Article 28. Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized.
Article 29. (1) Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible. (2) In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society. (3) These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.
Article 30. Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.
In fact, I could fill this entire book with the names of great women who understood that, true to its title, normal gets you nowhere. For example, Margaret Sanger, who fought her whole life to bring women reproductive freedom via the birth-control pill, or Rosa Parks, who on a fateful December day in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955 could not take being normal one more second and exploded like a phoenix, saying, to paraphrase: “Go fuck yourself. I’m not riding in the back of the bus anymore!” Or the former slave and antislavery activist Harriet Tubman, a fucking badass who not only saved herself from slavery, but, operating out of a house not far from where I grew up, helped about seventy other slaves escape, always armed with a revolver. Later in her life, when she had brain surgery to repair damage done by an injury from her slave days, she refused anesthesia and instead literally bit a bullet while they cut open her skull. If that’s not a Divine being, I don’t know what is!
These women are the real deal—incarnations and aspects of the Universal Mother who embody a true and ancient femininity that is ruthless and compassionate, fierce and loving, and the necessary counterpart to any masculine force, as well as being absolutely memorable—and we’re not doing a good enough job teaching our daughters, and all of humanity for that matter, about these heroines. I want to hear people under forty talking about Eleanor Roosevelt. I mean, not in one recent speech, press conference, press release, nightclub, or news article have I seen or heard her name uttered! We need to pay these women the homage they deserve by continuing to fight the battles they started. Or at least we can make a shrine to them in our homes. In my new country house, I’m dedicating an entire wall to representations of the Universal Mother from every culture and belief system.
Because I believe a little of each of these extraordinary beings lives inside each of us, in our own souls—and the time has long since come for us to find and activate it.
In fact, I believe this force is demanding to be expressed in our time. I believe I was meant to take from Eleanor, and to pass onto you, a reminder of what it looks like when the feminine expresses itself in full on this earth, in all its compassion and tenacity. Luckily, the Divine Mother’s not choosy; she’ll pick anyone who will work for Her!* I could feel myself being initiated as a student of human rights for Her purposes. And let me tell you something, if you think your boss is bad, you should try working for Her—she is one relentless bitch, she will give you lashings, and by the way she has no HR department.
Part III: Welcome to Universal Motherhood (Almost Everything Comes from a Mother)
It was Saturday evening, and my mind was already blown out. It had started with the Norman Rockwell acid trip with Ava and blossomed into a robust afternoon of human rights education; frankly, by dinnertime I was just happy to be back at my cottage watching TV.
I knew it wasn’t a coincidence that I was scheduled to fly to Toronto the next day to join Amma and her swamis (who are like monks; they’ve set aside worldly pursuits to devote their lives full-time to the service of the Divine). In fact, I knew in every fiber of my being that these experiences would be directly connected. Before even boarding my plane to Toronto, I felt separated out from the world of human beings, like I was lying in the lap of the Divine Mother, helpless but to receive Her teachings. As if to confirm this, after landing in Toronto, I hit the town with a few friends, and everywhere we went, I saw fragments of Amma’s name in street signs and advertisements. AMMA, the letters on a billboard would say, or J’ama, a café sign would read. It got to be so ridiculous that I started taking pictures.
By the time I returned to my hotel room later on, I felt on top of the world. Maybe this would be a proper and relaxing vacation after all. I was happy to be away from work, taking a much-needed break in the presence of one of the world’s greatest living gurus. I proceeded to undress and get into bed, as I would on any night.
Suddenly, I was seized by a feeling that translated in my head into a clear female voice. I knew immediately that it was Her, the Divine Mother, and that she was speaking to me as Amma. She said she wanted to talk about the state of humanity.
You realize that this evolution has been going on for over ten thousand years, She said, offhand and casual, almost as if saying, “Hey, you got a second? Can we have a chat?” People
