John Trudell Quotes
John Trudell was an author, poet, actor, activist, artist, and a Native American of the Santee Dakota people. His words reflect many of the principles of yoga philosophy (particularly Vidya—seeing clearly) and they have been inspiring my thinking all this week.
I thought I would share these John Trudell quotes with you here on the eve of Indigenous People's day.
“So I’m not really a poet or a writer or an actor or an activist; I’m me, and these are things that I do.”
"As human beings it is time to take responsibility for the power of our Intelligence and use the power of our intelligence to think coherently. This isn't about whether we can or we can't. This is about whether we will or we won't."
“No matter what they ever do to us, we must always act for the love of our people and the earth. We must not react out of hatred against those who have no sense.”
“The average human being in America is going through some sort of hard times - physical, emotional, psychological. Everybody's carrying a bit of bone days in them.”
"Historically speaking, we went from being Indians to pagans to savages to hostiles to militants to activists to Native Americans. Its five hundred years later and they still cant see us. We are still invisible...We’re not Indians and we’re not Native Americans. We’re older than both concepts. We’re the people, we’re the human beings."
"The thing is, it has to do with heart - we have to understand what hearts are for before we can get back to heaven or paradise or the power in our minds."
