Image source: peaceproject.com/postcards/solidarity-postcard
The notion of privilege exists because most people do not live in the spiritual dimension of life. We live in a culture that is based on a matrix of separation.
I am me. You are you. We are intrinsically separate beings. That is the story of our culture. A problem for you is not a problem for me. What affects you does not affect me, so I don't have to think about it. That is the essence of privilege within our culture of separation.
Who we are taught to care about in our culture is reduced to this very small circle - our blood ties first, then maybe our ethnic or racial ties, then maybe our religious ties, then nationalism cuts us off from the rest of the world. Layers upon layers of separation, and we are taught to love or not love based on these layers. That is the matrix of separation - it is what constitutes our built, imagined reality, and that is where most people live.
But in the spiritual dimension, it is true that we are all separate beings, and that is the foreground, but in the background, we are aware of the simultaneous reality that we are all one. That we are all one family. That the whole world is based on a web of inter-relationships. That when you suffer, I suffer. That when a problem affects you, it affects me too.
The privilege of ignoring a problem because it doesn't affect you directly cannot exist when true love is there - when the spiritual awareness of our relationship is there.
When our family suffers, we suffer, and from this love we are compelled to take action. Like a Bodhisattva, we are not simply content with our own inner peace and our own happiness. So long as there is suffering in the world, we vow to lesson it. Because until we're all free, none of us are free. That is the story of the spiritual dimension.
We are all related.
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