| Yogis & Election 2004 Dear Editor, To the author of "YOGIS: The Swing Vote in 2004," Robert Rabbin, (February 2004), I welcome his appeal to the many people who practice yoga and meditation to participate in the political process and to express the values of their practice through working for peace and justice, for dignity and freedom, for wisdom and compassion. I also welcome his call to create a new world that is based on the values of peace, kindness, generosity, openness, tolerance, patience, respect and reverence for life. I urge him to reach deeper in your discernment and ask himself if the solution he is recommending, the election of a centrist candidate from the Democratic Party to the presidency, truly expresses the manifestation of those values. He may wish to look closer at the actions of past and current centrist Democratic candidates who have supported violence. He may find, though the support may be of a lesser degree than that of the current president he abhors, that their actions are still supportive of a status quo that is causing continued suffering to the earth and its inhabitants. I urge him to reach deeper into the tradition of wisdom he practices and create a political expression that has as its guiding principles the values he most admires. I appreciate his sense of urgency, that "we must act quickly," but remember that patience is one of those values. He may wish to cultivate these values through a political party that already exists, the Green Party, that is attempting to manifest such a new world through the democratic political process. The values he admires are more closely incorporated into the platform of this party than in the Democratic Party he currently supports. Maybe the world would be better served if he appealed to his 20 million yogi brothers and sisters to support such a political party. Richard Parnell, Minneapolis, Minn. [Editor's Note: Your voice is heard here at The EDGE. We welcome your letters in response to what you read in The EDGE, on our website at www.edgenews.com or your experience in life. Send letters only by e-mail to editor@edgenews.com] |
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March 2004 |
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