I find a natural urge to scan the larger world in which I live and seek coherence. There are times the world seems to come together momentarily—during a natural disaster, perhaps, or following the passing of a much-beloved person. Currently, the world is aware of the horrific fires in Los Angeles. And we have had a week of celebrating the life of former President Jimmy Carter. But mostly, there are divisive forces that make it difficult to feel any coherence out there. There is such a sense of being fractured politically, culturally, and religiously. And people retreat to their individual perspectives and opinions, and their individual worlds.
Journalist Derek Thompson made these observations last week in The Atlantic:
Every single demographic of Americans now spends significantly less time socializing than they did at the beginning of the 21st century, when some people already thought we were in a socializing crisis. Overall, Americans spend about 20 percent less time socializing than they did at the beginning of the century. For teenagers and for young Black men, it’s closer to 40 percent less time. This trend seems, by some accounts, to have accelerated during the pandemic. But as one economist pointed out to me, we were more alone in 2023 than we were in 2021.
Aloneness is rising across the board—for every age group and for every ethnicity and for every type of education—but it’s rising slower for old people and faster for young people.
The World Health Organization has declared loneliness to be a pressing global health threat, declaring that “[Loneliness] transcends borders and is becoming a global public health concern affecting every facet of health, well-being and development. Social isolation knows no age or boundaries.”
Social isolation is not the only factor leading to a lack of social coherence. But it is part of the picture. Many give up on the possibility of any larger field of social coherence, adopting a form of nihilism, believing that large social groups like communities and countries, and the world-at-large, are meaningless. And many people resort to building a pattern of relationship with those nearest to them—family and friends—while giving up on anything past that.
On January 6th, I presented from Colorado to a seminar in Chennai, India, Cultivating Transformative Faith and a New Ecology of Hope. I spoke to the power of our primal spirituality to address the hopelessness in the world. Our primal spirituality includes the messages brought by the originators of the world’s great spiritual paths. They were some of the most hopeful people the world has ever seen. And they brought a true hope, based on what is real and true about each of us and all of us together.
As part of my offering to the seminar, I submitted a 20-page paper, Teaching Primal Spirituality, A Path to Transformational Faith and an Ecology of Hope. You can find the text as an e-book on Amazon, and I’ll be presenting the ideas in it on Becoming a Sun Programs next Monday.
As I did my final proofreading of the paper at midnight on New Year’s Day, I was full of awe at the messages delivered to humankind through the ages by people like the Buddha, Lao Tzu, Moses, Jesus, and many more. They had each had their own profound mystical encounter. They invited people they taught to experience the same.
When you encounter the mystical, it is initially unknown. That’s why we call it mystical. Through the encounter we come to know it—not all mystery, just that part of it that we encounter. We tune in to it and relate to it. It becomes real to us in the living of life.
Martin Cecil was known to often say, Spiritual things are spiritually discerned. While the mind plays a part in the process, intellect alone is futile as an instrument of spiritual discernment. A heart turned toward the mystical is essential to the process. When the heart is tuned in, our spiritual capacity resonates with the mystical. It enters us, and we feel it and know it. Isn’t this how it goes?
As this unfolds, a person has the opportunity to know themselves as part of the Family of Souls. They become aware that there is a mystical Reality in which we are part of one Family. Some of us are in the flesh, as you presumably are. And some of us are not.
All of Creation—from the atom and the cell to the solar system and the galaxy—revolves around a center. There is an invisible to the Soul Family. Muhammed spoke of it as Allah, and Lao Tzu as the Tao. Moses, Krishna, and Jesus sometimes simply spoke of it with a first-person pronoun, as “I” or “me.”
All of Creation constellates around its center. The human body constellates around the heart, which begins to beat only four weeks after conception. The Family of Souls constellates around its Center, held together by the bonds of Love.
If any individual does not find their Attunement with the center of this Family of Souls, on what basis is that person supposed to harmonize with others? In that case, the person is not utilizing the principle that allows for harmonization. So what is left? Incoherence and discord. Loneliness.
Belief alone doesn’t guarantee Attunement with the center of the Soul Family. And belief alone doesn’t guarantee an end of division. The world has plenty of evidence of this. Shia and Sunnis both believe in Allah. But that doesn’t mean they get along. Protestants and Catholics claim to worship the same God and love Jesus. Nonetheless, there has been conflict over centuries. Even when there is a measure of Attunement with the invisible center of this Family of Souls, there is no guaranty of peace and accord among people. There is no guaranty of social and spiritual coherence among human beings.
For us—the part of the Family of Souls that is on the field of play—to know coherence among ourselves, two things have to happen. Our mystical encounter with the invisible Center has to become so transformative that it enters us and changes us. The Spirit of it becomes known by us to the point that we express and embody it in our life. We not only speak and act for it. We speak and act as it in the world, without human presumption of our ultimate fidelity with that Reality.
As more than one person has this experience, they are sharing a collective mystical encounter. As Jesus put it:
For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.
Matthew 18:20
The second thing that has to happen is that we, as the team on the field for the Family of Souls, have to establish a center to the team and constellate ourselves around that center. There is a natural urge to do that when there is deep Attunement with the Center of Being in the invisible. Without that deep Attunement, there is no such urge or desire. And all that is left is either human apathy or competition.
From the usual viewpoint, leadership is mostly motivated by the ambition of the leader. It is interesting to observe how similar processes work in nature. The queen bee begins life with the same DNA as her worker bee counterparts. The difference seems to be unrelated to her, and it seems to have nothing to do with her desire to be queen. The hive feeds her nutrient-rich royal jelly, and this is what empowers her to become queen. In other words, the creation of the queen is an act of the hive community.
This is the only way it can work for us as part of the Soul Family that is incarnate. We have to invest Love and Light into this creation. That investment creates the beating heart of the Family of Souls.
This is the second step in the creation of center for the constellation of the Soul Family on earth. Without the first step being taken, the second step will never happen. All there will be is either apathy regarding participation, or human-power politics regarding leadership. As Martin Luther King, Jr., put it, the drum major instinct takes over and people vie for a position that puts them out in front.
There has to be two or three gathered together in the name of the invisible Center so that the spirit of that Center is in our midst. Only then are we empowered to create a visible Center for the manifest part of the Family of Souls. And only then are we empowered to be part of the constellation of that Family.
This is what creates social and vibrational coherence in human culture. This is the full experience of the transformative faith that creates an ecology of true hope.