Dear Friend

In today’s Letter I would like to build upon what we talked about in Letter #25. By all means re-read it (I would recommend you re-read ALL the Letters! The whole back catalogue is here in this one piece of my digital real estate), but here are some of the salient bits that will nicely lead into today’s content.

First, a short summary of Letter #25:

Children are disempowered and disconnected (from the natural world, from the source of all life) by a demoralising and dehumanising schooling. I call it an anti-education.

Therefore, if, as adults, we wish to undo this damage we have to take it upon ourselves to empower ourselves and reconnect ourselves. We do this by taking on a second, proper, education.

You have taken great steps to do this by subscribing to these Letters!

Second, here are three pertinent bits:

“To empower oneself means to put power into our own life, instead of outsourcing our decisions and responsibilities to external authorities due to our own lack of power.”

“We need to discover and nurture our inner authority, and activate and cultivate our human essence. The first means learning skills, and learning who we are and how life works; the second means (it’s my mantra!) unblocking your mind, unlocking your heart and unleashing your soul.”

“It is your human essence which carries infinite reserves of love, peace, camaraderie, confidence, courage, trust, respect, compassion and many more such beauties.”

The first port of call in our second education is to learn about and understand the bigger picture, which reveals to us the causes of our problems and suffering, and therefore signposts to us the solutions. Then we apply our newfound understandings into our lives in practical ways.

Investigating the nature of authority

So, to start diving into this bigger picture, here is a text I wrote for the training program I’m doing for the huge spiritual-based organisation I’ve mentioned to you before. I would like to share it with you all, because I feel it shows clearly what’s gone wrong in our societies and school systems.

Bear in mind that I’m training leaders, so that’s the context in which I wrote the article. However, YOU are a leader, we should ALL be leaders: leaders of our own self. If you can cultivate self-leadership, you will, quite simply, transform your life, your health and your relationships.

But hear this too: all parents are leaders, all teachers are leaders, all those who are responsible in some way for the welfare of others is a leader of others. Bear this in mind as you engage with the text. And, as ever, I strongly suggest you do the tasks!

Here is the text, with the original pre-reading task. However, I’ve adapted the post-reading task to fit your own context, rather than as a leader of a group as this text was written for.

If you are on your own, write down your thoughts on the tasks, but even better, get a friend or two to read the text and do the tasks together, in which case have a fun discussion exploring and comparing your thoughts.

It is a powerful text with a powerful message, if I may say so myself (and this was the feedback that came my way), so I suggest when you finish reading it, you then read it again, and as you do so, you apply what you understand to your own context in life. Often we pick up important points on a second reading that we did not get when we first read a text.

Enjoy.

External Authority, Inner Authority and Facilitative Leadership

Pre-reading task

1. What would you say is the difference between external authority and inner authority?

2. What do you think ‘facilitative leadership’ is, and what is its purpose?

Preamble

As with all my educational materials, this text represents my perspective from my current understanding, arising from a synthesis of my experiences, observations, research, reflections and self-inquiry (doing inner work). My ‘inner authority’ speaking, if you like.

All my work and writings are offered as a source of reflection for readers and leaders to help make sense of their own world. It is not THE truth, but it IS Philip’s understanding of truth.

So far!

For, as the Buddha said, everything is impermanent. Change is the only certainty in life. Therefore, I feel, knowledge in and of itself is of little value, rather it is the pursuit of understanding knowledge and information for oneself that really matters (cultivating inner authority). Knowledge is fixed, understanding is fluid and in flux. Life is fluid and in flux, and not fixed.

Knowledge is from external authority, understanding is from inner authority. Lack of understanding is lack of inner authority, lack of power; understanding is liberating.

By expressing ourselves in a supportive environment we can test out what we are understanding: we get to hear what others say in reaction to what we say, and this may confirm our understandings, or cause us to question them, or even adjust or completely change them. This illustrates the great benefit of expressing ourselves.

But there’s more, it gets even better.

When we express ourselves, to others or in our own journal or diary, we get to hear what we ourselves are saying! We learn to listen to ourselves, and then we become curious and motivated to listen to others.

One of the facilitator’s main aims is enabling others to express themselves and articulate their understandings by removing the fear of a negative reaction. That fear exists in so many people, thanks to the schooling which robbed us of so much, not least our self-confidence and self-esteem. The key for the facilitator is setting up the right environment.

Such facilitative leadership encourages and enables human beings to feel valued and heard, from which they will then value and hear others.

This is the heart of communicating, which is the heart of relationships which is the heart of being human, a social creature who desires camaraderie, connection and an enJOYable sense of belonging to groups and communities.

Learn to listen, listen to learn; learn to speak, speak to learn. Live good.

Humanity took a wrong turning

Humankind, somewhere in our history, created its organising principle for its communities and societies as External-Authority-Knows-Best, whereby we outsource our decision-making to an authority outside of ourselves. This is antithetical to the human spirit and it hides our infinite human potential from us, blocking our self-growth and natural evolution - as individuals and as the whole human family.

The calamitous events of 2020, and all the ensuing tyrannies and coercions, division and distrust, were the inevitable consequence from the cumulative effects of such an approach to life: “Trust the science” was the mantra, and all the rest of it. Many denied the warnings of their own intuition and gut feelings, lacking confidence in themselves, and have paid a heavy price.

Perhaps it’s for the rest of us to rescue the situation? Perhaps facilitators will be the key to the healing of humankind? I think so.

This organising principle made ideology and the rule book God, turning its back on the natural world, which is our real God and our true source of power.

We—humanity—threw away our power and our connection. In consequence, each successive generation of adults disempowers and disconnects the next generation of children because its own generation was disempowered and disconnected when it was the youth.

