Dmitriy Kozlov

Accelerating The Evolution of Love Through Inspiring & Empowering Influencers

A Humanity That Can Sustain A Deep Understanding Of Love

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Here’s what I believe we’re doing in the world, what my generation is responsible for:

Building A Humanity That Can Sustain A Deep Understanding Of Love

I can go on in essays about how Love Is The Answer, but there’s already plenty written on that, and you either agree or you don’t (some would say, you either Remember, or you don’t).

But just knowing the answer isn’t enough to create a world that Lives the answer.

And I believe that’s just what we’re doing now, creating a world that can live that answer sustainably.

What do I mean by sustainably?

The 70’s got really close to this (referring to America), in that so much of the population had a deep understanding of Love. The culture, the music, the people, the spirit… but it wasn’t sustainable, so it didn’t last. I could even argue that we spent the next two decades take huge steps back from it, largely because it wasn’t sustainable. 

It wasn’t sustainable because while much of the culture understood this, we just didn’t build the economic, political, and technological structures and environments to sustain it. So what you had was Woodstock… Love and Beauty and Rebellion and Drugs and Music, until you ran out of food, shelter, and money… and structure.

So what’s different now?

If you look around, the culture has been waking up to Love. More and more people are awakening and remembering the Power of Love.

But it’s not just in a rebellious, hippy way (nothing against hippies – again, they were pretty damn close to getting it right).

It’s all coming together synergistically… the entrepreneurial revolution, the technological evolution, and the mass cultural awakening.

In the 70’s, Love and Business/Capitalism were on opposite sides of the spectrum. Now, Entrepreneurial Creation is actually one of the Greatest Expressions of Love.

In the 70’s, Love and Technology were on opposite sides of the spectrum (well, except for in the minds of great entrepreneurs and thinkers like Steve Jobs, who recognized the convergence of the two way before the rest of the world). Now, most technological progress improves not only the quality of human life, but also the environment (think Tesla, or more broadly almost anything with a microchip), and people actually strive to create technology that improves the planet, not to mention human freedom and global equal opportunity.

The political landscape, well… I don’t follow enough politics to claim any expertise here, but I do believe we’re seeing the evolution of conscious capitalism, and a political environment supporting that evolution.

As the political, economic, and technological atmospheres converge with the cultural, artistic, and spiritual awakening to Love, we’ll live in a world where people’s lives and careers will experience, express, and embody Love… sustainably.

And a society is just a collection of people and the relationships (political, economic, familial, spiritual, cultural, sexual, emotional, intellectual relationships) between them, so we’ll have a world that will experience, express, and embody Love.

More than any generation before us, this can really last. 

So what does this all mean, and what do you do with it?

I believe it will progress exponentially and happen with or without you. With or without me. But I invite you to participate… better yet, to lead this revolution. To accelerate it. To be on the right side of history. To create meaning in your life, by helping to build a humanity that can sustain a deep understanding of Love.

Having this goal, this commitment, and this belief alone will start to transform your thinking, your decisions, and your actions to those of a solutionary.

Thoughts? Comment below. I would love a discussion about this.

Act or Meditate? – Both!

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Often times in my discussions and debates with people about creating change in the world (or in their personal lives), we run across the topic of inner-work and meditation as action in itself. The concept presented to me is this: with our positive thought patterns, we are co-creating a new and more positive reality for ourselves and for the world; recognizing negative circumstances only perpetuates them, so we should focus our minds on the positive.

While this approach may sound appealing and even virtuous, it is actually somewhat selfish and short-sighted. To stand by and close your eyes to evils will not eliminate them; and to open your awareness and raise others’ awareness will do anything but perpetuate the evils. Recognizing an issue is required to be able to act on that recognition. And while thoughts are important (thoughts are the basis for all actions and decisions), it is the actions and decisions that change the world, not just the thoughts that stimulated them.

