Authenticity as the Ultimate Calling

I hold that an authentic stance in the world is fundamental to the practice of Integral Leadership (and Integral Coaching too).  Authenticity is a rich topic of inquiry. Today I'd like to explore authenticity as a calling - the ultimate calling.

I've been reading Michael Gelven's commentary on Heidegger's Being and Time. In commenting on Heidegger's analysis of authenticity, Gelven notes that there are four aspects that are true of any calling. There must be:

1. Someone who does the calling
2. Someone who is called
3. Something that is called about
4. That to which someone is called

In Heidegger's analysis, all four aspects of the calling to authenticity involve the self.

1. It is the self that does the calling
2. It is the self that is called
3. It is the self that is called about
4. It is the self to which the self is called

However, each of these reflects a different aspect of the self.

1. The self that does the calling is the self who is "not at home" (anxious) and dreading life - the inauthentic self.
2. The self that is called is the self who is lost in social game-playing and whose identity is socially constructed - again, the inauthentic self.
3. The calling is about awakening to the two possible modes of existence of the self - that the self is either inauthentic or authentic. In other words, the calling lets us know we are not trapped in a life of dread and anxiety because there is an alternative mode - authenticity.
4. The call is an appeal to the self to be authentic.

This analysis reveals the path from inauthenticity to authenticity. And the surprise, at least to me, is that the inauthentic self initiates the call to authenticity out of its own sense of anxiety, dread, and discomfort at not feeling at home in the world. This is the good news because it means that we can never be permanently trapped in inauthenticity because inauthenticity holds within it the call to authenticity.

The other observation here is that we can get lost in the "outer" world of social game-playing, this is inauthentic, and leads to dread and not feeling at home. And the resolution of inauthenticity as authenticity is an inward turning towards what is unique, authentic, and true of ourselves.

Lastly, what does it take to hear this call? Being silent. We must be silent enough to hear the call and not be wrapped up in the loudness of our social game-playing.

The appropriate response to feelings of anxiety and dread is to be silent, to sit with them, and to feel them. For within such feelings, the inauthentic self will call for authenticity.

And even if we aren't feeling anxiety and dread, when we become silent as we do in meditation, we will start to feel the anxiety that is always already there lurking at the edges of our experience. For the beginning meditator, this is the first major challenges to continued meditation.

What supports this silence, and therefore our calling to authenticity, is meditation, body work (e.g., massage) and body practices (e.g., yoga), being in nature, and participating in a community that recognizes and calls for authenticity (e.g., a sangha) which is not the norm in society.

I hope this has been thought provoking. I'd love to hear what you make of this.

Take care,

-Steve