Materialism & Spirituality

If you have a family like mine, you probably receive emails from parents evangelizing one political/ideological position or another about once or twice a week.  I love hearing from my family, what I love less is the tone and tenure of these emails.  So polarizing, mired in positionality.  Recently though, I behaved less than I would have liked by responding quite sarcastically to one of them. In that email, it was implied that we are moving toward a socialist society given our current President's track record.  In an amusing retort, my Uncle called the email 'bunkum, crap, bullshit' and the like.  My response, which I thought was funny at the time, did not sit right with me. I applaud my family for continuing to model our freedom in the US to argue our views without fear.

To honor them, I offer my own viewpoint.  Read all the way through.  If you are not religious, do not stop at the sentence that notices how irreligious we are.  There is room in this discussion for all beliefs.  If you are religious, do not smugly read on until you get to the part about materialism being the source of our current evil. Read it to the end, reflect on our current level of materialism and our impoverished spiritual state. Until our polarizing discussions come to an end and we look inside ourselves and then “upward” who wins our election is akin to a band-aid on a gunshot wound.

If I offend anyone, I sincerely apologize upfront and immediately. I simply express that this is a viewpoint I embrace.  You may find this surprising, it was expressed by someone else in a speech in 1978!  

“As long as we wake up every morning under a peaceful sun, we have to lead an everyday life. There is a disaster, however, which has already been under way for quite some time. I am referring to the calamity of a despiritualized and irreligious humanistic consciousness.

To such consciousness, man is the touchstone in judging and evaluating everything on earth. Imperfect man, who is never free of pride, self-interest, envy, vanity, and dozens of other defects. We are now experiencing the consequences of mistakes which had not been noticed at the beginning of the journey. On the way from the Renaissance to our days we have enriched our experience, but we have lost the concept of a Supreme Complete Entity which used to restrain our passions and our irresponsibility. We have placed too much hope in political and social reforms, only to find out that we were being deprived of our most precious possession: our spiritual life. In the East, it is destroyed by the dealings and machinations of the ruling party. In the West, commercial interests tend to suffocate it. This is the real crisis. The split in the world (East vs. West) is less terrible than the similarity of the disease plaguing its main sections.

If humanism were right in declaring that man is born to be happy, he would not be born to die. Since his body is doomed to die, his task on earth evidently must be of a more spiritual nature. It cannot be unrestrained enjoyment of everyday life. It cannot be the search for the best ways to obtain material goods and then cheerfully get the most out of them. It has to be the fulfillment of a permanent, earnest duty so that one's life journey may become an experience of moral growth, so that one may leave life a better human being than one started it. It is imperative to review the table of widespread human values. Its present incorrectness is astounding. It is not possible that assessment of the President's performance be reduced to the question of how much money one makes or of unlimited availability of gasoline. Only voluntary, inspired self-restraint can raise man above the world stream of materialism.

It would be retrogression to attach oneself today to the ossified formulas of the Enlightenment. Social dogmatism leaves us completely helpless in front of the trials of our times.

Even if we are spared destruction by war, our lives will have to change if we want to save life from self-destruction. We cannot avoid revising the fundamental definitions of human life and human society. Is it true that man is above everything? Is there no Superior Spirit above him? Is it right that man's life and society's activities have to be determined by material expansion in the first place? Is it permissible to promote such expansion to the detriment of our spiritual integrity?

If the world has not come to its end, it has approached a major turn in history, equal in importance to the turn from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. It will exact from us a spiritual upsurge, we shall have to rise to a new height of vision, to a new level of life where our physical nature will not be cursed as in the Middle Ages, but, even more importantly, our spiritual being will not be trampled upon as in the Modern era.

This ascension will be similar to climbing onto the next anthropologic stage. No one on earth has any other way left but -- upward.

Harvard commencement speech, Alexander Sozhenitsyn, 1978.

Whisper, the Heart

Angeles Arrien, a cultural anthropologist and famous master storyteller, exorts her readers to "pay attention to what has true heart and meaning."

No matter how many times I read that I seem to forget it. Usually when I need it the most, in the face of adversity, the daily challenges, the ups and downs of life, I go mental.  

We all do it.

