Preamble to the
Declaration of Sexual Independence
July 3, 2004 - Washington, D.C., U.S.A.
We live in an historic time.
Humanity today is at a gateway to a glorious era, and also a
crossroads between two opposing ones. Before us is an age of ignorance,
hatred, hostility, and war; ahead is one of wisdom, love, friendship, and
peace. Though this change in the trend of time may not be evident to all
today, those co-creating our new future find the inevitable collapse of
the past to be self-evident. The world cannot continue living in its
current direction; a breaking point has been reached. We must choose:
transform the direction of life, or face a world of destruction and death.
And America, as world leader, has the opportunity - and responsibility -
to lead in that choice. For the strength and wisdom to do so, she must
look in the mirror at the America of today.
We as Americans must look to that
reflection and recall the ideals our nation is born of, where our actions
have led us today, and toward what tomorrow they propel us. We must ask
ourselves, 'Is this the Liberty America conceived?' As America approaches
its birth anniversary, its national Day of Independence, we as Americans
must ask, 'Are we truly free?'
America today has no military rival.
Nor has she political, economic, or even technological and perhaps
cultural rivals. By all logic, America should be a problem-free,
worry-free nation. Yet it is not so. What sign is it that the most
'powerful' nation on earth cannot protect even citizen lives within its
own borders, much less promote their peace and prosperity? Leaders of
America today would have us believe we are 'winning the war on terror'.
Such bluster shows only the leadership vacuum in America today.
War itself is terror, and terror
can never defeat terror - it only begets more terror. For every terrorist
killed in the war on terror, a hundred more are born, more terrible than
the first. Darkness does not defeat darkness; light is needed. We must
meet war with peace. We must find the strength to melt hate and hostility
with understanding, friendship, and love. Terror requires an enemy to
strike. Remove enmity and terror dissolves.
It is a terrifying thought:
befriending terror. But only if we fall victim to the lie that terrorism
is real. Only if we succumb to the false notion that terror is native to
human life, and is here to stay — then is it permanent and real.
Otherwise, if we hold the Truth to be self-evident that all mankind is
created equal in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, we must
acknowledge the more difficult truth that terror is a false reality, a
self-made creation with beginning and end.
What is terror? Terror is response to threat, real or perceived;
a response, not self-inspired action. If we are victims of terror we must acknowledge
our contributing actions that have dragged us into this relationship.
It is a relationship we have helped create; a cycle we have stepped onto.
One of the questions America must ask as we look in the mirror
at our state of freedom is, "Have we really dealt fairly with other
peoples and nations in the world?" Or through decades of political and
economic influence, have we often subtly, and sometimes not, denied them
the very rights we hold so dear. And though many will be quick to say
that is no comparison to terror, the universe has its own way of accounting.
While nature is not judgmental in a moralistic way, as humans have
unfortunately become, it nevertheless has a simple, yet effective means of
discouraging undesirable action and promoting desirable ones. In the
religious Middle East, this is known as 'An eye for an eye, a tooth for a
tooth'. In the Far East, it is called karma. And to atheist scientists in
the West it is known by a law of physics: for every action there is an
equal and opposite reaction. When science looks deeper into this
fundamental law of nature, it will discover that it applies not just in
the physical world, but in the behavioral too. Spit on a man, he spits on
you back. Share goodwill, friendship returns.
In this simple way, the universe grants us free will in a perfect
checks-and-balance system, maintaining eternal equilibrium. So while men
may debate which side has done more, it is safe to assume that
nature, with a four billion year track record of governing to stand
on, likely knows the score. When we pile up oppression brick by brick,
even slowly, eventually a ton is reached - and a tons of bricks is returned.
Until we acknowledge our role in the cycle of terror, we will lack
the wisdom as a nation to step off. And until that day, the victims of
terror will continue to die in vain, lost in the shadow of greater terror
- in the next revolution in the cycle of violence. If not to ourselves,
then to the victims of terror do we owe it to step off this vicious endless cycle,
that we may honor their passing. Only if by their light we see our way off the cycle,
do we honor their passing that it ends such passing.
