Published January 31st, 2021

Make him one of Thy angels whose feet walk upon this earth even as their souls are soaring through the high heavens. — Excerpt from Baha’i Prayer

One of the challenges of living as a spirit being in the material realm is that we often feel unseen or not valued. We see others get recognition, and then we think it somehow means we are diminished or that the light is shining somewhere else, so I am left in the dark. This creates incoherence within us as we struggle to be seen, valued, and acknowledged. This is exacerbated by a world that was impacted by colonialism, which breeds competition and thrives on creating a mindset of otherness. Otherness seeks to separate and does not recognize oneness, unity, or connectedness.

Chief Seattle, of the Suquamish and Duwamish people, once said, “Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread in it. Whatever we do to the web we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things are connected.”

This understanding of oneness and recognition of humanity as one thread among many threads in the world of Creation is so deeply engrained in Chief Seattle’s statement that humanity is not even separated into many tribes, rather acknowledged as one whole. This is not to say sameness; rather, as a species, humanity is one.

In our immaturity as a people, as a whole, we do not yet understand this in practice; rather, we understand it intellectually. So then, in our relationships, where intimacy tries to make a home, we set up walls, pull back, and push away because we do not yet understand what being one means.

So how then do we push past this? How do we reach out past the veil of otherness?

There are many ways to answer this question, and they will be colored by the unique reality of each group of people. Living in the Western world in a culture steeped with individualism and growing up in a home culture that was both communal in nature and individualistic in another, I look to transformation of the self and find like-minded friends to learn about collective transformation.

At the individual level, I know that if I continue to try and find acknowledgment, validation, and recognition from the material world, I will always be disappointed. As a writer, I live on the edge of understanding and am always stretching myself into realms not often traveled and pull out an understanding with the thread of spirit. What does this look like in the material realm? Often I find I am walking through great difficulties, both personal and collective. Professionally, while qualified to work and live in an organized system of work, I crave to explore the open yawn of space between sunrise and sunset with a frank tongue and kind heart and ask how can we remake these spaces, so they are more equitable in nature, more accessible to all, more available with love. These are not easy explorations in systems or within oneself; we find when we do these things that these systems are not equitable, that deep-rooted prejudices and biases exist, and that is troubling. Because justice is a characteristic of the human soul, we recoil at the thought of prejudices and biases existing within us. All we can do is recognize these weaknesses within ourselves and our systems and make every effort to root them out and replace them with the truth.

At the individual level, this rooting out can follow this process: A willing heart seeking transformation, a recognition of the false narratives we hold within us — about ourselves and others — most likely what will follow is a purging of accompanying emotions at the recognition of these false narratives and then a gentle planting of the truth within us. How do we know if the rooting out has happened? This is the mystical aspect of life. We cannot decide the time or day that we will have changed when we have transformed. Just one day, you will know, and then everything will be different. Because this process is intimate in nature, where we seek deep within us to find and root out these painful beliefs, our focus is on our own selves and our transformation. This is not to say we do not engage in the world's transformative efforts; we do, and we must. However, we do not look to the world to agree with us or to be okay with our transformative path; rather, we trust the process and this higher source of understanding we get from prayer, meditation, holy words, and writings to define us and our efforts.

If we were to look to the world to say — good job, you did well — we would be sorely remiss, as it cannot, it is not in its nature. I can strive to do this, exert all my efforts so that humanity and its systems will see me and recognize me in all my glory, and for a brief moment, it might, and then it will do what it was created to do, fall away. Because we are in a material realm, and as such, it is not a world of perfection, rather a world that is in constant change. And while we, as spirit beings, are also changing, we are moving towards perfection, so the outcome looks drastically different from the material realm, which will only seek to replicate itself again and again with some evolution happening over a long time. And this last point is something we can learn from nature as it reflects our own evolution, which takes time.

So then, because we’re human beings, we are really spiritual in nature, and for validation, acknowledgment, and recognition, we must look to the things of the spirit. Here we find many examples in history of people who exemplified a life of a spirit in transformation: Wovoka, Huascar, Apostle Paul, Mulla Husayn, Mary Magdalene. And, of course, of the many Prophets who led lives of great difficulty to teach the teachings that would raise humanity to its true station of nobility.

This does not mean we are not to live a life of joy; rather, it means we find joy in all aspects of life, including tribulation, in gratitude for another opportunity to move closer to the true nature of who we are and manifest that brilliant light in the world of nature. We do humbly, for we are not concerned about whether or not others see this light; we naturally express it through actively living a life of transformation and deep reflection.

In this way, we are true outliers in the world of matter, while on the one hand, we are of this world; in another, we are not. Living as an outlier requires a daily spiritual practice to keep your inner reality aligned with its true nature while walking a material realm. This we must do, consistently, as a quiet daily practice of transformation, mostly invisible to the world of matter, recognized and valued in the world of spirit.