One of my personal mentors, Richard Rohr, OFM, once said something that had a truly powerful impact on my life and work.
He pointed out that “We do not think ourselves into new ways of living; we live ourselves into new ways of thinking…”
Far too often, I think we have been conditioned into believing we have to have everything perfect… We need to “think it through;” we have to “plan it all out;” and we often, with well-meaning intention, find ourselves caught up in thinking about what we feel others should be doing as well.
However, here is what I have come to know… not because I read it in a poorly-written, plagiarized religious text, written by more than 70 primitive-minded people, whose understanding of the world (natural, spiritual, physical and scientific) was grossly lacking… not because I was initiated into one sect or another in esoteric or spiritual practices… not even because I invested eight years becoming a scholar and doctor of theological anthropology…
But instead, because of my lived experience. And for me, a personal experience of gnosis will always be of greater value that a religious dogma, a pop-culture trend, or the latest new age or religious teaching from any tradition.
What I have come to understand is that it is our way of moving through the world that brings us the kind of transcendence, mastery and compassion of the Great Teachers.
When we encounter the sibling who “can’t seem to get their shit together,” when we have to deal with that person who is always late… when we spot the need for virtue-signaling in someone who ought to know better… it’s how we choose to move through that experience that creates a lasting “conversion” in our way of life.
I personally don’t care if you are a Christian or a Jew, a Muslim or Hindu, a practitioner of Wicca or esotericism, Ifá or secular humanism. What I care about isn’t even how you treat others.
What matters to me… probably more than anything else… is how I will mindfully choose to engage with you. It’s not your responsibility to impress me. It’s my responsibility to get my own shit together… to show up on time… to learn what I need to learn in order to be of effective and meaningful service.
And I know that is the only way the Alchemy of a New Life… the Science of Spiritual Living… comes to be.
When I focus more on how I can be of service to you and to the world around us, I demonstrate my faith in you to become inspired to do the same.
That’s how we transform the world. That’s how we heal.
And that will piss off the fundamentalists. It will piss off the new agers. It will piss off those whose superstitions and dogma distract them from doing the meaningful work.
And that is OK, because transformation is uncomfortable at first.