TMP - 5442 Spiritual Mastery Book542134264200009058

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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
TEN THOUSAND HOURS TO TRUE EXPERTISE IN MIND
by Master Prophet E. Bernard Jordan

Spiritual Master
Ten Thousand Hours to True Expertise in Mind
ISBN-10: 1-934466-??-?
ISBN-13: 978-1-934466-??-?
Printed in the United States of America

©2010 by Master Prophet E. Bernard Jordan. All Rights Reserved.
Foghorn Publishers
P.O. Box 8286
Manchester, CT 06040-0286
860-216-5622
www.foghornpublisher.com
foghornpublisher@aol.com
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form

or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, with-
out permission in writing from the publisher.
Prophetic Partners
I would like to thank each of these prophetic partners for

sowing a seed toward this book. Their financial seeds have made
it possible for you to be able to receive this book without charge
to you. May God add life to every giver, for through your gift you
are causing life to perpetuate in others.
Prophetess Rosonya Adil

Prophet Steven Bostick
Prophet Ralph Boyce
Prophetess Julia Brown
Prophetess Mary Brown
Sister Angela Brown
Prophetess Nyakya Brown
— iii —
SPIRITUAL MASTERY
Pastor Patricia Burns

Brother Lamel Burt
Prophetess Angela Cade
Sister Annetta Calloway
Prophetess Olimpia Castillo
Prophetess Cynthia Clark
Prophetess Mascareen Cohen
Prophetess Marchell Coleman
Sister Jeanette Cox
Prophetess Nancy Dandy
Brother Benjamin Davis
Prophetess Cynthia M. Dawson
Bishop Edwin Derensbourg
Prophetess Katherine Durham
Brother Arthur Edwards
Prophetess Lynda English
Prophetess Theresa Evans
Sister Stacey Everett
Sister Thomasina Ferguson-Johnson
Prophet Jerome Garlick
Sister Alva Gooden
Prophetess Margaret Grant
Sister Andrea Graves
Brother Everett Guthrie
Prophet Mark Guy
Prophetess Lisa Harrigan
— iv —
T H E N AT U R E O F M A S T E R Y
Prophetess Ophelia Hayes Jones

Sister Elizabeth Henry
Prophetess Ottie Hill
Sister Monique Holliday
Brother Malcolm Howard
Prophetess Monica Hunt
Bishop Robert Hutchings
Prophetess Alice Jackson
Prophet Charles Jenkins Jr.
Prophetess Cleola Johnson Williams
Prophetess Iris Jones
Mother Mary Jordan
Pastor Debra Ann Jordan
Minister Gloria Jean Kelley
Prophet Aaron Lewis
Prophet Perry Lewis
Prophetess Evelyn Little
Sister Jennaya Macklin
Shakia Maiden
Prophet Lucius Mather
Prophetess Carol C. McIntyre
Prophetess Wilma McClanahan
Pastor Reginald McEastland
Sister Claudette Mclemore
Sister Esther Medley
Brother Ron Medley
—v—
SPIRITUAL MASTERY
Brother Bennie Miles

Prophetess Cyrilene Moulton
Prophetess Grace Pounder
Prophetess Janice Proctor
Prophet Anthony Reid
Prophetess Melanie Richards
Prophetess Lynette Ruble
Prophetess Joycelyn Shinn
Sister Tomika Shinn
Prophetess Jacqueline Sims
Prophetess Patricia Skeete
Prophetess Florence F. Smith
Prophetess Michelle Starr
Sister Olivette Taylor
Prophetess Wynette Thomas
Prophetess Suzanne Cheryl Thomas
Prophetess Sonia Tracey
Prophetess Barbara Tucker-Fugate
Prophetess Heather Walker
Prophetess Joyce Watkins
Prophetess Leotorah Watson
Sister Saron Zeru
— vi —
Table of Contents
Introduction: Mastery at a Crossroads ..........................................1

Lesson One: The Nature of Mastery............................................21
Lesson Two: The Cards of Mastery ............................................41
Lesson Three: The Mind of Mastery ..........................................65
Lesson Four: The Path to Mastery ..............................................93
Lesson Five: The Tools of Mastery............................................117
Lesson Six: The Transformation of Mastery ............................145
Lesson Seven: The Signs of Mastery ........................................159
Lesson Eight: The Pain of Mastery............................................177
Lesson Nine: The Dao of Mastery ............................................197
Lesson Ten: The Life of Mastery ..............................................214
Lesson Eleven: The Ministry of Mastery ..................................233
About the Author........................................................................253
— vii —
Introduction
MASTERY AT A CROSSROADS
“Try, try, try, and keep on trying is the rule that must be followed to
become an expert in anything.” —W. Clement Stone
A crisis afflicts the ministry in the U.S. Although 4,000 new church-
es are formed each year, 7,000 close their doors, a net loss of 3,000
churches per year. In combination with a growing population, the
result is fewer churches per capita than at any time in the history of
the United States. In 1920, there were twenty-seven churches for
every 10,000 Americans. By 1996, that figure had dropped to
eleven churches, a decline of nearly sixty percent.
Certainly, declining religious affiliation and a consumption-
based value system are partially to blame for this situation, but two
other, commonly overlooked problems must also be considered: the
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
increasing numbers of ministers leaving the church each year and

the dissatisfaction of congregants with their ministers. According to
statistics compiled by Pastoral Care, Inc., 1,700 pastors left the
ministry every month in 2009. 1,300 pastors were terminated by
their local church each month in 2009, many without stated cause.
What can account for this devastating exodus?
Polls of working pastors reveal extremely high levels of dissatis-
faction, burnout, and feelings of inadequacy. R.J. Krejcir reports that
ninety percent of pastors report working over sixty hours per week.
Ninety percent also felt they were not adequately trained. According
to Pastoral Care, Inc., eighty percent of ministers polled felt unqual-
ified and 90% reported that their experience in the ministry was
completely different from what they expected when they began their
studies. Seventy percent of pastors reported fighting depression on a
weekly or daily basis and half said they would leave the ministry if
they could make a living some other way. These are numbers on par
with the most stressful corporate chief executive jobs.
In light of these findings, is it any surprise that fifty percent of
new pastors will remain on the job after only five years and only one
in ten will still be working in the ministry by retirement age?
According to Andy McAdams of Pastor to Pastors Ministry,
some pastors leave because of personal moral failings, some for
financial reasons, and some due to conflict with the congregation.
The overwhelming majority, however, leave due to “burnout” caused
by feelings of being overwhelmed by their duties and that they were
not properly trained in seminary to handle their responsibilities.
—2—
How can this be? Are not seminaries and bible colleges
intended to produce competent ministers? In fact, many such
schools are not. For example, the undergraduate curriculum at a
major Bible college includes twenty-eight classes covering
every part of the Bible in great detail, but not a single class
about preaching. This college’s doctoral program in ministry
requires three courses in theology and offers only three courses
on ministry-related matters—on sermon writing, teaching
Sunday school, and counseling. There is nothing on the admin-
istrative elements of running a church or managing conflict with
the congregation. Not a single course in the entire curriculum,
undergraduate or graduate, offers any hands-on experience.
Seminaries tend to do a bit better. A few offer courses on mis-
sion work and hierarchy or governance of their denomination. Of
over twenty seminaries surveyed, however, not a single one
offered a course on growing a church, retaining membership,
church administration, managing stress, protecting family time,
prioritizing, or managing interpersonal conflict.
Perhaps even more telling, of the seminaries surveyed, not a
single one required any type of internship or offered a mentorship
program for its students. A search for ministry internships did
reveal several seminaries that include such an experience in their
curricula, but these internships were generally for a few months at
most and were generally designed by the students—the people least
likely to know what kind of experience they would need.
Could it be that the cause of the great exodus from the ministry
is a lack of sustained and prolonged training for new pastors? Might
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
those training for the ministry benefit from a mastery-based learn-

ing model that provided on-going mentorship and practice over a
prolonged introductory period before they are considered expert
enough to go it alone?
It seems to me that we in the ministry are mistaking spiritual
awareness and faith as the primary qualifications for our profession,
when in reality our work is as dependent upon trained mastery—
upon specific skill sets honed painstakingly over time—as that of
any physician, attorney or architect. Given the crisis we face, it is
well past time that we examine the nature of mastery and what it can
and should imply for the future of the ministerial professional.
EXPERTISE AND CIVILIZATION
Human civilization correlates with the development of individual

expertise leading to mastery. Historically, those people who worked
hard to achieve expertise in their field were accorded a certain
amount of respect by society. Even in the days when social status was
determined by birth, a capable craftsman received the esteem—and
business—of his neighbors while a craftsman who did not take his
work seriously would have trouble surviving. Those who performed
unskilled labor remained lower on the social scale than those who
learned a trade, but even amongst unskilled workers, those who per-
formed their jobs most admirably would be in higher demand and
would command better pay and treatment.
Although people in ancient times were more likely to be gener-
alists, in the sense that they had a store of assumed knowledge far
—4—
exceeding that of the modern specialist (knowledge of things like

how to make bread, for example, or how to fix the yoke for their
oxen, or repair the wattle that held their walls together), the quality
of a person’s social and physical life depended to some degree on
that person’s ability to master a trade or skill. In fact, the prosperity
of an ancient society can be measured in part by the ability of its
citizens to specialize.
Early peoples were nomadic hunter-gatherers. They spent the
greatest part of their time seeking the necessities of life—food,
clean water, and a safe place to sleep. This left little time for other
endeavors. Much of the work was unskilled; all the members of a
group needed to learn how to do it if they wanted to survive. Even
if some members of such a group did develop specialized expert-
ise, this lifestyle did not permit the development of the facilities
necessary to practice it, such as workshops. This necessarily small
community size, combined with the hard work of meeting basic
needs and migration over considerable distances, limited social and
technological development.
Agriculture, the controlled breeding of livestock and organized
planting of crops for storage, allowed people to settle into permanent
villages. The surplus of food produced by these farmers allowed
enough spare time for technology and the arts to begin advancing.
The establishment of permanent settlements led to differentiation in
the customs and practices of various settlements, and the location of
those settlements often bred learned specialization. For example, a
village situated near a deposit of natural clay might produce numer-
ous artisans skilled in pottery making.
—5—
SPIRITUAL MASTERY
In the relative safety of the villages and cities, with a surplus of

food at hand, there was no need for every person to labor at food
production. The work of a few could now feed many. As a result, the
division of labor into specialties took hold. Instead of raising his
own food, a man could trade expertly hewn spearheads or tightly
woven baskets for the product of a skilled farmer’s field. Of course,
the better his product, the more food he could obtain in trade for
each item, so it was to his benefit to devote the time and practice
required to mastering his art.
So intimately is the idea of specialization tied to that of civiliza-
tion and progress that it is a central focus of many utopian ideals.
Plato’s Republic, for example, divides society into three levels:
rulers, soldiers, and specialized workers. The workers of the lowest
class would be trained in their individual specialties, according to
their talents. The soldiers would be raised, men and women together,
on a mix of physical exercise and philosophical instruction. The
brightest of these would be selected at adolescence for specialized
training to make them fit to be rulers. No one not trained from birth
to the warrior class could join it. No one not raised in the warrior
class could be considered for the special training that would create
a ruler.
Under this philosophy, the training for expertise in any area
begins at birth and continues throughout life. This society was, of
course, entirely undemocratic. The people were expected to accept
their lot in life and strive to make the best use of what they had.
Plato, in fact, considered democracy as almost the worst form of
government, second only to tyranny. He felt it allowed untrained
—6—
people, governed by their appetites and desires, to make unwise

decisions that could be avoided by handing over rule to those with
the expertise to make wise decisions for the entire community.
The Spartans took the idea of specialization to even greater
extremes for their ruling class. Although Sparta was a monarchy in
appearance, it had two kings at a time, both of whom were generals.
These kings shared governmental power with ephors (overseers of
daily operations), a senate of 28 men elected by the citizens, and the
assembly, made up entirely of Spartan males. While this may seem
more democratic than Plato’s world, in reality it was not. Of the
approximately 110,000 residents of Sparta, only about 8,000 were
citizens. Perioeci, the class that included merchants, craftsmen, and
other freemen, had no voice. Their name means “outsiders” or
“neighbors,” indicating that they were not considered Spartans.
Slaves were kept under control by harsh military oppression. This
necessity, paired with the need for defense against incursions by
neighboring Greek city-states, made the ruling class of Sparta per-
haps the most specialized in the ancient Mediterranean world.
Spartan men were intended from birth to become warriors and
underwent the ultimate in specialized training. The needs of the
society were grim and implacable, leading to such practices as
exposing sickly or deformed newborns to the elements to bring
about their deaths. According to Plutarch in his Life of Lycurgus,
each father was required to bring each newborn child before a
council of elders. A fit child was given an allotment of land, but
an unfit child was sent to the “Apothetae,” which means
“Deposits,” a special place high on Mount Taygetos, where unfit
—7—
SPIRITUAL MASTERY
children were left to die rather than being allowed to become a

burden on society.
This obsessive pursuit of genetic perfection, martial expertise,
and mastery of the warrior mentality paid off for Sparta for cen-
turies, beginning in about 650 B.C. They perfected the hoplite
fighting style, which made them nearly unbeatable when fighting
as a group. A hoplite was an infantry soldier armed with a spear
about eight feet long and a heavy (twenty pounds!) round shield
called a hoplon. On the other hand, most Greek hoplites from other
city-states were not soldiers by profession, but rather were drafted
away from their normal occupations to serve in the army. They
were no match for the Spartan’s obsessively trained troops.
The mental conditioning of the Spartan hoplite was particu-
larly important because this style of fighting worked only if every
soldier conformed. The soldiers would form a very tightly packed
phalanx seven or eight soldiers deep and about fifty soldiers
across. Each soldier covered himself with half of his shield and
the man to his left with the other half. The rows behind provided
stability by pressing forward against the front rows. This kind of
overlapping armor was very hard to penetrate—unless a soldier
panicked and broke ranks. A single chink in the line could destroy
the efficacy of the entire phalanx, so the toughened Spartiates
were far better prepared for the extremities of battle than were the
amateurs of other Greek armies.
Individually, Spartans were recognized as extremely tough
fighters with iron discipline. One example of this self-control is
found in the story of a Spartan youth who had stolen a fox, intend-
—8—
ing to eat it. When confronted by a group of Spartan soldiers, he

concealed the fox under his cloak so that he would not be beaten and
lose his dinner. The panicked fox clawed and bit its way into the
child’s stomach so deeply that it eviscerated him and he died of his
wounds, but the boy did not show any pain or fear in the presence
of his elders. Only later did they learn what had happened.
In the face of this kind of discipline, is it any wonder other
Greek city-states considered Sparta a most formidable ally? Sparta
even managed to defeat the much larger state of Athens in the
Peloponnesian War. The Spartans were finally defeated in 371 by
the army of Thebes, whose general used an unexpected, but tried
and proven, strategy—which later became a basic part of military
tactics—in deploying his own phalanx, rather than relying on pure
strength of numbers to overwhelm them.
THE HERMETIC TRADITION
Cultures even more ancient that those of Classical Greece show

high levels of specialization and disciplined pursuit of excellence.
The ancient Egyptians, for instance, present example after example
of advanced technology, yet they lacked the tools that allow us to
perform the same calculations they used. Most people have mar-
veled at the Egyptians’ ability to construct the pyramids using only
manual and animal labor. Yet the construction of these marvels is
only a small part of their wonder.
Among their other talents, the Egyptians were clearly master
mathematicians. The pinnacle of the Great Pyramid of Khufu
stands precisely at the intersection of the Prime Meridian through
—9—
SPIRITUAL MASTERY
Greenwich, England, and the thirtieth parallel. The pyramid is

