Acting spiritual!

On saints and sinners...and you 'n me. (And why it's always a good idea to give ourselves--and each other--a break.)

In my early 20s I briefly worked for a seemingly legit Los Angeles company that (unbeknownst to me at first) engaged in what can only be described as dis-organized crime.

Amateur-hour chaos, fueled by utter depravity.

If what went on in that slick hi-rise building hadn’t been so stunningly appalling, it would’ve played like slapstick comedy.

I was hired as the in-house art director. My friend Lynda worked in business administration. Neither of us lasted long.

Upon leaving her position, I asked over lunch what she intended to do next. A well-deserved couple of weeks recuperating on a beach in Cancun, maybe? Or perhaps a trip home to visit the folks, before starting the next job search?

She shook her head. ‘I’m going to India for 6 months. I’m gonna volunteer at Mother Theresa’s Mission.’

I nearly choked on my french fries. I had only known Lynda to be a hard-partying L.A. urbanite, quick with a laugh and fond of a drink. Not exactly Mother Theresa material.

But life had thrown her a severe curveball, in the form of the buffoonish corporation from which we’d both been unceremoniously jettisoned.

The loss of that job caused her to question everything; she had no idea how to begin searching for meaning, in what had suddenly become a starkly meaningless world. So, India it was.

Fast forward several months, when I next caught up with my friend. Over drinks, she told of her exotic travel adventures, as well as her time at Mother Theresa’s Mission. Curious about this world famous paragon of maternal goodness, I asked, ‘And what about Mother Theresa herself? What’s she like?’

Lynda crinkled her nose in distaste. ‘She’s kind of a bitch,’ she said.

I obviously can’t speak with any kind of certainty about Mother Theresa’s life or motivations. But my hunch is this:

In her consuming passion and purpose, to care for the poorest and most downtrodden, she surely had to dig deep within herself, finding the inner resources to persevere despite immense personal hardship. This gruelling process would likely have hollowed her out over time, leaving a wide open spaciousness through which Spirit could clearly express itself through her.

I would therefore guess—no disrespect to my friend—that Mother Theresa had little time for pampered Westerners trying to find themselves. Or for those who might’ve been drawn to her in the woolly notion that her brand of Motherhood would be endlessly soft, patient and compassionate toward all beings.

Toward those in her care? Absolutely, yes. Toward everybody else? Not so much.

So what does it actually mean, to act spiritual?

Mother Theresa, as far as I know, was a bona fide saint. Her commitment to her life’s divine purpose ran deep and true, reshaping her from the inside out. She ACTED from that spontaneous upwelling of deep SPIRITUAL conviction.

Which is, apparently, an entirely different thing from being nice to everybody.

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Somewhere along the way, we spiritually minded folks have got it tragically wrong. We suppose that acting spiritual means pretending we have it all together when we don’t. Or that it means pretending to be patient, loving and wise, even when we’re not feelin’ it. (Or that we ourselves can’t manage it, but we can and should expect this lofty behavior of everybody else).

It’s a hell of a thing to have to live up to.

Holy moly. (Photo by Gabriella Clare Marino)

Consequently, all of this collective pretending means we go around thinking we’re the only ones who don’t have it together. That we surely ought to be able to sail through life floating on a sacred sea of infinite loving kindness—because clearly everybody else is doing it—but for whatever reason, we ourselves simply can’t manage it. Right?

It’s nobody’s fault. Nobody is doing it with intent to deceive. There’s a deep collective belief that says: If you’re practicing any kind of spirituality, then you, personally, should be able to exhibit the traits of a spiritual master. And if you aren’t able to exhibit those traits, you (as well as the form of spirituality you’re practicing) are simply a fraud.

Which is a bit nuts, but there you are. It’s a belief that causes loads of pain and some pretty bitter judgment of self and other. Like I said, it’s nobody’s fault.

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Truth is? We are all ordinary/extraordinary human beings on a spiritual path.

We each come to that path laden with assorted baggage, bowling balls, and maybe a backpack or two full of rocks. Along the way we drop the heavyweight travel accessories in whatever order, or timescale, is right for our own journey. This goes for students, teachers, counsellors, authors, experts and who knows, maybe even the lofty ones. Nobody, as far as I can tell, is equipped to act like the pure embodiment of serenity all of the time. (Not even sure they’d want to.) (Which is a topic for some other newsletter.)

I bring all of this up, because of the overwhelming ferocity of inner judgment that arises, whenever I hear from spiritual journeyers who routinely beat themselves up hard, for not being ‘farther along yet.’ After all these years on a spiritual path, I should surely be…[fill in the blank] by now.

