The Crisis
Humanity is at a crossroads. We face economic, environmental, social, and political crises, all of which have been brewing for years and which are finally coming to a head – as predicted – in 2020.
So, what is to be done?
For me that question can only be answered when you know who you are and what you are for. May God protect us from those who mean well, because without the ability to follow through and actually deliver on their intentions such people always cause more harm than good. A process of self-discovery is essential and must include knowledge of what you are good at as well as what you are not, your strengths and your weaknesses, your talents and deficiencies. No one is limitless. No one can do anything they like. Every individual is inclined toward certain things, and away from others. This is how it is, and wise people will work with this tide, not against it.
I will let you into a secret. When I was younger, I wanted to go into politics. As far back as junior school (Year 5 or 6) I would stand for election to class roles, and once, I think in 1982 when I was aged 9 or 10, our class was asked to write an essay on ‘What I Would Do If I Were the American President’. My essay was full of jumbled naivety, but my teacher was surprised by how much I knew about current affairs. I had written at length about the problem of trying to find a peaceful settlement in the Falkland Islands and even came up with a way to stop America funding the IRA! My ideas did not make much sense of course, but that did not deter me. Throughout my teens I would watch political TV programmes and have political arguments with people. I was briefly a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain (which is why I know that communism and Marxism suck) and then in my early thirties I stood as a candidate for the Liberal Democrats. I mention this only to illustrate how far down the rabbit hole I had gone, standing for a party that was neither liberal nor democratic…
Had I followed this through hard enough I am quite certain that I would have found a way to attain some influence and wield some power. But here is the kicker, as well as the point of the story. Running parallel to my attraction to politics was a deep interest in spirituality and mysticism. And this path of self-development taught me that I do not have the right temperament for party politics. As a mystic I always examine the underlying reason for things, the spiritual dimension if you like. But politics is a deeply materialist business, which takes little account of vibes, energy, hidden influences, or recurring patterns. Most people in politics either cannot or will not see the chain of cause and effect and live in the land of reaction, not response. In short, having met quite a few politicians I realised that though most of them were educated they were in fact dumb, that I was dumb for wanting to be one of them, and politics was not only not the answer but part of the problem. My outrage and thirst for reform were not enough, because the problems we face are much deeper than I imagined. The crises are not political, environmental, economic, or social. They are spiritual.
The collapse of Christianity is at the root of all this. Granted, it opens up opportunities for growth and improvement, but not before it opens up a Pandora’s Box of problems, all of which stem from the fact that many of the things people are trying to put in the place of Christianity simply aren’t up to the task.
For many, science has become the repository for belief, and you can see this in action during the times of Corona. Let us pray, “Thou shalt flatten thy curve, stay home, save lives and protect the NHS, ah men….” If that form of worship is not your bag you can pick from many others that are available. You can worship celebrities and hang on their latest twitter pronouncements as if they have come down from the mountain, like Moses, with tablets of stone. Or you can put your faith in the EU, or the UN, or the BBC, or The Guardian to tell you what to believe. Or you can indulge in some heresy and follow Brexit or Trump instead. All these things, and many others, have become receptacles for our need to believe in something. In daily life the collapse of Christianity and the abandonment of God have had toxic consequences. Polite debate about anything of importance is now almost impossible because so many people have signed up to the Church of the Self, where any disagreement with their favoured world view is treated as an attack on their very soul, rather than just a difference of opinion.
And all this time, while Christianity has been rocked on its heels, alternative spirituality has flourished. But this is not the answer either because a great deal of alternative, modern, disorganised spirituality is built on the deceit that YOU, wherever you are, are ENOUGH, and you don’t need to change. Take a moment with this, because whether it is stated explicitly or not, many modern spiritual movements, practices and teachings contain the phantom that there is nothing wrong with you. Consider the consequences of this.
None of us, not me, not you, not anyone else, are enough. We are broken, works in progress, imperfect and flawed and we need to work really, really hard to improve ourselves. The problems of the world are not out there but very much in here, where our own toxic behaviours and limited beliefs hold us back far more than any societal oppression ever will. There is a place for self-love because no-one wants self-hate. But what about self-improvement? There is a place for healing because no-one wants suffering. But what about learning? We are neither good nor wise by nature. Most of us are, at best, well-dressed animals though we do have the capacity for improvement. But we can only improve if we know where and how we are deficient. It may be comforting to deny this so that we can re-affirm the sophistication of our society. But anyone who does this has not been paying attention to 2020.
This situation – the widespread belief that I am enough and it’s everyone else who needs to change - is at the root of the crisis we face, and it cannot go on. It is no coincidence that as people have renounced their belief in anything bigger than the Self that our society has cracked apart. And believe me we are only seeing the first glimpses of the problems that are going to flow from this spiritual crisis of self-absorption that denies the sacred and celebrates the worst parts of us.
The answer to all this is simple, though not easy. We must get back to God.
But WTF even is God?
The answer to this is what constitutes your path of personal and spiritual development, and it will look different for everyone. But I am quite certain that God has nothing whatsoever to do with the Self. It has nothing to do with and is not interested in the Body, the Mind, or the Feelings. If you start from this basis then it does not matter whether God is church or mosque based or is found in the streams and the forests. It does not then matter what you call God, so long as you recognise that it is NOT YOU. By being bigger than your Body, God holds the ability to heal and remove pain. By being bigger than your Mind, God transcends all political ideologies and by being bigger than your Feelings, God grants you the ability to move beyond the toxic well of repressed emotion. This God has no interest in soothing a guilty conscience, getting you a parking space, or increasing your Instagram following. This God does not then exist to make you or your tribe better off at the expense of others, or to help you feel morally superior or more enlightened than any others. This God will not then divide by race, class, gender, looks, intelligence, or ability. This God will be in everyone, without any exception.
Sadly, this was not the God of the Christian Church, but nor is it the God of the New Age, a God who exists only to make you feel better, thinner, fitter and superior to the less enlightened.
In my view God exists to help you do what you are meant to do (which may be different from what you want to do), and to help you stop doing what you should not. God is not there merely to comfort you, but to help you to grow, to help you to get stronger and meet new challenges. God is there to show you your faults and help you to improve. This is a God that might pick you up when you fall, but only so that you can continue your journey, not to indulge your wounded pride.
There is a great deal more to say about what this God is and does, as well as how to reach it. This will all be in the coming book. But the point for today is to ask you to consider what the spiritual quest looks like when you really and truly take yourself out of it, when you stop doing it to benefit your Body, Mind or Feelings. This is not an easy thing to imagine, let alone do. But it will be necessary if humanity is to dig itself out of what is now a deep and profound spiritual crisis.