One of my sons recently gave me a book by Rainn Wilson called Soul Boom: Why We Need a Spiritual Revolution.1 I read it and I agree with its premise — that a spiritual revolution is essential if we’re to save ourselves from either cooking or bombing ourselves out of existence.
But it also got me thinking more deeply about what exactly a “spiritual revolution” is. What does it entail, and what are the implications for those who want to be spiritual revolutionaries?
I think a spiritual revolution is one whose central tenant is that all life is one unified whole. And therefore whatever we do to each other we do to ourselves. That insight is ground zero for both science and, at its best, religion.2 It’s their fundamental point of convergence.
Just saying things are “all one,” however, can seem a little muzzy. It’s the view from 40,000 feet up, where the details at ground level are hard to discern. So how can we bring it closer to the ground, where the implications of our unity are more clear?
Following is my attempt to do just that. But a heads-up: It takes time to get from 40,000 feet to ground level — so be prepared for a slow descent.
The view at 30,000 feet
If everything is a single unified whole, then the next thought I have is that our individual sense of self, our identity, can only be fully understood within the context of our unity. If all is one, and one is indivisible, then we’re not just part of everything that exists, we’re contiguous with it. Inseparable.
All of which implies that the boundary layer of our epidermis is not the dividing line we thought it was. Nor is our nationality or race or religion or ethnicity or political affiliation or any other tribal boundary humanity has come up with. I am you, you are me.
The view at 20,000 feet
If everything is one, and if the sum of our identity is ‘all that is,’ then all the diversity we experience in the world represents different aspects of our own self, our own identity. But that, of course, is not our everyday perception. To us, everything appears separate and discrete. I am me, you are you.
One reason we succumb to the illusion of separateness, physicists tell us, is that we lack the perceptual equipment that would render visible the fabric of space-time that unifies all existence. That’s a pretty big hurdle, but I do have a work around for it. It’s a matter of learning to see a little differently.
One reason everything looks separate to us is because we’ve chosen a particular mental metaphor that explains to us the experience of seeing. When we look at the world, our mental metaphor interprets what we’re looking at as something that’s “out there,” as if we’re perceiving it through a window that sits between the viewer and the viewed.
But we can choose a different, and I think more accurate, mental metaphor. Rather than looking through a window, imagine you’re looking into a mirror. Since all is one, everything you see is a reflection of the many facets of yourself. You’re always looking at the larger you.
In a way this is similar to the experience we have when, for example, we look at our hand. While it appears to exist “out there,” we know full well it’s us. With a mental metaphor of a mirror, we can learn to see a tree, a mountain or another (even annoying) human being the same way. That’s all us, too. Another aspect of who we are that we simply hadn’t recognized before.
If you have a moment, give it a go right now. Look about you and imagine everything you see is an aspect of your larger self, mirrored back at you. Try to get in touch with the expansive identity that is being shown to you. Then pick one thing you see and go up to it. Say “hello self!” Look at it. Touch it. Smile at it. Go through the act of reconnection.
This is not a simple or silly exercise. It takes concentration and commitment. A willingness to surrender our usual way of seeing, an act which may seem irrational but which is really anything but. It’s a way to absorb the world into our awareness of self. To acknowledge our unity. To expand our sense of connection as a counterweight to our everyday experience of separateness — unleashing a level of concern, compassion and appreciation for the whole of life that we otherwise might not have.3
The view at 10,000 feet
At 10,000 feet we drop below the conceptual clouds to reveal what I believe is the most essential insight of all: That life itself is a spiritual journey. A journey where, asked for or not, we’re given repeated opportunities to strip away the illusion of separateness and to find fulfillment in a deeper connection to our larger self.
These opportunities often present themselves in what we see reflected back to us in our mirror: Certain qualities or behaviors we’d like to believe have no corollaries in our own life. Faced with such a distressing reflection, we might be tempted to turn our mirror back into a window and pretend that what we’re looking at indeed resides only “out there,” in that other person.
But if we’ve bought into the logic of our oneness thus far, we can’t abandon the mirror metaphor now. Instead we need to engage in the often hard work of seeing the other in ourselves even when it’s painful to do so — reconnecting us to the fundamental truth of our unity. This is the work of the spiritual revolutionary. Turning two into one.
This is not, by the way, an attempt to whitewash differences, or a step toward passive acquiescence to “what is.” Reconnecting to the truth of our unity is akin to putting a plug back into its socket, giving us the power to harness the creative energies of love, compassion, discernment, and wisdom in service of ourselves and the greater good.
The view at ground level
Ground level is of course where the rubber hits the road. This is where life meets us where we are — the real in-the-moment “us.” The moment when all our big, noble ideas can disappear and we discover we can be a jerk just like everyone else, leaving in our wake a jumble of bad feelings. What then do spiritual revolutionaries do?
If there’s a relationship to repair, we repair it. We repair it because we know broken relationships create a broken world. And the last thing we want to do is add to the world’s brokenness.
I went through this dynamic just the other day. My wife and I were flying home from a vacation, and as we were boarding the plane I got into a small altercation with another passenger. He did something I thought was aggressively inconsiderate, and I was aggressively inconsiderate in return. Then, in a seat assignment mix-up, that person ended up being my seat mate.
You can imagine how awkward I felt. The discomfort of sitting next to someone with whom I’d just had a negative interaction. Mostly I felt badly about my part, that I had reacted to this person so uncreatively. It was who I was, but not who I wanted to be.
As he sat down next to me I sheepishly said “I’m sorry.” If he mumbled a reply, I didn’t hear it. He just looked away from me and out the window of the plane.
I let a few minutes go by, and then tried again with more vulnerability. I told him how embarrassed I was by my actions, and I again apologized. This time I got through. He said something conciliatory in return, and by the time we got off the plane — it was a short flight — we’d had a nice conversation and wished each other well.
We’d gone from disconnection to connection, from feeling awkward and alienated to comfortable and related. Unity without became unity within.
It’s not looking good for me that I will ever not stumble, that I will ever not create rifts in relationships that then need repair. But I do know that I’m getting better at making the repairs, motivated by an increasing sense of urgency and a deep conviction that good relationships are the only path forward if we’re to have a future worth living.
So that’s my take on what a spiritual revolution is, and what it means to be a spiritual revolutionary. Thanks for reading, and may you have a safe and joyous holiday season.
Kern
Religion’s acknowledgement of our unity can be found in the wisdom of The Golden Rule, a version of which appears in nearly all faiths.
You might want to check out this article from Scientific American: “The psychological implications of believing that everything is one.”