Mellem Education: Between the spiritual and the political

The spiritual seems to have no place in the political, as the way it looks now. But what does it mean to be spiritual? It’s not necessarily to believe in a greater force, or even to have long hours of meditation. For me, spirituality is simply the process of self-awareness, of being aware of yourself. This includes becoming aware of the parts of you that have been there all along, as well as the parts of you that have been conditioned through culture and upbringing. The process of self-awareness also includes releasing parts of yourself that no longer serve the version of you that you’ve grown into. Releasing old patterns and protective habits.

I have always been immensely interested in self awareness, but I became especially engaged in this work after some disruptive events that launched me into a process of self-reflection, as they often do. Interestingly enough, it was a political education program (Betzavta), that combined these worlds for me. This is because Betzavta deals with the relationship between the individual and the group and turns the reflection into an examination of your role in a group process.

In that first training back in 2013, in a particularly intense moment when we were examining how free people are in the group, I had assumption that everyone has the same freedom as I do to participate. This assumption was quickly shattered when my trainer pointed out that my English was on a native level, while most others had to first translate in their heads what they want to say. If you’ve ever lived in a country with a different language than your native one, you know how huge this limitation is, both in professional and social circles. I had to rethink my idea of equality in the group, because I realized that I was projecting my own experience of equality onto everyone else. From there, I had to decide what steps I could take to make the group more equal, given that I had this advantage. This is where the self-awareness turns into political activism, and how the spiritual and the political connect.

Our politics is not used to this type of reflecting, which is why there are so many dilemmas (or some would say hypocrisies) in the political world. Politicians that aim to create more equality also use oppressive tactics in their work. Freedom of speech advocates suppress opposing viewpoints. The means through which political activists aim to achieve their goals is often exactly the opposite of the goal itself. As I see it, this is because we have externalized politics into a series of strategic efforts, instead of including ourselves in the process. The spiritual must come into the political process.

And equally, the political must come into the spiritual process. I have met some spiritual beings who consider their spiritual work separate from their working lives. They might even hide their spiritual practice, for fear of judgement. But I also see that these worlds are coming together more and more. We have more and more people willing to speak up and contribute their holistic perspectives to our fragmented societies. In fact, we need the spiritual ‘types’ to be more bold in their demand for the peace that they know we are all made of.

The spiritual and the political, or maybe from the spiritual lens – the feminine and the masculine – have gotten so far away from each other that it is hard to see how they can in fact support each other. Spiritual – the being. Political – the doing. We need both in order to create a society that guarantees equality, safety, freedom for all.

Mellem Education is an organization that works in this in between space.