One Apple A Day #440 - The volcano
"The religions start from mysticism. There is no other way to start a religion. But, I compare this to a volcano that gushes forth ...and then ...the magma flows down the sides of the mountain and cools off. And when it reaches the bottom, it's just rocks. You'd never guess that there was a fire in it. So after a couple of hundred years, or two thousand years or more, what was once alive is dead rock. Doctrine becomes doctrinaire. Morals become moralistic. Ritual becomes ritualistic. What do we do with it? We have to push through this crust and go to the fire that's within it."
Yesterday I found this powerful metaphor from David Steindl-Rast, a Catholic Benedictine monk. The beauty of this metaphor is that it can be applied to any organisation.
Just replace the word "religion" with "form" or "configuration". With the word configuration, I mean all the visible and invisible elements that define the "HOW" of an organisation.
Then replace "mysticism" with "consciousness" or "energy"; the true self, the bigger "WHO" of an organisation.
Then the sentence reads: "The form starts from consciousness. There is no other way to start a form. But, I compare this to a volcano that gushes forth ...and then ...the magma flows down the sides of the mountain and cools off. And when it reaches the bottom, it's just rocks. You'd never guess that there was a fire in it. So after a couple of hundred years, or two thousand years or more, what was once alive is dead rock. Ideas become risks. Principles become bureaucracy. Ritual becomes routine. What do we do with it? We have to push through this crust and go to the fire that's within it."
How many organisation do you know that are in that place? Where the original fire now is just some dead rocks?
And what about you?
Because this metaphor works beautifully also for us, as individuals.
Is your flame, your energy still alive or did you allow for the time to cover it beneath solid rocks?
Every transformation journey starts with removing all those layers of solid rocks to find the original fire and reignite the volcano.