Ruthless Spiritual Competition

Also hung in my craw this a.m. is the notion of Spiritual Competition.

A lot of business folks are talking about the importance of design these days—and they’re right to a point but I think they miss the larger point. It’s not design—it’s love.

First off, mechanical soundness is the cornerstone of any product or service—does it work as it should? Anyone who thinks they are going to design their way to greatness is seriously mistaken (just ask Aztek owners). The form is always first—otherwise it’s fashion and is on it’s way out with increasingly speedy regularity.

With that said—the beauty of a product or service offering (or content) is a great indication of its love-liness. Love often finds us with visual harmony. And if beauty and/or harmony is a choice—those knowing more about love would probably take it. (To my mind).

But there are numerous kinds of love and the eyes know some of them but not all. There are some kinds of love that are visually repulsive—caring for a leper for instance. While business goes out and learns about love (and I’m ecstatic it is) it is important to remember that there are many, many ways to excel at delivering the love (inspiration if that word works better for you) that all people ultimately want—in their business dealings as well as their personal life.

Design, as I see it, is just as far as the material viewpoint can go without learning a new language. Design is something it can still compete at and win. Love may seem amorphous.

But as we involve “intangibles” such as love in the process of commerce it is important to realize that love operates on the principle of value as well. And as such, must have an element of competition.

The competition of spirit is different, however than the competition of the material world. Spirit (or love or creativity) wants the fullest possible representation of the world—the most beautiful, the most true, the most essential. The one that brings the most joy or inspiration to the most people for the longest time. This looks a bit different than material competition which focuses on bringing the most comfort or safety (often to an individual). And can also be very beautiful.

Spirit does compete, however. Fiercely.

But it’s tools are significantly broader than those that compete in a purely material framework. Spirit uses rest and relaxation as often as it uses hard work, it uses peace as often (or more often) than it uses war. And although it has no interest in manipulation or deception, it takes huge quarter to ignore all which it dislikes.

Oh yes, it dislikes! It dislikes a lot. It doesn’t dis-love, but it sure as hell dislikes. The spiritual knows love so completely that it knows that encouraging or even responding certain behavior leads to less love. So it does the most loving and expedient thing possible—it ignores it. A great example of this would be ignoring a child’s temper tantrum—knowing that it will bring about its end sooner. (I wonder how many of the world’s problems could be ameliorated this way?)

To me the greatest lesson of the material world was the power and strength of conditional love—we have all been put to the test—and have all learned that there is much, much more inside of us than we ever dreamed as a result (people—or god—ignoring you will have that effect). We were forced to draw upon every idea, tool and ounce of effort we could to survive.

But as the insecurity of the material world subsides (and don’t let your brain trick you into greater insecurity in an increasingly safe world), the emerging spiritual world has a significantly different message for us: that the true way—and a higher way—is one of unconditional love. Of course we don’t think it works yet, we’re still meditating on the results the material system brought us. But it’s what we want. What we’ve always wanted.

And it works better than anything we’ve ever known.