I’ve gotten used to a lot of the great things that go with living in my adopted hometown of Washington, D.C.: being able to see 360 degrees of sky from almost anywhere in town, being able to go for a walk in the woods without leaving the city’s limits, great Ethiopian restaurants, fantastic art collections at DC’s museums, many of which offer free admission, . . .
I’ve also gotten used to living in a town that attracts idealistic transplants who come to our nation’s capital hoping to make a positive difference in the world as well as being around DC natives who care deeply about their communities.
One thing I definitely have not gotten used to is taxation without representation.
We have a locally-elected mayor and city council, but the United States Congress holds ultimate constitutional authority over the District of Columbia.
And members of Congress from faraway states — who don’t share our concerns or values — frequently introduce and advance bills to overturn, modify, or restrict locally enacted laws, budgets, and tax policies.
And those members of Congress are adamantly opposed to granting DC statehood.
That makes me mad. I think it would make me mad even if I didn’t live here, just as a matter of principle.
So I’ve been active in Free DC, a movement dedicated to winning the right to self-determination for people who live in the District.
This past week, I participated in a Free DC Freedom Dreaming workshop, an in-person visioning session where community members come together to explore ways that our day-to-day lives might be different if DC had political autonomy.
Part of the workshop involved breaking off into small groups, brainstorming a bit, then re-assembling and having each group present their visions to everyone.
Common themes ran through each group’s vision: thriving local businesses, high-quality public education, affordable housing and medical care, safe neighborhoods, community gardens, . . .
But the really cool part was how the visions were presented: as poetry, as drama, as art, and as music. It was an aesthetic expression of social imagineering.
One thing that struck me was how each presentation reflected a state of higher consciousness about the intrinsic value of every person in the community and encouraged everyone to live in that consciousness right now.
Yoga also invites us to envision a reality that doesn’t exist yet and then begin living in a way that moves us toward that reality.
Bhakti-yoga in particular has a long history of using poetry, drama, art, and music as mediums for envisioning spiritual realities and encouraging us to move toward them.
Rūpa Goswāmī, arguably the foremost philosopher-theologian of 16th century India, was also a poet and dramatist whose work describes an entire civilization built on a foundation of spiritual culture.
His aesthetic vision of what a society centered on divine love looks like includes detailed descriptions of relationships, architecture, ecology, music, food, leadership, celebration, and beauty.
Going back even further, the ancient treatise known as Brahma-saṁhitā not only provides a resplendent description of Krishna, it also invites us into Krishna’s world of wish-fulfilling trees, cows that give limitless quantities of milk, and loving relationships in an eternal abode where every word is a song and every step is a dance.
This is why artistry is so important to both spiritual and social movements: artists don’t just critique the present; they reveal possible futures.
Poems don’t change laws; they change our imaginations.
Imagination changes culture. Culture changes institutions. Institutions change laws.
The wisdom literature of bhakti philosophy doesn’t just expand our conception of reality; it trains our moral imaginations by inviting us to contemplate a more beautiful reality until we begin embodying it ourselves.
In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna doesn’t ask Arjuna to contemplate what kind of society he would ideally like to create; he repeatedly asks Arjuna to contemplate realities that transcend the battlefield because a transformation of consciousness has to take place in order for social transformation to become possible.
When you imagine a higher possibility, a society based on a culture that revolves around beauty and love and the intrinsic value of every person, what would neighborhoods feel like? Schools? Markets? Parks? Music? Festivals? Food? Architecture? Healthcare? Justice? Education? Relationships?
This is what bhakti-yoga invites us to do. And this is what we did at the Free DC Freedom Dreaming workshop the other night.
Which tells me that spiritual movements and social movements can and should march hand-in-hand toward a brighter future by collectively dwelling so deeply on the possibility of a world ordered by love, beauty, service, personhood, and relationship that we gradually begin bringing these qualities into the world.
Or at least whatever part of the world we’re in. I’m in DC. And I don’t feel like I moved here so much as like I was brought here for a reason.
But I’m slow and dull so it could be that I’m only just now waking up to how getting together with my neighbors to collectively imagine what kind of city we want to live in is an important part of my reason for being here.
My heart won’t ever stop jumping for joy every time I watch another replay of OG Anunoby’s game-winning tip in, but after almost 20 years, my gratitude for all that this city has given me is finally evolving into a deeper appreciation and genuine affection for the City of Magnificent Intentions.
Wishing you all good fortune,