Or those who speak painfully or disdainfully, of their disillusionment because a favorite spiritual teacher made a dumb mistake, or got mad and blamed somebody for something. Or showed some other human failing.

It’s heartbreaking. We torment and judge ourselves and each other—holding us each to an impossible imaginary standard of sainthood that even the saints themselves don’t live up to.

I myself used to ‘act spiritual’ on steroids, fully believing I needed to outwardly exhibit my inner aspiration for spiritual transcendence. Even though I was acutely aware that I was several backpacks shy of being able to truly embody that transcendence.

The following is a pivotal event that didn’t cure me of it 100% at the time…but it definitely got the (bowling) ball rolling:

Not long after Long Time No See was published, I was invited to co-teach a weeklong Course in Miracles retreat workshop alongside a couple of better-known teachers. It was an intense time for many reasons, not least because A.) I’d never even attended a spiritual workshop before, much less taught one, and B.) in those early days I was still utterly terrified of the spotlight. Consequently I felt raw, and stretched to the limit most of the time.

On Day 5, my lower back suddenly gave out, slipping out of alignment just after the lunch break. It was the longest afternoon in history: Me, perched on a hard, sloping chair and doing my best to live through the discomfort, all the while attempting to overcome the inner terror and offer a teaching that somebody might actually, y’know, find useful.

All I wanted was to go lie down.

We broke at 5:00pm. Hallelujah. On my way out the door an attendee stopped me. Earlier in the day I’d delivered a message to her that she hadn’t wanted to hear. Maybe I wasn’t sympathetic enough, or sensitive enough while speaking to her about it, I dunno. 8 hours later, she had a great many things she wanted me to know about my personal failings.

I stood and listened quietly, kindly, spiritually, while she tore into me with an unrelenting, scorching fury. Standing was extremely uncomfortable, and being subjected to this shocking diatribe was no picnic either…but I did it anyway. For nearly an hour.

Why? Because I was a fricken spiritual teacher. One who is beyond taking anything personally. One who shouldn’t be perturbed by anything as trivial as back pain. Because kindness, patience and infinite compassion are what a spiritual teacher is supposed to do. Right?

It was only when she ran out of fresh material (but not the fury that fueled it) and began to recycle the original ferocious accusations that I put a stop to it. Politely. Kindly.

Was I honestly feeling polite or kind at that point? Hell no. But no matter what, a spiritual teacher must act spiritual.

WWMTD?

What would Mother Theresa—or anyone else with a rock solid commitment to allow the divine to power their actions—do?

Well they wouldn’t have done what I did.

I may or may not have deserved an angry comeuppance from that person. I couldn’t say. But this sort of disproportionately extreme rage was clearly about something else. This was a self-destructive torrent of verbally expressed inner pain, aimed equally at self and other. To allow the verbal abuse simply because I needed to pretend saintliness, did not do any favors to either of us.

Perhaps truly acting spiritual, in this case, would have meant allowing the divine to slice cleanly through that person’s pattern of rageful abuse—abruptly cutting off the devastation in mid-fireball.

But then, if I did that…everyone would think I was kind of a bitch.

Photo by Ricardo Cruz

So I took the more cowardly option. I wasn’t ready for any sort of divine swordplay in that moment. And yet that’s probably what MT Would’ve Done.

But hey, hardly any of us are saints, right? And not everybody is a spiritual teacher, either. Nevertheless, somewhere along the way we’ve all picked up some seriously unhelpful ideas of how a spiritual person is supposed to feel, act and be. Even if those ideas are often at odds with our true feelings inside.

I guess what I’m really trying to say is…not one of us is perfect. Possibly not even Mother Theresa. And even if they are perfect, they’re still likely to behave in ways that rub up everybody the wrong way now and then.

One person’s saint is another one’s bitch, and vice versa.

I suspect that all of us, myself included, have inconvenient feelings we’d rather not feel, now and then, or ignoble thoughts we were sure we’d be well past having by now. It’s part of being human.

So let’s not pretend anymore. Ok? Let’s give ourselves and each other a break.

Let’s allow the sweet, healing nectar of nonjudgment to flow toward self and others, soothing everything it touches. Let’s be beautifully, messily imperfect together, luggage in hand, as we walk each other home.

Oops! Lost a backpack, there. (Photo by Keagan Henman)

With loving kindness (but yeah, also kind of a bitch),

Carrie