“guidance of the Holy Spirit.” Its emphasis lies on the relationship aspect of the Ultimate Mystery. This way may not lead to being embedded in a particular wisdom tradition (without eliminating this possibility), but instead to taking on, in a mature and disciplined way, differing teachers, practices and service roles throughout one’s lifetime, under the guidance of the Spirit.
Adam Bucko is an activist, karma yogi, spiritual director to many of New York’s homeless youth and an advocate for a contemplative approach to social change. In 2004, Adam co-founded the Reciprocity Foundation, an award winning nonprofit that uses an interspiritual and contemplative approach to youth homelessness, empowering at-risk youth to break the cycle of poverty. Inspired by the spiritual legacy of Fr. Bede Griffiths, Adam recently founded HAB, an interspiritual “new monastic” fellowship for young people which offers formation in radical spirituality and sacred activism. He can be reached at: adam@adambucko.com
Belonging.” There is yet a third way, in which one’s primary path is one’s inner guidance, what George Fox, founder of the Quakers, called one’s “inner teacher”, and what Christians have often referred to as the
Too often this third way has been described as being selfish, flaky, a spiritual “Esperanto”, or arising out of an inability to commit. In fact of matter, it is all about commitment. It is about fidelity to one’s own path, to the inner impulse that arises within us, and the courage to commit to it with all of one’s being, allowing ourselves the freedom of movement that it demands. It shifts us from a reliance on gurus, dogmas and institutions to following one's own inner light. It is not freedom for the sake of freedom, it has a purpose. It is the newest and yet most ancient way, as it is the origin of all the world’s wisdom traditions. Our traditions and elders must come to recognize this impulse in the youth, not as a selfish reliance on one’s “self”, but as nothing less than the breath of the Holy Spirit blowing once again upon the waters of humankind, opening up possibilities for new structures and understandings to emerge. To fail to do so we fear is to relegate themselves to the dustbin of history, making the human race poorer from the failure to pass on the very real wisdom their traditions have safeguarded and passed down for centuries. Yet, it is unequivocal that a purely subjective guidance tends to be dangerous, as all