Then they become defeaters of terror, not victims.
As heroes they sacrifice themselves that others may
live, and light the way out of the cycle of violence. Until that day, we
are all victims, whether of terror itself or fear of it. It is an
unwinnable war. We only win by ending it.
Acknowledging our role in the cycle of terror, however large or small,
is a sign of inner strength. It is a strong nation that truthfully faces
itself in the mirror and takes responsibility for the fruit of its action, good or bad.
By this the nation moves beyond it, and grows stronger. The weak nation denies
responsibility and continues the cycle, dragged down to further weakness.
If peace be our answer to war, how
then to make peace? We are highly skilled and experienced at making war.
Years of training and billions of dollars are spent preparing for and
making war. Yet when it comes to its opposite, we find precious little
invested in 'making' peace. Rather, as in the case of countless failed
cease-fires and treaties, peace is dismissed as a mere cessation or
absence of war, a non-entity, a vacuum - like the leadership that promotes
it - waiting to fill again with more war. Such lulls in the cycle of
terror must not be mistaken for peace, for it is well-known: nature abhors
a vacuum. Indeed that vacuum is in truth full of fear and dread for the
next terror. We require a genuine peace to fill this vacuum.
Where do peace, and its ancillary
understanding, friendship, and love begin? They begin in freedom - true
freedom, the freedom America was envisioned to stand for, not the cursory
political one she has come to represent. We must restore true freedom to
America if we are to be truly terror-free, and promote true freedom in the
world. We must each, as Americans, ignite our inner freedom if we are to
light the way to outer freedom in the world.
True inner freedom derives from fulfilled desire.
When desire is satisfied, we are free, even of desire.
Unsatisfied, we remain unfulfilled, racked with cravings, slaves to
passion, locked in bondage to that same desire. Such inner dissatisfaction
is the breeding ground for violence, the stage for conflict in the heart.
It is the launchpad for terror. We must satisfy all desires of the heart
to be truly free; free and at peace with ourselves, and to be the torch
for peaceful freedom in the world.
But obviously, fulfilling all desires is not possible.
Fortunately however, we can enjoy a level of satisfaction equating with that,
and thus find inner freedom. Like a king or queen who knows they
can have any desire,
we can swell the heart with a satisfaction that breathes inner freedom.
What it needs is but a shift in our relationship with desire.
This relationship is in our minds.
Our current relationship with desire is very judgmental.
Some desires we deem unattainable, others we label petty,
still others we judge ourselves unworthy of, and some we
scourge even as evil and sinful. This creates a constant yearning in the
heart, a battleground between the forces of ‘I want’ and ‘can't have’ that
builds up, flares out, and rages into violence and terror. Until we
transform this relationship, it is a battle that never ends, a cycle of
violence born in our own heart and mind. Mankind has been playing it out
on dirty ground and paying the price in blood for thousands of years.
Desire is the vital energy of life. It is the inspiration behind all action.
When we suppress desire we suppress our passion for living, and the power goes out of life.
We must make peace with desire. We must stop judging it.
We must start appreciating and enjoying the flavor to life it brings.
We must Declare Independence from the mental
constructs, the false judgmental morality that extinguishes the flame of
desire that is life. Then our hearts are ever satisfied - not that we have
everything or even want everything, but that we can have everything
we want. This is the heart that beats in freedom. This is the freedom we
must restore to America if we are to be the beacon of Liberty for the world.
President Abraham Lincoln, one of America's greatest freedom fighters,
did more even than liberate slaves - he planted a seed for foreign policy
in America to end terror today. For over a century it has remained hidden away
in the womb of Mother Earth, silently germinating and taking root,
sprouting its first tentative shoot, now to emerge in the light of day,
when America's need is most. Lincoln said,
"Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?"
America today must slay first the
enemy within, our own false morality - our ‘we're right, they're wrong’
mentality - and make our own peace. We must make the desires of the heart
our friend and end the terror within, if we are to end it without.
At peace with ourselves, our hearts open in understanding.