perfectly aligned with the compass. Its north side faces within
three-sixtieths of a degree of true magnetic north, and no one
since then has succeeded in building a structure to come so close
to facing true north. Even the Greenwich Observatory in London
deviates from true north by nine-sixtieths of a degree. The meas-
ured length of the four sides of the pyramid is 36,524 inches,
while the precise length of the solar year is 365.24 days. The
sides of the Great Pyramid are slightly concave, and if measured
by the highest precision lasers, each concavity exactly duplicates
the arc of the Earth’s curvature. This is engineering of staggering
aptitude produced by a culture five thousand years old, and which
we, with all our technology, find difficult to duplicate.
Debate rages to this day as to the source of the Egyptians’
extraordinary mastery of architecture, design, engineering, build-
ing, mathematics, and astronomical calculation. However, one
fact remains clear: they passed on a tradition of mastery through
study that has infused all of Western culture since. When the
Greeks adopted the Egyptian mystery schools of Thoth, they
associated it with their god, Hermes, the messenger of the gods.
Thus this tradition has become known as the Hermetic tradition.
In this tradition, any single focal point of knowledge is con-
nected to every other facet of knowledge in a great web. For
example, we in the West perceive disciplines such as science, art,
music, medicine, poetry, mathematics, astronomy, and statesman-
ship as separate. In the Hermetic tradition, all these areas of study
are interrelated facets of one great body of knowledge. This
— 10 —
allows the initiate to achieve insights more quickly the longer

they study. For example, the opening statements of the most well
known surviving Hermetic document, the Emerald Tablet, says:
This is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. All
that is seen and unseen is of the single source. As all is above,
so below. The source knowledge is the wheel of all wheels, the
chair of all chairs.
The Hermetic tradition is the oldest known model of academic

knowledge and has influenced the ways people seek mastery in the
West for as long as history records. The Temple of Solomon was
supposed to have a great trove of Hermetic texts, as was the library
at Alexandria. Archimedes cited Hermetic knowledge in his math-
ematical texts.
Since the Renaissance, the Hermetic tradition has enjoyed
waves of favor, but has also been largely ignored by mainstream
culture. It has been co-opted by a number of groups, such as
Aleister Crowley’s Golden Dawn, which attempted to translate its
teachings into a kind of ceremonial magic. Unfortunately, because so
little remains of the original texts, scholars have no way to evaluate
the claims made about its secret knowledge.
Fortunately, today we have freer access to not only our own
society’s amazing advances in the arts, sciences, and philosophy,
but also to those of peoples all over the world. Also, each year we
gain more insight into the knowledge garnered by past societies
that valued the concentrated study of the expert and promoted the
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
pursuit of excellence. Our own culture harbors the remnants of

those attitudes, but increasingly the nurturance of excellence and
the benefits we derive from it are under attack. Tragically, there
are sects of the conservative Christian community in the U.S. in
which education and expertise are considered to be detriments that
disqualify the expert from imparting worthwhile wisdom. Faith
and spiritual inspiration are presumed to be sufficient to maintain
a church, lead a community, or succeed in elected office. Make no
mistake: they are not.
This rising tide of anti-intellectualism is a hazard to the
already-reeling Christian community for two reasons. First, it
reinforces the belief of many non-Christians that Christians are
Luddites who fear science and scholarship and would prefer to
segregate into their own isolated environments away from the
“taint” of the sinful modern world. More importantly, this attitude
deprives many Christians from pursuing their own courses of mas-
tery in such fields as science, medicine, law, and education
because they are not exposed to the most up-to-date teaching and
methods. When a society severs its connection to the elite and
learned for the sake of ideological purity, it can only go backward.
THE WAY OF THE PUNDIT
Unfortunately, our modern society is one easily moved by

surface impressions and desirous of quick, if not instantaneous,
successes. While time-honed expertise retains its aura of respect
and reverence, we readily exalt those wielding sheer volumes of
— 12 —
information but lacking in understanding. We can see them fre-

quently on our news programs and in our newspapers. They are
the purveyors of the “way of the pundit.”
The term pundit has an interesting dual meaning. With its
Western spelling it refers to someone who offers to mass media his
or her opinion or commentary on a particular subject area in which
he or she is supposedly knowledgeable. Pundits are common in the
arena of political coverage.
Yet the Hindu meaning of the word, spelled more commonly in
this milieu as pandit, points to a scholar or teacher skilled in Sanskrit
and Hindu religion, law or philosophy. The difference between the
two interpretations could not be starker. In the West, the pundit’s
stock in trade is to feed a steady diet of fact and analysis into the
news machine as quickly as possible, heedless of contradictions,
alternative theories or the potential to be wrong. Though the pundit
is not necessarily lacking in true expertise and judgment, volume and
ubiquity can easily become surrogates for that expertise.
Then consider the pandit, who frequently assumes the role of the
guru, or wise mentor, in the village-driven culture of India,
Bangladesh, and Tibet that persists to this day. The traditional role
of such a teacher is precisely the opposite of the pundit. Words are
few, with lessons discovered more by the student than the teacher,
perhaps with some subtle prompting. True wisdom (defined as
years of hard-won experience that allow one to clearly assess the
potential perils of a course of action and the frailties of the humans
taking that action) spills from their lips grudgingly and preciously
like water in the desert. The pandit’s power comes not from the
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
quantity of his ideas but from the scarcity and precision of his words
and the impact of his humility.
Pundits have become the de facto experts in many sectors of
our society. Yet many lack the analytical experience to under-
stand the information they purvey or the humility to perceive
that lack. Expertise, among its many faces, calls upon the expert
to differentiate truth from supposition and true pattern from
transient trend. As Bill Maurer, author of Recharting the
Caribbean, writes, “The punditocracy are our modern day
mythmakers.” Yet UC Berkeley research Philip Tetlock studied
the predictions of top media pundits and found that they were
right less than thirty-three percent of the time.
Punditry is the fast food of wisdom. It is simple and quick to
access and offers satisfaction (usually in the form of confirmation
of one’s existing biases) with little or no demand for personal analy-
sis. But it is not expertise. No area of human endeavor, be it politics,
science, literature or religion, lends itself to crudely drawn portraits
and simplistic, overreaching pronouncements.
THE CULT OF THE AMATEUR
Yet punditry is everywhere, and its addictive quality is as mys-

tifying as the popularity of the Big Mac. The connection between
specialized knowledge and the advancement of civilization remains
clear no matter how many historical sources one consults. Why then
has modern culture abandoned the respect for those who devote
themselves to the mastery of a skill or body of knowledge? Modern
— 14 —
American society values the average over the expert, the amateur
over the specialist.
Of course, people are not so foolish as to discount expertise
when it comes to things that really matter. Not many people
would choose to have their appendix removed by an eager novice.
At the same time, the pursuit of excellence in the arts and even
the sciences has lost prestige and, as a result, funding. According
to Andrew Keen, author of The Cult of the Amateur: How Today’s
Internet is Killing Our Culture, the Internet allows anyone,
regardless of training, to put forth his or her work at the same
level as that of an expert.
To some, this is democratic, and that may be so in a crude
sense. However, this flattening of culture has blurred the lines for
consumers between what is the product of careful work and what is
simply someone’s opinion.
Keen uses the example of journalism. In the past, a journalist
was either trained through an extensive apprenticeship or through a
specific educational program followed by an extensive apprentice-
ship. The long process of learning that went into being a journalist
served several purposes. At the most basic level, it ensured that
those admitted to the profession possessed competence in the basic
skills of writing and researching.
Perhaps more important than these mechanical skills was the
instillation of an ethical code that prevented journalists from reveal-
ing their sources, required them to verify and corroborate facts and
insisted they try to maintain inhumanly high levels of objectivity in
their reporting, no matter what their personal feelings. A journalist
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
who violated the ethical standards of his profession could expect

scorn and censure from his peers and the public.
Dan Rather lost his place at CBS News because he took the word
of his staff that the Killian documents (which purported to show neg-
ative behavior on the part of then-president George W. Bush during his
service in the National Guard) had been properly authenticated. When
it turned out that they were most likely forgeries intended to damage
the president’s reputation in the weeks leading up the election, Mary
Mapes, the producer responsible for authenticating the source, was
fired, and three other producers who worked on the story were asked
to resign. Rather then resigned a year earlier than planned, and a later
lawsuit indicates he was not given a choice.
Ironically, the fraudulent nature of the documents was first
discovered by bloggers, the Internet’s “citizen journalists.” These
so-called journalists are transforming not only the face of
reportage, but of expertise. Untrained and unconstrained by ethi-
cal considerations, these amateur reporters have no compunctions
about reporting their opinions as fact. Many of the generation
raised on the Internet believe that everyone’s opinion is equally
“true” and valuable. Keen quotes Richard Edelman, the president
of the world’s largest public relations company, as saying, “In this
era of exploding media technologies there is no truth except the
truth you create for yourself.”
The untrained journalist is answerable to no one and faces no
consequences for misconduct. After Hurricane Katrina, amateur
journalists spread stories of multiple murders and rapes in the
Superdome, where refugees gathered. While conditions there
— 16 —
were truly horrible, trained reporters later found the reports of

rampant violent crime to be untrue. Amateur reporters typically
lack the skepticism, reportorial instincts, interview skills, foren-
sic experience or research strategies of trained professionals.
They are not experts.
Yet our country is raising a generation that cannot tell the differ-
ence between a peer-reviewed article about the discovery of water
on the moon and a blog entry by a conspiracy theorist claiming that
the 1969 moon landing was staged as a Hollywood hoax. Without
an understanding of the value of study and mastery, this generation
has no way to evaluate the claims of either author.
As Keen observes, this uncritical approach to what we feed
our minds has degraded the nature of public discourse in the
nation. Apparently innocuous film clips on YouTube may actually
be carefully designed propaganda pieces. Media pundits no
longer feel constrained by the rules of fair play and truthfulness
when they critique their opponents. Since the public cannot eval-
uate arguments about real issues, pundits resort to ad hominem
(personal) attacks and outright falsehoods to injure the image of
the other side. That such tactics are effective only reinforces this
idea of relativism, the concept that there are no universal
truths—that an amateur’s ideas can be just as right as those of a
Harvard Ph.D.
As Keen points out, talent does not become expertise overnight.
It requires training, time, money, and hard work. The surgeon we’d
all like to perform our appendectomy did not become an expert
quickly or without considerable investment. However, only in a
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
very few areas of life does our trust of the “educated elite” persist:
medicine, law (even with the distrust of lawyers in our society, few
people are foolish enough to represent themselves in court), archi-
tecture, engineering, finance, and construction. When lives and
futures are on the line, we ask for experts. But in all else, amateurs
have an emotional appeal that “wonky” experts cannot match.
From where does this bizarre appeal spring? I suspect it stems
in great part from the libertarian movement of the 1950s, when
organizations like the ultra-conservative John Birch Society began
preaching against government in all its forms. As anger over wars
and scandals spread, this idea grew stronger in many sectors of our
culture. First, the government came to be seen as a corrupt author-
ity, so any information it provided regarding crops, the economy,
or health must be suspect. Over time, this has expanded to include
any source of authority, particularly universities and scientific
institutions, whose work can sometimes contradict the faith-based
simplicities to which many Americans cling. In this environment,
the idea of the “noble amateur,” whose opinions are informed not
by authority-driven teachings (which by their nature cannot be
trusted) but by an innate quality of “just knowing.”
Keen equates the idea of the “noble amateur” to the nine-
teenth century Romantic ideal of the noble savage. The
Romantics portrayed the “exotic” tribes of faraway lands as hav-
ing a more serene life, unencumbered by the nonsense of urban
life, and happily in touch with Nature—which was, of course, a
kind and gentle force providing for their needs. Not one of those
— 18 —
Romantic poets, however, chose to live amongst the savages they

glorified. The prospect of malnutrition and malaria was enough to
keep them at home in their warm houses with featherbeds, hot
cups of tea, and the intellectual stimulation of literary salons.
The reality of the “noble amateur” is no less disturbing than
that of the noble savage, but its effects are less obvious in the short
term and more pernicious over time. The denigration of special-
ization implies that the generalist is superior to the expert and that
the dabbler is just as reliable as the person who has invested years
of time and work into advancing within a system that rewards
merit, not effort.
The cult of the amateur insists that mastery can be inborn, that
it need not be the product of deliberate practice and training. Not
only does the cult of the amateur undermine the value and even the
achievements of experts, but it also prevents the dissemination of
expert knowledge. The example Keen provides is that of Wikipedia,
whose entries can be edited by anyone with an axe to grind or an
unfounded opinion to share.
Keen tells the story of Dr. William Connolley, a British
expert in global climatology with years of training and many
articles published in peer-reviewed journals. When he attempted
to correct some erroneous material in the Wikipedia entry on
global warming, he was restricted by the editors, who said he
was trying to silence alternate points of view. Mind you, his
emendations were strictly in the realm of scientific data, not
interpretation, yet no consideration was given to Connolley’s
— 19 —
SPIRITUAL MASTERY
expertise, nor to the fact that his anonymous antagonist on the

site could have been a teenaged high-school dropout, or a major
stockholder in a petroleum company.
The “wisdom of the crowd” appeals to Americans’ anti-elitist
sympathies. But the “wisdom of the crowd” once maintained that the
sun revolved around the Earth, and that “wise crowd” imprisoned
(the correct) Italian astronomer and mathematician Galileo Galilei
for proving otherwise. The “wisdom of the crowd” enslaved millions
of Africans in America and led so-called abolitionists to argue for the
forcible return of escaped slaves to their Southern owners. The “wis-
dom of the crowd” justifies the murder at birth of thousands of girls
in India and China each year because those societies place a greater
value on sons. If we take time to look closely, the “wisdom of the
crowd” and peer pressure are really one and the same.
If we lose our ability to distinguish between valid information
and pure nonsense, the state of our nation’s intellectual life becomes
utter ignorance. Without the help of experts to sift through the mas-
sive amount of information we have at our disposal, we have no way
to distinguish between what is important and credible from what is
misleading, wrong, or deliberately deceptive. Collective expertise is
our filter for the universe, and that filter is seriously damaged.
If we are to pursue true mastery, it is imperative that we as a
culture, particularly those of us claiming the mantle of spiritual
leaders, know expertise when we see it and value it for its
exquisitely layered, slowly assembled ability to reveal complex
truths and yield brilliant results.
— 20 —
Lesson 1
THE NATURE OF MASTERY
Timothy, my son, I give you this instruction in keeping with the

prophecies once made about you, so that by following them you may
fight the good fight, holding on to faith and a good conscience.
(1 Timothy 1:18 New International Version)
We have explored the historical pursuit of expertise through several

traditions, and shall continue to do so as this book progresses. But
what of mastery today, in an age when global electronic communica-
tion stores all the information of the ages mere seconds and keyboard
clicks away? Is there a difference between possessing copious
amounts of information and having the acumen to synthesize that
information into a useful and practical theory? What is the role of
mastery in today’s world, especially for those of us who dwell at once
in the corporeal and the spiritual?
—
— 21
1— —
SPIRITUAL MASTERY
Most important, what does it take to become a master, and what

is the significance of achieving mastery?
I am a martial artist, so let us begin with the concept of the
black belt. It is the ultimate symbol of mastery in karate, judo
and other combat arts, but what does it mean? For many students
who do not grasp its true meaning, a black belt simply represents
the ability to win a physical fight. This is a falsehood. Having
recently achieved the coveted belt myself at age fifty, I learned
its significance right away from my sensei, which means
“teacher” in Japanese. He said to me, “The black belt signifies
that you are now ready to begin mastery.”
The black belt is not the end of the journey, but the marker
that the journey to excellence can truly commence.
The black belt is not the end of the journey, but the marker that
the journey to excellence can truly commence. I find this extraordi-
nary. When martial arts are regarded in their genuine spirit, the
black belt is about the personal transformation one undergoes along
the way to acquiring the technical skills and discipline to earn the
black belt. The experience of reaching that level of mastery changes
you; you are not the same person as you were when you began your
endless hours of work.
Depending on your endeavor, you may have acquired the pro-
ficiency to conquer a challenge, whether it’s launching a perfect
— 22 —
flying roundhouse kick, playing a Mozart piano concerto, or

repairing a BMW fuel injector in three minutes flat. But not one
of those successes matters as much as the changes that have
occurred in your mind and spirit. You may have become more
focused, humble, wise, learned, patient, meditative, or dedicated.
Neil Ohlenkamp, a sixth degree black belt holder in both judo and
jujutsu, writes about judo, “A candidate for black belt will realize
that the belt is not as important as the lessons learned along the
way. If you think you deserve a black belt, you are probably a long
way from reaching this rank.”
What is the nature of mastery? What does it mean? Are we
talking about mere proficiency, the ability to perform a mental or
physical task at a level that exceeds that of 99.9% of the world’s
population? It’s certainly possible to define mastery that way, but
we are sojourners in the realm of the spiritual, and so we are called
upon to examine mastery at a deeper level—namely, in terms of
how elite physical and mental skills relate to transformation of the
self and the spirit.
The vast majority of us will never achieve global fame, Bill
Gates-level wealth, or the athletic prowess of Michael Jordan,
but through the pursuit of mastery we can certainly transform
ourselves at the mental and spiritual strata into beings who rep-
resent God’s creation, humanity, at its pinnacle. One could argue
that the Spartans, Egyptians, and Hebrews (with the Kabbalah)
have achieved precisely this in the physical, intellectual, and
spiritual disciplines, respectively. In this journey, we will seek
not only the principles that make such mastery reachable, but the
— 23 —
SPIRITUAL MASTERY
deeper reasons behind the idea of mastery as a state to be devoutly

coveted. Mastery is not to be desired for its own sake.
TEN THOUSAND HOURS
In his bestselling book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell defines

what he calls the “ten thousand hours” rule—that is, that one must
engage in about ten thousand hours of intensive, focused practice
of any skill—whether music or carpentry or anything in
between—in order to achieve expertise in, and mastery of, that
skill. That equates to about ten years of constant, near-obsessive
work. Gladwell cites examples of titans of high-tech industry, such
as Gates and Sun Microsystems co-founder Bill Joy, whose life
patterns follow this rule.
The evidence of the need for at least ten years of unstinting prac-
tice and repetition in order to eventually produce true excellence is
undeniable. If we look at the world of sport, we see so-called prodigies
like Tiger Woods, who is undeniably—at this point—the greatest
golfer of all time. But is Woods a prodigy, or is he a kid who had
average talent and whose father regularly had him on the putting
green starting at age four? He is probably a little of both: a person
of vast natural aptitude who benefitted from the opportunity to hone
and refine that aptitude into a deadly competitive arsenal.
We can see the late, great Michael Jackson as another example
of a child genius. But was he a prodigious natural talent, or was he
a moderate talent who was nudged into the discipline of performing
and writing songs at the age of five, assisted by his older brothers,
at his childhood home in Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley?
— 24 —
Again, nature and nurture play a role in the gestation of greatness.

