The Irritant and the Pearl

What are the spiritual advantages of the current Covid-19 pandemic? Perhaps there is greater potential for our collective spiritual awakening as we contend with this global “threat” to humanity than any time in our species history. This virus is no respecter of individual differences of age, race, religion, culture, economic status, sexual orientation or political affiliation. Essentially, we have in this pandemic a shared reality, which is, in itself, a social and geopolitical crucible for greater unity, compassion, collaboration unprecedented in our history.

Beyond the uniting effects at the human level, this all-encompassing experience could become a resonant field that fosters deep introspection, advancing the inward impulse to explore one’s true nature. Whenever our outer reality is threatened in some way and our personal sense of self is thrown off its conditioned identity, we are forced to confront the question, who am I now. That question, sincerely followed inwardly, can bring us in touch with our most fundamental, changeless self, the being that is prior to name and form, independent and transcendent, that is neither aggrandized or diminished by roles, possessions, wealth or health.

It is our forgetfulness, the spiritual amnesia that occludes our true nature, and our inherent Oneness with God that causes all kinds of pain and suffering for you and me. We are adrift in a dream of separation from the one and only true source of comfort and peace. We seek but do not find because we seek amiss. Despite a deplorable track record, we continue to bet on outer events, circumstances, material gain, hoping that if we win on the track of life, we’ll be happy at last. We are done in by false promises and false identities, defining ourselves by our accomplishments, acquisitions, believing we are our bodies and minds. In so doing we get self-realization backward. All these externals become, as some have described, like pieces of silver offered in betrayal of the Truth. We conclude, to our great peril and pain, that we are human beings seeking a spiritual experience. We expect God to come down off a cloud and rescue us from the world. But the Divine is within us, patiently waiting for us to come down off a cloud of delusion and join with its unwavering Presence of love and peace.

At the collective and personal level, this pandemic can be seen as grist for the mill of our own spiritual deepening. Just as the unwelcome irritant in an oyster becomes a pearl of great value, we can welcome this challenge for the ways in which it can awaken us to our true spiritual nature. By ignoring collective differences, flattening hierarchies, and uniting us to a common goal of wellbeing, the virus can help us to remember our essential Oneness.

Washing hands and social distancing has become like a mantra during this time of containing the progression of the virus. What if each time we washed our hands we imagined that we are washing away a bit of our conditioned identity, and getting closer to the Self that God created, leaving us feeling a bit freer, more abundant and peaceful as each layer of separation is released. And as we distance from others, we actively move inward and become closer to our Divine Self. If we kept this going during this time of seeming limitations, we might well emerge more peaceful, more resilient, more connected and more at home in God, where we always "live and move and have our being." I pray this may be so for each of us.

Namaste,

Larry