We really do have the ability to create our reality: the reality that is here in front of us as well as the opportunity to imagine a new one. The caveat is that this doesn’t just happen within our meditation practice, by repeating mantra (even if it’s a good, juicy, magical, spell-casting, powerful one), through pasting images on a vision board or even by trading lists and ideas and more with an accountability buddy. It doesn’t happen by complaining, or wishing it were so.

We create our reality through our actions. We create the reality we would like to have in the future by playing around with our present.

This begs the question: what are we doing now? More than chanting, meditating or getting on the mat? It’s not that these activities aren’t important. They are, they’re more than that, they’re vital to being on the path, they rejuvenate and revitalize the body, mind and spirit. They allow those of us in the choir to keep singing. And of course, the peace that we do create within ourselves is the only peace any of us can ever really create.

But more than the ripple effect of this peace, what are we doing with it? There are forces within us and without us that are a far cry from peace. There have been shifting movements in this world that have created more pollution, more heartache, more modern-day slavery, more inequalities, more abuses of rights of all kinds. And how are we supporting or rising up against these? We have the opportunity to make a statement about the reality we want to create every time we shop, every time we spend money, every time we make a decision about what to watch and every time we decide how to vote.

We have the opportunity to transform the peace we cultivate within ourselves into positive action with inroads toward greater justice, love and well-being for all. This is our responsibility as those who have been given this gift of Yoga, of this birth, of these teachings, of the opportunities we have, of everything that was handed to us by our human family.

I was reminded of the urgency of this recently in discussions with friends and colleagues as we’re approaching election day on November 2. We have the great privilege of voting in this country, a privilege hard-won by groups of us who were not automatically given that opportunity. We can create our reality, when we participate with love in our hearts and hands.