Jackson was undeniably born with the raw material, but it was the
combined forces of family and timing that made him great.
Few could deny that Stephen King is one of the publishing
world’s most successful figures, but his accomplishment can not be
credited to talent alone. Save the few years King spent recovering
after being struck by a car, he has—since the time he was a teenager—
been writing every single day of his life, taking time away only on
his birthday and Christmas day.
Repetition, practice, trial and error, learning by doing, and
synthesizing new ways to achieve goals—they are all essential to
mastery. Masters are born, and then they are made.
Again, nature and nurture play a role in the gestation of

greatness. Jackson was undeniably born with the raw mate-
rial, but it was the combined forces of family and timing
that made him great.
But what about talent? We are deeply enamored with the idea of
God-given talent and natural physical ability. Many people wish to
believe, for example, that the capacity to preach a transcendent les-
son on Sunday morning, prophesy future events, or write a song that
moves hearts and brings tears must be the result of the touch of
God’s hand. I suspect this is because we fear the implications of
admitting that mastery in a field is within reach for all of us if we
can just find the fortitude to invest ten thousand hours of hard work.
— 25 —
SPIRITUAL MASTERY
For one thing, if it’s not purely natural and God-given, that means
we must actually work at it, and many of us do not want to have to
work at things. Additionally, if we are unable to find the time or
muster the fortitude to put forth so many hours of effort, what then?
What judgment is placed upon us? Sloth? Wastrel? Gifts may be
God’s purview, but hard work is largely up to us.
Talent is vital, of course. No one ascends to the highest

levels of the arts, sports, business or invention without
God-granted talent. But talent is like a diamond only
recently extracted from a South African mine.
As Gladwell points out, the acquisition of mastery is extremely

dependent on factors that are completely out of our control: the
time of our birth, the free time we have to pursue ten thousand
hours of study and practice, and the luck of stumbling upon a field
that suits our passions and natural gifts early enough in life to
develop an elite skill set. Someone like Bill Gates is tremendously
intelligent, but he was also lucky to be born to wealthy parents
who could afford to send him to a top Seattle private school, and
he was also lucky that the school had a visionary program in the
then-infant field of computers.
Talent is vital, of course. No one ascends to the highest levels
of the arts, sports, business or invention without God-granted tal-
ent. But talent is like a diamond only recently extracted from a
— 26 —
South African mine. In its raw form it is dull, gray, rough, and
unattractive. Only when that raw diamond is shaped and polished
by a master gemologist (who doubtless has put in more than ten
thousand hours of work to become a master at his craft) does it
have the potential to become a priceless object.
Raw talent has the same potential, but it must be shaped and pol-
ished by at least ten thousand hours of repetitive, disciplined work
(usually at the hands of one or more masterful teachers) to become
of value. Talent alone can only carry a person so far. As columnist
George Will once said of baseball legend Willie Mays, “No one ever
made it to the major leagues on natural gifts.”
Bill Gates, Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking, and Benjamin
Franklin have more in common than their 160 IQs. They were all
obsessively hard workers. Certainly no one would argue that George
Washington was a failure, yet his IQ was just 118. Andy Warhol
achieved fame and wealth with a decidedly below-average score of
86. Kim Ung-Yong, the Korean boy once listed in the Guinness
Book of World Records as having the highest IQ score in the world
at 210, now leads the quiet life of a college professor in his native
country. According to brain researcher Arthur Jensen, once a person
reaches the range of about 120, however, any advantage of increased
IQ virtually vanishes. In terms of success in the real world, a person
with an IQ of 170 is no better off than a person with an IQ of 120.
In fact, a person with a lower IQ but with the drive to practice or
study very hard will have a distinct advantage over the person with
a very high IQ but less determination.
— 27 —
SPIRITUAL MASTERY
THE MYTHS OF MASTERY
While some of us may feel ashamed that we have not put in the
ten thousand hours of work needed to make the most of whatever gifts
God has given us, we must remember much of our future mastery is
well within the control of our will, intention, and commitment. We
cannot control the time or circumstances of our births, nor how read-
ily available are the prerequisites of mastery (the time to practice,
skilled teachers, and opportunities to continually test and elevate
one’s skills); yet, one of the aspects of mastery that Gladwell does not
address is this: mastery can come at any age.
We do not often pay attention to mastery acquired in a person’s
fifties, sixties, and beyond, and for several reasons. We believe
masterful skill is more impressive in someone young than it is in
someone we presume has had decades to practice. But some skills,
such as playing a musical instrument, are far more likely to see the
most development when a person is young and the brain exhibits a
high level of plasticity. Rising from no proficiency to mastery later
in life is rarer, because not only are our brains less absorbent of
new information, but we also find that when we reach a certain age,
we have many commitments—career, family, community—pre-
venting us from putting in our ten thousand hours.
But there is no reason we cannot achieve mastery of many pur-
suits at any time in life, provided we have the mentors and invest the
dedication and time. We could say this excludes pursuits that are
age-dependent, such as athletics, but it is interesting that in swim-
ming, track and field, and other sports, sanctioned competitive lev-
— 28 —
els for people over age fifty are usually called “masters” levels.
These are the fastest-growing classes of athletes in the U.S. Mastery
does not pay attention to calendar pages.
There are many myths regarding mastery and expertise:
• Mentors are accidental. For every Mr. Miyagi, the mentor

character in The Karate Kid, there are a hundred teachers who
are already present in their students’ lives. Fathers have been
passing down family trades to sons since the days of the
ancient Hebrew tribes. Beginning early in life, the elder of the
family would train his son in herding, farming, tent making, or
some other tradition that had been handed down to him by his
father. This allowed the child many years to accrue the all-
important ten thousand hours of practice and refinement.
I refer you to the quote from Timothy at the start of this chapter.
Paul had no children, but because he was training Timothy to be
a pastor, Timothy became a surrogate son, acquiring knowledge
and insight from his adoptive father. Jesus was a carpenter for
the same reason: Joseph practiced the trade and handed down
the knowledge. The Hebrews placed great importance on the
concept of father-son mentorship, believing, “He who does not
teach his son a trade teaches him to be a thief.” There may well
already be mentors in your life just waiting to teach you.
• Practice is easier for the gifted. This is untrue. In fact, the early,
rote memorization aspects of learning a discipline can be tortu-
ous for the gifted, who know they can leap past them but must
— 29 —
SPIRITUAL MASTERY
master them. Imagine a young Thelonious Monk playing end-

less scales, as all pianists must do. No, the endless repetition
that embeds neural patterns in the brain is dull and difficult for
everyone, but vital for learning.
• You must engage in the physical labor to learn the skill. In the
end, this is true, but it turns out that the human brain is an
astonishing learning machine that can acquire the core of new
skills through mental practice alone. In his book The Brain
That Changes Itself, Dr. Norman Doidge writes about an
experiment conducted by Spanish physiologist Alvaro
Pascual-Leone. In this experiment, Pascaul-Leone created two
separate groups of people who had never played the piano.
One group sat in front of a keyboard for two hours a day, five
days a week and imagined hearing and playing a musical
sequence. The other did the same, but physically played the
sequence. Brain mapping showed that the changes in the brain
were identical in the “mental practice” group and the “physical
practice” group.
Even more amazing, though the mental group’s playing was not
as good as the physical group’s after five days, it took only one
physical practice session to bring the mind-only players’ profi-
ciency up to the level of those who had been playing the notes
all week. You can train your brain to make it fertile ground for
physical lessons.
• Talent is “cross platform.” Just because you have elite-level tal-
ent in one area, it does not mean you can acquire mastery in
another area, even if it is closely related. For example, no one
— 30 —
can doubt Michael Jordan’s mastery of a basketball court. Yet,

when he retired from basketball to try his hand at professional
baseball, his effort was an embarrassment. He had not put in the
ten thousand hours of work the other players had. His immense
basketball talent was not enough to compensate for his meager,
unstudied baseball skill.
THE THREE FACES OF MASTERY
I have distilled mastery into what I believe is its true essence,

and it is comprised of three faces, like the three aspects of the
Trinity or the three faces of the Fates in Greek mythology:
1. Automatic. The most basic aspect is physical, in which the

master can perform even the most complex actions or mental
feats seemingly without effort, from a major league baseball
player hitting a fastball to a Ph.D. mathematician calculating
dizzying theorems in his head in seconds. This is the result of
thousands upon thousands of hours of work spent developing
the muscle and cellular memory to take complicated actions
beyond the need for conscious thought. Mastery requires high-
level activity without conscious application of the will.
2. Synergistic. With genuine mastery also comes the insight and

detailed knowledge to synthesize the discipline and see new
ways of achieving results. Synergy elevates mastery beyond the
memorization of rote physical and mental skills; a true master is
— 31 —
SPIRITUAL MASTERY
also creative. So a young Beethoven studies with the great Josef

Haydn until Haydn’s death, then goes on to not only master
Haydn’s style of composition, but transcend it.
3. Pedagogic. Finally, a true master is also a teacher who has

developed sufficient knowledge and understanding of the art
form to pass along his or her learning to others. A master can
be a drill sergeant well schooled after decades of military train-
ing, a senior editor at a big-city newspaper, or virtually anyone
else who has the breadth of understanding to guide someone
else to mastery.
So a true master is an effortless performer, a creator, and a

teacher. Such was the case with Beethoven, Haydn, Mozart and
the other masters of classical music; they did not make their entire
living by composing commissioned works, but also by playing for
paying audiences and by teaching music. The archaeologist and
paleoanthropologist Louis Leakey is another example of someone
who possessed this triad. Leakey was an expert researcher into the
origins of man, but he also formulated a new arena of inquiry, the
study of primates in the field. A skilled teacher, he taught his meth-
ods of primate field research to the women who would become
known as “Leakey’s Angels,” including Jane Goodall, renowned for
her work with chimpanzees, and the late Dian Fossey.
Note that only the first of these aspects of mastery, automatic
performance, is inward-directed. The synergistic creation of new
disciplines and the sharing of expertise with students are both
— 32 —
directed outward toward synthesis, communication, and discovery.

There is a good reason for this: mastery tends to be self-selecting.
What I mean by this is that, like organisms evolving in the natural
world, people who become experts tend only to remain experts—
to “survive” in the parlance of natural selection—if they possess
certain traits.
Let us take as an example a pastor who is particularly gifted
and an expert at writing and delivering a powerful sermon. A blend
of the oratorical prowess of Dr. King and Frederick Douglass, he
raises the rafters and moves souls to exaltation with his words.
However, he brings nothing new to the form. He crafts no new
types of sermons and makes no new rhetorical arguments. He does
not mentor younger pastors or seminary students in the art. What is
likely to happen to this man over time?
The answer is that his work is likely to become self-referential
and stale. All human endeavors thrive on air and light, on exposure
to new ideas. In time, this marvelous orator will lose the mastery
that defined his work because he has turned inward and failed to
bring new thinking and fresh perspectives to his sermons. Experts
in all areas share their work and their knowledge—they project it
outward to whoever will receive it.
THE MASTERY FORMULA
Journalist Michael Bugeja says, “Education is a lifelong experi-

ence. Experience is a lifelong education. Education plus experience
equals expertise.” True, but this would suggest that experience alone
is enough to produce expertise, and this is clearly not the case. What
— 33 —
SPIRITUAL MASTERY
I would suggest is that while experience is the most vital ingredi-

ent in the formula for mastery, others must come into play to make
that experience applicable to the expert performance of a chosen
skill or area of knowledge. Mastery is applied experience.
What I would suggest is that while experience is the most

vital ingredient in the formula for mastery, others must come
into play to make that experience applicable to the expert
performance of a chosen skill or area of knowledge.
Mastery is applied experience.
The first of these additional ingredients in our mastery formula

is passion. Rooted in the Latin word for suffering, pathos, passion
has come to mean a deep, consuming enthusiasm for and interest in
something or someone. Passion is unpredictable; there is no way of
knowing what pursuit—music, art, dance, cooking, science, garden-
ing, craftsmanship, the ministry—will catch fire in a young man’s
or woman’s mind. For Henry Ford, it was the automobile. For Walt
Disney, it was animation. But it can be said without qualification
that passion is essential to fuel the ten thousand hours of study and
training that must occur to produce expertise.
The second ingredient is objective. Simply put, once someone
discovers the object of his or her passion, he or she must have a goal
in mind for that passion that drives the endless hours of practice.
Becoming a concert pianist, earning a Ph.D. in physics, becoming a
major league baseball player—these are all objectives that leverage
— 34 —
passion and convert it into energy as an engine converts gasoline

into movement.
The final component of the formula is commitment. When the
pursuer of mastery has discovered a passion and set an objective, he
or she must pursue that objective with unstinting effort. It must col-
onize his or her mind and become the raison d’etre for his or her
waking hours. Commitment ensures the student will put in the nec-
essary time to reach mastery even when the lessons become tedious,
results become grudging, teachers become impatient, or body and
mind become exhausted or injured.
So now we have arrived at a quasi-mathematical formula that
represents the components that produce mastery. M is for mastery,
the end of the equation. E stands for experience, which is comprised
of P (a level of passion in which the area of interest becomes all-
consuming), O (a specific long-term objective) and C (commitment
to practice and learning). This is multiplied by T, which stands for
ten thousand hours of time. So our formula can be written out thus:
E (P + O + C) x T = M
Surely the ancient Egyptians, master mathematicians that they

were, would have appreciated such an equation.
DIFFERENT AGES, DIFFERENT MASTERY
However, human beings are not mathematical formulae to be

worked out. We are living, evolving beings who do not remain
static. Caught in the stream of time, we are—as I have said in
— 35 —
SPIRITUAL MASTERY
another book—forever becoming. It would almost be appropriate

to call us “human becomings” instead of human beings, because
while the word “being” implies stasis, or coming to rest in one
place, “becoming” reflects our true nature. We are aging, learning,
sloughing off our cells and renewing our physical bodies every three
years, and weaving new nets of neurons in our brains to contain our
vast experience, our indelible selves.
Because humans are eternally becoming, our ability to

achieve mastery also moves with the tides of time. Different
types of mastery suit us at different times in our lives.
Because humans are eternally becoming, our ability to

