The Quiet Spiritual Migration — The Inner Shift

—What is happening within us?

I remember the moment, as a young man just starting out in life, when I realized my current pattern was not going to end well. I was eighteen, lying in a hospital bed, and the truth was unavoidable. I had grown up in the break‑free era of the 1960s and 70s in a large metropolitan city — a time when almost anything was available, and almost everything was acceptable. When I left home for college, I did what many young people do when they finally have the freedom to make their own decisions. In my own words, I was like a bat out of hell.

I’ll spare you the details, but while I lay in that hospital bed, I understood something simple and sobering: the path I was on was a slow death. If I continued living that way, I was going to die. I was slowly killing myself. I had to think more carefully about my life path and the choices I was making.

I also watched what happened to some of my friends. Some struggled with drugs and alcohol. Others with mental health. Others with finding steady work. I struggled with all of those things. I wondered — quietly — what path I would take.

Looking back, I suppose the path of growth began long before I left home. But in that period of life, I began to see how directly my decisions had consequences. I began to realize that I had to assume responsibility for my own life and my own inner growth. No one could do that for me. It was an important realization. It was a long, arduous process, but I can see now the slow steps — the baby steps — of inner growth that I was taking as I started out in life.

I began to understand something else. A teacher can teach you things. A minister might be able to counsel. A book may challenge your thinking. A spiritual guide might point in a direction. But eventually you realize there is a part of the work — the growth of the spirit and soul — that another person simply cannot perform. You begin to realize that it becomes your responsibility to guide and influence your own life path and inner growth.

Of course, we don’t control everything around us that impacts our lives. But we learn to impact and influence some things by our decisions and choices. We must assume responsibility for our part in the process.

You reflect and observe. You begin to understand the patterns in your life. You make choices and experience the consequences of those choices. Sometimes you get it right. Sometimes you make mistakes. Hopefully, you learn from those mistakes and make different choices the next time.

That is part of exercising free will. We make choices, we experience the consequences, and gradually we learn. But with that freedom also comes responsibility. At some point, we have to take responsibility for our own actions and for the choices we continue to make.

And then, we have to live through the extraordinarily slow business of actually changing—step by step.

Most importantly, within this process, you have to be kind and loving toward yourself. We make mistakes. We learn. We grow. There must be a willingness to see ourselves clearly, and a willingness not to condemn ourselves for what we see.

That is where the process of self-reflection began in earnest. It was neither sudden nor easy. To be honest, I didn’t really know how to change my life, much less where the path would eventually lead. I only began to understand that no one else could do the work for me. I made decisions, took actions, and observed the outcomes of those decisions.

I also read. I asked many questions. And I observed the actions and consequences of others, as well as my own.

This was the beginning of the inner shift — the quiet migration that happens not in the world around us, but in the world within.

But what does any of this have to do with the millions of people that are reconsidering their relationship with organized religion?

A person might leave a church because the doctrines no longer make sense or have meaning. Another might remain in a church but begin to question old assumptions. Someone else may describe themselves as spiritual but not religious. And another may move away from religion entirely claiming there is no meaningful or rational path. But none of these changes necessarily produces an inner shift.

The point I’d like to make is this: Changing what we believe is not necessarily the same thing as changing who we are.

Someone can exchange a set of doctrines for another and remain judgmental, fearful, angry, resentful, selfish, or unwilling to examine themselves. Someone can abandon religion entirely and keep the same psychological patterns with them. Or someone can grow spiritually without following any religious doctrine.

Likewise, someone can remain within their religion—Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Islam, or another tradition—and undertake very serious inner work.

Which brings me to the point of this essay: What is the difference between the mechanical path and the inner path? Most of us have some sense of what the inner path might mean. But what does a mechanical path entail?

The “mechanical path” occurs when the practice—the rituals within a belief system—becomes a substitute for the transformation the practice was intended to encourage. This doesn’t make the rituals or practices themselves meaningless. Going to church, praying, receiving communion, reading scripture, meditating, or chanting can all have meaning and purpose. But there is a difference between doing a practice and allowing the practice to work upon us.

The mechanical path can take another form as well. We may come to believe that belonging to the right religion, accepting the right doctrine, or identifying with the right spiritual tradition is itself enough. Once we believe we have found the “right” path, there can be a temptation to assume that the work is largely finished.

But belonging to a particular group does not necessarily produce inner growth. We can be completely convinced that we have chosen the right path—or that the right path has chosen us—and still have much work to do within ourselves.

We may have witnessed someone who has attended church every Sunday for fifty years while harboring the same hatred and animosity toward another group or person. Someone can meditate every morning while treating people terribly during the rest of the day. Someone can cite scripture extraordinarily well and never seriously examine their own ego or pride.

The issue isn’t church, scripture, prayer, meditation or ritual. Nor is it simply which religious or spiritual tradition we belong to. The problem is mistaking participation or belonging as evidence of inner transformation.

Long before we used terms such as self-reflection or inner growth, religious traditions were already teaching us to look within. In the Christian tradition, we are reminded to remove the beam from our own eye before pointing to the speck in another’s. The lesson seems fairly simple: begin with yourself before spending too much time criticizing others.

Perhaps the religious tradition we belong to matters less than what we allow that tradition to awaken within us. Are we becoming better people? Are we helping our neighbor? Are we learning to care about others and the planet we live on?

The question then becomes: What has the path actually done within us?

Has it made us more compassionate?

More forgiving?

More honest about ourselves?

Less judgmental?

More aware of the consequences of our actions?

More capable of recognizing our own destructive patterns?

Have we become a more loving and caring person?

The answers to these kinds of questions, if we are honest, make “inner growth” concrete. Otherwise, inner growth can itself become one of those often-cited spiritual phrases that everyone claims to understand, until somebody asks what it actually means.

So… there may be another migration that statistics cannot measure.

Statistical research may reveal the patterns—whether someone identifies as Christian, atheist, agnostic, or nothing in particular. But it cannot tell us whether that person has become more compassionate, less judgmental, more self-aware, or more loving.

Perhaps that is the quieter migration—the one that takes place within.

But that raises another question.

If inner transformation matters more than simply changing religious labels, what becomes of the claim that there is only one path?

That is a question I have carried with me for a very long time.

Earlier in this series:
The Quiet Spiritual Migration — The Observation
The Quiet Spiritual Migration — A Reflection

Continue the journey...
— uMdali Light 🌿