November 1997 INTEGRATING SPIRITUALITY IN DAILY LIFE - A HOW-TO GUIDE USING YOUR OWN CONFLICTS AS VALUABLE OPPORTUNITIES Thomas Jordan PREFACE This manuscript is essentially an edited version of my lecture notes for a lecture held at a seminar on spirituality organized by the Melanchthon-Akademie in Cologne, Germany, 2-5 October, 1997. The first half of the manuscript is more edited than the second, as you will see. INTRODUCTION In this contribution, I want to address you in a very direct and personal way. I want to convey some ideas about the integration of spirituality in daily life that are immediately relevant for how you live your life - in your family, at work, when shopping, driving or at any other occasions when you have to deal with other people. I would like to be able to express some things that you can feel are tangible spiritual challenges. I will argue that the conflicts we all encounter in our own lives may present excellent opportunities to work on the integration of spirituality in daily life and I will provide practical guidelines for taking on this task. In order to give some background to what follows, I want to point out that my perspective on spirituality is very much influenced by my identity as a social scientist. I am officially an economic geographer, but have been involved with peace and conflict research for a long time. I have spent several years studying developmental psychology, including transpersonal psychology, mainly with the goal of a deeper understanding of societal development. My motive for doing this is basically my deep concern about the state of our society, locally as well as globally. Violence, discrimination social injustice, environmental problems, spiritual disorientation; we all know the endless list of problems facing us when we take a look at the contemporary world. The experience of more than a century of efforts to create a more humane society by conventional political means shows, in my opinion, that many of our most pressing societal problems cannot be resolved by institutional reforms, nor by social revolution. Real progress towards the Good Society requires change on a deeper level: a transformation of people's identities, the basic motivation out of which we live our lives. The quest for ways to integrate spirituality in social life is therefore not only a personal issue, but a political one as well. There is a lot of interest in various forms of spirituality in the contemporary Western society, and I believe that many of us regard a serious engagement with spiritual issues as a crucial factor in social change. However, the spiritual traditions tend to focus on spirituality as a private experience: in contemplation, meditation or other forms. It is my personal belief that transcendental (or mystical) experiences, however intensive they may be, do not automatically lead to an ability to relate to other people in a way we might call spiritual. Integration of spirituality in social interactions is a distinct task, requiring the active development of spiritual skills in our dealings with other people. Just as we may need meditation or contemplation techniques to open the possibility of transpersonal experiences, we may need techniques that can facilitate our strivings to integrate spirituality in daily interactions. My contribution delineates a personal and down-to-earth way to integrate spirituality in social life by a mindful engagement with the small and large conflicts we all encounter in our daily lives. I propose that conflicts can be excellent opportunities to transform spiritual aspirations into living praxis. THE MEANING OF SPIRITUALITY IN THIS CONTEXT When I use the word "spirituality" here, I do it from the perspective of daily life. "Spirituality" might mean a lot of different things, depending on the context. A focus on daily life as most of us live it means that spirituality must make sense to our ordinary states of mind. Therefore, I will give spirituality a meaning that is quite far away from altered states of consciousness, Unio Mystica, and similar experiences, but very close to ordinary life. Besides, I believe that even the most "spiritually experienced" people can benefit from grappling with the more earthbound and basic aspects of spirituality. I will focus on spirituality as expanding one's identity from an exclusive identification with a separate ego, to a more encompassing identification with universal values and concerns. What this means from a practical point of view will hopefully become clear in the next few pages. One of the most precious insights of transpersonal psychology is that when our awareness, our I-feeling, is attached to a self-image that is limited to being a separate individual, cut off from the rest of the creation, then this separate ego is experienced as the only thing we have. If we believe that all we have is the present form we carry around, our personality, we will fear everything that threatens the integrity of this form as we know it. We will resist every experience that indicates that we have to give up the form we have identified with. If we sense that the ego is all there is for us, we will be inclined to accumulate nice experiences and avoid unpleasant ones - which might be a quite limited and unsatisfying life goal seen from a larger perspective. Spirituality can refer to many different things, but in the following I will focus on this very basic aspect: disengaging from the identification with a limited ego in favour of a more open-ended identity. Three aspects of this initial phase of spiritual development seem to be important from a social point of view: 1. Letting go of the desire for permanence and control; 2. Decentering, i.e. commitment to values based on a universalistic perspective (what is good for all rather than what is good for me and my group). 