achieve mastery also moves with the tides of time. Different
types of mastery suit us at different times in our lives. Just look
at parenting. First-time parents admit to being almost completely
bereft of the kind of knowledge they need to successfully raise
their child; only upon the birth of other children can they apply
the hard-won lessons gained through mistakes raising their first.
This may be why firstborn children tend to be more interested in
order than younger siblings—because they had so little order in
their lives due to their inexperienced parents. Only at a later
stage, after many thousands of hours of childrearing, do parents
become experts.
Mastery tends to fall into classes that shift as we pass into and
out of different life stages. This occurs for two reasons: changes in
— 36 —
ability and changes in interest. It is obvious that you will not be able
to do some things later in life that you could do when you were
younger. This is why youthful mastery tilts toward the physical:
sports, dance, martial arts, fitness. Perhaps until you turn thirty
years old, you feel as though your physical body is your greatest
asset, and that it has limitless potential. Physical expertise is easier
to attain because you possess greater stamina, speed, and powers of
recovery. This is why gymnasts, skaters, ballerinas, and many other
elite physical specimens are often astonishingly young.
But as you cross into the hazy boundary territory that leads to
middle age (beginning around thirty years old), something shifts.
First, your body slowly begins to lose some of its agility, resilience,
and quick muscle memory. It becomes less pleasurable to learn the
moves of beginning judo when you wake the next morning wishing
someone would put you out of your misery. This is not to say that no
one over age thirty ever pursues expertise in something rigorously
physical, only that it is less common than in the young. Instead, as
you pass into this stage of life, you begin to reach intellectual
maturity, and intellectual pursuits become more stimulating to you.
In this time of life, people are more apt to put in their ten thousand
hours into entrepreneurship, writing, composing music, becoming
artisans or vintners or farmers…or in parenting. Intellectual
rewards deliver the joy and adrenaline rush that once came with
daring physical effort.
This intellectual stage typically carries on for about thirty
years, but as we ease into later middle age and the elder years, the
inner landscape shifts again to the spiritual. Understand, these
— 37 —
SPIRITUAL MASTERY
delineations only apply to individuals who are taking up new areas

of mastery, such as a 70-year-old who decides to pursue competi-
tive swimming for the first time. While there are many men and
women who begin physical pursuits like yoga or martial arts in
their twenties and continue them well beyond their fourscore
years, it is much less likely for someone of senior years to com-
mence a course of mastery in something physically demanding, or
that requires a substantial time commitment, such as starting a
business. We tend to focus on what we can achieve given our
heart’s priorities at the time.
People over sixty years of age gravitate toward interests such as
painting, mentoring, teaching, ministry, healing, charity work,
writing poetry, and meditation. These are inner-directed areas of
study that, while they are no less demanding than the charges of the
younger generations, also appeal to the mature individual’s desire
for peace, reflection, simplicity, and the discovery of existential
meaning at a time when mortality is starkly revealed. Spiritual
mastery leverages the lessons of the other two stages—wisdom,
patience, discipline, moderation, and forgiveness of failure—to
help the older would-be master discover not just new skills, but a
new state of being. Mastery at this time of life is in part prepara-
tion for our final journey out of this life and into the life of pure
Consciousness. The more whole we are as physical, intellectual,
and spiritual beings, the more fulfilling and complete that journey
will inevitably be.
As spiritual citizens and members of a spiritual community,
we are concerned with spiritual mastery above all. Yet it is the
— 38 —
subtlest and most opaque of all the windows into the human
spirit. It is relatively easy to gauge expertise in martial arts
(with a black belt), singing opera (with a role in La Boheme),
writing (by having a novel published), or entrepreneurship (by
running a profitable business). But how does one assess one’s
progress as a meditator, mentor, or giver of sermons? How do
we fix our position in the spiritual firmament as we move
toward what we hope is a higher state of thought and action?
The answer holds the key to the nature of spiritual mastery. It is
that we gauge our mastery of things of the Spirit not by virtue of our
own achievements, but by our effect on others. Spiritual mastery
centers on abilities of the Mind and Spirit: prophecy, prayer, heal-
ing, preaching, and the shaping of the minds and thoughts of others.
True, these are abilities with their own skill sets, but they pivot on
understanding, compassion, and self-knowledge. They have no easy
metrics. Instead, you will know your progress as a master of your
spiritual discipline by this:
The more masterful you are, the more you will inspire
others to emulate you and walk your path.
A spiritual master gauges his or her own successes by how he or

she is reflected in the eyes of acolytes. As author J.J. Dewey writes,
“The false teacher will seek to be fed by the sheep. The true teacher
will seek to feed the sheep.” Mastery comes when your sheep
become shepherds of their own.
— 39 —
2
Lesson 2
THE CARDS OF MASTERY
“Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remem-
ber that what you have now was once among the things you only
hoped for.” —Epicurus
Being content does not mean one stops striving for mastery. It
does not mean the end of achievement and hard work. Rather, it
means the acceptance of things as they are without complaint and
the accommodation of the mind to reality.
The Classical Greek philosophy of Stoicism addressed the issue
of contentment in perhaps the most useful way of any of the ancient
philosophies. Modern readers tend to think of Stoicism as the
refusal to show emotion or express pain. Marines, for example, are
“stoic” in the face of danger. Or a woman who does not cry out in
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
childbirth is “stoic.” If this were the sum of the philosophy, it would

be superficial at best and would breed hypocrisy.
In truth, there is much more to Stoicism, which in its proper
interpretation teaches control not just of the expression of emotions,
but of the emotions themselves. It is the study of right thinking as a
pathway to right action. A Christian who practices Stoicism
attempts to cultivate his will to be in accord with that of God. The
tools for achieving the calm outlook of the Stoic were logic, reflec-
tion (prayer), and concentration. In his Meditations, the Stoic
philosopher Marcus Aurelius gives sound advice:
If you work at that which is before you, following right reason

seriously, vigorously, calmly, without allowing anything else to
distract you, but keeping your divine part pure, as if you were
bound to give it back immediately; if you hold to this, expecting
nothing, but satisfied to live now according to nature, speaking
heroic truth in every word which you utter, you will live happy.
And there is no man able to prevent this.
The first step on the road to mastery is identifying and accept-

ing your calling. For some people, this may be quite easy. They may
have known since childhood what it was they needed to do with
their lives. But for many, the work and business (or “busy-ness”) of
everyday life drowns out the sound of their calling. We must make
a concerted effort to pause, to become still, so that we can listen to
our hearts and decide what it is we are meant to do.
Modern society does not encourage this kind of reflection. It is
too heavily influenced by the attitudes toward work and leisure
— 42 —
developed in the past. Until just a few hundred years ago, the vast
majority of people devoted their full attention to acquiring life’s
basics; only the wealthy few had time for study and introspection.
In fact, Aristotle wrote that financial necessity put people on the
same level as slaves and animals. One could not, he suggested, find
satisfaction in a life of paid work. He thought the labor required of
most people just to stay alive, as well as involvement in the world of
commerce, deformed a person psychologically and made him unfit
for the pursuit of higher learning and philosophy. This point of view
persisted for centuries. In Christian terms, the labor of survival was
seen as punishment for Adam’s fall: “In the sweat of your face shall
you eat bread” (Genesis 3:19 King James Version).
Beginning in the Renaissance and culminating during the
time of Europe’s industrial revolution, philosophers turned
Aristotle’s idea on its head. They began to devalue the lives of
leisure lived by the nobility, calling them soft and corruptive to
the mind and morals. A new attitude toward everyday work
emerged and soon became the norm: productivity was the key
element of human happiness, and only by our labor could we par-
take in sacred aspect of daily life. In his Commentary on Genesis,
John Calvin looks carefully at Genesis 2:15, which says, “And the
Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to
dress it and to keep it.” Calvin writes:
Moses now adds, that the earth was given to man, with this con-
dition, that he should occupy himself in its cultivation. Whence
it follows that men were created to employ themselves in some
work, and not lie down in inactivity and idleness.
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
Paul reaffirms the message that work is a gift from God in

Colossians 3:23-24: “And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the
Lord, and not unto men; Knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive
the reward of the inheritance: for ye serve the Lord Christ.”
The division between the two views of the role work plays in our
lives has never really been resolved. As author Alain de Botton points
out, great differences persist in the role work plays in spiritual life
even between the Catholic and Protestant traditions:
In Catholic dogma, the definition of noble work had mostly

been limited to that done by priests in the service of God, with
practical and commercial labor relegated to an entirely base
category unconnected to the display of any specifically
Christian virtues. By contrast, the Protestant worldview as it
had developed over the sixteenth century attempted to redeem
the value of everyday tasks, proposing that many apparently
unimportant activities could in fact enable those who undertook
them to convey the qualities of their souls. In this schema,
humility, wisdom, respect and kindness could be practiced in a
shop no less sincerely than in a monastery. Salvation could be
worked out at the level of ordinary existence, not only in the
grand, sacramental moments which Catholicism had privileged.
Sweeping the yard and arranging the laundry cupboard were
intimately related to the most significant themes of existence.
Over time, these conflicting messages have been twisted together

by worldly society so that, as the heirs of these traditions, we are
taught that our value is defined by work, by the income we make, or
— 44 —
by the material objects we possess. We have learned to value action

over contemplation and to see intellectual pursuits as either abstract
and uninteresting or silly and irrelevant. The life of the mind is
reserved for those who spend their days in what “normal” people
sneeringly call the “ivory tower.”
Those who do take it upon themselves to step out of the

flood of everyday life so they may engage in introspection
and prayer are often seen as self-indulgent or unrealistic.
But the opposite is true.
Those who do take it upon themselves to step out of the flood

of everyday life so they may engage in introspection and prayer
are often seen as self-indulgent or unrealistic. But the opposite is
true. What good does it do the world, or on a smaller scale, our
own society, our community, if each of us remains stuck in the job
we chose when we were ignorant teenagers? If each of us lives a
life of mediocrity, without passion and devotion? When was the
last time you were left alone in a quiet place where you could think
without interruption or distraction? What damage does it do to the
soul, to the sense of worth and purpose, when we are constantly
kept busy, always responding to the demands of work without time
for contemplation? How long will it take before there is nothing
left to contemplate? As Socrates wrote, “The unexamined life is
not worth living.”
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
KNOW YOUR COMPETENCE
Spiritual mastery begins with such intense contemplation, from

which comes deep, unadorned self-knowledge. This interior review
is work, despite what the pragmatists would have us believe. It is the
exhaustive work of the mind and spirit; why should such work be
any less strenuous, any less valued, than laying bricks, painting
houses, or repairing cars? In fact, all pursuit of mastery begins with
careful introspection into one’s motives, commitment, and desires.
Everything else is vanity.
Why is a commitment to reflection and self-knowledge crucial
to any type of mastery? Because all journeys on the road to mastery
begin at the same point:
Competence.
The definition of “competence” most relevant to mastery is not

the one you’ll find in the dictionary—“Having sufficient skill,
knowledge, ability, or qualifications”—but rather, for the seeker of
expertise and excellence, “competence” is consistent knowledge
and performance of the fundamental requirements of any endeavor.
The royal road to true mastery passes through competence: you
must achieve excellence at the basics before you can move on to the
elite performance. A master pianist must be able to play diatonic
and chromatic scales at blinding speed. A high-flying slam-dunk
champion must be able to dribble and pass the basketball. A brilliant
software designer must understand binary computer code.
— 46 —
All mastery begins with and grows from competence. A woman

can have the artistic talent to design an elaborate building, but for
all her genius at creating the crowd-pleasing aspects of her art, the
edifice will crumble and collapse unless she also grasps the basic
task of pouring and laying a foundation. Therein lies the essence of
competence versus mastery: mastery is the final stage when the ten
thousand hours of work become dazzlingly visible to others. When
you reach mastery, you are Tiger Woods winning the U.S. Open. You
are Renee Fleming singing an aria. You are T.D. Jakes preaching a
stirring sermon to tens of thousands. That is the pinnacle, the place
of adulation. That is what mastery can and often does bring.
Remember, Jesus’ purpose was not to compel us to worship

Him but to reveal to us the God within each of us. To do
this, and knowing that His actions and life would speak far
louder than any words He could utter, He had to reach the
pinnacle of humanity in body, mind, and spirit. Thus, He
spent more than ten thousand hours acquiring competence
at first being a man, and then mastering it.
Competence does not bring accolades, which is why it is diffi-

cult for many students to accept that they must pass through this
long, arduous stage. No one applauds the pianist who plays flawless
scales. Jesus did not come to his ministry until He was thirty years
old. Why? He did not spend all that time learning from Joseph as a
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
journeyman carpenter. He was already the Son of God and had been
so since before the dawn of time; surely He did not need any time
to achieve mastery in that.
However, Jesus did need those three decades to master being a
man; the Son of Man, as it were. Remember, Jesus’ purpose was
not to compel us to worship Him but to reveal to us the God within
each of us. To do this, and knowing that His actions and life would
speak far louder than any words He could utter, He had to reach the
pinnacle of humanity in body, mind, and spirit. Thus, He spent
more than ten thousand hours acquiring competence at first being a
man, and then mastering it.
Competence is the initial mastery of the mundane but indispen-
sable tasks. Only through the kind of aforementioned self-conscious
personal discovery will you understand where your competencies
lie today—and only through that same process will you be able to
fairly assess your competencies as you walk the road to mastery.
THE FOUR-CARD HAND
Psychiatrist William Glasser said, “No human being will work

hard at anything unless they believe that they are working for com-
petence.” Yet beneath what appears to be the simple surface of
competence is a deeper truth. There are four types of competence,
a quartet of levels of ability and self-knowledge that define what we
can achieve and where we must improve. For a vital aspect of the
journey toward mastery is this: before we can pursue mastery, we
must acknowledge our lack of ability. In other words, achieving
— 48 —
competence demands that we first admit our incompetence. In this

way, the journey to excellence becomes, as I discussed earlier, a
journey to humility.
As the karate sensei or the master craftsman can attest, the more
knowledge and facility you gain, the more you will realize how lit-
tle you truly know. You will see your students surpass you, which is
truly one of the great tributes to a teacher. As I found from my
karate master when I earned my black belt, mastery only truly
begins when you have the knowledge to see what you do not know.
Every student’s journey begins this way. Duke Ellington had to
admit how little music he knew before he began his studies. Even
the Buddha, one of the truly enlightened beings of our time, was
merely Prince Siddhartha when he sat beneath the bodhi tree to
meditate on the causes of suffering in the world. He had to admit
that he knew nothing and had to return to the womb of thought to
re-imagine the world before he could become a master.
Reflection, meditation, clear-eyed self-knowing…these are all
tools to see the competencies and incompetencies within ourselves.
This must occur before we can know how to invest the ten thousand
hours required to achieve mastery. Without this knowledge, we risk
wasting our potential and squandering the gifts God has granted us
with the intent that we use them to achieve a specific destiny.
Based on how we play the four-card hand of competency, we set
the odds that we will achieve expertise in the field for which we
were chosen. The more we know of ourselves and our competence,
the better those odds.
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
The four cards of competence are:
1. Unconscious incompetence
2. Conscious incompetence
3. Conscious competence
4. Unconscious competence
This system, also referred to as the “Four Stages of Learning,”

was first developed in the 1940s by pioneering psychologist
Abraham Maslow, who also developed the famous “Hierarchy of
Needs.” The four cards, as I will call them, represent the stages of
learning a new skill or talent and the self-awareness required to
advance toward mastery. We will explore each and where it fits into
our historical and modern look at the pursuit of expertise in body
and spirit. Later, we will also explore the development of the aspects
of competence most likely to aid us in fostering spiritual excellence.
UNCONSCIOUS INCOMPETENCE
This is the ground state of all endeavors, when the person nei-
ther understands nor knows how to do something, nor recognizes
the deficit, nor has a desire to address it. The state of unconscious
incompetence must by necessity exist at the beginning of the learn-
ing process. At the outset of the journey to expertise, the student
does not know what he does not know. He is unaware of the myriad
subtleties, hidden complexities and complementary skills that dwell
within a trade or field that appears otherwise straightforward.
— 50 —
The realm of unconscious incompetence fueled the rise of appren-

