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This room may appear

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to be holding 600 people,

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but there's actually so many more,

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because in each one of us

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there is a multitude of personalities.

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I have two primary personalities

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that have been in conflict and conversation within me

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since I was a little girl.

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I call them "the mystic"

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and "the warrior."

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I was born into a family

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of politically active,

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intellectual atheists.

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There was this equation in my family that went something like this:

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if you are intelligent,

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you therefore are not spiritual.

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I was the freak of the family.

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I was this weird little kid

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who wanted to have deep talks

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about the worlds that might exist

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beyond the ones that we perceive with our senses.

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I wanted to know

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if what we human beings see

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and hear and think

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is a full and accurate picture

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of reality.

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So, looking for answers,

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I went to Catholic mass.

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I tagged along with my neighbors.

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I read Sartre and Socrates.

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And then a wonderful thing happened

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when I was in high school:

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Gurus from the East

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started washing up on the shores of America.

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And I said to myself,

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"I wanna get me one of them."

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And ever since,

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I've been walking the mystic path,

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trying to peer beyond

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what Albert Einstein called

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"the optical delusion

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of everyday consciousness."

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So what did he mean by this? I'll show you.

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Take a breath right now

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of this clear air in this room.

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Now, see this strange,

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underwater,

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coral reef-looking thing?

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It's actually a person's trachea,

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and those colored globs

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are microbes

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that are actually swimming around in this room

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right now, all around us.

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If we're blind to this simple biology,

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imagine what we're missing

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at the smallest subatomic level right now

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and at the grandest cosmic levels.

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My years as a mystic

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have made me question

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almost all my assumptions.

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They've made me a proud I-don't-know-it-all.

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Now when the mystic part of me

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jabbers on and on like this,

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the warrior rolls her eyes.

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She's concerned

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about what's happening in this world right now.

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She's worried.

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She says, "Excuse me, I'm pissed off,

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and I know a few things,

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and we better get busy about them right now."

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I've spent my life as a warrior,

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working for women's issues,

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working on political campaigns,

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being an activist for the environment.

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And it can be sort of crazy-making,

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housing both the mystic and the warrior

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in one body.

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I've always been attracted

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to those rare people

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who pull that off,

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who devote their lives to humanity

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with the grit of the warrior

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and the grace of the mystic --

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people like Martin Luther King, Jr.,

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who wrote, "I can never be

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what I ought to be

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until you are

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what you ought to be.

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This," he wrote, "is the interrelated structure

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of reality."

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Then Mother Teresa, another mystic warrior,

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who said, "The problem with the world

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is that we draw the circle of our family

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too small."

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And Nelson Mandela,

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who lives by the African concept

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of "ubuntu,"

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which means "I need you

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in order to be me,

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and you need me in order to be you."

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Now we all love to trot out

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these three mystic warriors

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as if they were born

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with the saint gene.

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But we all actually have

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the same capacity that they do,

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and we need to do

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their work now.

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I'm deeply disturbed

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by the ways in which all of our cultures

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are demonizing "the Other"

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by the voice we're giving

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to the most divisive among us.

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Listen to these titles

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of some of the bestselling books

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from both sides of the political divide

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here in the U.S.

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"Liberalism Is a Mental Disorder,"

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"Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot,"

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"Pinheads and Patriots,"

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"Arguing With Idiots."

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They're supposedly tongue-in-cheek,

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but they're actually dangerous.

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Now here's a title that may sound familiar,

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but whose author may surprise you:

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"Four-and-a-Half-Years of Struggle

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Against Lies, Stupidity

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and Cowardice."

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Who wrote that?

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That was Adolf Hitler's first title

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for "Mein Kampf" -- "My Struggle" --

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the book that launched the Nazi party.

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The worst eras in human history,

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whether in Cambodia or Germany

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or Rwanda,

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they start like this, with negative other-izing.

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And then they morph

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into violent extremism.

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This is why I'm launching a new initiative.

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And it's to help all of us,

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myself included,

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to counteract the tendency

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to "otherize."

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And I realize we're all busy people,

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so don't worry, you can do this on a lunch break.

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I'm calling my initiative,

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"Take the Other to Lunch."

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If you are

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a Republican,

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you can take a Democrat to lunch,

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or if you're a Democrat,

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think of it

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as taking a Republican to lunch.

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Now if the idea of taking any of these people to lunch

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makes you lose your appetite,

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I suggest you start more local,

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because there is no shortage of the Other

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right in your own neighborhood.

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Maybe that person

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who worships at the mosque,

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or the church or the synagogue, down the street.

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Or someone from the other side

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of the abortion conflict.

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Or maybe your brother-in-law

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who doesn't believe in global warming.

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Anyone whose lifestyle may frighten you,

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or whose point of view

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makes smoke come out of your ears.

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A couple of weeks ago,

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I took a Conservative Tea Party woman to lunch.

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Now on paper, she passed my smoking ears test.

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She's an activist from the Right,

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and I'm an activist from the Left.

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And we used some guidelines

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to keep our conversation elevated,

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and you can use them too,

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because I know you're all going

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to take an Other to lunch.

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So first of all, decide on a goal:

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to get to know one person

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from a group you may have negatively stereotyped.

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And then, before you get together,

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agree on some ground rules.

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My Tea Party lunchmate and I

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came up with these:

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don't persuade, defend

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or interrupt.

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Be curious;

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be conversational; be real.

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And listen.

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From there, we dove in.

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And we used these questions:

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Share some of your life experiences with me.

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What issues

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deeply concern you?

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And what have you always wanted to ask

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someone from the other side?

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My lunch partner and I

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came away with some really important insights,

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and I'm going to share just one with you.

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I think it has relevance

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to any problem

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between people anywhere.

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I asked her why her side

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makes such outrageous allegations

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and lies about my side.

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"What?" she wanted to know.

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"Like we're a bunch

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of elitist,

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morally-corrupt terrorist-lovers."

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Well, she was shocked.

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She thought my side

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beat up on her side way more often,

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that we called them brainless,

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gun-toting racists,

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and we both marveled

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at the labels that fit

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none of the people

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we actually know.

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And since we had established some trust,

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we believed in each other's sincerity.

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We agreed we'd speak up in our own communities

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when we witnessed

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the kind of "otherizing" talk

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that can wound

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and fester into paranoia

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and then be used by those on the fringes

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to incite.

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By the end of our lunch,

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we acknowledged each other's openness.

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Neither of us had tried to change the other.

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But we also hadn't pretended

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that our differences were just going to melt away

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after a lunch.

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Instead, we had taken

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first steps together,

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past our knee-jerk reactions,

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to the ubuntu place,

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which is the only place

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where solutions

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to our most intractable-seeming problems

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will be found.

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Who should you invite to lunch?

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Next time you catch yourself

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in the act of otherizing,

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that will be your clue.

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And what might happen at your lunch?

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Will the heavens open

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and "We Are the World" play over the restaurant sound system?

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Probably not.

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Because ubuntu work is slow,

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and it's difficult.

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It's two people

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dropping the pretense

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of being know-it-alls.

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It's two people,

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two warriors,

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dropping their weapons

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and reaching toward each other.

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Here's how the great Persian poet Rumi put it:

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"Out beyond ideas

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of wrong-doing and right-doing,

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there is a field.

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I'll meet you there."

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(Applause)