3. Mindfulness, i.e. being present and choosing in all situations, rather than acting out of habit, conventions or impulses. The first aspect points to the resistance of the separate ego to open up to a wider and more open-ended attitude, because of fear. The second aspect points to our basic identification and motivation. What is important for us? What do we want from life? Why do we have the aspirations and desires we have? The answers to these questions are highly dependent on the scope of our identities. The third aspect points to the importance of cultivating awareness. Without awareness and conscious choosing we will not be able to live our lives according to the values we find most important. Mindfulness may permit us to live in a way we can feel really good about. Meditation may be very useful to cultivate all three of these aspects, but does not necessarily lead to the ability to live openness, decentering and mindfulness in social interactions. My present perspective emphasizes spirituality as concern about the well-being of the whole, rather than being restricted to aspirations, wishes, and motivation derived from a separate ego. We are called upon to find ways of transforming spiritual insights into living experience, for ourselves and for others. Only when the very core of people's meaning- making is transformed can we genuinely hope for a better future. This is easily said, but more difficult to realize. I will therefore make a number of suggestions on (i) what integrating spirituality in social life might mean concretely; (ii) how this can be done. To put it differently: I want to formulate a number of "benchmarks" for spiritual development in a social context. The rest of this essay is divided into four sections. The first of these discusses some reasons why conflicts may actually be very well suited as challenges to spiritual development. The aim of the second section is to make the nature and operations of the separate ego easier to spot by describing six defense strategies or self-preservation that are common in conflict situations. In the third section I provide practical suggestions for how conflicts can be used to develop basic spiritual abilities in the cognitive, emotional, intentional and interactional spheres. In the last section, I discuss some aspects of what a spiritual perspective on politics might mean. THE NATURE OF CONFLICTS Conflicts have a number of qualities that can make them very valuable experiences on the spiritual path, provided they are not overwhelming, and provided that we are open to perceive the opportunities they present. The conflicts we become personally involved in are very special phenomena in life. As when we fall in love, conflicts seize us in a dramatic way, and draw us out of our routines into a very intense involvement with other people. Conflicts usually revolve around issues (conscious or subconscious) that are perceived as important by the parties. Therefore conflicts are valuable pointers to what we are identified with in our present stage of life, to our motives and our attachments. Conflicts show us, through the emotions they evoke, what we really feel is important, rather than what we declare about ourselves when we present our self-image. In serious conflicts our carefully maintained polish crackles, and we are forced to face our existential situation in ways that are sometimes very painful. To the extent that we have maintained idealized self-images about our motives, the conflict might pull us down to earth and show us exactly where we are standing. This is also a very valuable property of conflicts: they challenge us to face the self-deceptions we might entertain. This may be especially relevant for people with spiritual aspirations, because we might tend to entertain inflated images of ourselves. In conflicts we might discover that we are not quite the unselfish, nice, even-tempered and fair persons we had imagined ourselves to be. If we are serious about spirituality, it should be obvious that this is a valuable quality of conflicts. Our feelings in conflict situations show us our ego attachments. If we learn to observe ourselves in conflict situations we may get excellent opportunities to spot the control strategies of the ego, stemming from the ego's fear of losing its precious grip on reality. There is much talk about the ego and its limitations in the wisdom traditions, but it is not always very easy to understand exactly what is meant by these sometimes quite general teachings. In conflicts the nature of our own separate ego can become clearly visible, if we are mindful and know what to look for. Ability to witness the nature of the ego and its operations is a fundamental step in spiritual development. In conflicts we get stuck. Someone else stands in the way for us, we are unable to get something we value highly (e.g. tranquility, realization of noble visions, pleasure). This stuckness mobilizes our emotions, and we are highly motivated to search for some kind of opening in our dilemma. We might want the counterpart to simply go away or to change, but in protracted conflicts that does not happen, at least not without effort. In our conflicts we meet things which are not compatible with our ego, and this won't go away. Therefore conflicts may have a transformative potential, it