ticeship in the old world, a practice that continues today. The system
of apprenticeship began in the Middle Ages: craft guilds had come to
power in towns and villages, symbols of the culture’s recognition of
and respect for expertise, as well as a means by which to regulate and
protect their business. These craft guilds—which oversaw the devel-
opment and regulation of everything from tailors and blacksmiths to
papermakers and wheelwrights—licensed master craftsmen to
employ young people as inexpensive labor in exchange for food,
board, and formal training in the craft. Apprentices began as teens and
were basically indentured servants, starting with zero knowledge but
spending five to seven years gaining experience and honing their
skills. The next step was that of a journeyman, during which time the
craftsman was expected to create his masterpiece as a way of gaining
entrance into the coveted category of “master craftsman” in his own
right—something that was not easy to do. The modern convention of
the internship is similar in nature, if not as formal nor as restrictive to
the intern (though some medical students may disagree).
One of the key factors in apprenticeship’s effectiveness is the
apprentice’s state of unconscious incompetence. When a student or
apprentice comes into a teaching environment with a tabula rasa, or
“blank slate,” he or she has few, if any, incorrect habits to break or
erroneous skills to “unlearn.” The master can shape the pupil’s mind
and skills as a blacksmith shapes molten metal, remaking the
apprentice from his rough, crude base form into a near-perfect
replica (depending on the student’s innate gifts, of course) of the
master. So the state of the beginner is an exalted one.
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
The road to mastery will always commence at unconscious

incompetence, yet this is also a perilous, high-risk card to play.
The learner must cultivate complete humility here in order to
admit that he or she lacks even the knowledge of what he or she
needs to learn to achieve competence. Self-deception, fueled by
the ego, runs rampant at this stage of learning. You will recall we
spoke of the “noble amateur,” the wise fool un-influenced by an
earlier process of careful learning, mentoring, or scholarship.
The danger of unconscious incompetence manifests when the
ego must be nourished by the uninformed pretense of knowledge
and expertise; with no formal learning to restrict the egotistical
pseudo-master’s pronouncements, there is nothing to limit wild
theory and speculation.
The road to mastery will always commence at unconscious

incompetence, yet this is also a perilous, high-risk card to
play. The learner must cultivate complete humility here in
order to admit that he or she lacks even the knowledge of
what he or she needs to learn to achieve competence.
This mindset is the source of medical pseudoscience, such as the

discredited theory that vaccines cause childhood autism, and the
empty criticism of anthropogenic climate change. Driven by ego,
empowered by self-deception and unable to conceive of themselves
as lacking in knowledge, pseudo-experts become spokespersons for
ignorance, often harming the pursuit of true knowledge.
— 52 —
We see that the card of unconscious incompetence is a perilous

one to play. For it to propel one onto the road that leads to expertise,
one must embrace one’s lack of knowledge as a pristine state, an
Eden that lays one bare and open to wise teachings. Humility is
everything, and the absorption of knowledge must be honored as a
worthy process in and of itself. The student who realizes he is a fool
is a wise man. Without this realization, unconscious incompetence
blended with delusion and a need for self-gratification leads to
ignorance and an even worse state of being: the belief that one has
nothing else to learn.
CONSCIOUS INCOMPETENCE
The next stage on the journey to expertise comes as the indi-

vidual realizes he or she does not know how to do something, but
recognizes the shortfall. Whether he or she has taken action to
address the deficit, the student has not yet acquired sufficient skill
to claim competence.
This is the mental state of the active learner on the path to
knowledge. Often, it is also the state of the Joseph Campbell-
esque hero treading the ways of the heroic cycle: Luke Skywalker
in Star Wars, Aristotle learning at the feet of his mentor, Plato,
Timothy discovering the ways of the ministry from Paul. The
seeker of mastery in this stage is a blank page waiting for the
teacher to impart lessons—highly conscious of what he does not
know, humble before his own ignorance and the knowledge of his
teacher, and motivated by the slow accumulation of aptitude over
time. The person who is consciously incompetent is the perfect
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
pupil, without a hungry ego to compel him to admit he knows

more than he actually does.
However, there is a fascinating dynamic at work at this stage
of learning. No human being can tolerate the negative impact to
self-esteem that comes with unrelenting incompetence; if we do
not know something and cannot progress toward knowledge
despite persistent effort, we will cease the pursuit out of shame or
frustration. So for the seeker of mastery who would fully embrace
his conscious incompetence, there must be a means of psycholog-
ical and emotional nourishment. It is this:
Knowing that he is unlocking learning and expertise which are

accessible to all but mastered by a comparative few.
This may seem to be a contradiction, epitomized in a quote

from journalist Mignon McLaughlin, who said, “The proud man
can learn humility, but he will be proud of it,” but it is not. I don’t
mean that the effective, committed student will feed his ego by
gloating about how much he is learning; rather, I mean to say he
will take delight in the fact that, in embracing and admitting his
total ignorance and incompetence, he has opened the secret doors
to discovering and eventually mastering his field. The pursuit of
learning itself becomes reason enough alone to continue. In the
right student, this can counter the negative emotions produced
when one is a poor student at the beginning of one’s studies—
which, rest assured, everyone is. We all begin as novices. We are all
clumsy, tone-deaf, illiterate, or reckless.
— 54 —
The experience of the “conscious incompetent” in the hands of

a stern mentor produces a classic dynamic of learning. The teacher
will “break” the student in order to “build him back up” in the
teacher’s image, forcing the brain to abandon neural systems that
reinforce old and unproductive patterns of thought and behavior.
Associating negative consequences—a verbal rebuke, shaming,
physical labor, a monetary fine—with unproductive behaviors taps
our brain’s neuroplasticity, the brain’s extraordinary ability to
reshape its activity based on continuing mental input. As executive
coach Ray B. Williams writes in Psychology Today:
Bad habits operate in much the same way as addictive behav-

ior in that memories of how to think and behave have been
well established in the brain and a reward is obtained by
repeatedly revisiting those neural pathways. Breaking the
habit then is not only difficult; the brain sets up defense
mechanisms to prevent you from changing what is automatic
and unconscious. One study of heart patients who were heavy
smokers or seriously overweight showed that even after
quadruple bypass surgery, a majority of the patients returned
to old patterns of lifestyle behavior.
The conscious incompetent possesses sufficient self-aware-

ness (likely gained through many hours of quiet contemplation
and honest self-assessment) to know that he or she needs a
teacher to aggressively attack counterproductive habits in order
to clear the path for mastery. This is why truly balanced, humble
students often welcome the most difficult, rigorous, exhausting,
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
and challenging portions of their training—they know the process

itself is transforming them.
For seekers of expertise who are not engaged in mentor-mentee
relationships, the stage of conscious incompetence often compels
another, deeply revealing behavior that I call exposure modification.
Simply put, when we see something about ourselves every day that
is less than it can be, and we put aside self-deception to see this
shortcoming as it truly is, we will be driven to modify our behavior
to improve. When a man looks in the mirror every day and sees that
he is overweight, he can deny and delude or he can admit the truth.
When he denies, he resides in the state of unconscious incompetence
and change is impossible. When he rejects comforting delusion and
admits that he is overweight, he then gains the power to begin mod-
ifying his behavior on his own: eating less, exercising, or hiring a
personal trainer.
For this reason, playing the conscious incompetence card
requires great clarity and complete rejection of self-deception. As
Bertrand Russell stated, “No satisfaction based upon self-deception
is solid, and however unpleasant the truth may be, it is better to face
it once and for all, to get used to it, and to proceed to build your life
in accordance with it.”
CONSCIOUS COMPETENCE
As this card is played, the individual understands or knows how

to do something. However, demonstrating the skill or knowledge
requires a great deal of deliberate effort or concentration. Conscious
competence is usually the product of years of study that have not yet
— 56 —
reshaped the student’s brain to allow the skill in question to be

demonstrated without slow, painstaking effort and concentration.
The hallmark of this stage of the journey to mastery is a halt-
ing, awkward performance of the skill or field in question. The
student understands the principles behind the tasks he is asked to
perform and knows the goals he is attempting to reach. However,
each movement or course of thought is accompanied by a slow
inner planning and review process, i.e., “Next, I do this…am I
doing it right?” The result is usually painful and amateurish to
watch, yet extremely necessary to the final achievement of automatic
mastery, synergy and pedagogy, the three levels of mastery that we
spoke of earlier.
We see conscious competence constantly from students of all
kinds: young ballet dancers struggling with the perfect Arabesque,
baseball players fumbling with the mechanics of the ideal swing,
young ministers stumbling over awkward phrases that worked far
better on paper than they did as part of a live sermon, and so on.
Conscious effort is an impediment to performance; as Daniel Pink
describes in his book Drive, most of our mental processing is
unconscious not only because our limited conscious scope of
thought needs to be kept available for judgment decisions that can
affect our survival (whether to merge into traffic, for example),
but because conscious processing can be slow. As Malcolm
Gladwell details in Blink, instantaneous, autonomic flashes of
insight are often more effective and revealing than laborious,
rational decision-making—IF those flashes are informed by years
of learned knowledge.
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
Consider this book. Were I to have to think about the location of

each key on the keyboard as I typed the manuscript, I would never
have completed it. The transmission of thought to page demands a
clear path through the medium of that transmission, my fingers. If I
were not an accomplished typist, the conscious effort required to
simply type accurately would impede the conscious formation of
the thoughts you are reading. Our minds do not truly multi-task; a
2001 study carried out by Marcel Just, a psychology professor and
co-director of the Center for Cognitive Brain Imaging at Carnegie
Mellon University in Pittsburgh, revealed that the brain has a finite
capacity for complex tasks. As revealed in images produced by a
brain MRI, when people try to engage in two complex tasks at once,
such as talking on a mobile phone and driving, brain activity does
not double. It decreases.
It is more correct to say that we parallel task, quickly

switching our awareness from one task to another. But
when the completion of one complex task demands the per-
formance of another, the results suffer. Yet persistence
through this stage is precisely what makes the final stage
leading to true mastery possible.
It is more correct to say that we parallel task, quickly switching

our awareness from one task to another. But when the completion of
one complex task demands the performance of another, the results
— 58 —
suffer. Yet persistence through this stage is precisely what makes the
final stage leading to true mastery possible.
Psychologically, conscious competence carries with it a real
risk: that the learner will find the moderate and halting ability to
perform a skill or utilize knowledge to be “good enough.” This is
easy to understand; anyone who has labored through martial arts
classes knows that the journey from moderately competent student
to seemingly effortless black belt can take many years of tiresome
work. The risk, then, is that some searchers for excellence will
become complacent in their moderate skill and decide that good
enough is indeed good enough.
This is the “good to great” fallacy highlighted by author and
researcher Jim Collins in his bestselling book Good to Great. His
elegant and brilliant thesis posits that individuals (and in the case of
his book, corporations) who fall into the trap of doing only what
they are good at will never achieve greatness, which is another word
for mastery. If you are consciously competent at a style of painting,
you may decide to continue painting in that style because your mod-
erate success gives you a moderate reward for your years of toil. The
alternative—exploring a more difficult style that will challenge
your abilities—presents the likelihood of short-term struggle and
failure and frustration, as all new endeavors do. It can be quite
tempting to continue on a safe path that reinforces self-esteem.
This is why a strong, wise teacher or mentor is so critical to keep
the searcher from going astray into the country of “good enough.”
The purpose of the elder or sensei is to push the student to venture
beyond the safe territory and away from “good” into what can
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
become greatness. In the following Bible passage, you can equate

“sufficient” to “competent”: “Not that we are competent in our-
selves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes
from God” (2 Corinthians 3:5 New International Version). As
Collins writes, “Good is the enemy of great.” Those who reach the
level of conscious competence must guard against the potentially
corrosive power of “good enough.”
UNCONSCIOUS COMPETENCE
Unconscious competence is the final card in the hand of mas-

tery—and the pinnacle stage of the journey—but it is also an area of
great potential risk. The individual at this stage has usually invested
at least ten thousand hours into honing a skill. As a result, that skill
has become “second nature” and can be performed at an expert level
with little or no conscious thought. It is here that students approach
mastery and the so-called effortlessness spectators speak of when
watching professional athletes, dancers, musicians, and artisans.
The irony is that the appearance of mastery without effort demands
years of dedicated, repetitive effort at the competencies, the funda-
mentals, of any field. Only then do those competencies—those
basic, unglamorous core skills—coalesce and synergize into a
seemingly effortless, automatic performance.
At the level of unconscious competence, we can also have skills
at which we do not realize our gifts. In Matthew 25: 14-15, the Bible
says, “For the kingdom of heaven is as a man travelling into a far
country, who called his own servants, and delivered unto them his
goods. And unto one he gave five talents, to another two, and to
— 60 —
another one; to every man according to his several ability; and

straightway took his journey” (King James Version).
In this parable, Jesus gives three men talents (in this case, the
name of the local currency), each according to his ability. They are
rewarded not for what they have done but for what they have the
potential to do. God also granted you that potential and knows what
you are capable of achieving. This is the reason the road to mastery
is so rigorous; why we were not granted immediate expertise in the
purpose God has ordained for us. Remember, the transformational
aspect of the journey through ten thousand hours of dedication to
eventual mastery changes the student into the type of person who
can be not just a gifted student, but a humble master to others.
Remember, the transformational aspect of the journey

through ten thousand hours of dedication to eventual mas-
tery changes the student into the type of person who can
be not just a gifted student, but a humble master to others.
Unconscious competence must combine the automatic elite-

level execution of the desired skill or area of knowledge with the
understanding of those areas at which you are not yet an expert. This
awareness opens the door for continual improvement, another hall-
mark of mastery. After a student of the martial arts earns her black
belt, her education does not cease. It continues to the dan, a Japanese
word that means “phase.” The student-become-master remains a stu-
dent for life, always advancing toward that which she does not know
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
and can never reach, like a spacecraft creeping closer and closer to
the speed of light.
The greatest risk of unconscious competence is that you will not
realize you have a gift for a skill or area of knowledge and will fail
to pursue excellence in it. For example, Julia Child did not see that
she had a gift for cooking French cuisine until she was in her forties.
Only then did she master the art and become a world-famous
ambassador of haute cuisine. This is where mentors and advisors are
invaluable. One reason ministry is in crisis in the U.S. is because the
rate of resignation of experienced pastors means but a few remain
to mentor young, incoming pastors.
Do not be deceived by the self-claimed expert. The very act

of achieving true mastery dampens the ego’s appetite for
self-promotion; genuine masters of any craft or field are
inherently humble. They have no need to promote them-
selves, because the rewards of achieving God’s potential
and working in their purpose are enough.
I call these intermediaries bearers of wise counsel. They need

not be your direct teachers; one should only have one teacher for a
discipline, at the risk of lessons from multiple teachers coming into
conflict. Bearers of wise counsel can be mentors, friends, pastors,
grandparents, professionals in the field you are pursuing, or masters
who are not working with you in a teaching capacity. Because these
individuals can see you objectively (as you cannot see yourself) and
— 62 —
possess the experience to perceive skills you may misperceive, they

can often identify areas in which you have unconscious competen-
cies. Listen to such bearers of wise counsel. Cultivate their presence
in your life and honor them. They can awaken you to your potential.
However, in this as in all things, use prudence. Look to bearers of
wise counsel who:
- Speak honestly and candidly.

- Have no motivation other than to help you improve.
- Have experience in the field in which they advise you.
- Demonstrate good character and morality.
THE DANGER OF FALSE MASTERY
British humorist Max Beerbohm shared a great truth in a bit of

intended humor when he said, “Men of genius are so few that they
ought to atone for their fewness by being at any rate ubiquitous.”
True mastery is a rare thing, but people of all levels of expertise,
seeking the status that often accompanies mastery, will try to
play-act at excellence. We are not so different now than the
ancient civilizations that gave unique status to experts; pundits of
all stripes earn a fine living bloviating on television about subjects
they know little about. We seem to mistake volume and ubiquity as
evidence of mastery, at our peril.
Do not be deceived by the self-claimed expert. The very act of
achieving true mastery dampens the ego’s appetite for self-promotion;
genuine masters of any craft or field are inherently humble. They have
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
no need to promote themselves, because the rewards of achieving

God’s potential and working in their purpose are enough. The hazard
for the young student is in believing that loudness or frequency of
presence equates to mastery and the ability to teach. Because like
attracts like, believing such a thing could earn the student a charlatan
for a teacher.
That an author is widely read does not make him an authority.
The pastor who can fill a church is not necessarily a prophet. To
ensure you never go astray in finding your teacher, always seek
these true hallmarks of mastery as you look for your own four-card
hand and strive to journey through the stages of expertise:
- Humility
- Passion
- Self-awareness
- Commitment
- Generosity
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3
Lesson 3
THE MIND OF MASTERY
“Only one who devotes himself to a cause with his whole strength
and soul can be a true master. For this reason mastery demands all
of a person.” — Albert Einstein
What mental state is most suitable to mastering an art or skill?

