The Only Thing That Will Save The World is You
Three Reasons why spirituality is our only chance of turning the ship
Have you seen ‘Don’t look up’ on Netflix? My partner and I just watched it a couple of nights ago. I have to be honest, in the end, I cried. An overwhelming feeling of ‘we are royally fucked’ and the grief that underlies it washed over me. My/our brain, which can’t tell the difference between a real picture and a ‘movie’, just witnessed the extinction of our species. And even though I can consciously tell myself it’s just a ‘movie’, deep down I know it shows us a truth we have been not wanting to see for a long time.
Whereas there are many nuances to the movie, that we could be discussing all day long, I want to speak to the one that is most important to me:
What ‘Don’t look within…ah sorry, up’ seems to show is:
We have a problem, a big problem. The comet (hopefully only symbolic in nature) shows us the inevitable trajectory of Total Devastation that we are on. But what it also shows is that
politics is not going to save us
billionaires are not going to save us
technology is not going to save us
science is not going to save us
and social media aka screaming and stomping our feet is not going to save us, either.
So after watching this and recovering from the shock of being directly mirrored back what has already been brewing in the collective for years ( free-floating anxiety: we are fucking it up and we know it but can’t do anything about it’ — which I believe is also underneath the mess we are in with Covid),
What’s left? Is there actually a way out?
I believe there is, but it will be up to the individual. Each individual who is honest enough to say, shit, everything I tried so far hasn't worked. So let's do the exact opposite.
Let's stop running and trying to fix the 'outside' world and turn our attention inward instead.
Stillness will save the world. — Eckhart Tolle
Finding our inner stillness in the midst of the storm we are in, seems counterproductive, especially when our brains are hijacked by a constant fight and flight response. But not doing so will only create more of the fight and flight. Whether you are into science or into meditation, what you will have experienced is that you cannot solve the problem from the level of the problem. Fear leads to more fear.
If we want change, we need to change.
Finding our inner stillness is the key that gives rise to a spiritual revolution, a profound inner transformation, beyond just trying to control the outside world. I believe that is our only chance.
Spirituality means a lot of things to a lot of people. Let me simplify it here to three qualities that I believe are at the core of any practice that is worth its name
1. HumanKind-ness
Inner stillness leads to seeing that we are all one, not in a spiritual woohoo kind of way, but in the most simple of ways. We all are humans. We love and we suffer. We breathe, we eat, and we poop. We want to feel safe and we want to be happy.
Sure we have all our different ways of getting there but at the core, we all want the same.
This understanding of our common nature, and especially the suffering that we all experience, is what comes through spiritual practice. It comes through committing to the wisdom of the heart as a means to transcend the limitations of thought and separation. Through mastering our own Nervous System, and regulating our fight and flight response, we can cultivate understanding.
The Buddha says that only by truly understanding something can we love it. So once, we understand our own inner workings (especially all our shadows), it will be impossible to not understand that those same mechanisms are at play in the other. Kindness is the only possible outcome.
2. I am enough and therefore I have enough.
The disconnection from stillness in which we can truly feel our heart leads to a big emptiness inside. One that feels unbearable. So most of us try to fill it with something. Anything. We run, we work, we hustle, we become addicted, we numb, we consume. And consume. And consume. And…
Almost never stopping to see what Leonardo DiCaprio acknowledges at the end of the movie: We had it all. Except for us, it's not too late: We still have it all.
Why is it not enough? Never before has there been such wealth and good fortune for so many people on the planet. Why can’t we just delight in all that’s already here?
That question is one that we all ought to ask ourselves sincerely and not stop until we find the courage and honesty to really see what’s driving this incessant hunger for more. This has to be done by each one of us individually. Any ‘real’ spiritual practice will eventually lead you to the wisdom of ‘this moment is perfect’ just at it is. A deep satisfaction within. If your practice doesn't bear this fruit, it ain't working.
3. Death as wisdom teacher
I think my favorite part of the movie was Dr. Mindy screaming on the Tv Show: We are all going to die! Yes, we are. Whether by a comet, global warming, an accident, or a virus: death is inevitable.
I will say it again:
We are all going to die.
I don’t know about you, but I feel like the last two years it has been taboo to say anything about death being part of life. It’s like we have been in such a trance: Omg, the virus, it’s killed so many people. We have to put everything on hold, create more fear, more separation….literally try everything to get rid of a virus that kills fewer people than people dying of hunger each year (how is that for hypocrisy) and in the process create a society that is increasingly terrible. All because of our fear of death. The only thing that is a given in life.
Yes, indeed the virus has killed many. And it’s tragic for those who are left behind. But actually only because we have such a screwed relationship to it.
The inner hole that I talked about above, is the disconnect from our deeper nature. Our wisdom. The sacred. Unless we go deep into this fear of our own death, we will never fully live. Our life will always be about control, about trying everything to not face the inevitable. Our life will always be an illusion of ‘safety’.
And because we fail to live, we will always be scared of death.
Imagine for a moment what the last two years would have been like if collectively we were not scared of death. If it was a sacred part of our lives instead. Something that we learn to accept from a young age and even to celebrate as our last journey back home. Something that we would have beautiful rituals around…imagine!
Would we have really panicked and gone into a freeze response the way we did?
I doubt it.
We for sure would have acted, but we wouldn’t have spiraled down into a world controlled by fear, giving all our power away in the process.
Last year there were two deaths in my close circle. Both times it was a profound moment for me. Painful, yes, but beautiful all the same. Each time my heart opened more and I felt the sacredness of life on a deep level, the way only death can show us.
Death is the teacher of wisdom. It sobers us back into the present to reflect upon the values which our lives stand upon. If we shun death, we shun the wisdom that it holds.
And that’s exactly the state of the world: life without wisdom.
We lost our connection to the sacred, so we are lost in our fear of death, constantly running away from the empty hole inside, desperately trying to numb the pain by endlessly consuming and in doing so forgetting what it means to be human-kind.
So it’s really up to us. It’s up to us to be profoundly honest with ourselves to see where we give our power away to politics, to science, to technology…where we secretly hold the belief that somehow, somewhere, we will be saved from death. Where we give our authority away to the outside world to fill this gaping hole within us, to make us happy.
Have we not suffered enough yet and learned that nothing will ever do so, unless we learn to Look Within? To find our connection to that which is worth living for?
Nothing will save us unless we do.
And we can only do so by letting go of distractions, overstimulation, and overconsuming. By deeply simplifying our needs and desires. By learning to feel the delicate mechanism that is our heart.
And the first step on the path is learning to become friends with yourself.
If you enjoy this content, you can buy me a coffee and share it with your friends!
This is to re-writing the story together in 2022 xxx
PS: the beautiful artwork is by Cécile Carre.