A Symbol of One Humanity in a Global Age

                                                                                      by Nancy Seifer and Martin Vieweg

[Please see note at the end of this article.]

The wisdom teachings tell us that every form on the material plane is a symbol.  Every bird, every flower, every human being has unique qualities that symbolize something about the consciousness within that form.  The same is true of events.  Events reflect the consciousness of the forces that create them—individuals, groups, or larger social forces.  They are often filled with symbols whose meaning can be discerned by the soul’s capacity to peer behind the form and “read the book of life.” 

The chapter in “the book” now being written about American politics is fraught with symbolism.  Outwardly, the most striking aspect of this chapter is the growing acceptance of diversity in presidential politics.  Only a few years ago it would have been hard to fathom a woman, an African-American, a Mormon or an Hispanic-American becoming serious contenders for the presidency.  It appears that the forces of globalization have impacted American politics, further reducing barriers that once kept us rigidly divided by race, ethnicity, religion and gender.  As the 2st century unfolds, the outer form of a human being seems to matter increasingly less.

And yet, we still exist in a great diversity of outer forms, each of whose qualities reflects the person's consciousness—to differing degrees.  For example, being born in a male or a female body would result in profoundly different life experiences, yet within every individual male and female there are differing degrees of feminine and masculine energies evident in both physical and personality traits.  The same is true of people from diverse backgrounds.  Some strongly exhibit genetic traits passed on by particular ethnic and racial groups, and others do not.  Likewise, some identify strongly with the culture and history of the group into which they were born, while others do not.

There are also individuals whose consciousness appears to transcend the outer form; it is of a frequency that makes the persona virtually disappear.  The qualities of the soul cause the objective traits of the persona to fade from view.  This seems to be the case with Barack Obama.  White people who hear Obama speak often comment that they don’t see his race.  They don’t necessarily use the word “soul” to describe this quality, but millions of his supporters are responding to the attributes of an awakened soul—a sense of unity, inclusiveness, and universality.

Obama, described as “a mysterious phenomenon” by observers in the media, seems to defy categorization.  Instead he stands as a visible symbol of unity between divided races and continents.  Calling himself a most “improbable” candidate for the presidency of the United States and leader of the free world, he jests about his self-image as a skinny kid with big ears and a funny name.  Yet by merging diverse cultures, classes, and races within himself he has become—symbolically and factually—a living bridge between the disparate branches of the human family.

What makes Obama so unique in American politics is both the blend of races that he embodies outwardly and the consciousness within that blended form.  At a time when group conflict of varying kinds threatens the future of life as we know it on our planet, he has stated that his driving urge is to bridge the divides that have kept humanity engaged in continuous battles.  The urge toward unity is an expression of the awakened soul, realizing its oneness with all souls, and feeling impelled to heal outer divisions.  At the same time, the magnetism of Barack Obama is a visible sign of the soul’s emergence from behind the mask of the persona.
 
In Obama’s autobiography, we learn of the intense inner struggle that formed him.  His impulse to heal the racial divide in America (and in the world) grew out of his struggle to unify the diverse elements within himself.  In Dreams from My Father, he reveals that his early life was shaped by a search for personal identity.  With a Caucasian mother from Kansas and an African father from Kenya, he fit into none of the categories of American society.  Raised by white grandparents, he was rejected by white Americans.  Though he didn’t share the history of most black Americans, a history forged in the crucible of slavery, he chose to identify himself as an African-American.

But the light of Obama’s soul bespeaks a consciousness that has come to transcend outer identities.  For all the uniqueness of his personal identity struggle, his story is symbolic of the story of every human soul searching to discover its true essence and to free itself from personality limitations.  By throwing off labels imposed by the world and breaking through the mask of the persona, the soul emerges from battle victorious.  Inwardly free of barriers, the liberated soul—the purified consciousness within the form of a human being—radiates the magnetic quality of inclusive love. 

In the realm of politics, the quality of magnetism is often called “charisma,” a word frequently attached to Barack Obama.  There are other kinds of magnetism, such as “animal magnetism,” which some politicians exhibit.  But the Greek root of the word “charisma” actually means divine gift or divine grace.  Genuine charisma—the powerfully attractive quality seen rarely in political life—results from the love radiating from the divine soul and touching the souls of others. 

Rumi, the Sufi poet and mystic, famously wrote long ago: “The body is merely a garment.  Go seek the wearer, not the cloak.”  In the case of Obama, millions of people have been attracted to the wearer of the cloak—the soul of an evolved being radiating through the outer form.  Opponents of Obama have tried to focus attention on “the cloak” in an effort to diminsih his appeal.  They hope to defeat him by reducing him to a category—a member of one group of Americans that still arouses fear in another group.  But they have not succeeded.

Instead, the light of Obama’s soul is reaching around the world.  He has not only touched the souls of Americans of all races, religions, classes, and political parties, but also of people around the globe who are following this election with unprecedented zeal.  Kenyans claim him as their own, as do Irish people who discovered that a branch of his mother’s family tree had roots in Ireland.  His early string of primary victories was celebrated in other parts of the world with as much enthusiasm as in many parts of the United States.

And yet at present, the realm of politics still functions largely on the level of the personality (not the soul), reflecting the separative consciousness of the age now ending.  When the issue of race in America erupted and Obama was forced to address it, he did so squarely.  In his historic speech of March 18, 2008 he stated, “I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents.”  With great candor he explained that he could no more disown his former pastor than he could disown the black community as a whole, or his white grandmother.[1]   A white commentator observed, as if for the first time, “He is a part of all of us.”  The granddaughter of a former President and member of the opposition political party affirmed, “He is all of us.”

It is said that every soul incarnates for a specific purpose and that the more evolved the soul, the greater the scale of purpose and the wider the soul’s influence.  As this long campaign season unfolds, it becomes increasingly clear that one of the purposes of the soul of Barack Obama is to accelerate humanity’s awareness of its shared identity.  Our identity as souls, we are told, will emerge in the coming Aquarian age.  To make this new identity practical, as the foundation of a new civilization, it will have to become translated into new behavior:  self-centeredness will have to give way to concern for the welfare of all, demonstrated in a sharing of resources and a spirit of cooperation. 

Interestingly, the stated goal of Obama’s presidential campaign is to bridge the racial and ethnic divides in America in order to improve the welfare of all.  His message is that if we can learn to see beyond external differences, we will realize that people of different ethnic and racial groups are not the source of each others' problems.  Rather, our common enemy is the unrestrained greed of the few, which causes the suffering of the many.  This enemy, he says, can only be defeated through cooperation among groups that have been divided historically.  With slight variations, his stump speech ends: “Together we can heal the nation and repair the world.”

The mission of healing divides seems to have been imprinted on Obama from birth, not only in his genes, but also in his names.  The names passed on to him from his father, whom he hardly knew, symbolically link him not only to Africa but also to Islam.  In actuality, his father was a nominal Muslim, his mother a nominal Christian, and both were agnostics or atheists as adults.  Still, much has been made of Obama’s middle name, Hussein, the name of his Muslim paternal grandfather (though Obama himself is a Christian).  As if to help him overcome the schisms represented by his heritage, his parents endowed him with a first name symbolic of grace and hope.  Barack, a Swahili derivative of an Arab word, means “blessing."

© 2008  Nancy Seifer and Martin Vieweg

One  Humanity

Home