Life After Loss

We live in a time and culture where accumulation has become such a normative behavior that many of us struggle with doing with less. More than once we've heard the comment that the current financial crisis arose as a sort of cosmic lesson to help us separate our greed from our need.

However we interpret this economic predicament, there is a powerful spiritual opportunity seeded in any great loss. We are forced to face the question of who we are when something has been stripped away from our lives. We may discover that we have invested our identity in our economic status, or career stature, or in physical or mental prowess. Who am I without a level of economic security, or physical ability or worldly position takes us to the heart of the perennial spiritual question.

Is there life after loss? The promise of new life is what Easter is all about. Easter is a time when we celebrate new life. The new life of spring. The resurrected life of Jesus. The spiritual life that we each express on earth. The Christian Sabbath is on Sunday so that we can remember life after death. Not just life for Jesus after crucifixion. It's about the eternal life that we all experience, after a physical death (our ongoing spiritual journey) but it's also about the continuing life that we are granted after the crucifixions and the losses of our lives. Life, like energy, cannot be created or destroyed. Therefore, we can release all forms, no matter how precious to us, and believe that we can still have a life, even an abundant life, as Jesus promised and demonstrated. This is a belief worth clinging to, since it's undeniable. There's life after divorce. There's life after a major illness. There's life after job loss or bankruptcy. There's life after the death of a loved one.

Jesus as way shower is such a powerful teacher of how to live with boldness and passion. His example of being willing to put everything on the line, defend against nothing, and face the greatest fears humanly imaginable with equanimity, begs the question, what can't we live without. It may be that what we think we can't live without, is what keeps us from really living. People who have released addictions might agree.

Beyond Success or Failure

From the human perspective, the way to a good and happy life is to maximize our successes and minimize our failures in life. Whatever situation we face we hope we'll come out on top; prevail with our preferences and be met with favor and acceptance. We want our ideas to matter, our plans found cogent, and our actions effective. Conversely, we wince at the thought of failure; plans that go south, being rejected, people who neither understand us nor stand with us. We readily embrace favorable results, with measurable profits and the good opinion of others and shun the disastrous outcome, with nothing to show for our efforts when even our friends won't hang with us.

Holy week that begins with Palm Sunday and ends with Easter provides the stark contrast of apparent success and failure experienced by Jesus. At the beginning of this week Jesus seems to be experiencing extraordinary success, with adoring crowds worshiping him as he entered Jerusalem. From the human perspective, Jesus is winning the popular vote hands down, and garnering a hero's welcome such as a victorious king might receive returning from a triumphant battle. But in just a few days the bloom comes off the rose, the table is turned over, and Jesus becomes an embattled messenger. He is vilified, betrayed and abandoned by his closest friends to face alone the worst fate imaginable. From our mortal mind's eye this scenario is the epitome of a miserable failure.

Beyond appearances this week of highs and lows, carries a much deeper message that can serve as powerful metaphor for the days, weeks, or moments of ups and downs that arise in our own journey. From the spiritual perspective, articulated and demonstrated by the one who maintained that his kingdom was not of this world, the outer events were not the real measurables from his journey. Jesus would likely agree with the assessment that notions of success and failure are two sides of the same coin. That coin is judgment born of limited human perception.

Jesus was not caught up in the adulation that sought to externalize his value, nor the condemnation that sought to destroy him. Jesus knew who he was and knew his mission was to speak and live the message of Truth regardless of whether that message brought him praise or blame. The truth that he said would set us free, liberated Jesus from identification with external image or public stature regardless of the latest poll results.

Jesus invited us to follow in his way - a way of transformation where the outer voices do not define us nor limit us. Jesus listened to the inner voice of Spirit, perhaps the very earliest advice on how to avoid identity theft.

No matter what may arise on the road of life, we do not have to lose ourselves in it. By staying true to our spiritual purpose, and remaining online with the Divine, we can succeed in the true mission that we share with Jesus - to bear witness to the eternal Spirit in which we live and move and have our very being.

Are You Receptive?

"Too many people overvalue what they are not and undervalue what they are."

-Malcolm S. Forbes

For the last 4 weeks we have been looking at success and abundance from the perspective of the engaging story in the book, The Go Giver. Each of the themes and laws outlined in the preceding lessons invited us to become a giver to life - a message that contradicts the logic of the surface mind that tells us that is through getting we receive.

Now in week five, we take a final look at the paradox to understand the important role of being a receiver in this flow of abundance and success. This is trickier than it appears. Like an advanced yoga posture, holding a posture of receptivity is easier said than done.

