The Only Thing Stronger Than Hate Is Love
A Brief Note Before You Read
This article touches on cultural, political, and economic subjects that are very present in our current state of the union. It is not written to create a fight. It is not written to divide.
It is written because yoga is a way of life.
Yoga was not created as an escape from society. It was created as a guide for how human beings live harmoniously — within community and within ourselves. It teaches us how to regulate our inner world and how to participate ethically in the outer one.
These ethics apply to everyone, whether or not they “do yoga.”
The foundations of yoga are the Yamas and Niyamas — ethical disciplines that shape how we relate to others and how we conduct ourselves in the world. They include:
Ahimsa (non-harming)
Satya (truthfulness)
Asteya (non-stealing)
Aparigraha (non-grasping)
Santosha (contentment)
These principles are not confined to a yoga mat. They apply to how we speak, how we vote, how we consume, how we respond to fear, and how we treat those who live differently than we do.
Importantly, they are not tools for policing others. They are disciplines for ourselves. The question is not “how they should behave,” but “how we behave.”
Ahimsa asks us to examine harm — not only physical harm, but harm in rhetoric and reaction.
Satya asks us to seek truth before amplifying outrage.
Asteya asks us not to steal dignity, belonging, or voice from others.
Aparigraha asks us to release fear-based grasping — of identity, power, or narrative.
Santosha asks us to root in enoughness rather than scarcity.
To separate yoga from culture, governance, or economics is to misunderstand it.
This is not a rally.
It is a reflection.
And discussing these subjects — calmly, thoughtfully, without aggression — is part of practicing yoga honestly.
Opening Reflection
Before you continue reading, I invite you to pause.
Notice what you felt when you first heard about the halftime show. Curiosity? Pride? Discomfort? Anger? Indifference?
Did those feelings arise from your own reflection? Or did they arrive already shaped by someone else’s commentary?
Yoga asks us to begin there.
Not with argument.
With awareness.
As you read, simply observe your responses. You do not need to change them. You do not need to defend them. Just notice them.
That noticing — that willingness to examine your own reaction — is already practice.
More than 100 million people in the United States — and an estimated 300 to 350 million worldwide — watched this year’s Super Bowl. That is not just entertainment. That is shared psyche.
When something reaches that many nervous systems at once, it becomes more than a show. It becomes a mirror.
What unfolded on that stage was not accidental.
When Green Day opened with Holiday, Boulevard of Broken Dreams, and American Idiot, it was not nostalgia. Those songs were written decades ago about propaganda, fear-driven nationalism, xenophobia, and media manipulation. They were chosen because their lyrics are still current — and that is the point.
If you have questions about the message, listen to the full songs. Read the lyrics slowly. Sit with them. Notice your body as you do. Do you tense? Do you agree? Do you resist?
When protest songs from twenty years ago still describe the present moment, it is not because the band is clinging to relevance. It is because we are still cycling through familiar patterns. Yoga calls this samskara — conditioned loops that replay until awareness interrupts them.
History has samskaras too.
Awareness is what breaks repetition.
Then came Bad Bunny.
He sang in Spanish on the largest stage in America. He transformed a California football field into sugarcane, quietly invoking Puerto Rico’s labor history and current culture. He said, “God bless America,” and then began naming the nations of the Americas — Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, the United States, Canada — and finally, “Mi patria, Puerto Rico. Seguimos aquí.”
“My homeland, Puerto Rico. We are still here.”
Flags from across the Americas filled the field. Not one flag — a hemisphere.
I knew this show would matter. What surprised me was how it unfolded.
That is how art works.
It widens you where you did not realize you were still tight.
The United States exists within a continent known as America — North America, South America, Central America, the Caribbean. The word “America” has always been larger than one border. And if we are speaking specifically about the United States, we must speak honestly about what that includes.
The United States is not only fifty states.
It includes territories — Puerto Rico, Guam, U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, and Northern Mariana Islands.
Millions of Americans live in these places. They serve in the military. They contribute culturally and economically. They are subject to federal law. Yet residents of these territories cannot vote for President while residing there, and their delegates in Congress do not have final voting power.
If we speak about unity, we must define who “we” includes.
Notice what happens internally when you read that. Expansion? Discomfort? Curiosity? Defensiveness?
That noticing matters.
This country was formed through convergence. Indigenous nations were here first. Enslaved Africans were forced here. Immigrants arrived in waves — some seeking opportunity, some seeking safety, some with no choice at all. We are not a single-thread story. We are braided.
What was shown on that field did not expand America.
It reflected it.
Part of the conversation around Puerto Rico often centers on cost of living and scarcity. Puerto Rico has been a U.S. territory since 1898 and imports a large percentage of its food. Shipping regulations under the Merchant Marine Act of 1920 influence freight costs for non-contiguous territories. Many Americans have simply never been taught this.
