🔆 The secret to creating futures we want 🌈

My experience preaching and discovering our superpower to find ultimate freedom

Dear ones,

If you have a moment, click on the video above and have a watch. This is a clip from a sermon I delivered at Middle Collegiate Church a few weeks ago (You can watch the full sermon here and my fiancee’s heartful rendition of Coldplay’s “Fix You” here).

Since September, I’ve had the honor to talk about Breaking Bias to thousands of people around the world, which has brought me to some very interesting spaces like TED and SxSW. In these places, I’ve watched and listened to some very wealthy and politically powerful people paint possibilities about our collective future – like colonizing Mars and becoming an interplanetary species; or better yet, colonizing space and taking all of the plastic and trash in our landfills and the oceans into space; or to give every American 12 new robots as friends.

These ideas are no longer a fantasy but something some humans are working to actualize using trillions of dollars of investment, time and creativity. So amidst such narratives, I used this sermon to offer my moral imagination to imagine a different future, a future where we have actualized a beloved community.

In this future, we live in a world where humans have acknowledged, reckoned with, and reconciled with our history of white supremacy, genocides of indigenous cultures, enslavement, misogyny, queerphobia, colonialism, land and labor exploitation, destruction of ecosystems and species extinction, and the endless cycles of wars and cruelty we have perpetrated on one another and the Earth.

In this future, with the stewardship and leadership of our indigenous siblings, all of us together recover and reclaim the indigenous languages and knowledge systems that stewarded our lands before 1492: from Maine to New Zealand, and Alaska to Argentina; and teach these languages and cosmologies as a part of our school curricula from kindergarten onwards.

I want you to imagine a world where corporations, nonprofits, and governments operate not to fatten their own pockets or strengthen their brand, but to facilitate ease, comfort, and joy for the humans and more-than-humans they serve.

A future where our corporations take from the Earth with intention and every product they make is “sustainable, biodegradable, compostable” by design.

Businesses don’t operate from the colonial mindset of competition and survival of the fittest but embodies the spirit of the four Ps: Purpose, Planet, People, and then Profits.

The foods we eat are farm to fork. The supply chains are traceable and all humans engaged in them are paid fair, livable wages. People take vacations without guilt! Women and parents have easy access to healthcare and parental leaves.

A future where we go to technology to support our wellbeing not to escape the treachery of our daily existence.

A future where humans of all spiritual persuasions, including those without one, celebrate the beauty of human imagination to honor the divine in so many unique ways.

A future where white people and people of color, cis and trans people, Israeli and Palestinians, Indians and Pakistanis, Chinese and Tibetans, and all others coexist peacefully with honor, respect, and dignity as Earth citizens.

These are just some visions of a future beloved community. Now if you think I am being Polyannish – great I want you to notice that thought, but not succumb to it.

At this time of great uncertainty and where the extractive systems of modernity continue to cause so much suffering and pain to our individual and collective wellbeing – many of us who care about democracy, justice, fairness, diversity, and compassion are being coerced to succumb our creativity and imagination to their dystopian visions of the future – of colonizing Mars, of colonizing space, of using AI to separate us from one another and assign each one of us 12 robots for friends.

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Using Our Superpower to Imagine Futures We Want

There is a famous saying in behavioral neurosciences: Where our attention goes, energy flows.

Growing up I used to love superheroes like Captain Planet, Spider Man and Superman. I’d ponder, what if I had the power to fly? To be invisible? To read people’s minds?

However, as I’ve grown up I’ve realized that these stories distract us from appreciating the most important power that God has given me and each one of us.

This is the power of attention. Of awareness. As we live in a time where our awareness has become monetized,

the most radical act of resistance is to take our attention back, and place it on what all ancient prophets asked of us: love.

If you’re like me, you’re probably on-board with this story – sure, I can love – but what is the spirit of this love; and how do I practice this love amidst so much greed, hatred, ignorance, and cruelty. This is where I want to remind us of the timeless wisdom from across faith traditions.

Thousands of years before Jesus, on a battlefield, Krishna said to his student Arjuna,

“The spirit of true love is to love without condition, to speak with consideration of its impact, to give without reason, to care without expectation.”

So love is one that is without condition, without attachments, and without expectations.

Prophet Muhammad, who lived 500 years after Jesus, said to his disciples,

"You will not enter Paradise until you believe, and you will not believe until you love one another."

So he said belief is a prerequisite to enter the Kingdom of God – but more important, loving one another is the pre-requisite for belief.

And lastly, the Buddha, another famous Asian who lived about 500 years before Christ, said,

“Hatred never ceases by hatred, but by love alone is it vanquished.”

