“A riot is the language of the unheard”

(Dr. Martin Luther King Jr)

Within the pandemic of coronavirus, a pandemic of hatred is taking an equally toxic toll.

We need a pandemic of healing, a pandemic of change of heart, a pandemic systemic change in our collective consciousness.

Over so many centuries, immigrants came to America from everywhere else in great hope. Others were brought here unwillingly, in tears and in chains.

Today, so many are suffering, and so many are dying. 100,000 Americans have now died of COVID-19. So many others are working to relieve suffering as doctors, nurses, and other care workers. To live in dharma, I can act to diminish my own suffering by trying to relieve the suffering of others, not by compounding them. Scapegoating others for my own suffering is an act of cowardice.

Today, I received this message from a devotee friend, a woman of color, who is also a mother:

“I tell you philosophically I can understand that I’m not this body. However, when I see this ocean of hate and violence, my mind, my heart, my intelligence, my whole being is disturbed. I see the deep sadness in my children’s eyes. There are no words I can use to assure them of their safety. As they leave the house for routine walks, or to just hang out with their friends, I give them a page full of instructions telling them how to shrink their existence so to not make people who are threatened by their black skin uncomfortable. It is appalling. My son says he refuses to accommodate other people’s sickness projected onto him.”

Bhagavad Gita says that whatever a great one does, common people will follow in their footsteps. Can we together try to become truly great?

Can we together try to inspire each other to live in a better way, a different way? Can we try to create a change born out of the pain of this suffering?

Can we speak to incite healing, rather than hate? Can we together breed a climate of seeing the soul existing in every living being of every color, gender and specie?

An infectious honoring of all, a contagious love, a pandemic of healing?