shakes us out of our comfortable but limited patterns. If we are mindful when involved in conflicts, we might be able to use our stuckness and the energy mobilized by it to transcend ingrained patterns and grow as human beings by finding entirely new openings. I want to point out one final aspect of the conflict as a phenomenon. In the field of force created by an escalating conflict, we are exposed to situational pressures that might lead us to regress to even less mature modes of psychological functioning than normal. We risk being caught up in unreflected reaction patterns that are far removed from what we actually want. Conflicts are therefore excellent opportunities to hone our abilities to remain mindful in our actions. As you probably have noticed, what I am trying to accomplish in this section is to reframe the phenomenon of ordinary conflicts. This reframing is actually more important than the specific guidelines I am going to present in the sections to follow. If we succeed in changing our attitude towards conflicts, from seeing them as only a nuisance and an unfortunate exception from our normal nice existence, to looking for the transformative potential they might have for us (apart from the very real problems they present), the results might be profound. The separate ego might be seen as a kind of personal paradigm, an interpretation pattern into which we try to fit everything we encounter in life. However, the stability of this pattern prevent us from spiritual transformation. Conflicts may present us with anomalies, the irking circumstances that won't go away however we try to avoid facing them. Such anomalies may prompt us to look further than we usually do, to the extent of reevaluating our whole way of making meaning out of our experience. I would like to call the approach I present here "conflicts as yoga." Just as the different forms of traditional yoga are instructions facilitating spiritual development, a mindful work with conflicts may be a powerful path for spiritual development in the realm of social interactions. I don't say this lightly. Conflicts can be extremely painful and destructive. Some conflicts become so intense that it is beyond the power of anyone to deal with them in a satisfying way. However, most of our conflicts are not that serious, and my suggestions are primarily intended for the daily conflicts that do not overwhelm us, but nonetheless present us with frustration and emotional engagement. Also, I don't want to convey the impression that I believe that the causes of conflicts are always found in limited ego desires. Many conflicts involve very tangible and important issues, and in the last section I will specify some values I would be prepared to start conflicts about. "Conflicts as yoga" is not about getting rid of conflicts, but about using them as material for spiritual development as they happen to us, whether they involve important values or not. However you try, you will sometimes get involved in conflicts. You might as well take the opportunity to make them meaningful to you on the level of spiritual development, perhaps at the same time as you are fighting for values you really feel committed to. EXPOSING THE SELF-PRESERVATION MECHANISMS OF THE EGO The separate ego believes that the only possible kind of experience is itself. The I-feeling is identified with a specific form, a distinct identity in the form of a self-image. The ego therefore wants to preserve this form at any cost. The ego fears its own dissolution, and feels that giving up the familiar positions is a fundamental threat to its continued existence. It therefore wants to have a feeling of being in control of the situation. It fights everything that threatens to dissolve its sense of permanence and righteousness. By sensitizing yourself to the control strategies of the ego, you may increase your ability to disidentify with the ego and emerge into an expanded self. This step requires evolving a firm sense of the possibility of an identity that is not based on a fixed form, but on a continuous change. Feeling safe although you can't count on permanence, stability and a firm grip over your lifeworld is a decisive spiritual accomplishment. A sense of trust in Gods providence whatever may happen may be helpful, but it is also possible to develop a firm sense of existence that is not attached to a specific form without a belief in a personal God. However, the aim of this section is far more limited. I would like to draw your attention to six very common self-preservation mechanisms used by the ego in conflict situations in order to achieve a sense of control and relative safety. The ability to observe these mechanisms in action in oneself is a first step towards disidentification from the separate ego. **Control strategy 1: Diagnosing. Making up explanations of others' behaviour and images of their motives. Closure of images - no openness to revision.** This strategy permits the ego to retain a feeling of knowing what to expect. Having a comprehensive interpretation of the current situation enables me to make rapid decisions. However, this certitude is mostly an illusion. We don't fully know what motives, intentions and feelings other people have. This is all the more true in conflicts, when our imaginative abilities start to make up all kinds of scenarios spontaneously, while communication with the counterpart is reduced. Closure of our interpretations (i.e. believing they are true) is very destructive, because it closes the door to change, resolution, and a more authentic relationship to the world around us. **Control strategy 2: Simplification/Complexity reduction. Inability to see the individuality of outgroup members. Inability to perceive the complexity of others' personalities.