Jan 30, 2023
The Best of 2022: Finding More Inclusivity in Religion & Spirituality - Episode 77
In this, “Best Of” series,” Robert asks listeners, spiritual practitioners, leaders, and mentors to reflect on ways to be more inclusive. He suggests modeling by those in positions of leadership to reveal how they integrate tendencies to idealize their own religion or spiritual teaching. Whether it be, meditation, prayer, or faith-centered, it can be helpful to their communities to show how they don't want to fall prey to using their teachings to unwittingly create an "us versus them" with other approaches. This blanketing of their challenging parts and an unwillingness to share deprives the practitioners and students of the advantage of seeing the teacher's deep wisdom in practice and how this can lead to superiority, rather than love for humanity. When we can be vulnerable and real about our humanness, doubt, and uncertainty this leads to a common identification with everyone because we realize we are all in the same boat. Nobody has immunity from life, death, or the challenges in between. Join Robert as he explores these challenges week by week and how to meet them with ever-growing awareness.
A full experience of reality includes a certain level of faith, wisdom, and belief, but it also needs to include our humanity. Humanness is not the denial of faith but the inclusion of our primal fears, confusions, any challenging emotions, and seeing the goodness and wisdom in other approaches. In Robert's view, it is very important to keep questioning, to stay curious, and to keep a certain amount of mandatory humility rather than false confidence. It is the ignoring of our exclusivity and compartmentalization that has led to war, alienation, competition, and endangering our planet. The stakes are incredibly high for our survival and our fulfillment. However, this shift is not enough if it is simply an insight, unless we also use more of our time, money, and resources toward our troubled country, the world, and unite with other approaches that are primarily focused on loving humanity and the planet. If you enjoyed this conversation please look for the full episodes in the show notes.
Read the transcription and listen to this episode on The Global Bridge Foundation website.