“When rich speculators prosper while farmers lose their land, when government officials spend money on weapons instead of cures, when the upper-class is extravagant and irresponsible while the poor have nowhere to turn, all this is robbery and chaos.” -Tao Te Ching.

How can I judge any of my brothers and sisters when we are all abused and enslaved within a system of violence? None of us were asked whether we consent to the financial system, the taxes, the laws, the police, the prisons, the security checks, the threats, the mandatory schooling that teaches all the wrong lessons, the rules and controls that have become so pervasive that most of us have been driven to the dark state of fear.

We are born free and perfect. Then a legal name and number are forced upon us. Then gradually, a system designed to indoctrinate and enslave us is imposed upon us by threat. We never agreed with any of it. We must swear to oaths we did not write. Decisions are forced upon us that we did not make. Never were we given a real choice.

This is violence, injustice, slavery. Those of us who have found some degree of peace and sanity have done so against all odds. Most have been trained as thieves, we attack, we torture, we retreat to the temporary comfort of substances – yet still how can we judge any of our brothers and sisters?

We were all born into this unnecessarily cruel and violent system. We are all doing our best to cope, to survive, to find a bit of love and happiness nonetheless. Yet, understandably, most of us are lost.

Now the insanity and confusion is escalating, but it has already been present for a very long time. May this illegitimate system of lies, oppression and violence dissolve under the weight of its own wrongfulness.

May we finally respect each other as sacred souls who are free to love, free to express ourselves, free to create and serve, free to live without these constant threats. Until then, may we not lose sight of the sacred truth within.