** Complexity reduction is a further strategy to keep the lifeworld simple, predictable and comprehensible - but often at the price of serious misinterpretations. In particular it becomes increasingly difficult for us to remain sensitive to the complexity of our counterpart in a conflict. Every person has many different tendencies simultaneously: greed, fear, commitment to visions, altruism, attraction to power, kindness. In social conflicts we also tend to attribute collective characteristics to individuals: catholics are so and so, the people from the XY-department are always bossy, etc. **Control strategy 3: Evaluations. Rapid judging of others' personalities, behaviours, values. Dissociation and devaluation. Refusal to stay in touch.** Assigning values to events and persons comes quickly in conflicts. This also serves the ego's drive for avoiding ambiguity and achieving a sense of having the situation under control. In conflicts spontaneous feelings of discomfort, irritation and dislike often lead to moral condemnation: it is no longer a question of antipathy, but of badness, i.e. a moral quality. **Control strategy 4: Insincerity. Having hidden agendas, using manipulative tactics (not disclosing goals; maneuvering into superior position by relying on authority, tradition, alliances, etc.).** Being open with our feelings and wishes means taking a risk of being ridiculed or rejected. It might also entail loss of tactical advantages: we may be taken advantage of. The ego strategy is to screen all situations from a tactical perspective: should I disclose my intentions, should I show my true feelings? By sensitizing ourselves to these tendencies we might expose the ego in all its slyness. Letting go of these strategies requires courage to risk being vulnerable. Vulnerability is a basic existential condition of being a person. However spiritual we become, we are still vulnerable in many ways. **Control strategy 5: Exclusive commitment to particular standpoints. Refusal to consider different options.** This strategy concerns the will. Out of fear of having to suffer deprivation, the ego focuses on one particular standpoint, and insists that this is the only acceptable solution. Openness to consideration of creative alternatives evokes fear of being manipulated, tricked. This strategy blocks the search for integrative solutions. **Control strategy 6: Withdrawal.** The most destructive of the ego's defense strategies is to withdraw from relationships that threaten the integrity of the ego-as- form. Withdrawal brings the advantage of not having to integrate differences or confront challenges to our assumptions. Withdrawal means that we no longer expose ourselves to disturbing information or frustrating interactions. This may save our peace of mind, but constitutes a lost opportunity. My main point here is that conflicts can be used to increase our awareness of these defensive strategies of the ego. Becoming aware of the operations of the ego is a first step in the process of disengaging from an exclusive identification with a separate ego in favour of a more encompassing perspective. USING CONFLICTS AS SPIRITUAL CHALLENGES An increased ability to spot the ego's control strategies is a quite modest goal. Conflicts may also lend themselves to a more offensive quest for spiritualizing our lives. In this section, I have formulated four sets of questions you can ask yourself regarding your own way of handling a particular conflict. These questions refer to four different areas of basic spiritual skills: cognitive (the head), emotional (the belly), intentional (the heart), and interactional (the hands). I hope that the nature of the skills are evident from the questions themselves, so I won't explain each item here. A more comprehensive discussion of each type of skill is provided in my article "Conflicts as yoga" (see reference at the end of this text). Cognitive skills (the head) a) Openended listening Have I developed fixed images of the motivations, the character and the strategies of my counterpart? Am I still prepared to revise my interpretations, to allow new pieces of information to change my images of my counterpart or of the situation as a whole? b) Differentiated perception and reasoning Am I able to perceive the complexity of my counterpart's internal world, in particular her/his constructive traits? c) Coordination of perspectives Can I retain some flexibility in relation to my own standpoints, in order to remain open to the possibility of finding creative solutions that allow the satisfaction of both my and my counterpart's fundamental needs and interests? Can I keep a distinct sense of my own values and goals when I try to consider the interests of others? d) Roletaking Am I able to imagine being in the position of my counterpart? Which needs, concerns, and dilemmas are important to her/him? What does she/he fear? Emotional skills (the stomach) a) Endurance of distress due to ambiguity, indetermincay, tension. Can I endure not knowing what my counterpart feels, thinks and intends to do? Can I cope with contradictory information and ambiguous feelings? b) Empathy Can I empathize with the feelings of my counterpart even if I regard those feelings unfounded or misinformed? Can I feel empathy with the distress of my counterpart while simultaneously remaining true to the values that are important to me? c) Differentiation