And when it came to love, he actually taught his disciples tools and techniques to cultivate the four aspects of love. He called these qualities Brahma Viharas or the Divine Abodes, or what Jesus would call “The Kingdom of God.”

What are these qualities? In Sanskrit they are called maitri, karuna, mudita, and upeksha or loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity.

These qualities of the heart mind are the Kingdom of God. We want to be in the promised land that Jesus hinted at. We want to build a beloved community – and to build that community, we must begin within – in our hearts, our minds, our bodies, and our souls.

Of all people, I know of this firsthand. In 2009, I was at the darkest point in my life. I absolutely hated myself to the point that I almost took my own life. For the last 15 years, when I’ve spoken about my journey I’ve often concentrated on the climax of that story – when I jumped off the 18th floor window of my apartment but somehow found myself back in my apartment – but preparing for this sermon made me reflect on the over 5,500 days that I have lived since that fateful evening.

Getting out of bed. Brushing my teeth. Getting on the subway. Walking to meetings. Reading emails. Going out shopping. Being with friends. And the thousands of in-between moments where there has been a war waging inside of me – the war between greed, hatred, anger, cynicism, jealousy on the one side, and love on the other.

This war is waging not only within me, but in each and every one of us.

Just take a moment to reflect on the barrage of violence – the love within you experiences day in and day out.

Memories of being abused, humiliated, or hurt. The constant consumption of media images and stories of cruelty, war and despair. And the everyday experiences of being in difficult relationships with family members, friends, work colleagues, and beyond.

The ancient Indian story of Mahabharata or the Great War that begins with the Gita is a psychological metaphor of this great battle within us – and this is the battlefield that all prophets and wisdom teachers are calling us to fight. We must love one another.

With the power of awareness, can I notice my anger? Can I notice my moral disgust? Can I notice my depression? Can I actually take it out of my being and become aware of its structure, dimensions, and stories?

And as I notice it, in the words of Jesus – can I offer love to it? Can I offer love to my anger? Can I offer love to my depression? I don’t have to love it, but can I offer love to it?

We can’t heal what we can’t feel. And love is the serum that can help us heal.

We are often told in this society to give, give, give. But many times, we ain’t got nothing to give. Our glass ain’t empty, it’s a desolate desert collecting dust and trash from the outside world.

Dear ones, it’s time to clean up. We cannot give to others what we do not have ourselves. Jesus said to love one another, but how are we going to love others if we don’t love ourselves?

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Repairing the Breach to Build Beloved Communities

In these troubled times, we may not get the love we want from others, the validation from others – but we have the power to offer that to ourselves.

Moment by moment. Bit by bit. As we root our individual consciousness in love, we will invite our communities to stay centered in love, for peace, justice, equality, fairness, compassion, and generosity towards new futures of a beloved community.

This is not some wishful thinking, but this was the Jewish prophet, Isiah's prophecy.

He said, people of faith will fix things that are broken, including what’s broken and hurting within us. He promised that:

“Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach” (Isaiah 58:12).

We are meant to be the repairers of the breach. The breach from love, from compassion, from mercy, from joy, from understanding.

The work of love includes the inner work of building a beloved community. And when I feel weak. When I can’t withstand another news story of another village bombed or another innocent immigrant deported or another thousand jobs slashed, I bring my awareness to the prayer that has been my companion for as long as I can remember.

My Lord, may thy love shine forever on the sanctuary of our devotion. And may we be able to awaken thy love in all hearts.

It is my sincere hope that from this day onward, love reigns in your hearts, minds, and lives. I’d like to close with an ancient Hawaiian prayer that tills my own heart-mind in love. The prayer is called “Ho’po’nopono” and this phrase symbolizes some powerful faces of love: compassion, forgiveness, remorse, and gratitude. The words in English are I love you. I am sorry. Please forgive me. I thank you. I love you.

I am going to invite you to place your hands on your heart and close your eyes. Imagine the most beautiful and joyful image of yourself as a child or an adult in the window of your mind. And see if you can offer these words to yourself.

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🔹 Some updates and a request

For the past six months, my team and I have been working tirelessly to update my YouTube page so we can share with you libraries of our existing video content for free. This includes content from my courses, summits, and conversations about Breaking Bias with leading scholars, artists, and advocates. Please subscribe to my channel and watch this content. Over the summer, my team will be adding a lot more content on there!

Thank you so much for reading and for your on-going support.

I’d love to hear how this is landing for you? Leave a comment below or send me a note. I believe in us—in our collective power to imagine and create a future where all beings are free.

With all my love,

Anu

P.S. If you enjoyed what you read, please share it with a friend! :)

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