Authority and Authenticity

Authority and Authenticity

"Our deeds remain single till they wed perseverance."
     ___ Welsh proverb (trans CM)


Many people seek validation for their spiritual pathway. Because we may have garnered the components of our spiritual search from many different places and traditions, we often have a feeling of fraudulence or lack of authenticity. Our efforts to make sense of these components, to make a living habitation or pathway from them, are haunted by fear of authority. We feel that if we change the received pattern, if we deviate from the spiritual tradition into which we were born, we will be punished or shunned. This has certainly been the message given by organized religion to those on a spiritual search: authority is withheld from those who heretically deviate in our society; authenticity can derive only from the centrally authorized mandate.
   No human being shares the exact same spiritual path as another. Each person constellates various elements of spirituality that speak to him, borrowing from old traditions and new perspectives. Finding authority for what we do, who we are, cannot come solely from the human world: authenticity arrives when we have begun to move from the known into the unknown through the unique thresholds that life opens to us. Perseverance is the key.

Answer these questions to get a sense of your own search for authority and authenticity:
* Whose approval am I seeking?
* Who encourages me?
*How do I gain vitality? What drains my vitality?
*Who/what do I need to control?
To whom/what do I consistently relinquish power?
*What do I need for self-nurture?"
*Which old repeating patterns prevent me living in balance?"

[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]