I was reading Peace is Every Step by Thich Nhat Hanh this morning and came across a very powerful passage that touches on this very concept:

Mindfullness

Must Be Engaged

“When I was in Vietnam, so many of our villages were being bombed. Along with my monastic brothers and sisters, I had to decide what to do. Should we continue to practice in our monasteries, or should we leave the meditation halls in order to help the people who were suffering under the bombs? After careful reflection, we decided to do both – to go out and help people and to do so in mindfulness. We called it engaged Buddhism. Mindfulness must be engaged. Once there is seeing, there must be acting. Otherwise, what is the use of seeing?

We must be aware of the real problems of the world. Then, with mindfulness, we will know what to do and what not to do to be of help. If we maintain awareness of our breathing and continue to practice smiling, even in difficult situations, many people, animals, and plants will benefit from our way of doing things.”

Neither I nor Thich Nhat Hanh suggest that meditation might not be useful. On the contrary, meditation and mindfulness is necessary to become fully aware of an issue, to better understand the suffering of the issue’s victims; only then can appropriate action be taken. But you cannot meditate away a real problem… not in your personal life, and not in the world around us. We certainly are co-creators of our collective reality, but creation on our end takes more than just meditation and the proper thoughts, it also takes appropriate decision making and actions in the physical world.

“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” – Edmund Burke, Philosopher and Politician, 1729 – 1797

I encourage you to read Peace Is Every step … it is actually free as an ebook on Amazon. Just click on the image on the Amazon page.

Nonviolence: 25 Lessons from the History of a Dangerous Idea

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This post just summarizes the 25 Lessons that are discussed in detail in Mark Kurlansky’s book Nonviolence: 25 Lessons from the History of a Dangerous Idea … these are not my own ideas, but the reading certainly stimulated me to think deeply about the concept of dealing with conflicts nonviolently, and gave me a enlightening new perspective on human history, especially within the scope of war, peace, religion, and politics.

Below are the 25 Lessons … I encourage you to pick up the book if you are at all stimulated by these concepts. Also, I welcome all comments, especially debate and controversy!

The lessons:

  1. There is no proactive word for nonviolence.
  2. Nations that build military forces as deterrents, will eventually use them.
  3. Practitioners of nonviolence are seen as enemies of the state.
  4. Once a state takes over a religion, the religion loses its nonviolent teachings.
  5. A rebel can be defamed and co-opted, by making him a saint after he is dead (e.g. Gandhi)
  6. Somewhere behind every war, there are always a few founding lies.
  7. A propaganda machine promoting hatred always has a war awaiting in the wings.
  8. People who go to war start to resemble their enemy.
  9. A conflict between a violent and a nonviolent force is a moral argument. If the violent side can provoke the nonviolent side into violence, the violent side has won.
  10. The problem lies not in the nature of man, but in the nature of power.
  11. The longer a war lasts, the less popular it becomes.
  12. The state imagines it is impotent without a military because it cannot conceive of power without force.
  13. It is often not the largest, but the best organized and most articulate group that wins.
  14. All debate momentarily ends with an enforced silence once the first shots are fired.
  15. A shooting war is not necessary to overthrow an established power, but is used to consolidate the revolution itself.
  16. Violence does not resolve, it always leads to more violence.
  17. Warfare produces peace activists. A group of veterans is a likely place to find peace activists.
  18. People motivated by fear do not act well.
  19. While it is perfectly feasible to convince a people faced with brutal repression to raise up in a suicidal attack on their oppressor, it is almost impossible to convince them to meet deadly violence with nonviolent resistance.
  20. Wars do not have to be sold to the general public if they can be carried out by an all-voluteer professional military.
  21. Once you start the business of killing, you just get deeper and deeper without limits.
  22. Violence always comes with a supposedly rational explanation, which is only dismissed as irrational if the violence fails.
  23. Violence is a virus that infects and takes over.
  24. The miracle is, that despite all of society’s promotion of warfare, most soldiers find warfare to be a wrenching departure from their own moral values.
  25. The hard work of beginning a movement to end war has already been done.

Again… I look forward to comments, either supporting or refuting these points, and I that some of are inspired to pick up the book, as it might be like nothing you’ve ever read before.

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