The Spirituality of Everyday Life: Transforming ourselves

and spiritualizing everyday life!

By Dr Robert Calkin
http://www.bobcalkin.co.nz

When we talk about spirituality of everyday life we are talking about bringing a
special sense to everything we do. It means approaching life with a sense of awe and
wonder and is associated with feelings of care and concern for others, for the Earth
and all living forms. It also means having a sense of gratitude, being thankful and
having a feeling of being blessed by an energy or power greater than ourselves.

Engagement with everyday life means life in the family, at work, when socializing,
being involved in recreation, sports, doing the shopping or indeed in anything we do
whether we are dealing with other people or not. It also means engagement with the
mystery of the sacred energy of the universe of which we are a part, without the
religious baggage of the past.

My motive for raising these issues is a concern for the state of the world. We face an
economic and ecological meltdown, serious social division and widespread
psychological alienation. The problems are well known and the experience of more
than a century to establish a more humane society through conventional political and
religious institutions has not occurred suggesting that new ways must be found to deal
with these challenges and bring about a happier world.

There is a lot of interest in various forms of spirituality, but also a widespread feeling
that traditional religions have lost relevance. I don’t necessarily share this view, and I
would want to bring traditional believers, as well as those who yearn for a spiritual
renewal for their lives outside of traditional religious practices, along with me. There
is also widespread belief that a serious engagement with spiritual issues is a critical in
bringing about lasting change at the collective level, as well as creating the conditions
for deep fulfillment.

It seems to me that a twenty first century spirituality of everyday life involves

expanding our consciousness around six themes. I call these the six themes of
consciousness:

 What is the true nature of the self and reality generally;

 How do we define our needs;
 How do we satisfy those needs;
 How do we define a successful life and what motivates us in that life;
 What is the span of our care and concern for others, for the Earth and for other
living forms;
 How do we define our social and civic commitments?

One of the most important aspects of a spirituality of everyday life involves moving
from a sense of self as a separate isolated individual defined in terms of I, me and
mine to a realization that each of us, in the words of Eckhart Tolle, does not have a
life, but that we are life. In this sense life has us we are life’s instrument or servant. I
call this the universal self. Developing a universal self is a pre-eminent spiritual quest.
A limited sense of self cuts us off from the universe and we tend to experience our
self in this limited way, as all that we are and all that we have. We resist every
experience that threatens this sense of self and seek nice experiences and avoid
unpleasant ones.

The field of development psychology teaches us that the six themes of consciousness
can be defined by people at ever increasing levels of complexity and they can undergo
development and growth throughout the whole of life. For many, the themes of
consciousness plateau and remain fixed at that level throughout life. For others, their
lives are an ever increasing spiral of growth and development. This is a natural
process and everyone has the potential to expand their spiritual of awareness and
consciousness.

The spiritual challenge that we face is being called to find a way of expanding our
consciousness and awareness around the six themes, (particularly the development of
a universal sense of self) and to find ways of transforming these themes into an
engagement with everyday life. To do this we need to develop the capacities of what I
call the seven paths of spirituality of everyday life.

The first path involves qualities needed to live fully aware moment by moment so that
we are able to adjust our actions in real time as events unfold. This is about what
Eckhart Tolle calls living in the NOW. Living in the NOW involves engaging with
everyday life moment by moment as life unfolds and in being able to monitor our
actions so as to be able to adjust what we are doing as events unfold.

The second path involves the capacity to treat everything that arises as an opportunity
to learn and make the most of every moment. This path is about a transformation from
a mindset of unilateral control to one of using each moment of everyday life as an
opportunity for infinite possibilities. This path opens people up to the realization that
the life that they are has the potential for enormous growth around the six themes of
consciousness.

Developing the capacities to walk these two paths contain useful guides about how we
can develop a universal self where we become a servant of life.

The third path involves the capacity of learning how to take full responsibility for the
choices we make. This is the secret to living as a full participant in the game of life
rather than as a victim of circumstances.

The fourth path involves the potential of gaining mastery of our emotions so that they
become an ally in helping us deal effectively with the fortunes of life. All emotions
even emotions like anger and fear have their place in our lives. The secret here is to
use the energy of the full range of emotions as a positive influence rather than being a
prisoner and at the mercy of our feelings.

The fifth path involves the capacity to learn how to turn a crucial conversation where
opinions differ, where the stakes are high and where emotions run hot into a positive
outcome. This means being able to tell your truth without offending others, even
when you disagree with them. Most people when confronted by a crucial conversation
become aggressive or withdraw rather than buy a fight. Learning about this path has
an important part to play in helping us recognize unconscious attachments relating to
the self and has the potential to create an opportunity for a major lift in consciousness.

The sixth path involves the capacity to learn how to turn disagreement into the best
decision even if it means giving up a cherished position when a better argument is
presented. This is about skilful negotiation where the best decision is the goal rather
than winning an argument to save face. This path is about how to participate in
finding common interests in order to make the best decisions.

The seventh path involves the capacity to make promises and honor those promises.
Learning to walk this path ensures that things get done efficiently and effectively and
good relationships are preserved.

The fifth through to the seventh paths are about the practical ways of engaging in a
spirituality of everyday life through our interpersonal relationships. These
relationships are a critical area of living a spirituality of everyday life.

The achievement of the “Good Society” and the creation of the conditions for happy
and fulfilled lives will involve massive transformations and change as we repair the
Earth’s ecology, create a new economic order, redress the social divisions and heal
the widespread psychological alienation. A necessary step in this process is for a
significant number of people, sufficient to influence the course of events, to develop a
spirituality of everyday life. This involves building a worldwide social movement
whose aim is the spiritualization of everyday life.

If you seek a spiritual basis to your life and feel that becoming part of movement
dedicated to the spiritualization of everyday life would fit in with your values and
aspirations then visit http://www.bobcalkin.co.nz and join us in setting about playing
a part in the transformation of ourselves and our world.