COVID-19: Soul Lessons for Us All
Lately our world has turned upside down as fears of COVID-19 and its fallout constrict the collective breath of humanity.
Many authorities have responded with unprecedented orders of shutdowns and quarantines, prompting others to imagine even worse scenarios of widespread social and economic collapse of even greater consequence as well as erosion of civil liberties.
It is a hard time, not the best of springs. But the silver lining in this cloud surely includes some major soul lessons for us all, including compassion, gratitude and humility.
Compassion and Gratitude: it’s Hard for Everyone
First, it invites us to appreciate that this is a big challenge for nearly everyone. For a small percent, it means actual pain and death from the disease. For the vast majority, it means myriad fears and hardships: of loved ones dying, of losing a job, a business, social group, or even food and shelter as savings disappear. As we try to comprehend the scale of all the lost dreams, the lost social supports, the lost security, the lost hope it is clear that all people deserve gentle compassion as this unfolds, including ourselves.
In addition to compassion, we can feel great gratitude towards the countless front line health care workers who serve in the face of personal risk, the farmers, grocers , delivery workers and others who continue to serve us faithfully. And let us also feel both compassion and gratitude towards our political leaders as they struggle to make crucial decisions in which they could err by either doing too little or too much. Who would want such a responsibility? What if you get it wrong?
The Humility of Accepting That We Do Not Know
Both compassion and gratitude are expressions of love. And so is humility, the integrity of knowing when we do not know, and of refraining from asserting that we have a corner on the truth as we enter the maelstrom of both mainstream and dissident views flying back and forth on social media, without which we are apt to sink into disrespect and incivility. We are all called to this kind of humility as we watch how we each respond to this crisis through the filters of our conditioned beliefs, experiences, position and training.
Conditioned thinking is just a fact of being human. Some are conditioned to conform, making sacrifices and following all the guidelines without question or complaint. Others incline towards dissent and project into this crisis a power grab by hidden elites, be it the Illuminati, Big Pharma or the Anti-Christ. Or they spread the meme that this not viral, but rather the start of 5G taking down humanity, secure in believing they alone know what's going on. Yet others, even MD's, assert that this is not caused by a virus at all.
Meanwhile others seek to apply reason and evidence, which is not as clear as some assert, criticizing any minority medical scientists who dare to suggest that the authorities are overreacting with dangerous and Draconian measures to a wave of illness not far from the normal peaks of influenza.
The common thread is that we all want to know what is going on, what caused it and what it means for our future. And we all come to our conclusions: even as I wrote this a message popped into my Facebook feed from someone I don’t really know, a self-described spiritual teacher: “Something fishy is going on here.”
OK, maybe, but maybe not. Right now at least, can we really know for sure? We can make some educated guesses, but there is really very little we can know with 100% certainty about this almost unprecedented development. So we can but do our best to understand, not overreact, and allow others the same.
Looking deeper spiritually speaking, this shows us how intolerant our minds are of not knowing, especially about things that seem dangerous. We can observe how much we want to find answers and then to believe what we believe, justified or not. It reveals how much fearful stories constrict the mind, whether stories about an avalanche of death and disease, about a police state or about economic and social collapse. You name it. The stories of fear are countless and they lead to isolation, blame and attack.
Is there a gentler and more intelligent way? What if we took this moment as an opportunity to set aside fear and acknowledge the supreme truth that it is OK not to know. We each see but a tiny fragment of reality and we are all reaping a lesson in the personal and collective humility of “NOT knowing.”
So why is this? Why do we rarely question our own beliefs?
Perhaps it is that we hold onto an unexamined assumption that we CAN know the answers, that they are there somehow, and that knowing them will save us. This creates a false sense of security and superiority as the mind takes pride in knowing, in believing that our own particular beliefs are superior to those of others.
But if we are honest and humble, we soon learn that one of the few things that we can actually know for sure is how much we do not know. We can believe that we know, but that does not make it so. And ignorance of this truth is behind most of the disharmony and dysfunction in our social and political world.
Not Knowing: Better Than It Sounds
Though we may find ourselves again and again reverting to thinking we can find all the answers to life's challenges, not knowing is better than it sounds. Not knowing opens up space for new ideas and new responses not constricted by fear, panic or groupthink. It opens up space for guidance from a deeper intelligence behind all life. And it removes so many mental barriers between people and cultures.
Not knowing opens up space to be still and at peace, to pause in the face of fear, take a deep breath and invoke the goodness with each of us and life. Then, and only then, can we can meet this global challenge with the compassion, gratitude, humility and love that we need to climb this and every mountain.