We abdicated our responsibility to learn for, and take care of, ourselves, outsourcing it to the system of external authority; we have demoralised and dehumanised ourselves. We use force instead of power: motivating others, or being motivated by others, into action with sticks of fear and ignorance, not carrots of love and understanding. Force is violence, and our fragmented, disconnected human world is in perpetual civil war.

All our conflicts and suffering

• within ourselves

• in our relationships

• between communities

• between nations

• within the whole of humankind

stem from this forceful and coercive approach of External-Authority-Knows-Best which deeply influences collective and community life: we are not listened to or valued, and we don’t listen to or value others; after all, the authority has decided what is right and good. To a great extent we don’t even listen to or value ourselves.

The four key words above are disempowered, disconnected, demoralised and dehumanised. This tells us we have lost our power, our connection, our morality, and our humanity, our human essence.

Our deep inner desire for love, freedom, and kinship has been thwarted. I see spiritual living as the only way to reconnect to the natural world and to empower ourselves so that we may experience a meaningful, enjoyable, fulfilling and heart-centred life. Perhaps the core consideration in relation to these training sessions we are doing together is how we can best enable and empower others to live spiritually. In a word: facilitate!

Connecting Consciousness, and learning to live spiritually, it seems to me, is our way out of this disaster; we regain our power, connection, morality and our humanity. I might add that I see Connecting Consciousness as a tremendous source of energy and power for facilitating all who join it to find their inner authority and to empower themselves. That is of course kudos to you know who!! It’s also your role, as a leader, to be a conduit for that energy, no?

Leaders, not rulers, are needed

This is not to say we should solve this existential problem by saying leaders are no longer needed.

Aside from very few exceptions, we don’t have any leaders to get rid of!

Those who hold the external authority, and exercise it against the wishes of others, are not leaders, they are rulers: enforcers of the rule book, adherents to the ideology. The heart, the soul, has no place in this way of life, no chance to express itself. Love, joy and fun are denied; fear, misery and apathy are promoted. Our human essence is all but covered up.

We absolutely really do need leaders; we need true leaders. We are a social animal, and forming groups and relationships, to experience collaboration and camaraderie, is central to our innermost desires.

True leaders are mentors and motivators for others, leading by example and holding a clear vision which they inspire group members to share.

Their authority comes from within. In contrast to external authority, which is automatically claimed and pushed onto others (whether deliberately or inadvertently), inner authority is earned from one’s wisdom, compassion, and clear ability to inspire others to reach for, and share, their best.

True leaders are those who encourage, enable and empower all members in the group to express themselves and explore issues together. As the group evolves, so too do all its members, with all individuals flourishing and thriving thanks to their own endeavours, and the leader’s group management skills.

Through collaboration, communication and learning together, we develop as individuals.

True leaders are lifelong learners, where learning is about practising and mastering:

• cognitive and communication skills

• self-knowledge and know-how

• self-confidence and self-worth

• and sharing everything that you learn.

This is activating and cultivating one’s inner authority by unblocking our mind, unlocking our heart and unleashing our spirit! We can say this is heart-centred learning and living. I think it’s a continuous process, and therefore the facilitative leader is first and foremost a learner.

It is reconnecting ourselves to the natural world, learning who we really are, and empowering ourselves with peace, love and understanding. Our inner authority and our human essence have been brought back to life!

A reconnected, self-empowered human being will always make a great leader in any situation in life.

Such leaders necessarily are facilitators, men and women who have found the courage and confidence to forge their own path in life, to claim their inner authority, and who, from the joy and wellbeing they are experiencing, then find an innate impulse from within to help and guide others to do and experience the same for themselves. That, to me, is the basis for being a leader, and being a facilitator.

You, who are reading this, have stood up to be counted, put yourself on the line to make our world a better world, and in my view it’s just a question of continuing to develop your skills and know-how to develop yourself and help others to do the same.

Inner Authority

Because the External-Authority-Knows-Best Principle determines how our societies and schooling are structured and run, inner authority has been stunted, suppressed, hidden from us, and we seek certainties from outside of ourselves. We also seek pleasures and meaning from out there.

We are easily seduced by others who tell us what we want to hear or which we think is important (acquiring pleasure and avoiding pain). Our lack of inner authority means we are prey to fear and ignorance, and are disconnected from our innate intelligence, and from the joy of learning for ourselves.

Hence a history of snake oil salesmen and conmen with their potions and magic pills, false prophets, spiritual imposters, political persuaders, media manipulators, and gurus who want us dependent on them.

If you want health and happiness for yourself, strong and healthy relationships with others, and to lead a fulfilling, creative, enjoyable life you need to find, activate and cultivate your inner authority.

We need inner authority. All of humanity needs inner authority.

But we are conditioned to listen to and comply with external authority.

We need a bridge, a vehicle, a conduit, a catalyst to get us from external authority to inner authority.

With external authority ruling society and humanity, nobody flourishes in mind and spirit, and our body becomes weak.

With inner authority we flourish in mind and spirit, leading to a strong body. And we feel an urge to help guide others in kind.

Post-Reading Task

Think of relationships you have in your own life, and it might be as a parent, in your work, as a citizen of society, as a patient at the doctor’s or hospital, as a source of knowledge for others, and so on.

In each of your relationships:

• are you in the role of being an external authority’?

• or are you putting somebody else in the role of external authority?

What are your expectations for each case?

What expectations do you feel being put on you by others for each case?

Now that you have raised your awareness of ‘authority’, how might you empower yourself to be an inner authority for yourself and for others? How can you be a mentor, not a ‘ruler’?

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And that’s it for another Letter! Next week I plan to write about how you can improve your communication skills, upon which all inner authority rests.

Till then, all the best

Philip