After about twenty years with very little interest in anything religious or spiritual, in 2014 a book written by a prominent atheist sparked renewed interest in me. Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion by Sam Harris changed the trajectory of my life. But Harris did not become someone I looked to as a spiritual teacher. 

In November, 2015 I spoke at Open Circle about secular spirituality, telling the story of Sam Harris and telling my own story. After my presentation a woman came up to me and we had a brief but extremely powerful conversation. She wanted to know if I knew of Eckhart Tolle and yes, I did. She asked if I had read A New Earth and no, I had not. What she said next had a powerful impact on me that I remember to this day. You should, she said, he saved my life, and she walked away.

I read A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose but Eckhart Tolle did not become someone I looked to as a spiritual teacher.

For a couple of years I read a lot about Buddhism, mainly articles on the Secular Buddhist Association website. I learned a lot and was quite impressed. But I also looked for information critical of Buddhism and found the Speculative Buddhism website. I concluded that while many aspects of Buddhism were impressive, the criticism of Buddhism was equally impressive. Years later I would gain a deeper understanding of this experience.

For about a year,  in 2016, I practised meditation, something recommended by many spiritual teachers. And while I learned an important lesson, I did not find it to be transformative and discontinued my practise. However, I sometimes wonder if this would have been a more helpful practise had I started at a much younger age.

By 2018 I thought I had found a spiritual home and I became a supporting member of the Spiritual Naturalist Society. But earlier this year I discontinued that membership. However, my experience with the SNS was totally positive and I continue to respect what it is attempting to do.

Not wanting to journey alone, in 2018 I considered promoting a local chapter of the SNS. That went nowhere fast but my efforts eventually evolved into the Lakeside Pathfinders. I was quite satisfied with the type of people attracted to this initiative, although there were a few exceptions. Unfortunately the coronavirus crisis put a stop to our meetings and none of us will be quite the same when it again becomes safe to meet. We will certainly have lots to talk about, if we gather again, as we all experience the crisis in our own unique way.

Since 2014 I have spent considerable effort researching spiritual teachers. I discovered the Watkins’ Mind Body Spirit magazine list of The 100 Most Spiritually Influential Living People which débuted in 2011 with Eckhart Tolle in the #1 spot. I think I have scanned this list every year and I note that in 2020 the top three were the Dalai Lama, Pope Francis and Greta Thunberg. Each has something worthwhile to say but none of these three will be people that I look to for guidance.

I also spent a considerable amount of time on the excellent Spirituality & Practice website which is devoted to resources for spiritual journeys. Their Living Spiritual Teachers Project has 144 listings and the Remembering Spiritual Masters Project has 38 more. The S&P Alphabet of Spiritual Literacy describes 38 practices, all which seem worthwhile. Strangely, neither meditation nor mindfulness are listed. But in spite of all of these resources, I continued to have the feeling that I was looking for something else. 

During the last few years many people have concluded that the world faces serious problems that seem to be getting worse. Something seems very wrong with the way things are. The global warming crisis is bad enough by itself but now we also have a serious infectious disease crisis. The coronavirus seems to be accelerating trends and magnifying problems. But most significantly, leaders, including spiritual teachers, do not seem up to the task of solving the challenges we face. The tools we have seem inadequate.

How can it be that with all those impressive spiritual teachers on the Watkins lists and on the S&P website, problems have grown? How can it be that with all those spiritual practises, great leaders have not arisen? What are we to do? How are we to live? To whom should we look now?

Then, earlier in 2020, I had an unusual experience. I followed a trail that led me to a book of which I wrote, “It seems as though I have been waiting for years for this book to find me.” That book is Collective Presencing by Ria Baeck.  The book is more of a how-to manual for a new way to live, a common promise made by spiritual teachers. As inspired by the book, there are a couple of things I would like to share, but they will only make sense if you read the book.

I am preparing to jump.

I am preparing to be a caller.

Following this path, you inevitably reach a point where you need other people who also live from this place of inner inspiration – not just for encouragement and support, but also in order to realise (even) more of your potential. I well remember the moment when I realised that I could no longer evolve on my own. In this practice of participating fully in life, I need others with whom to share and express more of what I am able to see and do. I need a collective (a group, a team – whatever you call it) to be able to go deeper into myself, to become more of who I am; not in the personality-habit sense, but in order to shed ever deeper layers of those habits and reveal more of what is latent in me. We need each other – I need you, because of us.

 

At the moment I do not know where my journey will take me. Perhaps nowhere. Time will tell.

At the moment, all I have are words and phrases:   find the others…   attention to intention…   metacrisis…   liminal…   transformation…   emergence…   narratives, stories…   lived experience…   radical personal transparency…   The Stoa…   communitas…   warm data…   collective presencing…  the next, minimal, elegant step...