What state of mind compels a person to commit and sacrifice at the
extreme level true excellence demands? By definition, the constel-
lation of psychological qualities that define the master must be rare,
else the streets would run gold with the vision and achievements of
greatness. Mastery is uncommon; therefore, the mind that can fuel
and chase mastery must also be uncommon.
Many philosophers and leading spiritual thinkers believe one of
the key elements of this “mastery mind” is a passion to seek one’s
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
purpose in this world, the meaning of one’s corporeal existence

placed in one’s spirit by God. The path to finding your calling is dif-
ferent for each person. In the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, “God
enters by a private door into every individual.” Some people may
already have an idea of what they are meant to do, but they still
require a few moments of quiet each day to formulate a plan of
action. Others may benefit from a more intensive approach, such as
going on a retreat to a quiet place where they can be alone with their
thoughts and prayers. However it is you do it, you must find within
yourself the dedication and rightness to follow the path you choose.
Without that inner commitment, the endurance necessary to achieve
mastery will be impossible for you to maintain.
Malcolm Gladwell speaks frequently of the role of “meaning”
in rigorous work; it is one of the requirements for putting in ten
thousand hours of training and refinement. To Gladwell, meaning
boils down to the presence of a direct and visible connection
between one’s work and the reward for that work. When a gymnast
trains for ten years to compete in the Olympics, his work becomes
meaningful because he can see, by watching the games that occur
as he is developing his skills, what he could possibly achieve. The
effort and reward become linked: work hard and develop your
inherent aptitude to its highest potential and you could receive
global acclaim.
In his book The Secret of Love, Harold Klemp writes:
When I was back in high school, some friends of mine used to

sing this inane song. It went like this: “We’re here because we’re
here because we’re here because we’re here.” And they’d go on
— 66 —
and on. They’d wander off down the hall singing this song. And
it made perfect sense to me then because I didn’t know why I
was here. And they didn’t know either.
There are no guaranteed methods of finding out why God chose

you to be where you are and doing what you are doing. However,
some basic spiritual exercises and meditations can help. The first
step it that you must believe you have a purpose in life, even if you
do not yet know what it is.
You must also believe you can learn your purpose. Moses
learned his purpose when God spoke to him from the burning bush.
Most people do not get such vivid announcements, but that does not
mean God has no plan for them. Many people cannot see their pur-
pose because their past and present overwhelm them—the past with
regrets for things done and not done, the present with demands on
their time and attention that pull them from the moment. While the
past can often be distracting, our earlier experiences may provide
the guide to helping us find our calling. Here are two examples:
Andrew Vachss is an attorney who practices in New York City

and only represents children and youths. In his work, he sees
and hears about things done to children that are so atrocious
most of us cannot even imagine them. People who meet him say
he is the most focused person they have ever encountered. Every
single thing he does serves the cause he has chosen to serve.
Vachss entered this branch of law because of the horror he wit-
nessed. As a young man, he took a job working for the Illinois
Department of Health, tracking down patterns of infection for
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
sexually transmitted diseases. In those days, the biggest threat

was syphilis. When a person was diagnosed with syphilis,
Vachss’s job was to find out the names of that person’s sexual
partners, track them down, convince them to be tested, and get
them to disclose their own lists of sexual partners. In the sus-
picious, pre-Internet days of the 1960s, this was no small feat.
Vachss’s life changed the day he tracked a line of infections back
to an infant. When he questioned the man who had raped the
baby, the man became angry at Vachss because he saw the baby
as his property—and therefore his to with as he pleased. Vachss
thought he had met the devil, until he learned that the man was
only one of thousands who shared this particular evil. The dis-
gust and horror of this discovery would have driven most as far
from the world of child abuse as possible. But Andrew Vachss
did not flee from the work. Something in his childhood kept him
from turning his back on the problem. Something made his
vocation meaningful.
Vachss grew up in a tough neighborhood in New York. Both his
parents taught him from a young age not to stand for injustice
or tolerate bullying. In one case, his dog had crossed into a
neighbor’s yard. The neighbor did not like animals in his yard,
so he attacked the dog with a garden pitchfork and threw the
dog’s body into a ditch. The dog survived, but it was his father’s
reaction that made the biggest impression on Vachss. Vachss’s
father had never been a big fan of the dog, but when he learned
what the neighbor had done, he paid him a visit. He knocked
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him down with one punch, then dragged him across his yard
and threw him into the same ditch. The neighbor never both-
ered the dog again.
Without the ingrained lesson that it is the responsibility of all of
us to defend those who cannot defend themselves, Vachss might
well have turned away when he met “the devil.” Certainly, many
people would consider childhood experiences like those
recounted by Vachss to be scarring. Vachss himself was not
immune to the violence that permeated his neighborhood: as a
young boy, he suffered a permanent injury to his eye when a
gang member struck him in the face with a chain. For most of
his life he covered that eye with an eye patch because the mus-
cles that controlled it no longer worked. Even so, he never saw
himself as a victim. He turned his experiences into motivation
to do something. In his own words, “Rage makes good fuel.”
Another person who has used horrific experiences to power his
work to make the world a better place is Tibetan Buddhist monk
Palden Gyatso. Born in a small village in Tibet in 1933, he was
sent by his parents to study at a monastery when he was only ten
years old. When the Chinese invaded Tibet, Gyatso, along with
thousands of other monks, protested. In 1959 he was arrested
and imprisoned. For the next thirty-three years he lived in forced
labor camps, nearly starving to death and undergoing repeated
and prolonged sessions of torture. He witnessed the deaths by
torture, starvation, exposure, and overwork of hundreds of other
prisoners. In 1992, he was released. Upon hearing that he was to
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
be rearrested, he fled, eventually crossing—on foot—the border

into Nepal, then making his way to Dharamshala, the home of
the exiled Tibetan community in India.
After so many years of suffering, no one would have blamed
Gyatso if he had chosen to spend the rest of his life in quiet
retirement. Instead, he wrote his story and set about telling the
world of the abuses going on in Tibet. He traveled the world
delivering lectures about his experiences. He allowed a film to
be made of his life (Fire Under the Snow), even though he
abhors having attention paid to himself as a person. He even
addressed the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva. Only
when his health failed in the mid-2000s did he return to
Dharamshala to pursue his beloved studies.
HEEDING THE CALLING WITH

INTENTION AND PASSION
Neither Vachss nor Gyatso is an outwardly remarkable man.

Both come from modest backgrounds and both possess a typical
amount of innate intelligence. What makes them extraordinary is
the decision each of them made to turn their experience into moti-
vation to make a better future. Most people do not have a dramatic
past, positive or negative, but everything we experience—or have
experienced—teaches us about ourselves and shapes us. Looking to
our past can be a productive exercise if our goal is not to wallow in
it, but to use it as a directional guide and launching pad.
Author Annie Dillard writes of an artist she knew who, when
asked how he knew he was supposed to be a painter, said, “I liked
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the smell of paint.” She extends this idea of passion and work
feeding each other to her evaluation of other creative professionals.
Each—author, painter, composer—fell in love with the work of a
prior master or masters. Each one studied those works, learned
from them, and fed his or her own passion.
When we ask what sets otherwise unremarkable individuals

apart from the mainstream, we are really inquiring about
what primes their minds to achieve mastery where others,
who perhaps have far greater natural gifts, never reach it. The
answers are passion, a sense of calling, and the application
of the third ingredient: intention.
This is what we refer to as discovering one’s calling. Virgil wrote,

“Your profession is not what brings home your paycheck. Your pro-
fession is what you were put on earth to do. With such passion and
such intensity that it becomes spiritual in calling.” Passion. The word
so frequently accompanies the concept of the calling that it is clear
we really cannot possess one without the other. When we ask what
sets otherwise unremarkable individuals apart from the mainstream,
we are really inquiring about what primes their minds to achieve
mastery where others, who perhaps have far greater natural gifts,
never reach it. The answers are passion, a sense of calling, and the
application of the third ingredient: intention.
The mastery process always initiates with passion—rough, unal-
loyed, and unprocessed, often gushing forth like oil from the earth.
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
Passion (the intense, dominating preoccupation with a pursuit such

as playing a musical instrument, starting a business, or writing a
novel; not sexual desire) is the raw material of mastery. It manifests
as an obsession with some pursuit that may have nothing to do with
one’s background or upbringing, such as in the case of a child of
physicians who is inexplicably overcome with a desire not to heal,
but to sing opera. Passion announces itself as an oft-uncontrollable
compulsion to engage in one’s obsession at all hours, seemingly
without risk of fatigue or boredom. It is an exalted state about which
great minds have had much to say:
“Nothing great in the world has ever been accomplished without

passion.” —Hebbel, a German poet
“A great leader's courage to fulfill his vision comes from passion,

not position.” —John Maxwell, author and speaker
“If there is no passion in your life, then have you really lived?
Find your passion, whatever it may be. Become it, and let it
become you and you will find great things happen for you, to
you and because of you.” —T. Alan Armstrong
But as exciting as passion is, it is also of little use as an energy

source. Transforming passion into something that leads to mastery
demands that we introduce agency. An agent is something outside
of ourselves that has implanted a seemingly mysterious passion
— 72 —
within us in order to direct us to our life’s purpose—our calling. An

interesting aside that will attest to the power of passion: A calling,
of course, requires a caller. To believers, this agent is God. But
even nonbelievers and atheists, for whom there is no higher power,
no separate entity guiding them to their destiny, speak of a “call-
ing.” The idea of having been chosen for a purpose meant to drive
a person’s existence is so deeply compelling that even those who
believe in pure, purposeless determinism subscribe to it.
When passion becomes mindful—when we make the cog-

nitive jump from the excitement of tireless activity to the
sense that our passion may have the purpose of directing
and shaping our futures—it becomes a calling. While pas-
sion is intense, unformed and wild, a calling is a matter of
self-awareness.
When passion becomes mindful—when we make the cognitive

jump from the excitement of tireless activity to the sense that our
passion may have the purpose of directing and shaping our
futures—it becomes a calling. While passion is intense, unformed
and wild, a calling is a matter of self-awareness. The individual who
experiences a calling finally thinks (as though a light has gone on)
“I may be able to do this for my life’s work.” Immediately, that
thought takes hold and refines the pure but unfocused energy of
passion into a motivation to pursue the passion systematically. In
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
this way, a calling becomes like crude oil refined into fuel, capable
of setting in motion a decade of effort and study, the ten thousand
hours of application that we have discussed.
A genuine calling can usually be identified by a set of typical
qualities:
• The individual who feels the calling feels as though he or she

has plugged into a limitless energy source.
• He or she feels as though his or her eyes have been opened to
something that was true all along.
• He or she feels a powerful sense of purpose and meaning behind
the calling.
• Barriers to pursuing the calling become low hurdles to be over-
come with creativity and daring; rules do not apply.
Commonly, the calling evolves in an organic fashion toward

the final stage, intention. When this occurs, a plan is formed.
The person who feels the sense of a calling begins to formulate
specific, sequential actions designed to enable him or her to pur-
sue the calling as a lifestyle filled with meaning and purpose. We
can compare this to the calling many pastors and other people of
faith say they receive when God calls them into the ministry. The
nineteenth century theologian and Confederate Army chaplain
Robert Lewis Dabney wrote of the manner in which God makes
His call to ministry known: “…he does it thus: by enlightening
and influencing the man’s conscience and understanding, and
those of his Christian brethren, to understand the Bible truths
— 74 —
and the circumstances and qualifications in himself which rea-

sonably point out preaching as his work.”
As with the call to ministry, any secular calling is accompanied
by a sudden knowing, a rightness and clarity that this is the path you
must walk. When this occurs, the individual has little choice but to
follow his or her calling with the utmost zeal. Consider the example
of the Chudnovsky brothers. Gregory and David Chudnovsky love
math, and they have devoted their lives to it so completely that they
consider themselves to be one mathematician with a single mind. In
the early 1990s, the brothers became fascinated with the number
pi—not just in calculating it, but in its very nature. Would it ever
repeat? Were there any patterns in pi that might reveal hidden order
in the universe? In the words of Richard Preston, the Chudnovsky
brothers were looking for God in pi.
As with the call to ministry, any secular calling is accompa-

nied by a sudden knowing, a rightness and clarity that this
is the path you must walk. When this occurs, the individual
has little choice but to follow his or her calling with the
utmost zeal.
The problem with this quest was that in order to look for pat-
terns, the brothers first had to calculate pi to billions and billions
of decimal places (3.1415 etc.). This in itself is a kind of race for a
discovery, with mathematicians all over the world trying to become
the first to break the billion digit mark, and then the two billion digit
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
mark, and so on. In order to participate in this race to uncover more

of pi—and therefore to have more material in which to search for
order—mathematicians have to rent time on supercomputers. This
time is hard to come by and quite expensive.
Frustrated with the slowness and inconsistency of Internet
access to supercomputers (the brothers worked from Gregory’s
apartment because he suffers from myasthenia gravis, a debilitat-
ing progressive muscular disease), the Chudnovskys decided to
build their own supercomputer—in Gregory’s apartment, which he
shared with his wife. They ordered parts and began working on it,
eventually spending about $70,000 to build a computer that could
perform the same calculations they’d been doing on a Cray Y-MP, a
computer that cost thirty million dollars to build, and for which the
brothers paid $750 per hour to use.
Of course, their electric bill was through the roof—they were
afraid to turn off their computer for fear it would never start again—
and their apartment was boiling hot from all the heat it generated.
There was barely room to walk between all the components, and
books and papers covered every surface. But the Chudnovskys
ensured they would be able to continue their search for order in the
chaos of pi, and their wives continued to tolerate their obsession.
This is an example of passion becoming calling becoming
intention, fueled by limitless desire and emotional energy. It is what
happens to each of us when we find our true purpose in the pursuit
of mastery. David may work twenty-four hours at a time and
Gregory consistently exceeds the limits imposed on him by his ill-
ness, but they thrive in this atmosphere, and their loved ones do not
— 76 —
seem strained as a result of the hectic situation. The power of the

calling conquers all.
MASTERY AND THE BRAIN
When we speak of intention, we get into dangerous ontological

