Radicals

Radicals are the root of all progress

Have you ever done something radical and felt really good about it?

In a world of convention, being unconventional takes courage.

All our lives we are taught compliance.

We learn to obey, we are careful not to rock the boat, and we lose our natural appetite for questioning – that childish insistence to know why.

We are schooled in the ways of group-think, discouraged from challenging the status quo.

And those who dare to question the ingrained assumptions, to challenge the established order, to reject popular opinion, are labelled radicals, outcasts, troublemakers, fringe lunatics.

Yet what does it mean to be radical?

It means to get to the root of things, to tap a deeper source, to go below the surface of shallow consensus.

Radicals are feared because they threaten those in power who rely on the unquestioning acquiescence of the masses.

Radicals are persecuted because they are the harbingers of change in a society that clings to stability.

Yet radicals are the driving force behind human evolution.

All the icons that history has judged to be great were radicals in their time.

The Chinese philosopher, Lao Tsu, was radical when he proposed the way of flow in an era of rigid military imperialism.

Gautama the Buddha was radical when he rejected his noble birth and founded the path of simple living.

Moses was radical when he led the Israelites to freedom from slavery.

Jesus was radical when he challenged the encrusted traditions of his own Jewish upbringing.

Other great reformers throughout the ages were similarly regarded as heretics by their peers:

Newton for replacing Catholic cosmology with scientific theories, and Einstein for dismantling Newton’s clockwork universe;

Da Vinci for imagining how people might fly, and the Wright brothers for turning his prophecy into reality;

Darwin for confronting creationists with the evidence of evolution, and Sheldrake for suggesting that the laws of nature are more like habits of morphic resonance;

Gandhi for taking on the colonial might of Britain, and Mandela for fighting the scourge of apartheid.

We greatly admire these giants of human civilisation now, so what made them heretics in their day?

The etymological root of the word heretic means “able to choose”.

Perhaps this gives us a clue as to why they where reviled then and are lauded now.

Heretics are messengers of freedom.

And freedom is an anathema to theocrats, bureaucrats and plutocrats alike.

People who think for themselves are more likely to question the scripted beliefs of religious dogma; they are less likely to blindly follow the dictates of authority; and they are more difficult to control and manipulate with money.

Radicals are able to endure the ridicule of society because they have the power of conviction.

Their ideas are rooted firmly in values, making their stand virtually unshakeable.

But radicals never exist in isolation.

If they stand out above a crowd, it is only because they are raised on the shoulders of a dedicated band of committed supporters.

Radicals are always part of a wider groundswell of change, riding on the bow of a wave of reform.

Radicals are not agitators for the sake of contrariety.

They shout in the deserts of the mainstream because they have a vision of a better way, a more honest way, a way which improves the lot of humankind.

Radicals are the voice of the oppressed who cannot speak, and of the poor to whom no one listens.

Radicals are the hands of the innovators whose minds are tied to contracts, and entrepreneurs whose souls are bought by commerce.

We are all radicals just waiting for our moment of destiny, straining for our calling to a higher purpose, wishing for the courage to do the right thing.

The root of our actions, and indeed the route to action, lies within.

As we reach deep down into the soil of our being, we tap into our radical core of inspiration.

So why not do something radical yourself today – for a change?

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