of spontaneous dislikes and moral evaluations Are my negative evaluations of my counterpart based on values that are important to me, or are they directly derived from spontaneous dislike? Do I have a basic preparedness to deal with my own negative emotions instead of condemning or withdrawing if it turns out that my emotions are spontaneous reactions, rather than a question of right and wrong? Intentional skills (the heart) a) Mindfulness Making conscious choices under stress Were there occasions in the current conflict when I slipped into unreflected habitual or impulsive reaction patterns, i.e. situations when I wasn't really present? b) Maintaining commitment to universalistic perspective On what are my standpoints, interests and goals based in the current conflict? Which are my deepest motives? In tense situations, am I capable of leaving room enough for my counterpart to express her/his feelings and standpoints without trying to diagnose, ward off, withdraw or manipulate? c) Assuming responsibility for own actions Am I capable of seeing my own possibilities of chosing line of action in the current conflict, or do I feel like a victim of external constraints? Interactional skills (the hands) a) Being authentic in interactions Are there occasions when I act tactically, e.g. by saying things that do not mirror my true thoughts and feelings in order to get certain results? Am I afraid of showing what I really feel, think and want? b) Staying in internal and external relationship Can I maintain an interior (i.e. psychological) and exterior relationship to my counterpart, or can I detect a tendency in myself to reduce my contact with the counterpart through avoidance, ignorance or delimitations? Can I relate to my counterpart as a Thou, a real living individual whose integrity and basic value I respect? c) Commitment to boddhisattva attitude How can I, in this very situation, contribute to an atmosphere that makes it easier for my counterpart to let go of her/his defenses and act out of her/his most constructive aspects? TOWARDS AN ENLIGHTENED SOCIETY: 10 PRECEPTS One important contribution of transpersonal psychology to politics is the suggestion to pay close attention to motivation. Why do we pursue certain goals? Are those goals really desirable and satisfying? Transpersonal psychology suggests a reframing of politics. The agenda of political activities should be extended from a narrow focus on reforming external structures (tax systems, social security, educational system, etc.) to encompass transformation of internal structures (identities, values, motivation). Political activism from this perspective starts with mindfulness in our own daily interactions with others. Such an emphasis need not be blind to the serious large-scale problems in our society, such as global inequalities, war and environmental deterioration. The great challenge is to find efficient ways of introducing the issues raised by a spiritual outlook to the political agenda. However, there is no way past integrating spiritual skills in our own individual practices. By developing spiritual skills we can contribute in a meaningful way to the emergence of a more humane society. Tentatively, I'd like to suggest some principles for political activism derived from a spiritual perspective. These principles emphasize our own personal interactions with others, but if taken seriously, their transformative potential is profound. I have borrowed the concept of "deep democracy" from Arnold Mindell, and have added the principles of Marshall Rosenberg's "non-violent communication." In formulating the principles and values below, I do not believe it is possible to live up to them in every situation always. Perhaps it is not even desirable to do so in some cases. However, I believe that a basic commitment to these values may be a powerful factor in spotting the instances of discrimination, domination and manipulation that occur in our own behaviour, as well as in social and political interactions around us. I. Deep democracy 1. Commitment to the principle of others' freedom to make their own decisions, i.e. to avoid, as far as possible, the use of coercion, manipulation, emotional pressure, diagnosing, unconditional demands. This principle might sound elementary, but a closer look at our own interactions usually shows that it is very difficult to completely abstain from trying to manipulate other people to do as we want. Such manipulations may somtimes be very subtle, e.g. appealing to the guilt feelings of others, using veiled threats, hinting at rewards (such as conditional praise), or labelling their behaviour in manipulative ways (e.g. "you are selfish"). This principle of course doesn't mean that we should avoid trying to influence others, only that the means we use for influencing should be free from manipulation. Commitment to this principle should be extended to groups as well as individuals, such as minorities. There may be good reasons not to live up to this principle in some cases, e.g. when a group abuses the rights of others. However, a basic commitment to freedom of decision at least means that one must be able to present well founded arguments if one decides to violate this principle. Some might want to object that this principle doesn't make sense in relation to oppressors. However, the problem with oppressors is exactly that they deny others the freedom to make their own decisions. Therefore this principle can be used to expose oppression wherever it occurs. 