What is this enemy we fail to understand? What does he want?
What are the desires of his heart that are being denied that
drive him to terror? He desires freedom, sovereignty, cultural integrity
for his people, and a respected place in the family of nations, uncompromised by foreign power.
For America especially, is this so hard to understand?
Were suicide bombers the fashion
of that day, America's colonists would be labeled terrorists. In tamer
times they settled for tea parties in Boston Harbor, yet still later went
to war. Was it a terrorist attack or a Freedom Fight? And how many British
were slain? And now, in biting irony, that arch enemy of the time is today
our closest ally in the war on terror. The enemy becomes the friend to
fight a new enemy; how long will the senseless circle go round? Until we
realize it is the same enemy in new clothes, new tread on the same tire -
and that we are its hub.
America is fond of war memorials.
We glorify battle as somehow protecting America's freedom. Yet if we are
free, why must we face new wars in every generation, with new enemies?
This is not freedom; it is bondage to war. If America truly wants to honor
the valiant men and women who gave their lives in the name of freedom, let
us build a Peace Memorial, dedicated to them, that will end all war.
This memorial shall not be built of mortar and stone.
Let us build a memorial on the foreign policy precept
of Abraham Lincoln. Let his personage be the sculpting of enemies into
friends. And let it endure forever.
Germany and Japan, like Britain, once our bitter enemies, are now allies.
Many others too, enemies slain by the hand of friendship.
And Russia, a mere twenty years ago not just an enemy, but the heart of a so-called 'evil empire',
is now a great friend of America. With friends and enemies changing so fast, why bother fighting
over them? We may be killing tomorrow's friend.
The evil is not real; it is only good waiting to happen.
Such transformed enmities grow naturally in time.
Begin with understanding. Understanding opens the door to acceptance,
which paves the way for co-existence, which in time evolves into trust,
which fertilizes the ground for opportunity, which grows into cooperation
and develops into partnership, which create economic ties that bind,
which in the end cement true friendship.
Let this be the mortar with which we build our future America.
These are the ways we make peace that fills the vacuum of war, not by
hunting down enemies and enraging them more. This is a true Road Map for Peace in the Middle East and on Mother
Earth, not building walls to divide peoples. Let us build this true
Lincoln Memorial, not in the physical city of Washington, but in her
administrative halls and legislative chambers. And let freedom perpetually ring from its open policy.
Many say terror is worse than war.
At least in war we pick and choose battles, and fight face to face with
trained soldiers prepared to die. Terror comes any time, anywhere, to
anyone. Let us then use this latest, most vicious rendition in the
millennia-old cycle of violence to once and for all step off the cycle.
Lest it be lost in the next, more unthinkable turn.
On Independence Day this year, at the site of the World Trade
Towers, we are to lay the cornerstone of a new 'Freedom Tower', 1776 feet
tall, honoring America's freedom. Our choice that day will be to build
alongside it a true freedom tower, that will be the light of
freedom for America, and a beacon of freedom to the world. We cannot
fathom today the world we will create in such freedom.
When America's founders established our country on the principle of
freedom, they did not have answers to meet every need of the time of
society. They could not have conceived how to put a man on the moon, or
fly, or even drive. Miracles of medicine, technology, construction, and
more were a distant future. What our founders did know however, was the
more important truth that hundreds of millions of citizens acting in
freedom over centuries can achieve all these things, and more. What
greatness can we attain, acting together as a global family, if we add an
even deeper, more fundamental level of freedom to declare?
So let us renew our Declaration of Independence.
And to show we are not simply re-hashing old vows, let
us rename and revise it to suit the need of our time, and the trend of our
modern day. In honor of desire, that we seek to accept in peace, let us
name it after something that ignites desire like no other. Let that which
kindles our passion re-kindle our zeal for life, liberty, and the pursuit
of happiness, at peace with ourselves and the world. And let that same,
most potent desire, be known eternally to express the Love Relationship
between the Almighty and His own infinitely creative Desire.
Read the
Declaration of Sexual Independence
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