For years now, I have been learning a great deal from nature. I observe and am amazed by its constant connection with everything, with the Universe. There is a clarity to renewal and to passing away. Whatever happens, it is able to align with something greater than itself and to acclimate. It accepts both care and the absence of care. It does not demand, yet it responds clearly to everything that appears in the moment. It is astonishing.
And we humans—the excellence of the species—where do we stand with this? Are we able to remain in constant connection with something greater than ourselves? Are we able to turn our attention toward the whole and, whatever happens, serve not our own interest but that of the Universe? Are we able to accept both care and the absence of care? Are we able to see what is actually happening in the moment and respond to it selflessly? Honestly? I think we could be capable of all this—but we are far from being there.
It is as if nature, in this constant connection with the Universe, keeps continuously updating its own “software,” while we, in our fragmented connection, have been running mostly the same programs from the very beginning. Mine. I deserve it. I want it. I won’t give it. I’ll take it. These are still present in our everyday lives. Sometimes in more sophisticated forms than before—sometimes more brutally than ever.
Everything around us is changing at an enormous pace. Our planet is re-coding itself again and again at super speed. Many people do not really know what to do with all this, and for lack of better options they comfort themselves with the idea that sooner or later life will return to the familiar course we once knew. But such a thing has never happened before—why would it happen now? When a program is updated, the old version is rewritten and is no longer available in its previous form.
I feel this is true for everything. For the spiritual dimensions as well, for our understanding of them, for our frameworks and interpretations alike. I believe it is impossible to survive in a transformed existence with an old-paradigm “formula of experiencing and integrating.” For how do we interpret ourselves in an almost uninterpretable world? What do we accept as the purpose of our existence when our world holds no bright prospects even for the not-so-distant future? How do we free ourselves from the tangled web of gender identities? How do we find a way out from under the weight of globally standardized information and doctrines pressing down on us? How do we remain faithful to our fundamental moral values in a world order that almost entirely neglects ethics? How do we untie the Gordian knot of our entire planet—how do we radically reduce our consumption within an economy built on consumption and already condemned by it?
These are just a few of the questions to which our linear thinking—shaped by and operating within this crumbling system—has no answers.
We also tend to receive spiritual paths mostly through this same filter of consciousness. And so I feel that the old teachings are very useful, but at a certain point they must dissolve into the unique interpretation of our own awareness. Everything has to be let go. Literally everything. And this is at least as elevated and exciting as it is frightening. Anyone who has taken part in a deeper, teacher-plant ceremony may have experienced what Buddha said: attachment is suffering. If we do not let go and we cling rigidly to what is untrue in the place we long to rise to, then this process will take a long time, consume an incredible amount of energy, and be very painful.
It is important to realize that we are living in a transforming world. We are both the causes of this transformation and its hopeful participants. We know how we have been—and still are—contributors to this series of events now unfolding, but we can only guess what the consequences will bring. Physically, let us do what we believe is important—but it is just as important to prepare for the unknown by strengthening our trust. Our complete and unconditional trust in existence and in the Unnameable. And it is worth practicing surrender and letting go in our everyday situations, so that when the time of the “update” arrives, we can more easily choose the gentler and less painful path.
With love,
Your traveling companion
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