(the study of the nature of being) waters. According to the determin-
istic, materialistic model of modern scientific inquiry, intention and
free will are mere illusions formed by the neuronal activity of the
brain. Based on this reductive school of scientific ideology, born of
the behaviorist school of psychology, the mind does not exist. It is
an epiphenomenon of brain activity, and the concept of the self is a
human construct. Mental activity can never exert causal influence
over the physical world, and the personality and person cease to
exist when the brain ceases to function at physical death.
Support for the demise of free will and intention came from a
famous experiment done by Benjamin Libet in the 1980s at the
University of San Francisco. In this study, subjects were told to
flick their finger according to their own volition while connected
to various brain scanning devices. Libet found that the brain
exhibited an electrical “readiness potential” that fired several
microseconds before the individual chose to flick his or her finger.
To Libet, this indicated clearly that unconscious processes in the
brain were determining what became perceived by the individual
as a conscious decision. In other words, free will did not play a
part. Libet’s conclusion was that free will likely was illusory; the
brain (and therefore the mind) was completely deterministic, its
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
actions based solely on the interaction of elementary particles at

the subatomic level.
Numerous consciousness researchers since have disagreed with
Libet’s findings, while dualist (those who argue that mind and body
are separate but connected entities) philosophers contend that the
discoveries imply nothing about consciousness or will. The implica-
tions of the question are enormous: if intention is illusion, then what
creates the sense of calling that leads so many to pursue mastery in
fields as diverse as carpentry, anthropology, and playing the blues
harmonica? Is it the action of electrons and protons in the brain?
The implications of the question are enormous: if intention

is illusion, then what creates the sense of calling that leads
so many to pursue mastery in fields as diverse as carpen-
try, anthropology, and playing the blues harmonica? Is it
the action of electrons and protons in the brain?
First, we must understand a bit about the miracle of the human

brain. A single brain contains approximately 100 billion neurons
and as many as 100 trillion synaptic connections, making the brain
one of the most complex organs we study. A neuron is a nerve cell
that transmits electrical impulses along the axon, which conducts
electrical impulses away from the nerve body, to the dendrites,
which take information to the cell body. When the impulse reaches
the ends of the dendrites, it causes them to release a chemical called
a neurotransmitter. Serotonin and dopamine are familiar examples
— 78 —
of neurotransmitters. These chemicals cross the gap, called a

synapse, between the dendrites and the nerve endings of surround-
ing neurons. Once the chemicals have crossed the gap, they turn
back into electrical impulses, which are then transmitted in the same
way as before.
This system of communication works very quickly. Not only is
the speed of the electrical impulse very fast (a neuron can transmit
up to one thousand nerve impulses per second), a single nerve can
connect to anywhere in the body from one thousand to ten thousand
other neurons. That means that as you read this paragraph, your
brain could be making thousands of billions of connections. All of
those connections allow you to see the page, feel the book in your
hand, smell the paper, make sense of the marks on the page, form
opinions about what you are reading, and make the decision to
commit (or not) this information to memory. At the same time,
your neurons may be registering that you are hot or cold, comfort-
able or uncomfortable, hungry or full. They tell you what noises are
going on in the background and allow you to determine which of
those noises you can ignore and which require that you pull your
attention away from your reading. Neurons are telling your heart
how fast to beat, your lungs how often and how deeply to breathe,
and your other organs what they need to do. This is the stuff of con-
sciousness, but is that all there is?
When our neurons work well, our thought processes go
smoothly. When something interferes with their work, we become
confused and unable to think, as happens when a person suffers
dementia (one form of which is Alzheimer’s disease). What makes
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
this particularly interesting is that we each have some control over

how well our neurons work. Like muscles, neurons require exercise
to stay healthy. People who go out of their way to learn new things
keep their neurons healthy and active. To take it one step further,
neurons themselves can learn. People who put in the time and
effort to master a skill train their neurons to work more efficiently.
The more training the neurons receive, the more proficient they
will become at performing the tasks asked of them, and the closer
the person will come to mastery.
But the wonders of the brain based on conventional science
and classical physics do little to answer our questions about
intention and purpose. There are now strong indications that
consciousness may be based on something more complex: the
counterintuitive world of quantum mechanics. Scientists have
long been confounded by thousands of experiments showing
positive results for phenomena that should not exist: telepathy,
remote viewing, precognition, distant healing, and even the sur-
vival of consciousness after bodily death. Ideas that have been
long accepted by those of us grounded in the spiritual realm
have been summarily dismissed or buried by scientists eager to
reject faith and define the world in terms of predictable, con-
crete, natural laws. But no more. Many frontier researchers have
speculated that the strange connectedness of some human minds
and the ability of distant intention (also called DMILS, or
Distant Mental Influence on Living Systems) to influence the
growth of seeds and the structure of water crystals is due to a
phenomenon called quantum entanglement.
— 80 —
In entanglement, which has been demonstrated hundreds of

times in controlled experiments, two particles of energy or matter
that interact remain intertwined forever, regardless of the distance
between them. But since all matter and energy were once unified in
the Mind of God (or the Big Bang, depending on how you define
your cosmology), shouldn’t all particles, including those that make
up the human brain, still be entangled? Should not the ancient Vedic
concept that “we are all one” be reflected in reality?
Only, answer traditional researchers, if quantum mechanical
properties operate in the brain. And until recently, that was said to
be impossible. The brain was considered too warm and wet to
allow quantum mechanics (QM) to function. But as paradigms
designed to comfort humans in the face of uncomfortable knowl-
edge often do, that model is falling. Stuart Hameroff, M.D., an
anesthesiologist and consciousness researcher at the University of
Arizona, and Oxford University mathematical physicist Sir Roger
Penrose have developed a theory called orchestrated objective
reduction that suggests that not only do quantum mechanical
processes operate in the brain, but consciousness itself may be a
quantum mechanical process.
This complex idea can be thus explained: In the Copenhagen
interpretation of QM—which is the conventional interpretation—all
things at the subatomic level exist not as matter or energy but as
probabilities called superpositions. Basically, nothing occupies a
single space or time until it is observed by a conscious mind. That
observation “collapses” the superposition and forces the observed
matter or energy to assume one of the probable positions in time and
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
space. This incredible reality has been demonstrated countless times

by experiment; the mind creates reality—or appears to. This idea so
discomfited Einstein that he sought ways to discredit it, asking, “Is
the moon not there when I observe it?”
Now Hameroff and Penrose are saying that Copenhagen isn’t
quite right—that instead of the observation of a conscious mind
being responsible for collapsing the quantum superposition and cre-
ating reality, the collapse of the superposition within infinitely
small structures in the brain may in fact be the mechanical basis of
consciousness. If they are correct, then consciousness itself is
woven into the basal fabric of the universe like gravity, with the
same power to influence matter and energy, both near and distant.
Consciousness, it is becoming increasingly clear, is a fundamental
law and force of the cosmos, not an accident or illusion.
If those who argue that the mind is an illusion are correct,

then the passions and callings people feel are mere chem-
ical reactions, devoid of any meaning or purpose. But since
we can document the myriad ways in which entangled
minds connect across time and space, and in which inten-
tion exerts influence over physical objects and the healing
of the human body, it seems far more likely that the mind is
a quantum state linked to the very fabric of the universe.
This has powerful implications in our search for our calling and
our pursuit of mastery. If those who argue that the mind is an illu-
— 82 —
sion are correct, then the passions and callings people feel are mere
chemical reactions, devoid of any meaning or purpose. But since we
can document the myriad ways in which entangled minds connect
across time and space, and in which intention exerts influence over
physical objects and the healing of the human body, it seems far
more likely that the mind is a quantum state linked to the very fab-
ric of the universe. The mind does have a causative power over the
outside world, and if that is true, it is very likely that our minds may
in fact be attracting the energy of a passionate calling such as music
or the ministry, drawing it to us by virtue of some deeply implanted
purpose placed in us by God. If the mind shapes reality, then our
mind, over the years, slowly draws our ultimate purpose closer and
closer until it manifests as an unstoppable passion, and then a calling.
When we apply intention, we then use our omnipotent minds to
bring that destiny to the final stages of fruition. The meaning and
purpose of an individual’s calling and the subsequent pursuit of
mastery may be to help a very small part of the universe to evolve
to its fullest potential.
MASTERY IS A HABIT
In the development of mastery, brain plasticity is a critical fac-

tor. But what shapes that plasticity and turns it, over time, into the
new neural connections that produce mastery, is habit. You are your
habits. They in large part define who you are and what you are
capable of achieving.
In Doidge’s book, The Brain That Changes Itself, postmortem
examination of the brains of various individuals reveals that educat-
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
ed people actually have more branches to their dendrites. Their

brains are thicker and have more volume than those of uneducated
people. Furthermore, these changes can occur at any stage of life.
Studies have found that the only sure-fire way to slow the progress
of degenerative dementias is constant stimulation of new neural
pathways through learning. Doidge recounts the story of a woman
who suffered from a very specific, profoundly disabling form of
retardation. Because other parts of her brain worked well, she was
able to come up with exercises to repair the damaged part of her
brain. Her first small attempt took weeks of exhaustive labor, but
not only did these exercises work, she was able to excel at tasks she
once found impossible. She repaired her brain, damaged from birth,
through practice.
All this information supports the findings that the single
most important factor in determining excellence in any pursuit is
practice. Why ten thousand hours seems to be the magic number
is anyone’s guess, but the pattern repeats in all areas of endeavor.
In a landmark study led by K. Anders Ericsson, researchers
found a direct correlation between hours of practice per week
and level of accomplishment. They found that it takes about ten
years of practice to reach the expert level of performance. When
they evaluated the practice habits of pianists, for example, they
found that after ten years of playing, the average expert practiced
over twenty-six hours a week, while the amateur practiced less
than two hours per week.
Practice is a habit, and it is not the only habit that is conducive
to the development of mastery. Some others:
— 84 —
• Pursuit of opportunity. Masters are opportunists who pursue

every chance they can to practice their skill and stretch their
abilities. “To succeed, jump as quickly at opportunities as you
do at conclusions,” said Benjamin Franklin, a seminal genius,
master, and opportunist. When you see the world in terms of
your quest for mastery, surprising opportunities may arise. For
example, a young man who was pursuing his calling to preach
the Gospel found himself sharing a dormitory room at a secular
college with another young man who was a member of the
debate team. The aspiring preacher initially saw his roommate
as a distraction. Debate was concerned with worldly issues and
certainly unfitting for a man of God.
After a few weeks, the roommate invited the young man to

attend a special club with him. It was called the De Oratore
Club, named after the treatise on public speaking written by
Cicero. Each week, a student would present a speech to the club,
after which the members would critique the speech, both on
content and delivery. Although the young man had grave doubts
and suspected this would prove to be a distraction from his goal
and an utter waste of time, he agreed to attend a single meeting.
The club was not at all what he expected. It took quite seriously
its foundation in Cicero’s De Oratore. In De Oratore, Cicero
considers the orator not only a skilled speaker, but also as a
moral leader for the community. Great persuasive power in the
hands of an immoral, power-hungry person has the potential to
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
lead society into greater corruption and ruin. The same power in
the hands of a moral leader brings great benefit to society. The
De Oratore Club was devoted to the cultivation of skilled, moral
public speakers through the principle of dedicated practice.
Instead of a distraction, the young man found a wonderful

training ground for his future career. He learned by doing, and
by observing how to be an effective and powerful speaker.
Today, this man is one of the most in-demand Christian speakers
in the world. Whereas he had originally hoped to minister to a
few hundred people, he now travels the world, ministering to
thousands, because he seized an unexpected opportunity to
practice his art.
Frederick Douglass himself serves as a great example of some-

one who created his own opportunities. Born a slave in
Maryland, as a young boy he found himself in Baltimore, in the
house of woman who—not knowing it was forbidden—began
teaching him how to read. Her husband soon put a stop to it, but
Douglass refused to be illiterate. He soon discovered Baltimore
was home to a great many poor white boys who would teach him
a bit of reading in exchange for something to eat. When he was
sent on errands, Douglass would run very quickly to complete
his errand so that he would have time to fit in a short lesson
without getting home late.
Later, Douglass taught himself to write by studying the letters

written on boards in the shipyard and copying them with a piece
— 86 —
of coal on walls and fences. Douglass also taught himself the

basics of rhetoric and argument by studying a copy of the
Columbia Orator that he managed to keep hidden from his
owners. Not only was Douglass not handed opportunities to
better his mind, he would have been severely punished had he
been caught. Nonetheless, he constantly looked for new ways to
acquire the knowledge and practice what he needed to achieve
his goal.
Douglass again created his own opportunity when he escaped

from slavery. He arrived in the North with nothing, but the
skills he had learned and his ability to read and write prepared
him to make the most of this new opportunity. If Douglass—
born a slave without any resources of his own—was able to
make himself both free and a great orator, how much more can
we, who have endless opportunities to learn, accomplish?
• Self-criticism. The road to mastery must be paved with honest

self-assessment and a refusal to rest on one’s laurels. True mas-
ters are never satisfied; they constantly assess their own
progress, probe for the areas in which they have not achieved
sufficient proficiency, and mercilessly practice in those areas
until they reach proficiency. They then set their sights higher
and the process begins anew.
Baseball superstar Albert Pujols is an example of relentless self-

criticism. A three-time Most Valuable Player from the
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
Dominican Republic and recognized as the best player in the

game (and possibly the best since Henry Aaron), Pujols is also
renowned for his staggering work ethic. Even in the depths of
winter, he has been known to take indoor batting practice for
hours until he wears half dollar-sized blisters on his hands. This,
from a multimillionaire ballplayer who is already at the top of
his game. However, Pujols and other masters know remaining at
the top demands critical and constant self-assessment.
• Review of superiority. When he was training for his first

Ultraman triathlon (a double Ironman-length race in which
competitors swim 6.2 miles, bike 260 miles, and run a double
marathon), Jason Lester, who cannot use his right arm,
gauged his own progress against that of other athletes who
had already finished the punishing race. He knew that by
measuring himself against the performance of others who had
achieved what he hoped to achieve, he would have a reliable
marker of his training progress. This proved to be accurate; he
finished his first Ultraman and is now one of only twenty-five
people to finish Ultraman Hawaii and Ultraman Canada in the
same year.
In the drive toward mastery, we all have an edge; there are

always masters who have come before us, and we can look to
them for guidance in pursuing our own calling. Wise students
not only look to their teachers and mentors, but review the work
of those who have come before them and who now reside where
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they wish to someday be. In this process, they not only see what
is possible, but they also find inspiration in the mistakes of those
who succeeded in spite of (or perhaps because of) them. They
even find ways to improve upon the work of those pioneers.
• Visualization. Almost every successful person recognizes the

power of visualization. Athletes describe seeing the perfectly
executed moves in their minds before they perform them. Your
chance of mastering your art increases proportionately to the
strength of your belief that you will do so.
You can increase your own belief in your success by using

visualization techniques. The more you think about something,
the more your brain begins to believe it is true. Visualization
actually creates new neural connections between the areas of the
brain that memorize instructions and the areas that control
movement, increasing your ability to develop unconscious
expertise. This means that the more often you imagine yourself
having achieved your goal, even if completion is a long time
away, the more likely you are actually to reach that goal.
Another technique to help you reach your long-term goal is to

break the task down into bite-sized pieces. Instead of looking at
the huge amount of work required and how long it will take,
which can be overwhelming and paralyzing, look only at the
next step you must accomplish, the next lesson you need to
learn. During the day, whenever you have a bit of downtime,
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
while you’re driving, or in the shower, for example, visualize

yourself completing that short-term goal.
Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “If I have lost confidence in

myself, I have the universe against me.” While delusional
overconfidence would be a hindrance to actual success, a
carefully cultivated sense of realistic confidence provides
support that can keep you going when things get tough. If you
have practiced visualization of short and long-term goals on a
daily basis, the inevitable frustrations and set-backs will be
less likely to throw you off course, since your mind is trained
to see the goal as a reality.
THE OMNIPOTENCE OF EGO
Finally, the masterful mind is goaded into its pursuit by one

more mighty force we cannot ignore: ego (or pride, if you will).
There exists not a single individual who has put in the years of
intensive study, monotonous practice, and personal sacrifice who
does not also possess a powerful ego—a sense of pride that he or she
has an ability that exceeds those of others and must be developed for
the good of the world.
In the Bible pride is the father of all sins, and indeed it can be a
destructive force if applied without wisdom or restraint. Yet as a
motivating force, it has few peers. Name a driven, highly successful
individual in any field of endeavor, from academia to entrepreneur-
ship, and I will show you a powerful ego motivated by one or more
of several needs:
— 90 —
• The desire to rise above one’s origins. Numerous entrepreneurs

and others have built their empires in part because they wanted to
prove they could not be defined by humble beginnings or abusive
backgrounds. The Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished
Americans, inspired by a series of bestselling nineteenth century
stories about people rising to power from downtrodden origins, is
based on this idea. Today, the Association boasts such members as
astronaut Buzz Aldrin, poet Maya Angelou, boxer George
Foreman, former Supreme Court justice Thurgood Marshall, and
hundreds of other success stories.
• The desire to be more than ordinary. Related to the idea of hum-

ble beginnings is the fire to be more than “one of the herd.”
Inventors and technology pioneers like Bill Gates and Bill Joy
pursued their passion for computers out of a drive to prove that
they were atypical individuals, capable of shaping their destiny,
creating the new, and changing the world. They were right.
• The desire to prove someone wrong. Criticism from others

often serves as a potent motivational factor in the chase of
greatness. Words such as “you’ll never be able to do that” from
a parent, counselor, or mentor can often turn out to be the
greatest blessing that the would-be master could ever receive.
They can fan the flames of a calling into a focused volition to
prove the speaker incorrect.
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
Ironically, all these ego-founded motivations have something in

common: the very process of pursuing years and decades of study
in order to achieve mastery usually strips away the very egotism that
sparks the initial pursuit of that mastery. As I have said, the karate
black belt is the humblest of martial artists. The concert pianist
knows only that he or she has but begun to penetrate the mysteries
of Mozart or Bach (and that even greats like Mozart and Bach had
to work hard to become masters in their own right). The star basket-
ball player knows that until he makes every shot and never commits
a foul, there is always improvement to be made. Reaching mastery
elevates us, but it also reveals us and reminds us that the journey is
just beginning and we have much to learn.
— 92 —
4
Lesson 4
THE PATH OF MASTERY
“Technical skill is mastery of complexity, while creativity is mastery

