I catch myself again and again; being critical of both sides of the political debate and of people’s reactions to the issues. I catch myself being critical of people’s process in engaging one another and enacting compassion towards one another when it comes to political issues. “They” and “the Others” out there, they are fighting, they are angry, they are scared, they are threatening one another, de-friending right and left, setting parameters for friendship based on beliefs, just as has been done across time. We use these differences to fuel our Egos, to pump up our need to be right, to move us toward hate, anger, and war. I have to examine and sit with my own criticisms of everybody else’s critical process. This is part of our social system for so many years that perhaps through epi-genetics, we have actually become programmed to behave this way.

I have to accept my own attachments and aversions when it comes to this thing we call life and this man made construct we call politics.

As we learned from the Buddha, our suffering stems from our attachments and our aversions. People on the right, attached to what they want, averse to the left’s values. People on the left, aversions to the right-others desires, attachment to their own definitions of right and wrong. People who step outside of it all, attached to being outside of it, of thinking something “new and better”, feeling aversion to the whole current process, feeling aversion to the two-sided or dualistic tension, feeling superior and knowledgeable because they got it and stepped out.

And so here I am, a member of the no-party, so call me independent. I am perhaps more left then left and that brings me back, tripping and stumbling around and around to trying to hold an understanding for the right and the middle and everything between, as well as the middle left, the left, and the far off the map left. I am just here and breathing and holding a place of compassion for all of this stuff from our human nature, the suffering and triumph.

So now I will declare myself: I am a member of the let’s shift toward caring and healing party. I am a member of the only love can heal this, and it starts with me party. I am a member of the… stop… listen… you can feel it coming… the great earthly healing party. I am a member of the unitary perspective party: we are all in this together, clinging to this great big globe spinning through the universe with our limited resources and our oh so short time together. I am a member of the non-local consciousness party, the quantum physics party where all we are is space, where time is a man made imposition on nature, the life is an illusion party, and the trying, struggling, inching to move toward un-attachment and un-aversion for myself party.

Regardless of the political outcomes of tonight, or the next day, or the next decade, I am going to set an intention for the people of America to experience healing and an evolution of consciousness toward greater understanding of the self and the universe; each self grows as he/she relates to the reality of the unity of nature, to the reality or the connected spirit resonating through each and every soul.

Here we are on this great big blue self contained ship. We are breathing the same air; the same air as each other and the same air as Jesus, the Buddha, and Krishna.  Healing, growth, peace, love, wisdom, and authenticity will be ours as we express our true nature as interconnected beings. Can you feel it now, without becoming too attached? Can you stop and create a vision of how the world can be at peace, right here, right now? Are you willing to try?

And it doesn’t matter if you understand what I wrote, nor that many, many others before me have recognized our unitary nature. I have seen it in the face of the dying and the newborn alike, the suffering and the joyful, the chaotic and the peaceful. I am far from there and yet I am right there all of the time. I am already there, if I awaken to it, and you are already there too, if you awaken to it. Breathing in the peace. Aum Shanti Shanti Aum.