Singhashri Gazmuri
What are the biggest changes you want to see in the world?
For me the answer to this question is deceptively simple. I want to witness a sea-change in how people relate to the earth and one another- no longer viewing themselves as separate but rather as deeply interconnected with our world and each other. This kind of change would have profound implications for the collective. We could honor one another, work together and play together creating a world where all could live truly liberated lives. I call this ideal “colliberation”.
How do you act to do your part to build the world you want to see?
I meditate every day on my own and with others to ground in awareness and love, turning towards these qualities and learning to trust them as antidotes to what the dominant culture has taught us. We have been programmed to live in delusion, to believe the lies of separation and supremacy that keep us bound up in cycles of suffering. We have been programmed to distrust that which is perceived as “other” and to build up walls to protect us from the unknown. Meditation is the place where I learn how to familiarize myself with the unknown and potentiality- a space where anything and everything becomes possible. From here, I practice radical acts of love. I’m not waiting until the day when I feel I can think, speak and act perfectly. Instead, every day I look for opportunities to be the person I believe myself to be. That doesn’t mean I don’t make mistakes and sometimes hurt myself or others. What it means is when I can’t show up in the way I’d like to, I own those behaviours, apologise and work hard to do better. Accountability is key.
What do you believe we’re collectively learning in 2020?
2020 is telling us that our relationships to the earth and each other are deeply out of balance. We are called to heal these relationships, to wake up to the fact that our destinies are bound up with one another’s. No one is free until we are all free and there is no freedom on a dead planet.
What advice do you have for folks who want to step into advocacy?
Come back to how it feels in your body when you witness an injustice. Come back to that guttural sense of wrongness and the urge to put your energy towards righting that wrong. Trust that the more often you rest in your humanity the more often you’ll know how to act. It will arise spontaneously from that deep knowing. In a way, the action you take doesn’t matter as much as how true it is to you. It may be writing or protesting or baking cupcakes for the resistance. Whatever your expression, your offering, trust it.
Contact Info: Email: singhashri@radicalembrace.org; LinkedIn URL: https://www.linkedin.com/in/singhashri-gazmuri-b15598b8/