Become the change you want to see

A friend quotes Gandhi as saying “become the change you want to see.”

In this connection, I remember a line from a Dion Fortune novel (The Sea Priestess), in which the heroine, a woman working magic, says that in order to put a new pattern into the mind of the human race, it is necessary to put it into its unconscious mind, not its conscious mind, and that is done by living it. It is necessary not to say it or write it or believe it, but – to live it.

Now, for all I know, Gandhi may have meant merely, “things won’t get done by pious wishes, but by action.” Regardless if this is all he meant, however (and I have no way to know one way or the other) it strikes me that “become the change you want to see” may be seen as more or less the same as saying that to put it into the unconscious mind of man, one must live a new pattern, so as to add a new possibility to the human library of archetypes.

Regardless, it is more productive than complaining. Become the change you want to see. Live “as if” your life could be lived in the way your inner self says it ought to be lived. Add another book, or anyway another page, to the human library of patterns.

One thought on “Become the change you want to see

  1. I totally agree. We can say, or believe something should be this way or that, but it will never really take root until we begin to “live it.”

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