When grocery prices rise anywhere, the nervous system contracts. Scarcity thinking activates: “There isn’t enough.” “Someone is taking from us.”
Pause there.
Is that reaction rooted in fact — or in fear?
Globally, we produce enough food to feed humanity. Roughly one-third of food is lost or wasted. The issue is not pure absence; it is structure. As explored decades ago in Diet for a Small Planet, distribution and power matter.
Scarcity narratives often move sideways — neighbor against neighbor — while power concentrates upward.
Yoga teaches discernment before reaction.
Not suppression.
Discernment.
Xenophobia Is Not New
Fear of the “other” is not a modern invention.
In the 19th century, Irish immigrants were depicted in newspapers as violent and inferior. Italian immigrants were described as criminal and unassimilable. Chinese laborers were targeted by exclusion laws. Japanese Americans were incarcerated during World War II. Jewish refugees fleeing Europe were turned away. Latin American migrants have repeatedly been framed as threats to stability.
Each time, the rhetoric carried a similar message:
“They are changing us.”
“They are taking from us.”
“They do not belong.”
And each time, history eventually reveals that what was feared was not destruction — but transformation.
Transformation is uncomfortable.
It always has been.
Xenophobia often emerges during periods of economic anxiety or cultural transition. When resources feel uncertain, the nervous system searches for a target. Scarcity thinking personalizes structural issues. It is easier to blame a neighbor than to interrogate policy, power, or distribution.
Yoga calls this projection.
We see outside what we have not regulated inside.
Ahimsa asks us to examine whether our fear is causing harm.
Satya asks us to study history honestly.
Aparigraha asks us to release the illusion that identity must be protected by exclusion.
If we understand that this cycle has repeated before — with the Irish, the Italians, the Chinese, the Japanese, the Jewish diaspora, and countless others — then perhaps awareness can interrupt the pattern before it calcifies again.
History has samskaras.
The practice is to recognize them before they replay.
The Boy on the Field — What Really Happened
Early social media speculation suggested that the child Bad Bunny handed his Grammy to was a young boy recently detained with his father by immigration officials. That interpretation stirred powerful emotion.
But that was not the case.
The child onstage was Lincoln Fox Ramadan, a young actor cast to symbolize a younger version of Bad Bunny and represent possibility and dreams.
Accuracy matters.
And yet the speed with which people connected that moment to immigration detention reveals something important: these issues live in our collective nervous system.
The body keeps score — individually and collectively.
Art does not create that imprint.
It reveals it.
Notice your reaction here, too. Relief? Disappointment? Embarrassment? Something else?
Awareness is still the practice.
FCC Allegations, Projection, and Selective Outrage
After the show aired, allegations surfaced claiming the performance violated FCC decency standards.
It did not.
The performance was reviewed. No fines were issued. Explicit lyrics from Bad Bunny’s broader catalog were not performed during the broadcast.
Much of the outrage came from individuals who had not watched the show but instead read lyrics from unrelated songs and assumed they were aired live.
That distinction matters.
When we respond to what we assume happened rather than what actually occurred, we are reacting from conditioning.
Some critics contrasted Bad Bunny with Kid Rock, describing one as indecent and the other as more patriotic. Yet public memory includes that during a prior Super Bowl appearance, Kid Rock wore an American flag poncho cut from a flag and later tossed it into the crowd — a moment that drew criticism from veterans’ groups who felt it was disrespectful.
If reverence and decency are the concern, standards must be consistent.
What appeared to unsettle some viewers this year was not a rule violation, but language and expression.
Spanish.
Identity.
Policy.
Expansion.
Green Day opened the show critiquing propaganda and fear politics. It was striking how quickly those themes became visible in real time.
Yoga asks us to notice this without escalating it.
Am I reacting to facts — or to fear?
Selective outrage often disguises itself as morality. But sometimes it is simply discomfort.
And discomfort is not the same thing as danger.
Yoga is not an exercise class. The mat is one limb. Yoga is a way of living. It is how we regulate ourselves before responding. It is how we examine inherited narratives. It is how we widen instead of contract when something unfamiliar appears.
Yoga is not meant to be comfortable at its core. It stretches perception. It expands the human mind into the full human condition. As Alan Watts observed, you cannot understand your own civilization without experiencing another.
If we have only ever lived inside one cultural fishbowl, we mistake our view for the whole ocean.
Yoga invites us to step outside the bowl — not to lose ourselves, but to understand ourselves more fully.
When the message appeared — “The only thing more powerful than hate is love” — it did not feel sentimental.
Fear contracts the nervous system.
Love widens it.
Fear isolates.
Love integrates.
Scarcity divides.
Awareness integrates.
The body keeps score.
And no matter what you thought of the halftime show — whether you loved it, disliked it, or felt indifferent — what remains is your response.
Did it arise from within you?