Going mental is the safe route.  That's what the mind is there to do, sift through our experiences, our thoughts, make sense of the environment, analyze, compare, and conclude. It throws up solutions at an extraordinary pace, leaving us blinded by our mental superhighway.

And all the while, the heart remains still. It waits, sometimes a really long time. It doesn't speak in words; the language of the heart is more subtle and nuanced. The heart is like the blade of grass that pushes up and cracks the concrete sidewalk. It's insistent, patient, and ever present.

If there was a theme this week in my coaching practice it would be resisting the whisper of the heart. I would ask a client, how does that feel? "Um, well, I think ..."

Deep breathe, how does it feel?

That breathe is the distance between the mind and the heart. It can be a second or a million seconds. If you are patient, if you stalk your feelings, your mind will calm down, enough, for you to hear a soft whisper.

Don't miss it.  The whisperings of the heart tell us what is true, and good, and beautiful in our lives.

Wisdom's Ancestor

I'm sitting here tonight a bit confused and sad.  Maybe it's the Seattle weather, which trust me, would make anyone sad. 

Nah, not just the weather.  The feeling that's floating around me is hard to shake.  It's been a tough week.  The weekend's events shadowed the week.  Monday, I said good-bye to a fabulous client as she finished her work and is off to Africa!  I am thrilled for her and will miss her.  I gave a presentation at the University of Washington this week.  I usually love doing that, working with the students, offering them insights into their personalities, as we discuss the ways that humans affect the outcome of any enterprise.  Sigh.  Presentation fell flat.  Energy kept shifting. 

Rest of the week, more of the same.

Now I'm sitting here trying to figure out what's up.  Is this just me? Or are others feeling the same way?  My mind wanders back to Arizona.  Am I more affected by the shootings in Arizona than I have acknowledged? Are others?

I read an article this week that is rolling around in my head.  George Freidman wrote the article and in it he suggested that America is a Republic that accidently became an Empire.  We created this country to be one thing, and it became another.  Now it fights itself, Republic vs Empire, like the Black and White Wolf, a never-ending battle.  ( See below, Right Leadership:  A Story of Two Wolves.)

I realize I am more like the black wolf tonight: edgy, a bit frustrated, and itching for an argument. I set an intention for this week to be productive and full, energetic and prosperous.  Despite my best efforts, didn't happen.  My intention devolved to attachment, and now I feel disappointed and crappy. 

I am searching my knowledge for the nugget that applies here, for the wisdom that my teachers have shared with me and that I can pass along. 

At first nothing comes, and the edginess takes a firmer grip.  Slowly, though, like a wafting feather, something tickles me at the very back of my mind.  Tugging at this resisting thought, I finally yank it free.

"All energy is neutral, Kelleen."

I expel my breathe, the shoulders come down, I allow my head to hang for just a second. All energy is neutral, neither positive nor negative.  We transmute it, make it into something, and this alchemy touches the inner core of who we are and reflects back to us through the lens of our outer world. 

This discernment, wisdom's ancestor, is what went lacking this week.   I lost touch with my ability to discern truth and hold a vision.  It is a good lesson.

All energy is neutral. We make it otherwise. 

Right Leadership: A Story of Two Wolves

I came across a blog post today that shared bits of a story that I hold as one of my personal favorites.  It is not okay with me that this story be shared in bits.  So I rewrite the whole story here, to honor those who first told it and those who keep it going.

It is for the warrior/leader in all of us.  The best I can determine in research is that this is a Cherokee story, although the exact origin, time and location, is unknown.  Many take credit for it.  I will leave credit where it is due, to the wisdom teachers of all time.

Grandfather sat outside as he was wont to do every day.  He noticed that his Grandson was walking toward him, but seemed angry.  He was kicking the dirt, and Grandfather could see there were streaks of tears running down his face. Grandson did not pay any attention to where he was, he was lost in his own thoughts.  He threw a rock as hard as he could, and with a yelling shout, he continued walking.

Grandfather called out and finally got the attention of his grandson, who walked over toward him.  Grandfather said, "Sit down and tell me what has happened."

