107 'Greedily, I'm Deeply Humble. Greedy to see and remedy every shortfall of mine

http://youtu.be/an0OihT6nUs

Do we think about this much?  I don't think we do.  But if we think about the people of the greatest intellect, greatest moral force and we ask ourselves - were these people humble?   Did these people avoid seeing their important shortfalls, or did they sprint to see those important shortfalls so they would have as much time, and be as likely as possible, to see them and to fix them? It's clear to me that these were immensely humble people.

‘Humble’ was a problematic word and concept for me earlier on because such people, our insanely humane throughout history, these are not timid people, they're not shy people, they can be enormously forceful.  When I thought of the humble person I mistakenly thought of someone with their eyes down all the time, meek and mild all the time. No, it would be a matter of time and place.

So, because of their acute humility, their intense horror at their shortfalls, because of how those shortfalls limited their ability to serve the needy, our brothers and sisters; because of that acute humility the greats learn faster and deeper and more completely than the rest of us. 

And because they know, and they're not here to play games or put on airs, in what they've learned, they're masterful.  They speak with authority, they act with authority, and would be communicating false, misleading modesty or inadequacy that didn’t exist, if they did not. 

But within themselves, and at times evident to others, they were the most acutely aware among us of what they didn't know, what they couldn't do, what was needed of them, where they fell short.  

Humility is a deep yearning to be everything that is required of one, by one's neediest brothers and sisters.   It's deeply painful.  It's deeply uncomfortable.  But pain, brothers and sisters, is adaptive.  You and I would not exist as part of the species if it were not for pain.  Pain is designed to be an early warning system, to enable action to be taken before more dire consequences manifest. 

And the insanely humane unviolent warriors embrace that adaptive capacity.  They don't wallow in it.  They don't make a fetish of it.  But they use it as intended. 'Oh my God, I feel how short I fall in this area.' 

It's not obvious from Gandhi's saying but it comes to mind - "Learn as though you were going to live forever; live as though you are going to die tomorrow." 

Humility is our word for pointing to the neurological capacity for internal creative tension as it relates to building ourselves further; seeing, on the one hand, the strengths that are required of us by the neediest of our human family and at the same time bearing a desire to rectify that and awareness that one can if one applies oneself.  It's a glorious thing.  Painful, but glorious. 

And the insanely humane warriors throughout history embrace it.  The fakes?  Quite a different matter, my brothers and sisters all.   But the real ones?   They embrace the pain, and the wonder of Humility, like air, like Love itself.

106. It is my duty to expose the danger, evil, sickness, cancer… of the status quo - r, Ctr, LFT; just as MLK and Gandhi demanded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ds-vDKjK4_w

What use is a vaccine that does not make the body sick?   What use is a vaccine that the body does not try to kill?   Does not try to crucify?  I don't know that the medical science is as straightforward as that, but that's the prevailing wisdom, or certainly it used to be. 

I can only loosely paraphrase Dr. King who being criticized for 'upsetting things' said that 'the purpose of unviolence was not to create tension, was not to upset people, but that it was to reveal the hidden tension, to reveal that people, and the way of good, were already upset.  

I've shared often, and for decades it's been clear to me that if those who can't abide the status quo of needless suffering and needless death, if in the sick body of today's humanity they're not getting crucified, they're not doing the job. They're of no hope.  If they are getting crucified, that doesn't mean they're doing the job; they may be needlessly bastards, abusive, arrogant, hypocrites, taunters, ranters.  But if in a sick body the vaccine is not getting crucified, attacked; if the body's not attempting to kill it, not hostile to it, bearing it in ridicule, slander, deliberately perverting its message, and dismissing, diminishing... if the vaccine is not provoking such responses it is not doing its job; it's of no hope.

Gandhi said, 'I'm asking you to fight, not to provoke their anger; I'm asking you to fight against their anger.'  He further said, 'The duty of the unviolent warrior,' and I'm giving him words that I think he might like better, 'the duty of the unviolent warrior is to provoke a response.' 

The duty of the vaccine is to provoke a response.  This is NOT license for the unviolent warrior, but rather, a grave duty and responsibility to do wisely, constructively, responsibly with never a spec of self-indulgence or animosity, but courageous service of each and ALL.