2. Commitment to the right of each person and group to express their concerns, and to have these concerns considered. This principle involves a basic readiness to listen to and consider the concerns and arguments of both individuals and groups that may for various reasons have difficulties in making themselves heard. The hard part in this is not the right of expression, but the commitment to listen. If extended to the national and international arena this quite elementary principle has far-reaching implications. 3. Commitment to non-violent caring for own needs, such as integrity and self-realization. We have a right to care for our own needs and interests, not least our sense of personal integrity and our need for realizing our unique potential. However, in pursuing our personal or ingroup needs, we should stay commited to non-violent means. 4. Commitment to relate to the good and sane aspects present in every human being. This principle is a matter of belief, namely the belief that every person has some sane and good aspects. The quakers say that there is a spark of God in every individual. An essential part of a spiritual outlook is commitment to look for and relate to this aspect of others, however they may have behaved in the past. We live in a culture where an adversarial mentality is common, i.e. where we polarize our relationships with counterparts to the point of pure hostility. However, spiritualization of the society must emphasize strengthening the good rather than fighting the bad. 5. Sincerity, commitment not to entertain hidden agendas. Openness with our needs and interests is important not only as a general ethical principle, but also as a method of surveying the nature of our own motives. If we discover that we indeed have a hidden agenda, intentions we don't want to disclose, then there is a need to explore the reasons for this. II. Benevolence and compassion 6. Commitment to caring for the well-being of everyone, irrespective of group membership, while also caring for the needs of oneself and of close others. This precept is primarily directed against group egoism, i.e. being exclusively identified with the interests of a particular group as opposed to others. We have a right to feel concerned about the needs and interests of ourselves and our close others, but this concern for close ones should be set in an overall context of commitment to universal caring. 7. Respect and compassion for basic human needs (e.g. survival, security, food, recognition, self-esteem, stimulation), whereever there are people who suffer deprivation. Human beings have the same basic needs, and the same basic feelings. Respect and compassion for hurts and deprivation whereever they occur is very desirable. This may be a critical issue in relation to groups we have negative feelings about. Ability to relate empathically to suffering in whatever context it exists is absolutely central to enlightened politics, and a powerful antidote to group egoism. 8. Commitment to offer whatever good things one can to others, to make a positive contribution. A basic commitment to benevolence means taking care that our net contribution to others is positive.We should use our unique individuality to offer something good to the environment. This is for each person something different. III. Moral courage 9. Courage to stand up for our most noble values, to defend them when they are threatened. The values discussed here doesn't mean much if we don't commit ourselves to stand up for them whenever the need arises. This includes being prepared to go against the prevailing opinions in the groups we belong to, something which might require a great deal of moral courage. 10. Commitment to care for the maintenance of social trust. A human society is ultimately built on the foundation of a basic mutual trust. Only if we can feel reasonably safe, only if we can count on the basic benevolence of our fellow citizens, is it possible to let go of defensiveness and aggressiveness. A feeling of baisc trust in the society is created and recreated by our behaviour towards each other in the social arena. Each day we contribute to the creating of mutual trust by behaving decently towards each other. Those small considerate acts and our body language signal to others that we wont hurt them, and that we are benevolent. Mindfulness in contributing to maintain mutual trust in the public arena is a very important contribution to a spiritualization of the society, and also a meaningful and immediately accessible form of participating in creating a more humane society. I would like to see this as a preliminary effort to formulate a vision of a spiritual approach to societal development. Sources of inspiration BUBER, M. (1923) Ich und Du, Gerlingen: Bleicher Verlag, 1994. CURLE, A. (1990) Tools for transformation. A personal study, Stroud: Hawthorn Press. GLASL, F. (1997) Konfliktmanagement. Ein Handbuch fŸ r FŸ hrungskrŠ fte, Beraterinnen und Berater, 5. Auflage. Bern: Paul Haupt Verlag. MINDELL, A. (1995) Sitting in the Fire. Large group transformation using conflict and diversity, Portland: Lao Tse Press. ROSENBERG, M. (1983) A model for non-violent communication, New Society Publishers. TRUNGPA, C. (1984) Shambala - The sacred path of the warrior, Boston: Shambala Publications. WILBER; K. (1995) Sex, Ecology, Spirituality. The Spirit of Evolution, Boston and London: Shambala Publications. I would welcome comments and reactions to this text, as I am in the process of developing the general approach presented here in various forms. I am also interested in finding people who share my concerns for exchange of ideas. Please e-mail me at: .