The faster I go, the more lost I get
It is an old and ironic habit of human beings to run faster when we have lost our way. ~Rollo May
In the study of Spiritual Direction, we cover the history of Christian Spirituality as well as the nuts and bolts of psychology, sociology, psychotherapy, covering our development as human and spiritual beings as groups and individually. One of the most fascinating aspects of the human species is the relationship between doing and being. I believe that our reactions are not predetermined, but are highly influenced by our capacity to learn and adjust to years of past experience and the unique combination, sequence, and interpretation of raw data we've collected since before we were born. I think this may be the cause of our running when we're lost. It is as if everything that is held under the surface, all of the data we've collected over the course of our lives is in control. We know enough to motivate us and pull us to a better situation, but unless we engage our being into our doing, we may become more lost the faster we go. I believe this is true on a personal and societal level. How busy can we possibly make ourselves as a culture?
What if we consciously engage this process and take control over it through self awareness, emotional regulation, and spiritual practice?
My guess is that we must be the change and start this process individually. Part of our running scared and lost as individuals feeds the societal engine to go faster and push us to each run faster as well.
It is my job as an individual desiring peace, to connect with my being, to step outside the personal and collective busy making image, to create new patterns, possibilities, and significance. It isn't a shift from ego to self, from consumerism to social justice, it is a shift through contemplative, unitive, spiritual connection that engages the ego in the work of the True Self, our divine indwelling, that brings compassion and non-duality into a new meaning of justice. It is a shift from having our doing define our being to having our being define our doing. When the being is at the healm, as Teilhard de Chardin describes, it naturally becomes a "wholemaker, one that unites what was scattered." This new realm of unity, of oneness, of as Dr. Bill Kerley puts it "loving our neighbor as ourselves because they are us", this is where we cease being lost. My guess is that it is ONLY when we slow down and recognize this that we discover wherever we are, we're home. As spirits on a human journey, this is available to us anytime we unplug from our busyness, our judgments, our filters and plug into the present moment and that which makes us ultimately ONE.
What helps you slow down, engage, make your way home?