Mark and I hope you had a relaxing and rejuvenating holiday season and wish you a very Happy New Year.
I am back from my 6-week solitary retreat and reunited with my treasured communities of friends, colleagues, and fellow seekers. During my retreat, I was blessed with periodic phone calls with my meditation guide, who reminded me that such an intense retreat experience benefited not only me, but all beings. As I reflected on this statement throughout the 6 weeks, I came to see the universal application of this principle. Everything we think, feel, do –starting with the intentions we set – is deeply impactful to our own psyches; but also, it leaves an impression on every being in the universe. It gave me pause to consider both the power we each possess to bring about personal inner transformation and healing, but also to consider the responsibility each of us has to bring about positive change in our families, communities and the world. This is the Boddhisatva path.
This truth is even more crucial at this time of strife and confusion in our country and across the world. It is imperative to commit and recommit ourselves to the Universal Ideal of Oneness – Cayce’s description of the Christ Consciousness – and manifest that Ideal in our daily lives through our personal Spiritual Ideal. We, as a spiritual community, have many resources to support us on this journey – teachings and teachers, in addition to communities of loving friends and fellow seekers who both challenge and inspire us in doing the work of transformation and healing.
I would like to consider with you in 2026 a list of principles that Mak and I have developed over the twenty-five years we have been leading courses through our non-profit organization, The Personal Transformation and Courage Institute. We also teach these principles in our programs at A.R.E. and in the academic classes we teach as George Mason University. Although we do not always present these principles in the words that I will use to describe them here, the message remains the same. These guiding principles are based on our studies of a wide variety of spiritual philosophies, and on our personal experiences of reflection, meditation and application.
I will be sharing these principles in a little more depth at each of our Monthly Meditation Gatherings, which are held on the first Monday evening of each month. This Gathering is free and all are welcome. You can sign up to receive the monthly invitation to this Gathering at:
https://www.transformationandcourage.org/courses/monthly-meditation/.
There is no obligation to attend each month once you sign up for the invitation to the Gathering. Attendance is optional and folks come when they can.
The first principle – and one that we have been considering in a variety of ways throughout the past year – is foundational as we continue to consider how we can deepen our Journeys Toward Wholeness (our motto) and positively influence others on their journeys.
We state the principle in this way:
Doing Follows Being.
We are a very “doing-oriented” culture. And sometimes we act without really considering if our actions (which include our thoughts, emotions and physical sensations) reflect the Universal Ideal of Oneness and our personal Spiritual Ideal. When we act mindlessly, we are not in sync with our true selves, and we cause ourselves and others much confusion and suffering. All spiritual traditions emphasize the importance of “knowing oneself” and being true to oneself. That really entails taking the time to reflect on the companion Ideals of Oneness and how we operationalize Oneness through our personal Spiritual Ideal.
All spiritual traditions speak about Oneness in some way. The ancient Greeks knew that Oneness was the root of true happiness. They distinguished, as do spiritual traditions, between two kinds of happiness – fleeting happiness and abiding happiness. The ancient Greeks called the first “Hedonism” – the pursuit of fleeting and desire-driven happiness. This kind of happiness is driven by the preferences of our personalities – what we like and don’t like. There is nothing inherently wrong with having preferences. The danger lies in allowing our likes and dislikes, our judgments and limited beliefs, to rule us and our lives. When we look closely, we may find that they are often fear-based and rooted in a deep-seated belief that we are “separate from” instead of “a part of” a greater whole. And when that happens, our preferences, judgments, mistaken beliefs block an understanding and experience of the deeper reality of who we are. We end up thinking, feeling, and acting in ways that create unhappiness and suffering for us and for others, too.
The second kind of happiness the Greeks called “Eudaimonia.” (“Eu” means good or well; and, “daimon” means spirit or deity). This kind of happiness requires a deeper understanding and experience of our true Being. Lama Govinda, Carl Jung and Edgar Cayce call it connecting with and experiencing our individuality – our personal experience of wholeness and the experience of being part of a greater whole, as well. I think of it as being intimately acquainted with our Wisdom and operating out of that center of our authentic Being.
One of our treasured teachers, Dr. Bengt Stern, said, “When you know who you are, what to do becomes self-evident.” And, it is not just knowing what to do, but it is also entails bringing a certain “spirit of being” to our doing. When our actions are imbued with the energy of love, compassion, patience, understanding and joy, then our actions become skillful and compassionate, and we become emissaries of Oneness.
The truth and experience of Oneness challenges each one of us to recognize, heal and move beyond the many ways we divide ourselves against ourselves and against one another. Oneness challenges us to transform our minds and hearts and become a force for good in our conflict-weary world. The path is challenging, but the rewards are worth the effort.
The great meditation masters and mystics have described the experience of Oneness as an experience that breaks open our hearts, and brings clarity to our minds, inviting us into a reality that is spacious and vast, inclusive and compassionate, just and loving. We perceive and experience ourselves and the world around us differently, as an “unbroken whole,” an embodied experience of interconnectedness. We welcome each life experience and each sacred interaction with others as an opportunity to deepen that experience and understanding. When we consciously “retrain” our minds, and when we work with our thoughts and emotions to bring them into alignment with the truth of Oneness, we can apply that truth in our daily actions. We can heal ourselves and our world, both of which are in dire need of a new way of Being and skillful and compassionate ways of Doing.
As we set out on our Journeys Toward Wholeness in 2026, our wish for each of you and for our world is that you bring this sense of Being into your daily meditations and life activities. Together, we can create the conditions for inner transformation. We can send that loving and compassionate energy out to every being in order to create a more loving, compassion, just, and inclusive world.
