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The Occupy movement continues to spread around the world despite beatings, arrests, evictions, and the loss of so much personal property, frequently by people who have little personal property. The energy in general, as far as I can see, is not defiant in a superior way or angry in a personal way. As Martin Luther King, Jr., said in his famous I’ve-Been-to-the-Mountain-Top speech the night before he died, There are some kinds of fire that water can’t put out. He was on fire and so was the civil rights movement in the United States with courage, clarity, and commitment unto death. Now another fire is burning. Its intent is not to consume Wall Street, but to occupy it, to make it our own, to become one with it in order to change it for the better. There is no other way to change something or someone for the better except to occupy it first. The only person you can occupy is yourself. That is why the only person who can change you for the better is you. Without your decision to change and your commitment to change, you will not change.
Religions cannot change you. If you are angry, you will become an angry Muslim or Hindu. If you are righteous, you will become a righteous Christian or Jew. No dynamic other than your own ability to distinguish within yourself between love and fear and choose love can change you, moment by moment, decision by decision. In other words, the only things standing between you and the compassionate, wise, and creative person you want to be are matters of choice. Your choice. No one can occupy your generosity except you. Who can occupy your patience when impatience roars through you? Who except you can choose not to act with judgment when all of your thoughts are judgmental? Your life is yours to live, no matter how you choose to live it. When you do not think about how you intend to live it, it lives you. When you occupy it, step into it consciously, you live it.
At its best the Occupy movement expresses this, draws from it, and creates with it. It is a movement of self-responsibility uniting countless self-responsible participants an impossibility for the mind to grasp but not for the heart. Commitment and creativity cannot be captured and handcuffed. Inspiration cannot be jailed. The heart cannot be contained. Who can occupy your heart except you? What will happen when you do?