#6 The gift of my defeat
Fifteen years ago, I ran for mayor in the small town where I lived. I lost. And started a livelong inner quest on how to change the world.
Fifteen years ago, I ran for mayor in the small town where I lived. It wasn’t planned; it just happened. Fortunately, I lost.
The day after the election, I was sitting on the staircase in my home, looking at my three little children, who were peacefully playing with each other on the living room floor.
That surprised me. During the weeks of the campaign, there was always tension between them, and a fight or a crisis was always close at hand.
A few years earlier, I had started practicing Zen. My Zen master always said “the inner equals the outer”, meaning that whatever occurs in your outer world is always a reflection of your inner world, and vice versa. Although this seemed simple, I struggled with it for a long time.
When I observed my children playing in harmony, the words of my master came to my mind. The tension, the fights: all of this seemed to disappear suddenly, and I asked myself: how and how much do I influence the lives of my children?
It was the starting point of my inner quest and the starting point of taking the teaching of my Zen master into my daily life. Whenever something difficult or irritating came up, I asked myself: what does this have to do with me?
It was a hard time, and I had a lot to learn. I went through a painful divorce, I was dealing with depression and migraine, and after the death of my two parents my family of origin seemed to break apart.
This was only one part of my quest.
As a facilitator, I deal with change and transformation in organisations and society. It is more common for changes to fail than to succeed. So, I ask myself the same questions: how does this outer experience reflect my inner situation? What does this tell me about our society?
The inner equals the outer, and the outer equals the inner. This turns out to be a profound insight: our consciousness is the key. It is the key to healing, transforming, and acting with impact. It is the key to understanding how everything works together and how we came to the situation we are facing now as humans. And it is the key to resolving it.
How to understand the power we have
Over the next few weeks, I’ll talk about consciousness. We will cover questions like:
- How does consciousness come into being? Does it come into being at all?
- How does it evolve? And is there a direction in our development, both of body and mind?
- How do traumata affect our development and our lives as adults?
- Is there a link between how our society works and how our mind and consciousness work?
- Are we the only conscious beings in the world? And why does this matter?
- Is there matter at all, or are we a conscious universe?
- And finally, what is the connection between our consciousness and the destruction humans produce and face?
Our mind and consciousness are powerful tools. I want us to understand how to use them properly. If we truly understand the dynamics between our consciousness and our world, mind, and society, we can profoundly change and transform our society; we can change the course of humanity.
Thank you for your precious being.
Warmly,
Gabriel