Teachings
Can't be Moved

I want to talk about two different lives today and then a bit about my own. The two lives are very different from each other. You may not imagine that they have much to do with one other at all, but they are quite similar in what they represent. They are the Indian Saint, Mahatma Gandhi, and the Chinese martial artist, Bruce Lee.

Gandhi was born into a life of privilege in India. He had money, food and possessions. He had an excellent education, going to college and then becoming a barrister. Living the life of an Indian aristocrat, Gandhi had pride, vanity and ego.

It was when Gandhi traveled to South Africa that he had his awakening. Gandhi was hired as a lawyer to help the Indians who were being oppressed under strict, white rule. While traveling to one of his destinations, he bought a ticket, as was his custom, in 1st class. But Indians were not permitted to travel 1st class. Gandhi was told to get out of the car. He refused, and at the next stop, he was violently thrown off the train and into the dirt.

Gandhi had been treated like a pig, and he was angry. He was not actually angry on behalf of social justice, on behalf of all the women, men and children who were treated like pigs in South Africa each and every day. He was angry on account of his own personal mistreatment!

But somehow something was born out of that mistreatment. He was awakened to his life’s work out of his own personal suffering. He suddenly recognized the brutality of the system that had been grooming him to enjoy society’s riches as a member of the Indian upper class. And he turned his life over to service.

This was the critical moment of his life, and I want you to notice how it happened. The Divine woke him up out of himself, using that suffering to release him into the Spiritual leader and social activist history remembers. That formula is always the same, whether it is Mother Theresa being awakened to see the plight of the destitute and dying on the streets of Calcutta or Emma Goldman seeing the women enslaved to factories in New York, or any of the other great women and men who have been ignited into service.

Gandhi became determined to see a more just society in South Africa, and when he returned to his homeland of India, to see a better world there. And the tool that he was given to achieve these ends was non-violence. He committed himself to never be moved from non-violence. No matter what was happening, no matter what was done to himself or the people around him, Gandhi could not be moved to violence against another. (There was one slight exception. He was willing to inflict the violence of fasting upon himself, in order to help others see their own violence. )

From the life of Gandhi, I want you to remember two things. First, he did not start out dedicated to serving others. His dedication to help others came out of his own personal suffering. And second, Gandhi’s entire life can be distilled to one thing: non-violence.

This is how it works for us all. We are given one thing. If I was given 5 ideas to carry, or you were given 10, then the world would be too crowded. Each of us is given one thing by the Divine: what will be yours? What is the one Great Idea from which you will not be moved?

Many of us know about the end of Gandhi’s life. He was assassinated by a Hindu who was opposed to the way Gandhi was willing to love and support the Muslims. Gandhi loved his India and all of the people living there, no matter what their religion. The idea that India would be separated into two nations was a terrible thing for him to carry. Gandhi was not able to prevent that separation, and yet his character is woven into the story of the separation of India.

Sometimes, the death of a Saint opens the door of a second salvation. In this case, the story of India and Pakistan has not been finished. There have been hostilities between the nations for more than 60 years, yet one cannot think of Pakistan without thinking of the Mahatma, and his love for all Indians, for his belief in the unification of the motherland, and his commitment to non-violence. The story is not done.

Now I want to talk about a second man, who on the surface would seem to have very little to do with Mahatma Gandhi: the martial artist, Bruce Lee. Bruce Lee is widely believed to have been one of the greatest martial artists to have ever lived. I have been making a study of him for the past two weeks, and I have never seen anyone move like he does.

Bruce Lee was born during a very difficult time in Hong Kong, when there were many gangs. Bruce was a bad boy, always getting into fights. He was small, and his parents were worried about him, so at the age of 13, he was enrolled in the school of a well-known Wing Chun master.

Five years later, he was still getting into fights, so his parents sent him to America to get out of trouble and go to college. It was in America that he began to teach what he knew, and where he founded his first school.

I would say that Bruce’s real life, the life for which he is known, the life where he began to live the great idea that would define him, began at about the age of 22, when he began developing his own style, and ended just ten years later, at his death. Bruce learned to fight and to move in a way that was unique, original and highly integrated. He was completely centered within himself, yet there was no self. His awareness was all around.

At a time when Chinese martial arts practices were regarded as cultural treasures, that could only be shared with Chinese, and certainly never with non-Asians, Bruce was willing to teach anyone who was willing to work hard and honor the art. At a time when Asians were marginalized in Hollywood, given insulting roles that parodied their race, Bruce became determined to become an Asian star who would showcase the nobility of his culture.

And it is in his movies that one sees the message of Bruce Lee. The plot is always similar: he is slow to violence. He is reluctant to fight. But he finds himself in a situation where there are terrible atrocities. Truly bad men commit brutalities—they maim and murder whole families; they drug women and sell them as prostitutes; they terrorize all who are around. Bruce finds out and issues warnings. And then finally, he acts, killing every last one of the bad guys. Where Gandhi was completely committed to achieving social justice through non-violence, Lee was committed to achieving social justice through violence.

Bruce Lee accepted the consequences of his actions. In a few of the later movies, he works for and with the police. In the earlier movies, he acts as a vigilante, and when his work is done, he willingly turns himself over to the authorities. (In one movie, that means being killed by a firing squad. ) Bruce Lee stood for natural law, sacred law and social law. He stood for ethical action. He stood for protecting the weak against the abuses of the strong. And he could not be moved.

From Chinese people who know the inside of Bruce’s life, it is clear that the martial artist did not die an accidental death at the age of 32. He was murdered by the Chinese mafia. The life that he depicted in the movies was his life. He could not be moved, so they killed him, but the message that he lived continues to this day.

There are his books; there is the style of martial arts he founded; there are the teachers he trained; there are the movies; there is the tradition carried on by the wife and daughter who survived him. All of this continues.

You have heard me say that when we give ourselves to the Divine, He supports us. He gives us what is needed to do the job, even when the job seems impossible. I am attaching a link to a video that shows Bruce Lee playing pingpong with Nunchucks that I want you to see. Where does ability like that come from? How does a person who only began studying martial arts at 13 become what Bruce Lee became by 32? It comes from the Divine.

You have also heard me say that your Order, when you give yourself over to it, cannot be stopped by time. Mother Theresa gave herself to the poor and infirm for decades. Her heart gave out when she was in her 80’s. Bruce Lee bloomed the flower that he bloomed in just 10 years. Someone like Saint Therese of Liseux bloomed what she bloomed in just a few years, in the last years of her consumption, when she wrote The Story of a Soul.

Each of us has an order. You get one thought, one idea. And when you give yourself to it, you will bloom. It is not about time.

Now, I want to tell you a little bit about me, about my life. As you know, when I was a young woman, I made the decision to turn myself over to love. That was the idea that I would give myself to, and no matter what happened, I would not be moved from it. I gave myself austerities. I would be sure to serve everyone else food and only eat what was left. I would get terrible headaches from clients who would come to me with perfumes and would dedicate myself to being even more loving and patient. Throughout the period when my physical body was going crazy with the kundalini, I practiced these austerities.

When we pick the thing from which we cannot be moved, it strengthens us. It strengthens us spiritually, emotionally, mentally and physically. When we pick that thing, we are putting our will behind what God has already given, and then we become more of that thing, Gandhi, nonviolence; Bruce Lee, physical skill and ethics in order to help the weak; and I in my love for others and in what was most difficult of all, self-love.

Where is it that you cannot be moved?