Cleansing the Mind, Heart, and Soul
It’s what brings about a shift in consciousness that precedes a different way of being, living, thinking, and doing
Cleansing of the mind, heart, soul precedes the kind of life change that brings greater harmony and peace. And yet there are many who believe that for humanity to evolve we need only change our behaviors. Such a belief, however, implies that better laws and constraints will improve everything.
But enlightened laws don’t change minds and hearts, they merely suppress the sickness of selfishness, greed, and prejudice into the shadows, making them latent, laying in wait for an opportunity to resurface again. Like certain pundits, quasi-intellectuals, talk radio hosts, and political figures who say outrageous things and give life to those latencies that seek validation in the public sphere so they may resurface.
History repeats itself precisely because of this phenomenon. Because we haven’t yet fully healed the underlying cause of those things that produce human suffering.
We can march in protests, start petitions, write politicians. In the extreme, we can even travel across the world to join military actions believing we are righting a wrong. We can become pundits ourselves, expressing our beliefs online and backing them up with facts that support our positions, hoping to change minds and therefore stimulate a more enlightened system.
The French Revolution came about because of an extreme polarization between wealth and poverty. The same is taking place today, and just as with the late 18th century France, there is a tinderbox of discontent in the world today that will reach a point of combustibility in which a catalyzing event will set off a new kind of revolution. Not likely a violent one, but one of forced systemic change.
But if we don’t cleanse the mind, heart, and soul history will repeat itself, because the underlying cause of inequity will have merely been suppressed, not healed.
Many people resist this notion. It’s understandable of course, because cleansing the mind, heart, and soul requires continuous persistent action. It requires that we shape our lives around a singular focus of inner healing and growth. It means we accept responsibility for the violence and harm in the world, even those occurrences that take place many thousands of miles away. Even with things we seemingly have had nothing to do with.
We didn’t personally tell Putin to invade and bomb Ukraine. We didn’t influence Joseph Kony to force children into becoming violent soldiers. We haven’t sat on the boards of oil companies and told them to keep drilling.
But we’re responsible.
How? Because we’re all connected. We’re all one humanity, one consciousness. We’re a hive mind without understanding the nature of our connection.
When we demonize the “others” as the source of our problems we cultivate more separation. And separation perpetuates a calcification of those inward violent emotions and thoughts that generate the outward behaviors that we seek to abolish.
Martin Luther King Jr. famously wrote in his book Strength to Love,
“Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction.”
Exactly!
Enlightened laws and systems of control merely begets more control, and disagreement as to who’s methods of control are better. And so, we continue to descend the spiral of destruction.
But cleansing of the mind, heart, and soul is different. It’s what brings about a shift in consciousness that precedes a different way of being, living, thinking, and doing.
Of course it’s not easy. It means looking at ourselves honestly and deeply. It means facing our fears. It means facing the music and trusting that in the end it will lead us down a better road.
Currently, Maria and I are building a tool shed on our land. It’s the very first structure we’re building, and the first we’ve built ever. The construction was preceded by months of research and taking part in some projects with friends with lots of building experience so we could learn from them.
Equipped with lots of academic knowledge of how to build a tool shed and a small amount of practical experience we ordered the materials and started in. It’s been enjoyable in many ways and represents a new beginning as we’re finally taking the physical steps that will lead us to living off-grid on our land. But academic knowledge and real-world experience are different things. Thus, we (or rather me) have made many mistakes along the way, and it’s brought up a very real feeling of not allowing myself to make mistakes.
After years, decades even, of cleansing work I realize I am still very hard on myself. Another lengthy trip to the hardware store, the purchase of more lumber to compensate for my mistakes, the purchase of a tool I knew I would need but thought I could get by without, more delay, disassembly of certain portions to reassemble correctly, and so on. It’s brought up for me the need for more healing, more self-acceptance, and more gentleness with self, which translates to more compassion and gentleness with others when they make mistakes.
It's not easy, but it’s what I’ve committed myself to in this incarnation and it translates to a different way of being in the world. As with this recent revelation that I still have subtle layers to peel that go back to early childhood, and with the knowing that as I heal these next layers I will cultivate greater compassion and gentleness with others.
More important still, is that I’ll be feeding more of an energy of compassion into the field of human consciousness, subtly affecting the hive mind, as so many others on a similar track are doing.
Of course we need more “enlightened” laws and systems of control to keep us safe and to set an example for those who are resistant to change. But if we rely on this alone, history will repeat. It’s through the cleansing of the mind, heart, and soul that we change consciousness, which catalyzes more positive change within and without.
Back in the '60s we hippie-activists used to have rap sessions late into the night debating the question of whether or not systemic change can happen through voting and the political process or if it has to start with individual enlightenment. I eventually decided that enlightened political action is what is needed which still means that it starts with each individual cleansing their mind, heart and soul. So it will require a miracle for that to happen. But what else is new? As the Dead said, "I need a miracle every day."