Integral Activism (Part 1)

As I have grown older I have noticed that I have changed. My consciousness has been altered by the accumulation of years, experiences, hardships and the proximity of death. The losses and gains have piled up and rebalanced the scale of my awareness. This has caused me to rethink many things, and to make choices that are surprising me. My self-image isn’t what it used to be. I’m finding that all-in-all, these changes are leading me towards a deeper, richer life, a life that is more connected with the mystery of the greater immensity I am embedded in.

As I’ve realized this is the case, I find myself reviewing my life and realigning it.  This is a description of an important part of that process of redefinition.  The words and ideas that follow represent a work-in-progress. They reflect a transformational flow that has swept me up and is delivering a more sensitized, and older, being back into this world. What I see now is not what I saw before. What I feel called to, is only partly what I felt called to before. I am in flux, and my world is changing.

I have found a very interesting and unexpected phenomenon occurring in my life. It is one I am unprepared for. As I am aging, I am moving from having an external focus to a more internal one. This shift has befuddled and intrigued me. My inner life is growing — adding perspective — and complicating my self-image, and the world I live in. Unbidden, I am feeling and noticing things I once overlooked.

This movement is causing me to pay attention like never before. I am changing — becoming someone new in my experience — and struggling to find an adequate way to describe myself. As a result, I live unbalanced in a new way, in a world that is familiar and strange at the same time.

The most unexpected change has been to my outlook. In the past, I have seen many environmental and social injustices that were the catalyst for a lot of my actions. Now, I find myself acting in new ways, guided by my burgeoning internal awareness. This shift has caused me to reevaluate. I have some doubt about the activism I now participate in. It is closer to home, more in the moment, and a lot more circumspect. I don’t really know how to talk about it. Am I just getting old and tired, or seeing things with wiser eyes?

Recently, a new awareness has come to me. I call what has come of it, “integral activism.” This is a form of action that integrates and combines "inner" with "outer" awareness. It preserves my deepening sense of integrity. And opens me more to Spirit’s power. There is an inherent balance in it, because it calls for transformation without recrimination.

 

This form of activism emerges naturally from the realizations that are coming through my “inner” life. Engagement is organic, by that I mean unplanned, spontaneous, and authentic. Basically, I exemplify a value rather than promoting it. My form of integral activism creates pressure for change by my being the change desired. The choice to be active is not stimulated by any desire to influence or persuade another. There is no intent to change. That is left up to Mystery.

It is important to me that I am constantly acting on behalf of my values each and every moment, in all my relationships with strangers and within myself. To do that, I have had to redefine inner work and make it more robust and engaged. I find that when there is no boundary between what is within me, and my actions in the world, there is much more likelihood, that I am going to be connected to the moment, others, and the Spirit. All of this comes to pass because I practice what I call an inner form of activism to complement my actions in the world.