While we may readily notice where we are blocked in our giving, it may take a deeper look to see how we are blocked in receiving. At first thought, we may think we are more than willing to receive; that our arms are wide open to graciously accept any windfall of good and plenty the universe sees fit to bestow upon us. But is that really true?

There are plenty of messages (many from religious teachings) that exalt the giver, and devalue the receiver. We've heard it said that it is better to give than receive. We've heard the proverbs and adages that denigrate the rich, equate wealth with immorality, and the like. We've been told we are sinners and not worthy of good, that only by the grace of God we are saved from our deservedly lowly condition. Though many of us no longer hold that view philosophically, there are likely shreds of unworthiness that linger in our consciousness and deflect the good that might come to us.

The Real You Will Stand Up

"Seek out that particular mental attribute which makes you feel most deeply and vitally alive, along with which comes the inner voice which says, 'This is the real me,' and when you have found that attitude, follow it." - William James

It would seem to be the most natural and simplest of tasks to know ourselves and to be ourselves. After all who knows you better than you, and who is better equipped to show your true face to the world than you are? The virtue of being true to ourselves has been extolled by every great philosopher, sage and enlightened master. Jesus referenced our tendency to keep our essence hidden and invited us to let our light shine for all the world to see. Buddha in his parting words to his disciples counseled, "Be lamps unto yourselves; be your own confidence. Hold to the truth within yourselves as the only truth." Perhaps most famous of all is the line from Shakespeare, to thine own self be true.

So if being ourselves is so natural, and ancient wisdom confirms its virtue and value, why is it so difficult to carry out? It seems to me that we all suffer from varying degrees of identity crisis, or perhaps more aptly identity amnesia.

I think most of us learned to be inauthentic as an adaptive response to life. Like auditions for the role of our life, we discovered how we acted determined whether we were accepted on the world stage. It may not have seemed entirely up to us whether we could just be ourselves. The rewards of authentic expression may have been overshadowed by the risks of being real in the presence of others. So we chose the safer role back then, at the cost of our true self expression. But that was then, and we no longer need to believe what is no longer true for us. If we are still hiding our light, and betraying our true self expression, we are denying our own freedom, and missing out on the greatest joy in life.

Sometimes life has a way of breaking us open to authenticity, sometimes through breaking us down, and we discover as Anaïs Nin observed, "the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom." My spiritual life has been an unlayering process, in that my joy in living has been directly proportional to my ability to shed the masks and old skins of who I thought I should be in the world. Our existence is validated and appreciated best by showing up as we truly are, not by our ability to conform. It is your and my uniqueness that is our special gift that brings value to the world and joy to us in its expression.

Each of us has a song to sing, a dance to dance and nobody can do it quite like we do. Let's give ourselves permission to get back on the stage of life and play the part of our true self, without masks, disguises, or make up. It's the role of a lifetime that you've been waiting for...and it has success written all over it.

The Truth Beneath the Contradiction

"How wonderful that we've met with a paradox. Now we have some hope of making some progress." - Niels Bohr, quantum physicist

The spiritually centered life is rife with paradox. To uncover the greatest of truths we must be able to sit in the disquieting milieu of uncertainty and contradictions. We must question our basic assumptions about the way it is, until we discover a context in which the contradictory makes sense. As Carl Jung put it, "Only the paradox comes anywhere near to comprehending the fullness of life."

Jesus was a master of life, and a master of paradoxical teachings. Perhaps he used paradox to disrupt the ordinary thinking mind of his students; to upset the equilibrium of the world's logic, so a new way of seeing life might break through the crack of confusion. When we hear a declaration such as the last will be first or those who save their lives will lose it, while those who lose their lives will save it, our common sense of truth rejects the seeming contradiction, and we're left to seek a deeper reality where these assertions could be true. This gets us moving in the right direction. In order for us to uncover our true nature we must look beyond the surface of our bodies, circumstances and thoughts into the deeper realm of our being.

I personally love the paradoxical truth teachings because they act like a splash of cold water against my tendency toward drowsiness that allows me to nap on the surface of life. Though I am a believer in the wisdom of Jesus' teachings I am apt to fall asleep and return to believing only in my senses to appraise life. This slumber transports me down a rabbit hole of fear into a world of scarcity with its myriad iterations of not enough.

When I contemplate the paradox in a truth teaching I cannot stay on the surface for long. In order to find the truth in the seeming contradiction I must allow my mind and heart to rise into a realm of spiritual understanding, where the contradiction dissolves, and the deeper truth is laid bare and made plain.

