Editors Note: Tikkun and the Network of Spiritual Progressives never endorses candidates or political parties. But it does welcome articles from our readers who may have strong feelings about candidates or parties, including those candidates or parties that hold views or support policies very different from those we support.
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In her song“What I Need,”Karen Taylor-Good sings,“You don’t always get what you want, you get what you need.”
This is a lesson that the Republican Party is having to learn right now and they don’t like it one little bit. Let me explain.
The leaders of the GOP clearly don’t want Donald Trump to be their party’s nominee for President. They don’t want him representing the Party in any way at all. They are fervently praying for him to self-destruct or just fade away before he destroys the Party!
But just like the song says, he is giving them exactly what they need: someone who is able to reflect back to them the state of the consciousness of the GOP and all that is rotten within it, not to mention that of others who, like Fox News, cloak themselves in its mantle.
If you are familiar with the psychological theory of projection, you can probably see what is going on here. The principle states that rather than face what is unacceptable within ourselves, we find someone on whom to project it. That way we can continue to deny it in ourselves while making them wrong for it.In the book,A Course in Miracles, projection is elevated to a profound spiritual truth which states that our salvation depends on us taking back (forgiving) the projection and releasing the self-judgment that gave rise to our need to project it out in the first place.
Once we apply this to our own lives, we realize that those who look like our enemies are playing the role of ‘healing angels’, enabling us to heal our self-hatred by being a mirror for what we have denied, repressed and projected onto them.
That’s the basis of Radical Forgiveness. By forgiving them, we heal ourselves.
However, in order to get our attention, the reflection is usually exaggerated and oftentimes outrageously acted out, oftentimes at some considerable cost and embarrassment to the one being the mirror.
Applying all this to the Trump phenomena, it is quite clear to me the GOP has created Donald Trump to do exactly that and to play the role of its own collective healing angel.
He is the perfect mirror for the Party in so many ways, and I love him for it. I am referring to his self-righteousness; his demagoguery; his vindictive demonetization of those who don’t agree with him politically; his sense of his own exceptionalism; his thinly disguised racialism; his obvious and twisted sophistry that could never stand up to rational or logical scrutiny; his bombastic egotistical behavior; his focus on problems not ;solutions, his greed and focus on money as the only thing worth fighting for; his fear-mongering; his hate speech; his manipulation of the media, and so on – all of these can be said to characterize the worst of the Republican Party.
I have to say too, that there’s a lot more besides these that Trump may or may not exemplify but which nevertheless reveal the toxic ideology of the GOP. A prime example is its refusal to support measures to save the planet and all its life forms from the effects of global warming.
This is nothing short of committing genocide of future generations. They are, it seems, willing to sacrifice their own grandchildren in the interest of maintaining their own jobs and the privileges that come with them, keeping their cozy relationships with corporate entities that have a vested interest in the status quo and therefore make generous donations to their re-election funds in order to ensure their compliance, and so on.
(I dare say one could say similar things about the other party too, but we are focusing here at the role that Trump is playing for the Republicans and trying to make sense of that. As of now I don’t see anyone playing the role of a healing angel for the Democrats, but there’s no doubt that the Democratic Party has its own shadow to look at and heal. They’ll get their chance!)
By the way, another thing I always look for in order to support the idea that some divine purpose is being served by whatever is occurring is if it seems really odd or doesn’t compute. With Trump, it seems weird to me that someone who is smart enough to achieve the level of success in business and especially in high-end commercial real estate development that he has, is capable of being such a buffoon in the political arena.
You figure it out. To me, it makes no sense and from that, I extrapolate that his Higher Self is having him play that particular role for the GOP.
That said, it is very clear that the Republican Party right now is in a state of existential panic. They are looking at the distinct possibility that Trump could totally destroy the Republican Party, probably forever. (Not that they draw much comfort from the prospect of Cruz becoming the nominee either, but it’s Trump who is at the forefront of their minds right now. He is the biggest threat to their survival.)
I for one would be delighted if the Republican Party was totally and completely obliterated. It has become far too toxic and if left to its own devices will take the country further down a path devoid of any commitment to social cohesion or caring of any kind except that which supports them and their friends making more money from it. It’s all about the money and the morality of the market for them.
What excites me about the prospect of the possible imminent demise of the Republican Party is the idea that it would open up space for a completely new political party to arise based on the kind of spiritual values on which this country was originally based.
The Founding Fathers would turn in their grave to see how those values have been perverted, watered down, corrupted and made into a creed that has within it only that which benefits a tiny elite section of society.
What a lousy vision for a country that was once seen as the beacon of equality and freedom for all.
Of course, that kind of replacement party can only arise if people like you and me who have a conscience based on spiritual principles take responsibility for speaking up for it and creating it. I am sick and tired of people saying spiritual people shouldn’t be political.
I know I will get comments accusing me of not being spiritual because I am speaking out against hypocrisy and hubris, but tell that to Gandhi or Martin Luther King. Some of the most spiritual people who have ever lived have been those who were the most human and therefore, by virtue of their moral and ethical leadership, unabashedly political.
Without we speak up against evil, and leave it to others with very different agendas, there is always the possibility that we could end up with something a lot worse than what we have now, even though it is clear that if we just stay with the status quo, we are heading in that direction anyway.
In the current fear-based environment that is gathering momentum in the wake of the ISIS threat, the imposition of martial law is not as unlikely as we might imagine. Fascist dictatorships happen very quickly, too, and always when the people are most afraid and feeling threatened by outside forces. This is another way in which Trump could be showing us the future. That’s why we have to step up and manifest the future we really want.
I have long argued that some sort of major breakdown of existing structures has to occur before any breakthrough into a new and higher level of consciousness can happen. It’s the shift we have all been waiting for and expecting since 2012, taking us from a three-dimensional model of reality based on fear, greed, violence and war, which is what we have now and which the GOP exemplifies for most of us at this time, to the 5th dimension of reality based on Love, oneness, fairness, respect, tolerance, humility and harmony.
If Donald Trump is helping to precipitate the breakdown by destroying the Republican Party, with the Democratic Party likely to be in cross-hairs soon thereafter, along with all the other corrupt institutions that want us to stay in the third dimension, then so be it. All power to him, I say.
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Colin Tipping is described by his organization as ” the creator of what is now recognized as the most powerful leading-edge technology for personal and spiritual growth today – Radical Forgiveness.” You can learn more about his approach by going to that website at www.radicalforgiveness.com. For those of us in the spiritual world, forgiveness is one of the most important spiritual practices. We at the Network of Spiritual Progressives have urged people to follow a daily practice of forgiveness which you can learn by going to http://www.tikkun.org/nextgen/the-forgiveness-practice-for-your-daily-spiritual-health
This article should appear in all the public communications. It is the most accurate description of what’s happening “on the ground” today. I do not believe that anyone could have described this entire situation better than this!
Also, as a student of ACIM for 25 years I feel Colin Tipping has done The Course proud in his interpretation of the teaching. Indeed, “Forgiveness is the key to happiness.”
Thank you so much.