creation of which we are a part. It is the lack of faith in that pattern and in the ordering power of the universe that makes it available to our awareness and experience. Our surrender to that ordering power is what frees us from oppression and keeps us from becoming perpetrators of oppression in the world.

This surrender is how we set our soul free and embrace our primal spirituality—the spirituality we were born with.

What does it mean to become a sun?

Every human being is already a sun on the inside—a being of intense love and light. The difference is that some people have the vision and courage to become a sun on the outside. This difference is our human destiny.