Grandson began to tell the story.  On this day it was his birthday and he received as a present from his parents, a knife.  He was very happy with his present and showed it to the other kids.  Some boys thought this present should not have been given, they thought him too young, they envied his present, and they started to taunt the boy.  Soon, a shoving match started, and then a full on fight.  Punches were thrown, the knife was taken.  "Grandfather, I hate them!" said Grandson.

"Mmm," Grandfather pondered this.  Then he said, "I too have had this inside of me. Let me tell you a story." Grandson was in no mood for one these stories, they were always long and Grandfather always wanted to teach something.  Grandson wanted to fight, he wanted to be angry, and he wanted to find an outlet for this anger.

Grandfather insisted, "Sit.  This story won't take long and it is a story about me when I was your age and felt these same things."

This was something the boy did not hear often, stories about when his Granddfather was a boy.  So he sat.

"I have had something living inside of me my whole life," Grandfather began. "I discovered them when I was your age and went to speak with my father and his father. You see, I know I have two wolves that live in my heart and in my head.  They live inside of me in my soul.  One of these wolves is a white wolf, and he is a seeker of beauty and harmony, he loves balance and peaceful contentness, and he will fight if it is the only way, but he often knows there are many ways, many solutions to problems.  Next to him is a black wolf, and he is angry most of the time, he seeks vengence, and will look first to fight.  He lives with jealousy and envy inside of him, he judges everything and has little respect."

Grandson was captivated by this story, and asked, "why doesn't the black wolf kill the white wolf?"

"This, is a good question," Grandfather smiled. "The two wolves live inside of me and are chained at the neck together, not too close, but close enough, they can circle each other and keep their distance.  They must be very vigilant and so must I."

Grandson reflected on this, and how he felt when his knife was taken and he got into a fight.  He could feel his anger disappearing, but he was still puzzled by something. "Grandfather, I don't understand.  If these two wolves live inside of you, and you are saying they are inside of me too, which one wins?"

Grandfather smiled, "This, is a good question."

Looking directly into his grandson's eyes, he said, "The one you feed."

In order for our spirits to truly be free, we must look inside of ourselves and discover who we really are, every little awful wonderful thing. We must accept ourselves in this wholeness, and then, and only then, can we step into right leadership, and be wise men and women, right leaders of our time.

In deep gratitude to those who have passed down this story.... 

Death and Change

Sometimes when I sit down to write this blog the themes of the week are so strong that the post really writes itself.  This is one such week.

I will acquaint you with a concept that is well known in the wisdom teachings but rarely is it ever discussed in polite society:  Everything dies.  No exceptions.

I read a statistic that the average life span of a company in the US is 40 - 50 years.  Companies die, for lots of reasons.  Market forces, product innovation, cash flow, fraud, you name it, the dis-eases that can afflict a corporation are as numerous as the ones that can and do afflict human beings.  There is a life death life cycle for everything. 

Now this alone is not a truly remarkable fact, but it does set the groundwork for something that is remarkable - collectively, we pretend the opposite, we pretend that everything lives, forever.  We know that is not a true statement, but we ignore it.

Because death feels so uncontrollable, so nasty.  There is grief and sorrow, and fear, as when our colleagues are let go or when a division gets disbanded. Try talking to an entrepreneur about retirement and succession planning.  I actually had one executive say to me, "I don't need to plan, I'm gonna live forever."  He had a smile on his face, but you know what they say about all things said in jest, right?

We do alot of damage when we don't acknowledge the little and big deaths in our lives.  Many employees who have been notified that they will be let go on a precise day, report feeling shunned by colleagues.  "People just exiled me, stopped talking to me outright in some cases.  I felt like vermin."

We've all done it.

The wisdom teachings tell us - Death always takes its due.  So let it, and be done.  Here is an example of giving Death her due.  We are coming up on the famous Day of the Dead. Many Mexican friends of mine will be honoring death and their departed by placing on the grave of a departed love one all the things they loved in life.  A stroll through a cemetery can be a bit amusing as you pass by bottles of scotch, tobacco, and pictures of scantily clad women!  

As leaders, when a death of any magnitude occurs, pause, find the ways to acknowledge your own feelings, and let others do the same. Say the hard thing, express the difficult emotions.  Let it go. 

Death is inevitable and uncontrollable, so that makes life unpredictable and absolutely precious.  A cliche for sure - but it's worth saying again, carpe diem.