E pluribus unum, right?
Happy Day-After-Your-Birthday, United States of America. How’s the hangover?
Did you see the crowd at the Freedom 250 Salute to America on the National Mall? It was packed to the brim!
It was bigger than the crowd at Obama’s first inauguration, bigger than the Chicago Cubs World Series Victory Rally in 2016, even bigger than Maha Kumbha Mela!
I hope everyone there was on the lookout for the “resurgence of the communist menace,” a greater threat to the country than World War II or 9/11!
It was a fitting celebration. Not so much for the country, but for a President who repeatedly insists he inherited a “dead country” that the rest of the world was “laughing at.”
Who’s laughing now (all the way to the bank)?
In the last few days, we’ve heard from the man who has “the best words” and the smallest hands about the re-opening of the Strait of Hormuz, the official renaming of the “Gulf of America,” the eradication of the Department of Education, and the elimination of DEI in every part of the federal government
Every word of it was fake news.
Thomas Jefferson, the author of our now 250-year old Declaration of Independence, would not be impressed by the current impresario of the Oval Office.
Most historians agree that Trump’s contempt for democratic institutions, consolidation of executive power, and indifference to the rule of law are diametrically opposed to Jefferson’s core political philosophy .
But Jefferson did have at least one thing in common with Trump: trouble with the truth.
This may sound odd given that declaring a self-evident truth is what Jefferson is most famous for:
“We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
But it’s true: Jefferson didn’t really mean “all men;” he meant “some men.”
He most certainly did not mean “Black men.” And he definitely meant “only men.” Jefferson was not a feminist by any measure.
Martin Luther King Jr. famously described the Declaration of Independence as a “promissory note” that guaranteed all Americans—regardless of race—the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and portrayed this promise as the nation’s sacred obligation to support true equality and justice for everyone.
Dr. King’s interpretation of the Declaration is more expansive than Jefferson’s original intention. However, from a spiritual perspective, it makes much more sense.
From a material perspective, let’s face it: some people are Lionel Messi, other people are Ali Dia.
Some people are faster than others; some are stronger than others, some are more attractive, more artistic, better at making money, better at math, better at cooking or flower arranging and so on.
Contests and comparisons large and small clearly demonstrate that material inequality is a self-evident truth.
True equality must therefore be based on a metaphysical conception of personhood rather than being based on physical attributes or social constructs.
For “unalienable rights” to make philosophical sense, the bestowal of those rights, along with the inability of any human agency to withdraw or withhold them, must be based on a metaphysical conception of equality.
In yoga, this comes to us in the form of a declaration of spiritual equality: ahaṁ brahmāsmi — “I am eternal spiritual substance, not this temporary material body.”
In other words, we are all made of the same spiritual stuff; qualitatively one with one another and quantitatively unique individuals.
From the standpoint of yoga, a spiritual truth provides the logical basis for the pursuit of social justice because justice requires equality and equality only makes sense on a spiritual level.
What’s more, yoga’s concept of spiritual personhood breaks down the barriers that divide us by race, gender, religion, and culture:
“O Arjuna, a perfect yogī who sees the true equality of all beings, sees the happiness or distress of all beings as if it were their own.” ~ Bhagavad Gita 6.32
And here’s the truly wonderful thing about spiritual personhood: it doesn’t invalidate material identity; it creates space to celebrate unity in diversity.
E pluribus unum, right?
The United States has a ways to go before it makes good on Dr. King’s “promissory note” version of the Declaration of Independence.
But, with a little help from a revolutionary army of spiritual warriors, it won’t take another 250 years to get there.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Wishing you all good fortune,
– Hari-k