Chapter six

1. Transform your anger/fear/despair to compassion/love and purpose.
   This is a challenge for your social change movement. Take your emotions
   anger/outrage of social injustice and create the change . 
   Shift from fighting evil to working for love.
   The long-term results are very different, even if the activities appear
   identical. Action follows Being. You can not create a positive
   future by filling your mind with anger and despair.
   2. You must have Non-attachment to outcome. This might be difficult to put into practice at first, but do not attach yourself
   to the results of your work, Hold a clear intention, and let go of the outcome. Recognize that a larger wisdom is operating.
   victory comes from the doing, not the results. Remain flexible in the face of changes. Planning is helpful , but plans will be inaffective
   3. Integrity will be your protection. If your work has integrity, this will protect you from negative energy and circumstances.
   You can often avoid negative energy by allowing it to pass through you, with no negative effect on you. This is a conscious practice.

   5. Do not demonize your adversaries. It makes them more defensive and less receptive to your views. People respond to arrogance
   with their own arrogance, creating rigid polarization. Be a perpetual learner, and
   constantly challenge your own views.
   6. You are unique. Find and fulfill your true calling. It is better to tread your own
   path, however humbly, than that of another, however successfully.
   7. Love your enemy. Or at least, have compassion for them. This is a vital challenge
   for our times. This does not mean indulging falsehood or corruption. It means moving
   from us/them thinking to we consciousness, from separation to cooperation, recognizing
   that we human beings are ultimately far more alike than we are different.
   This is challenging in situations with people whose views are radically opposed to
   yours. Be hard on the issues, soft on the people.
   8. Your work is for the world, not for you. In doing service work, you are working for
   others. The full harvest of your work may not take place in your lifetime, yet your
   efforts now are making possible a better life for future generations. Let your fulfillment
   come in gratitude for being called to do this work, and from doing it with as much
   compassion, authenticity, fortitude, and forgiveness as you can muster.
   9. Selfless service is a myth. In serving others, we serve our true selves. It is in giving that we receive.
   We are sustained by those we serve, just as we are blessed when we forgive others. As Gandhi says,
   the practice of satyagraha (clinging to truth) confers a matchless and universal power upon those who
   practice it. Service work is enlightened self-interest, because it cultivates an expanded sense of
   self that includes all others.
  10. Do not insulate yourself from the pain of the world. Shielding yourself from heartbreak prevents transformation.
  Let your heart break open, and learn to move in the world with a broken heart. As Gibran says,
  Your pain is the medicine by which the physician within heals thyself. When we open ourselves
  to the pain of the world, we become the medicine that heals the world. This is what Gandhi
  understood so deeply in his principles of ahimsa and satyagraha. A broken heart becomes an open heart,
  and genuine transformation begins.
  11. What you attend to, you become. Your essence is pliable, and ultimately you become that which you most deeply focus your attention upon.
  You reap what you sow, so choose your actions carefully. If you constantly engage in battles, you become embattled yourself.
  If you constantly give love, you become love itself.
  12. Rely on faith, and let go of having to figure it all out.
  There are larger 'divine' forces at work that we can trust completely without knowing their precise workings or agendas.
  Faith means trusting the unknown, and offering yourself as a vehicle for the intrinsic benevolence of the cosmos.
  The first step to wisdom is silence. The second is listening. If you genuinely ask inwardly and listen for guidance,
  and then follow it carefully—you are working in accord with these larger forces, and you become the instrument for their music.
  13. Love creates the form. Not the other way around. The heart crosses the abyss that
  the mind creates, and operates at depths unknown to the mind. Don't get trapped by
  pessimism concerning human nature that is not balanced by an optimism concerning
  divine nature, or you will overlook the cure of grace. (Martin Luther King)
  Let your heart's love infuse your work and you cannot fail, though your dreams may
  manifest in ways different from what you imagine.