Responsibility

Last month, I wrote about presence. This month, what is on my heart is the connected idea of responsibility.

In architecture, an arch is a far more powerful structure than a doorway with right angles. The roundness of the shape allows the blocks to lean on each other and support each other, allowing the archway to hold far more than any of the blocks could on their own. So it is with a circle. The members of the circle, together, hold the space. The power of the circle is far stronger than the power of each of the individuals. I was taught that every circle we form continues in nonordinary reality after the circle is opened and the people disperse.

It does not take significant experience to participate in holding the circle in this way. What it does take is responsibility. We have a responsibility to hold our attention, our intention, and our compassion in circle--we do this for the benefit of the people next to us, and not for ourselves. When we are able to take responsibility for supporting the people next to us, we have to trust that they are also supporting us.

I am fascinated (and saddened) by two opposing forces in our culture today: what I call "toxic individuality" and what I will call "toxic passenger-ship" (I just made that up!). In toxic individuality, we see spiritual teachings as being for ourselves, and only for our own development, rather than to help our communities. Excessive individuality causes us to lose our sense of responsibility for each other. In toxic passenger-ship, we expect our development to happen to us, rather than recognizing the essential relationship between ourselves, our teacher(s), and our compassionate helping spirits. In this passenger-ship, we lose the sense of responsibility for ourselves.

I say all of this with great compassion. Our culture's disconnection from the spiritual world has caused our collective to develop these unhealthy coping mechanisms in order to survive a society that lacks essential reciprocal relationship. It can be difficult, even painful, to begin to see how we have collectively abdicated our responsibility. But I have never been promised by my own teachers that spiritual progression would be easy, and I do not promise that to anyone I teach. The work will sometimes be difficult, and will sometimes bring up things in ourselves we would rather not face. That is the work. In order to stand fully in our power, in order to take responsibility, we must recognize where we have given our power away. Taking responsibility is reclaiming power. That, too, is the work.