We are in our third week of the Go Giver series, which essentially says that it is in giving that we receive. In this paradoxical, seeming contradictory assertion, lies the power to move us out of scarcity into abundance and true success. We must be willing to dwell upon and act upon this principle until its deeper truth is made real for us. That is the inner and outer practice. Ask yourself, how is it true that when I give, I receive? The answers will become the guidance you truly seek to live the uncommon life where generosity and abundance happily coexist.

Working for One's Self

I recently listened to an interview on PBS with author, Daniel Pink regarding his recent book about motivation, entitled, "Drive: The Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us." Pink studied the research on human motivation and the surprising truth he discovered is that the old school method of "carrot and stick" incentives are decreasingly effective in moving us to do good work. Research reveals that "if-then" rewards systems are far less effective in moving us to work at a high level, than intrinsic motivations such as autonomy, mastery and purpose.

Whenever I see this kind of news coming from the secular world I am encouraged by evidence that the inner life of the individual counts for something in the marketplace. So often, it is believed that we have to leave our spiritual sensibilities outside the door of the work place or marketplace because in the "real world" the bottom line is not about soul satisfaction but production and profitability. When real world technology reveals that positive motivation and an inner sense of purpose lead to better performance and profitability, there is every reason to bring one's whole Self to the job at hand.

Of course this finding does not surprise those of us who know about the incentive of the drive toward wholeness, that spurs us to express more Self, wherever we find ourselves in life. It only confirms the premise and offers a wider palette of possibilities.

Yet despite our "no duh" response to this conclusion, there is still reason for our attention and celebration. When spiritual truths become eminently practical in the world their value in our human portfolios can skyrocket. While many of us have profited in immeasurable ways by principles and values rooted in spiritual wisdom, such values have not often translated into spendable manna.

This Sunday as we continue with the Go Giver series, we'll look at the Law of Compensation. In this principle we discover the reciprocal value of serving others, both the inner and outer rewards of bringing greater value to ot hers.

A Turnaround Success

The "little I" seeks to enhance itself by external approval, external possessions, and external "love." The Self That God created needs nothing. It is forever complete, safe, loved, and loving. It seeks to share rather than to get; to extend rather than project. It has no needs and wants to join with others out of their mutual awareness of abundance. - A Course in Miracles

This Sunday we begin a new series based upon the parable of the Go Giver, a book that offers practical advice on how to be successful in business and life by following a radical principle. Generosity and authenticity are not the watch words of traditional business practices, nor readily endorsed by our rational minds. Yet creating value for others and unqualified sharing of our resources and gifts is the very premise of this little book. This premise, which seems anathema to business success and our self protective nature, squares perfectly with spiritual wisdom teachings. By following these teachings we might find success in the world and in our spiritual understanding.

In the midst of these challenging economic times, we have seen and felt the fear based responses. We know how to contract, protect, withhold, and hedge our bets. When we have suffered a loss our thoughts instinctively go toward a sense of lack and limitation. We often have visceral sense of emptiness, internalizing the loss in our body and psyche. This is a survival reaction designed to motivate the responses, which will ensure our physical well being. But it is only at a very rudimentary and basic level that this survival response is useful. Certainly we need to take whatever steps are necessary to provide for our bodily needs, provide food, and shelter, and basic human comforts. Beyond that point, this response only perpetuates our fear and limits our creative responses that can help us grow and prosper.

This sense of loss we carry typically results in compensating outlook in which we are on constant look out for what we can get to make us whole again. We are looking to fill this void, this emptiness, this hole in our souls, carved out by our response to loss. Perhaps it is a kind of reciprocal sense of fairness which reasons that there should be some compensation for what has been taken away; trying to find some kind of fairness in the universe in all that has happened. We may wish for the universe to drop some blessing of equal weight on the other end of the see-saw to at least get us even.

In the face of this instinctual response to loss are the spiritual masters who say "give and you shall receive" This makes no sense to the surface mind which forms its logic from the outer world of appearances. Giving when we have lost, seems antithetical to our goal, contrary to what we think will help us. When we first hear these prescriptions we often laugh at the absurdity of such logic. We who have suffered loss should not be expected to give, that we should be the ones at the receiving end of the equation. That is, in receiving we shall receive. Yet beneath this surface logic is deeper spiritual truth which says that it is only when we give of ourselves that we will discover a greater reservoir of supply within our self. It is perhaps the most profound and surprising turnabout experience that we can have as human beings to discover that whatever we share with another we experience for ourselves.