The Problem is not THEM.
The problem is us.
I’m going to say something that might sound pretty controversial, right now.
We don’t have a political problem; we don’t have an economic problem; we don’t have a racial problem or an environmental problem.
We have a spiritual problem.
Now, especially in these overwrought times, that might seem like a radical thing to say, and may rub you the wrong way, but before you accuse me of being blind to the injustices and inequities of the world, hear me out. These painful and horrific things – war, poverty, oppression, injustice, environmental destruction and political fascism – are symptoms of a greater malaise. They are only possible because something else is drastically out of whack.
That something has a spiritual root: we have forgotten the Sacred.
At its very deepest understanding, spirituality is an awareness of the Sacred – or that which bigger/more real than the small self, whatever that might be for you — and how that awareness is embodied and enacted. As I mentioned in my post Why the Sacred Matters, without an awareness of the Sacred, it’s all too easy to de-secrate (or de-sacred) the world around us. When we remove the Sacred, we are left chasing our egoic desires for power, control, or wealth by putting personal profit before people or planet, and, as a consequence, behaving badly towards others.
This what every spiritual tradition EVER has been trying to teach us: remember that all life is sacred, everything and everyone is Divine-by-definition, we are not separate from anything else, and our job is to act as if that is true. If we do, we get to live in a world where everyone and everything thrives because it would be impossible to behave in ways that create injustice, inequity, war, or destruction. Impossible.
But that’s not what’s happening right now. We have disregarded those basic teachings, and made things like money, power, status, and control our “gods.” Just check the latest headlines (or your social media feed) to see where it’s gotten us. It’s not pretty.
That’s why I say that at its deepest root, what we are seeing in our world today is essentially a spiritual problem. (Yes, the word “problem” is, well, problematic. But that’s for another post). Try as we might, we can’t heal our political, economic, social or environmental ills until we heal our spiritual one. We need to come back to what is truly Sacred...and how to live as though that is true.
How do we do that?
This is the question I have tried to tackle in my forthcoming book, TEN WORDS: AN INTERSPIRITUAL GUIDE TO BECOMING BETTER PEOPLE IN A BETTER WORLD. Available October 1 at Amazon and all your fave booksellers.
What are the fundamental spiritual guidelines that will help us fix our spiritual problem (and the other ones as a result)? What do we need to do to re-connect to the Sacred, however defined? What will bring us joy, peace and purpose? And how can that understanding help us become better people in a world in which everyone and everything thrives?
My answer is simple: it just takes ten words. Distilled from the teachings of all our faith and wisdom traditions as well as by modern science and psychology, these ten words give us the blueprint for bringing the Sacred back into our lives, returning us to peace, purpose and joy, and creating a world that supports all.
This has nothing to do with “religion,” Deism, or anything supernatural or woo-woo. You don’t have to believe a thing, but you do have to open your eyes, heart, and mind and really explore what the Sacred means to you, how it shows up in your life, and what you can do to act on that understanding.
Because it really comes down to action. Fixing our spiritual “problem” (and all the other problems that arise because of our spiritual vacuum) goes beyond our own personal practice or experience. While we need to do our own work, that’s only the first step. Creating a better world must be an extension of what happens on your yoga mat or meditation cushion. It’s about how you take that personal transformation and awareness of the Sacred into the world through action. How do you behave? What do you do? And how can you bring the Sacred back into our ailing world?
As long as we keep thinking the “problem” is out there, someone else’s fault, or because of a system that we can’t change because of THEM, we are contributing to the ugly situation, and nothing will change. Ultimately, the spiritual “problem” isn’t THEM; the spiritual “problem” is us — all of us— and we are the only ones who can fix it— one word at a time.