We are less than a month away from the first anniversary of birth of the Occupy Movement. As I reflect upon the events of the past year, two things stand out.

First, the corporate state will use every available means to defend the wealth and power of the oligarchy that rules this country; it exists to prevent structural change that would create a more just and peaceful society. Second, we are becoming an unstoppable force.

We have seen with our own eyes that the corporate state relies on violence and lies to impose its will on society. So we must ask ourselves a crucial question: what resources do we have in our struggle? If the weapons of the powerful are violence and lies, the weapons of the weak necessarily must be their counterparts. Nonviolence and truth expose the destructive nature of the corporate state while nurturing the growth of a mass movement for justice and peace.

To defeat the corporate state – and end those practices that lead to so much suffering and destruction – we must engage in a political-spiritual practice that is rooted in the truth of the sacred wholeness of being. There is no division between spirituality and activism in this struggle. Our awareness of the sacredness that emerges in every moment and through every living being is a call to responsibility for nurturing and protecting that which gives us life and sustains us. Nonviolence naturally grows out of this truth because it is an expression of the sacred wholeness of being.

It will be impossible for the corporate state to defeat us. How can any person or institution defeat being itself? As long as our struggle is rooted in truth and nonviolence – as expressions of the sacred wholeness of being – we will overcome every attempt by the corporate state to defeat us. Our movement will not only carry us toward liberation in the future, but it will also be an experience of liberation in the present. With these resources, we will become an unstoppable force.