On Spiritual Blogging

I remember a night in May of 2007, the children were already asleep and I was looking for something in the basement. The lyrics of a favorite song were going through my head and it suddenly occurred to me that Tim McGraw's song "Live Like You are Dying" is really about the mid-life crisis; the observation that there is a stage when we want to give  our life a new direction and new spiritual meaning. As I had the insight I thought that I could share it with others. Around that time a colleague of mine had mentioned "blogging", an expression that I had heard for the first time. So I sat down, followed google's easy instruction to get started and after half an hour I had created my first blog. It had the intention to write a note at least once every month and I actually managed to keep that commitment in the following years. Later, I aimed for one note each week, while in the meantime, we publish a note about every other day.

Today is a special day for the blog ZeitgeistinMA: this is the 1000th note, and with an overall viewership well in excess of 20 000, every note seems to have reached on average 20 people. Isn't that amazing? Well, thanks for your interest and thanks to my co-author Su Zhen who has added amazing spiritual insights since joining this effort about a year ago.  I have no idea what the future of blogging is or whether by now new mediums are gaining traction. All I know is that you too have a message that needs to be heard and needs to be shared. Your medium of communication is waiting for you, as are your viewers, listeners and friends. "Zeitgeist" is German and stands for "spirit of our time". So I encourage you to use the little spark we are providing and turn it into a blazing light for others. "Leben is Weitergeben" is my mother's favorite quote - Living is giving! Try to make this motto your own and experience the magic of sharing for yourself. It is a lot of fun and full of meaning.

All Together Now

Count Keyserling in his book Men as Symbols described all the makers of history as intrinsically misearable; he argues that it is the unhappiness with their existing conditions that propeled those heros to places where no man had gone before. That's very sad and probably true. Can we ever reach a stage or a time when the hero can be intrinsically happy on her journey?

You can be happy and be a hero if you accept to be part of something bigger and that you quitely contribute your share and let the system take you to the divine destination. Take Wikipedia as an example, how many heros have put this work together and you don't know anything about their contributions. By the way, your body works that way too, all the trillions of cells are working together in harmony (and those that do not are the cancerous ones). This is the most terrific team work excercise you can think of. To use this analogy, if you work in harmony with a wave of consciousness that is developing during your time, it should be in your power to lift mankind to a higher level and be happy in the process. However, this concept of course implies that you are on the same trajectory; if it is your job to show mankind that the current wave is headed in the wrong direction and start a new one instead, expect some resistance.

I have chosen the name Zeitgeist for myself, which implies that I am part of a wave of consciousness and all I really have to do is surfing. This emerging spiritual wave is momentous and can't be stopped any longer. What I think, you think. What I write now was something you wondered about this morning. I don't need to do anything, just be and be happy in the process. All together now!

The Age of Spiritual Empowerment

For some time I meant to make it through a book on my bookshelf, From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life by Jacques Barzun, but I never manage to conquer the 900 plus pages. Actually, I see Jacques Barzun smiling in the background (if he were to stumble onto my blog), "this is exactly what I am talking about my son, the youth of today can't even read a book anymore"; still, to me there is something wrong with this book title. I feel quite empowered in decadent today, whereas I feel mostly depressed when I read about our glorious recent 500 years of Western Civilization.

Actually, I do understand the apparent contradiction. The past had individual giants that lifted humanity with their incredible willpower and vision, whereas today we have the masses getting empowered instead, which is of course a much harder concept to handle for our historians. Indeed, the same applies for spirituality. Within 500 years, Buddha, Lao Tse and Jesus lived and carved a spiritual highway that following generations could merrily stroll along. I understand that historians would rather spend time with them than with spiritual fellow-travelers like you and I. Still, as a connected bunch we are darn powerful, especially because of the fact that we can draw on the accumulated insights of the spiritual giants who walked the earth before. They literally imprinted their spiritual insights into our DNA.

I am in awe of the massive spiritual wave that is unfolding in front of our eyes. I understand that each of us is just a small part of it, but the tide is rising steadily because of our accumulated contributions. Personally, I think it is bliss to be part of today's Zeitgeist, the Age of Spiritual Empowerment.