A column for next week's newspapers
Unexpected enlightenment – You never know who you’ll meet
It’s been a busy month after retiring, so busy in fact, that I am getting log cabin fever. So, in my sixth decade on earth, I’ve decided to ply a new trade.
How about a school bus driver? Children can be enlightening, and Jesus taught us that we must come into enlightenment the same as a small child. What this means integrally for us with all the knowledge, wisdom, and answers to all of the world’s questions, should be as a wide-eyed child in faith. All the garbage we have collected over our lifetimes means little. He taught that if we have faith as a mustard seed you could say mountain, move, and it would go far away. As far-fetched as it seems, I have heard and read about the mind of some enlightened men and women, do just that. Most of us, however, have little faith. There is a color code for that, too, which I shall explain in later writings.
Having studied the new integral life practices that I told you about last week, I can see the parallel of how we mature and move from stage to stage in this life. There are not only stages, but states, levels and lines of consciousness that we move through. Some psychologists say it takes five years to move from one stage in life to the next, some longer than others. If, as they say, there are nine stages in consciousness, which is only a guess; there may be other stages we don’t even know about in the year 2024. Now these stages are color-coded, according to Dr. Don Beck, creator of Spiral Dynamics. The spiral on this page, in a separate advertisement, is a chart of spiral dynamics. Dr. Beck has a website called Spiral Dynamics Integral. So everyone is getting integral.
In this new life, I have found that being a school bus driver; you get a map that goes with the territory. In integral practice, you only get a map. The territory is yourself, the inner part of you and you can travel up and down the spiral at any given time in body, mind and spirit.
I have made new friends since becoming an integral community member. There’s a 56-year-old woman (married) who has a chronic illness. She lives in Finland. There is a bright Capricorn (same as I) who lives in British Columbia, Canada. There is a polite guy, who questions me at length about enlightenment, in southern California, and a skeptic in Illinois. Then there is a lady who calls herself Helene, who is from Poland originally. She was there in the holocaust and she has a vivid memory of the torture she was put through before she escaped and managed to cross the ocean into America. Each new friend has much to offer when talking about integral living.
Our individual journeys take us into many unexpected situations where we encounter a wide variety of people-some quite like ourselves and some very different. We cannot anticipate these meetings, but we can make the most of them when they take place. When we are courteous as a matter of course and open-minded in our assessment of the individuals whose lives briefly touch our own, we are more apt to stumble upon surprising gems of wisdom that open our eyes to new worlds of possibility. Every person we meet can affect us profoundly, just as every situation we find ourselves in can teach us something new.
To fully embrace this fact, it is essential that we acknowledge that everyone is valuable in their own way and capable of expanding our horizons. Since we never know when we will happen upon those individuals who will unveil truths before us, we should extend to all people the same generous level of kindness, care, compassion, and understanding. When we assume everyone we meet is special and treat them as such, we can develop a strong rapport quickly. By making an effort to adopt a positive attitude toward others at all times, we ensure that our emotions do not blind us to wisdom that may be lurking in difficult or distressing situations. We are accordingly receptive to knowledge that comes to us in the form of examples, advice, and direct teaching.
These brief relationships ultimately have the potential to enrich our lives in a very concrete way. But the wisdom we gain is proportional to the attention we pay to the world around us. The responsibility is on us to maintain a state of awareness that allows us to recognize when we are in the presence of someone consciously or unconsciously in possession of knowledge that will change us significantly. When we are cognizant of the potential for unexpected enlightenment, we make a habit of turning strangers into friends, thus ensuring that we are never without a font of wisdom from which to draw.
John W. Cargile, Msc.D, D.D. is a licensed ordained minister through International Metaphysical Ministries and a graduate of Samford University (1969). E-books, reference material and study programs are now available at his website www.21stcenturyministries.com For those with special prayer needs, call Unity’s prayer line at 1-800-669-7729. You can contact him at jwcargile@charter.net. All conversations are confidential.
JC
33° 13' N 87° 37' W