INSIGNIFICANT/IMPORTANT

Many years ago, there was an initiative on the California ballot against nuclear weapons. No one thought it would have any effect, but it would put the state of California on record as being against the bomb. I hadn't paid much attention to the effort so I was surprised when one night I began thinking about the issue. What could be more important than trying to rid the world of weapons that could destroy the world? And with that question, I realized I should do something to get the initiative passed.
    I've never liked working with committees or groups. It drives me crazy when everyone talks at once or can't stay on the subject, not listening but wanting to be heard. Those kinds of groups rarely run a tight ship and I'm a tight ship person. This may mean that I'm controlling and want things to go as I say they should go. Well, there's more than enough evidence to make me confess that "may" isn't quite appropriate. 
     Nonetheless, I thought I should join the campaign. When I asked, what could be important, I felt a kind of moral evaluation taking place in my consciousness. If I really felt that few things took precedence over banning the bombs, how could I live with myself if I did nothing? Did I want to be passive and oblivious? As soon as I thought about it, I realized I'd be moving forward with the underlying sense that I had disappointed myself, chosen to be passive and oblivious, retreated into the familiar shadows which confirmed the worst judgments I made on myself. If I wanted to move into the future without this particular piece of baggage (there was always more inside to deal with), if I wanted to add to, or at least not take away from my very shaky self-esteem, it was clear what I should do. So, even though I knew my efforts wouldn't have any real effect, I found a group and gave some nights to stuffing envelopes and pasting address labels on them. I can't remember now how many nights I did that but I think I must have intuitively known how many were enough to satisfy that "I should do something." 
     I'm fascinated by that "should." We seem to be born with a moral sense. We know, if only unconsciously, what we think we should do, and if the gulf between should and what we actually do is too great, we know it. Those of us who aren't sociopaths may feel guilt which we can end by taking responsibility. We may spend needed energy on efforts of rationalization. We may simply know the particular feeling of letting ourselves down. We may just feel bad.
     If you want to know more about our moral imperatives, our ethics, you may as well start with Plato and Aristotle because there hasn't been a philosophy or religion or spiritual tradition that doesn't have ideas about right and wrong. It's one of the universal questions we ask ourselves. How do we decide what is right or wrong? How do we justify the choices we make? If you want to know more, vast, vast libraries will be happy to provide fodder for pondering for years to come.
     I did some work for the ban the bomb initiative even though I knew my actions, and the actions of many others, would have little effect. Gandhi said, "What you do may be insignificant but it is very important that you do it." Live up to your higher nature. Act free of expectations; do not pin your actions on the end result. We have no control over how the world receives our efforts. So do what enlarges you here and now and the rest will take care of itself.
     

KRISHNA AND ARJUNA

I came across some lines from the Bhagaved Gita, the Hindu book that Gandhi loved and read throughout his life. The god Krishna appears to Arjuna, a warrior who on the eve of battle suddenly becomes reluctant to go to war. The enemy army is a clan in which Arjuna has many relatives - how can he bring himself to kill them? On the other hand, if he doesn't fight he is leaving his own army without a leader and they will killed by the enemy clan. Krishna urges Arjuna to fight but Arjuna says that will bring bad karma to his soul. Krishna says there is a way to avoid this karma. "It is not possible not to act. But it is possible to act without creating karma. One does this by performing all action without hatred or desire. Be intent on action, not the fruits of action....Action imprisons the world unless it is done as a sacrifice. Free from attachment, perform action as a sacrifice."
     This is undoubtedly one of the sections non-violent Gandhi loved, in this book that is ostensibly about going to war. Krishna is saying that you must detach from anger and hatred and not focus on whether your actions succeed or fail. Think only of the importance of acting.  "Action imprisons the world"...action that is all about success and failure, and your own needs and expectations, action that comes out of ego, can only lead to pain and suffering. Let go of attachment. Become selfless in the sense that your actions aren't attached to your ego - they're focused on a higher power and performed for a greater good. "Perform action as a sacrifice."
     Selflessness and self-sacrifice - they are among the ideals we value the most. They're universal and at the heart of Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism and Islam. They're as highly valued in the secular world. We admire the person who rushes into a burning building to save a child or the person who performs an act of kindness without desire for thanks or acknowledgement. We admire actions that are detached from self-interest. The first section of Viktor Frankl's book, Man's Search For Meaning, is a memoir of his time in a concentration camp. He says, "The best of us did not come back." The ones who, even in that inhuman world, managed to care for others, or shared what little food they had, those who sacrificed their own survival - they are the best of us.
     In the camps, survival often depended on a person's ability to remain intact, grounded in a deep sense of self and one's humanity, which was the very thing the Nazis wanted to exterminate. This gets to another wonderful paradox: only those with a strong, secure sense of self can act selflessly and be ready to sacrifice. When you are deep in ego, when your sense of security depends on the outside world, you are too bound up in self to think of another; desires and demands, needs and expectations block out the light of compassion for the world and the desire to connect with something or someone beyond yourself.
     Finally, Krishna tells Arjuna to focus all his actions on him. In this, he is the universal god who says in many traditions and languages, "Give all your doubts, pain and suffering to me. Focus on me and you will expand yourself." 

GANDHI AND SIGNIFICANCE

I have a tee-shirt stuffed away on a closet shelf. Someone gave it to me years ago, it's never fit and I've never worn it.  But I can't throw it away because on the front is a drawing of Gandhi and a quote: What you do may be insignificant but it is very important that you do it.
     So simple, so direct.  I have very little control over the outcome of my actions.  What I do may have very little effect. But it's very important that I act in whatever way I can - to protest injustice, to maintain integrity, to have the courage to face my personal demons and defects. 
     Here is the freeing thought: the real importance of my life isn't in what the world tells me I've achieved but in my working to achieve it.  My sense of worth, of fulfillment, comes from what I do in any given day to deepen my connection to the world and the energy inside me, to practice kindness and compassion, to work toward goals I believe in and do the work I want to do. I don't know where it all will lead in the future but if I do my best on this day, I know the satisfaction I will feel when I close my eyes tonight.