Is it aligned with your values?
Or were you handed a reaction and told it was your own?
And even if your feelings are strong and sincere, is it ever appropriate to enter someone else’s space and attack them for feeling differently?
Is that ahimsa?
Is that integrity?
The performance is over.
The practice continues.
Love — steady, regulated, courageous love — is stronger than hate.
Closing Reflection
No matter what you thought of the Super Bowl — whether you loved it, disliked it, or felt nothing at all — what matters now is self-reflection.
Pause again.
Did your reaction come from within — aligned with your values and informed by direct engagement?
Or were you told how to feel?
And even if your feelings are strong and clear, is it ever appropriate to tell others how they must feel? To enter their spaces and attack them for experiencing something differently?
Is that ahimsa?
Is that satya?
Is that integrity?
Yoga does not ask us to agree.
It asks us to regulate ourselves.
It asks us to examine our conditioning.
It asks us to respond rather than react.
The halftime show is over.
What remains is you.
Your discernment.
Your values.
Your conduct.
And that — far more than any performance — is the real practice.
Citations & Further Learning
Super Bowl Viewership
Nielsen Ratings (official broadcast measurement authority)
https://www.nielsen.com/us/en/NFL Media Releases & Broadcast Data
https://www.nfl.com/news/
Green Day – Songs Referenced
American Idiot (2004) – Official Lyrics
https://www.greenday.com/lyrics/american-idiotHoliday (2004)
https://www.greenday.com/lyrics/holidayBoulevard of Broken Dreams (2004)
https://www.greenday.com/lyrics/boulevard-of-broken-dreams
Bad Bunny Halftime Coverage
NBC Insider – Who Was the Boy Given the Grammy
https://www.nbc.com/nbc-insider/who-is-the-boy-bad-bunny-gave-grammy-halftime-show-super-bowl-lincoln-foxCNN Coverage of 2026 Halftime Performance
https://www.cnn.com/The Atlantic – Cultural Analysis of the Halftime Show
https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/2026/02/bad-bunny-super-bowl-halftime-show/685929/
U.S. Territories & Representation
U.S. Department of the Interior – Office of Insular Affairs
https://www.doi.gov/oiaCongressional Research Service – U.S. Territories Overview
https://crsreports.congress.gov/U.S. Constitution – Territorial Clause (Article IV, Section 3)
https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/article-4/section-3/
Merchant Marine Act of 1920 (Jones Act)
46 U.S.C. § 55102 (Legal Text)
https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-prelim-title46-section55102Congressional Research Service – The Jones Act: Overview
https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R45725U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) – Reports on Puerto Rico & Shipping
https://www.gao.gov/
Food Production & Global Scarcity
UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) – Food Loss & Waste
https://www.fao.org/platform-food-loss-waste/en/FAO – The State of Food and Agriculture
https://www.fao.org/publications/sofa/en/Lappé, Frances Moore. Diet for a Small Planet
https://www.smallplanet.org/diet-for-a-small-planet
Global Wealth Concentration
World Inequality Report
https://wir2022.wid.world/Oxfam – Global Inequality Reports
https://www.oxfam.org/en/researchFederal Reserve – Distributional Financial Accounts
https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/dataviz/dfa/
Nervous System & Trauma
van der Kolk, Bessel. The Body Keeps the Score
https://www.besselvanderkolk.com/resources/the-body-keeps-the-scorePolyvagal Theory – Stephen Porges
https://www.polyvagalinstitute.org/Daniel Siegel – Interpersonal Neurobiology
https://drdansiegel.com/
Yoga Philosophy
The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali – Sanskrit Text & Translation
https://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/yogasutr.htmBhagavad Gita – Full Text (Multiple Translations)
https://www.bhagavad-gita.org/Edwin Bryant – Commentary on the Yoga Sutras
https://www.rutgers.edu/academics/faculty/edwin-bryant
Media Literacy & Propaganda Research
Jason Stanley – How Propaganda Works
https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691173429/how-propaganda-worksLee McIntyre – Post-Truth
https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262535045/post-truth/American Psychological Association – Misinformation Research
https://www.apa.org/topics/journalism-facts/misinformation
Historical Xenophobia in the United States
Daniels, Roger. Guarding the Golden Door: American Immigration Policy and Immigrants Since 1882
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780809070345/guardingthegoldendoorNgai, Mae M. Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America
https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691160825/impossible-subjectsU.S. National Archives – Japanese American Internment
https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/japanese-relocationLibrary of Congress – Chinese Exclusion Act (1882)
https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/immigration/chinese/the-chinese-exclusion-act/Anti-Defamation League – History of Nativism in the U.S.
https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounder/nativism-united-states
***This article has been updated from it’s original version to expand on these topics, to include citations and further reading, as well as to include disclaimers regarding why I am writing about this subject***