of simplicity.” — Erik Christopher Zeeman
Ease and mastery are the yin and yang of a host of swirling contra-
dictions. You will never, ever find ease in the process of developing
mastery; the focus and sacrifice involved in investing ten thousand
hours of work precludes ease. Mastery is necessarily hard. Yet at
the same time, one who occupies the stratum of achieved, applied
mastery can often act with ease. As an anonymous author writes for
the website Martial Development.com, “Mastery is efficiency. A
master of their art simultaneously exerts less effort, and achieves
greater results than others.” This ease, which comes after many
years of unremitting effort needed to build the muscle memory,
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
neural connections, and automatism needed to produce effortless-

ness can delude the initiate into believing mastery does come easi-
ly. Thus our “noble amateur” society confuses proficiency with
mastery.
It is the duty of the true master to maintain the paradox at the
center of these contradictions: to make mastery appear effortless in
order to draw new students into the course toward excellence, while
at the same time teaching that only discipline, repetition, and a con-
tinuous course of increased challenge can yield expertise that
appears to come without effort. This charge, which can truly be
called sacred, is furthered most by the dual capacities of practice
and memory.
Practice is more than mere repetition. In order for practice to
contribute to improvement in a skill, the person practicing must
do so with dedicated concentration and with conscious intent to
improve his or her performance. In each specific session of prac-
tice, the material to be learned should build upon what the student
already knows and should provide a challenge that requires the
student to learn a bit more. The student should be able to gauge
whether he or she has improved on this work and should repeat
the same tasks until they are mastered before moving on to the
next level.
As any master of a skill or craft will attest, the need for practice
never ceases. The greatest artists in the world, such as cellist Yo-Yo
Ma, must practice the finest details of their craft daily, and for hours
at a time. It is the nature, not the quantity, of the practice that shifts
— 94 —
once one reaches a level of skill that could be called mastery, from
the memorization and implantation of basic skills (and the slow,
gradual refinement of those skills) to the continued maintenance of
an elite understanding and application of those same skills. At its
earliest stages, practice is about simple acquisition—acquiring
knowledge of movements, methods and patterns and creating
deeply grooved new neural patterns in the brain. But in the middle
stages, practice begins to become about perfection—the student
seeks to perfect his or her skills and master the form he or she has
been working on for so long. This is the most immature part of
the road to mastery, because the ego often convinces the learner
that mastery is about perfection, about reaching an end-point of
technical expertise.
But as the student reaches the high platform occupied by the
likes of Yo-Yo Ma, mountaineer Ed Viesturs, or swimmer Michael
Phelps, practice morphs again into an act that is largely about per-
ception. Having spent years—thousands of hours—on the same
repetitive skills, the student-turned-master now begins to perceive
the smaller flaws in what once appeared to be perfect technique or
comprehensive knowledge. Practice from this point on becomes a
hybrid of developing new abilities while simultaneously engaging in
a ruthless uncovering of weaknesses in the existing skill set. The
next step is to strengthen those areas with yet more practice. In
essence, the sojourner toward mastery arrives at excellence only to
discover how much he or she does not know.
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
ON MEMORY
If practice is the act of planting, memory is the soil in which the

seeds of mastery take root. We all have several types of memory:
Short-term memory is what we use to remember a phone number
just long enough to dial it. Most of what we put into our short-term
memory is not integrated into long-term memory—at least, not
intentionally. Sometimes, even things we intend to remember do not
make the jump to the long-term data banks; most of us, for exam-
ple, have had the experience of reading a page in a book without
being able to recall minutes later what we’d just read. Committing
information to long-term memory often requires conscious acts, and
an understanding of the different kinds of long-term memory that
help to implant that information:
We have declarative memory, which stores factual information,
and procedural memory, which stores the physical memory of how
to perform a task. Semantic and episodic memory are both types of
declarative memory: semantic memory stores facts and words not
linked to an experience, and episodic memory stores our personal
memories of events, the stories that make up our lives. The previ-
ously mentioned procedural memory allows us to do complex
physical tasks without thinking about them—like driving a car, for
example. When was the last time you gave conscious thought to just
how much pressure to put on the gas pedal, how far to turn the
wheel, or at what point to activate the turn signal? In fact, if you
focus consciously on how to execute repetitive actions that you now
do automatically, such as walking down a flight of stairs, you can
actually worsen your performance.
— 96 —
Procedural memory, like the long-term memory used in achiev-

ing expertise, requires significant repetition to become ingrained in
the brain. In some activities, such as sports and playing musical
instruments, developing muscle memory may actually play a large
role in gaining mastery. Athletes and martial artists report that it
takes about three hundred repetitions of a simple motion or set of
motions to establish a muscle memory; that is, to train the muscles
to behave in a certain way in response to a certain stimulus. After
about three hundred repetitions, the neural connections required to
provoke the movement no longer need the conscious stimulation of
the same part of the brain, so the movement becomes automatic.
Beyond the level of mere automation, procedural memory can
improve still further, to the point that the behavior becomes not just
automatic in limited situations, but comes to feel as if it were “part
of ” the person. For example, a student of kung fu may practice a
form three hundred times, until he no longer has to think about each
step. His body simply flows through the moves, doing each one cor-
rectly and without focused mental guidance. Those moves may not,
however, be automatically triggered when that same student spars
with another person. To reach the point at which the student can
effectively deploy a movement in a variety of contexts and without
the delay caused by concentration requires approximately three
thousand repetitions. A simplified version of this type of learning
appears in the movie The Karate Kid, in which the sensei teaches his
student to familiarize himself with hand, wrist, and arm movements
by having him perform the functionally repetitive chores of waxing
a car and painting a fence.
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
Long-term memory, the most complex kind of memory (and

including the semantic, episodic, and declarative memories), is
controlled by the hippocampus, a small region in the brain shaped
like a sea horse. The hippocampus is part of the limbic system,
where emotions originate—which explains why strong emotions
typically implant powerful memories. The memories created
under conditions of great fear, for example, tend to be vivid and
long-lasting.
Attention is also an emotionally triggered state. We pay attention
to things that are important to us—whether they trigger love, or fear,
or pleasure, or hope—and paying attention is absolutely necessary
for learning in a permanent way. When we pay attention, when we
are emotionally engaged in our learning, the hippocampus converts
short-term memory into long-term memory.
What binds this duo of practice and memory together, turn-

ing them into the vehicles of mastery for some? Meaning.
This is the factor that creates the emotional resonance that
makes tedious practice bearable and focuses attention
toward the creation of long-term memories.
What binds this duo of practice and memory together, turning

them into the vehicles of mastery for some? Meaning. This is the
factor that creates the emotional resonance that makes tedious prac-
tice bearable and focuses attention toward the creation of long-term
— 98 —
memories. In a speech at the TED conference of global genius and

ideas, Daniel Pink, the author of Drive: The Surprising Truth About
What Motivates Us, said that while extrinsic rewards, such as
money or a promotion, may help us perform better in a narrow
range of tasks that have a well-defined objective and a clear set of
rules, they are not effective in situations that require us to think
“outside the box.” Engagement demands intrinsic motivation, which
includes three main components:
• Autonomy: The urge to direct our own lives.

• Mastery: The desire to get better at something that matters.
• Purpose: The yearning to do what we do in the service of some-
thing larger than ourselves.
Together, these three form the constellation called meaning. For

practice to become meaningful enough for us to maintain it over
thousands of hours and form the lasting memories that lead to a skill
becoming “part of who we are,” it must reflect our desire to create
our own destiny, to drive toward excellence, and the sense that what
we strive for serves something grander than our own gratification.
Without any of these key ingredients, genuine mastery degrades
into rote memorization, a hundred threads of intention dropped after
a short time, or joyless repetition.
THE THREE PATHS
Those are the broad components leading to the road of mastery.

Yet beyond these fairly general ideas lie more specific, perhaps
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
narrower, paths a seeker of expertise can follow. Which path a per-

son follows depends greatly on the circumstances of his or her
birth and social standing, as well as, Gladwell points out time and
again, the time period into which he or she is born. Each option
will lead to mastery if pursued with the blend of diligent practice,
memory building, and meaning, and can lead to the state which is
most representative of true mastery, excellence that is replicable
on command for many years. The three paths are:
1. Generational.
2. Self-direction.
3. Mentorship.
Generational mastery is perhaps best represented in the Bible. In

the Bible, we learn that Jethro mentored Moses, Moses mentored
Joshua and the elders of Israel, and they in turn shepherded God’s
people. Joshua mentored the other army leaders, as well. God
originally gave the Ten Commandments to the newly named lead-
ers of the tribes, and these elders—who were in charge of groups
of ten—used the Ten Commandments to shepherd their flocks.
And so it goes. Biblical tales are filled with stories of generational
teaching, of fathers passing down ancient wisdom to sons as part
of longstanding tradition.
Because the roots of generational mastery are deeply entrenched
in family ritual, the student may have little choice but to engage in
the same pursuit as his father. (I use the masculine here because the
tasks that fed and clothed the family were given chief regard in the
— 100 —
society of the time, but girls were also subject to this handing-down
of tasks and skills from their mothers.) But a positive aspect of this
generational teaching is the deeply appealing and warming idea of
passing down wisdom, keeping it immortal as generations replace
one another over time. This appeal, and the rigors of hard financial
times—as much as family and cultural pressures—may lie behind
the recent resurgence in generational teachings.
Erin Bried, author of How to Sew a Button, writes, “The ‘home
production’ skills that Depression-era women learned from their
mothers—and carried with them into their own homes in the
1950s—were sometimes rejected by their liberation-era daughters.
Now, the grandchildren of these grandmas hunger for those lost
skills, such as baking from scratch and knitting.” Although we no
longer face the survival challenges of the Hebrew tribes chronicled
in scripture, our society deals with its own challenges that are, in
part, healed by the sharing of trades from generation to generation.
We have become a people of hurry and disconnection, of isolation
through technology and mass-produced waste that is damaging
our planet. The soothing, healing nature of developing dexterity in
carpentry under the watchful eye of a grandfather, or of learning
to bake a pie at the hands of a patient great-aunt, connects us to
our past, slows our quick pace, and reminds us that for most of our
history people took pride and pleasure in mastering a few useful
skills with their hands.
If generational mastery relies on elders to instill in their
blood-tied youth the desire or the inclination to master a skill or
trade, the second path of mastery, self-direction, relies on personal
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
motivation. This self-led journey is one typically favored by

computer prodigies, self-taught musicians, entrepreneurs, and
others who want to excel in fields where the rules are flexible and
creativity is the élan vital. A self-directed learner discovers the
ways of success via his or her own path, and often through much
trial and error. Because this methodology does not call for a men-
tor or teacher, it is often circuitous; therefore, it takes the student
longer to achieve excellence. However, this drawback, of sorts, is
frequently balanced by two factors:
• The learner develops extreme self-reliance and independence by

becoming accustomed to calling only on internal resources.
• He or she finds new and creative ways to solve problems, which
often leads to the discovery of novel aspects of the discipline
that even the experts had not been aware of.
Joseph Priestly, for example, was an amateur scientist and pro-

fessional clergyman and theologian living in eighteenth century
England. He became infamous for his religious and philosophical
ideas about free will and determinism that enraged the populace (as
well as for his support of the American and French revolutions), but
when he turned his restless mind to science, he made an astounding
discovery: oxygen. A keen observer without formal scientific train-
ing, Priestly published works on optics and chemistry (inventing his
claim to fame, soda water, in the process) and in 1774 isolated for
the first time what he called “dephlogisticated air”—otherwise
known as oxygen. An untrained scientific mind, and untainted by
the orthodoxy of the day, he discovered the elements that make life
— 102 —
possible on earth. Such is the powerful potential of listening to one’s

own voice even when one has no formal training.
However, this approach poses obvious risks. Foremost among
these is that the self-directed student cannot always know whether
he or she is on the right path to knowledge. Without expert guid-
ance, it is possible to approach a skill in the wrong way, or to
spend years repeating remedial work without advancing toward
mastery. Also, some areas of knowledge do not lend themselves to
the self-taught. You would not want surgery from a self-taught
physician, or to be represented by a self-taught attorney, or to
occupy a building designed by a self-taught architect. In some
areas of human endeavor, passion and independence must give
way to professional training. There is simply no other option.
Another benefit of self-direction is that the self-taught learner
will inevitably seek the company and guidance of others on the same
path. We observe this in computer programmers, writers, musicians,
distance athletes, and many others—one finds others and becomes
part of a group. The members of the group, all self-taught amateurs,
share their own mistakes and lessons and discoveries, forming a
group mind-and-knowledge base that serves the collective as a
check against error and guide to the road ahead. In addition, such
self-coalescing groups often come together to create opportunity
from their experiences by starting companies, musical groups,
and so on.
Self-directed mastery involves a God-given gift (also known as
“genius”) intersecting with opportunity and resulting in productive
obsession. When mastery or genius intersects with obsession, the
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
word “obsession” loses its negative connotation. Self-directed

learners can work for endless hours without respite, unbound by the
strictures of classes and the schedules of their teachers, and thereby
accelerate their learning.
The final path to mastery, mentorship, offers something of a
middle ground between the extreme weight of generations upon
generations guiding the learner and the learner doing it completely
on his or her own. The clumsy student-wise mentor dyad can be
seen throughout history and popular culture, from craftsman and
apprentice to sensei and student to Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luke
Skywalker. The relationship often follows Joseph Campbell’s “hero-
ic cycle,” in which the aspirant to knowledge goes on a journey of
self-discovery:
• The student, or “mentee,” begins in a state of innocence and

impotence, powerless to affect events and subjugated to the
expertise of the mentor. Often, the mentee enters the relation-
ship with an inflated sense of his own knowledge and must
“unlearn” poorly learned skills through rigorous trials in order
to become a blank slate for the mentor’s instruction.
• Over time, the mentee moves into learning and humility, and
ego is set aside in the face of all he does not know. As we have
discussed, the achievement of mastery is fraught with opportu-
nities to be humbled; learning cannot occur until one admits
what one does not know. The mentee arrives at this stage with
the openness of a child.
— 104 —
• From there, he moves to knowledge and the temptation that

comes with it. At this stage, he is drawn to the attraction of leap-
ing over the more mundane lessons that may be in the offing in
favor of a faster, easier pace of learning. However, the effective
mentor does not allow this, because he or she knows that a vital
component of true mastery is the self-transformation that comes
with adherence to a rigorous code of work and obedience.
• Eventually, the mentee becomes nearly the equal of the mentor
in skill and knowledge, if rarely in wisdom. From here, the ini-
tiate passes into the “real world” to test his or her acquired
expertise, often finding that guile, experience, and street smarts
have an edge over newly acquired technical prowess. Here, the
innocent gains hard wisdom and finds that everything gained
must be paid for with equal sacrifice of time, relationships,
money, or dreams.
• Finally, the student emerges transformed, a master in his or her
own right in possession of not only the technical proficiency be
counted among the elite, but the judgment, discretion, and
awareness to teach others and also be aware of how much there
still is to learn.
ON TEACHERS AND STUDENTS
The need for a teacher may seem like common sense, but many
people, influenced by the cult of the amateur, see a teacher or mentor
as a threat to the originality of their work or as an unnecessary part
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
of the learning process, one that can only slow them down. Song for
Night author and writers workshop instructor Chris Abani says in
the book Believer: Book of Writers Talking to Writers:
It seems that people come with the idea that by taking a work-
shop they are somehow going to become good writers. And they
don’t need to read and they don’t need to study. They say they
don’t want to be read [by their fellow workshop students]
because they “don’t want to be influenced by it.” I want to tell
them that they should be so lucky…
There is only so much one can learn from a book or a training

video, no matter what the subject. John Fairfax and John Moat write
that for every aspirant:
…there must come a time when the general grounding is no

longer reliable, when he must look for guidance beyond the
book. At this point the only reliable guide is someone who has
traveled further along the way. In other words, a practitioner of
the art, someone who has made the pursuit of [it] his or her life.
The kind of teacher one needs depends on both the subject being
learned and, in some cases, the type of learner the student is. And,
of course, finding the person from whom you wish to learn does not
automatically mean you will be accepted as a student. Robert
Lowell, one of the greatest American poets of the twentieth century,
wished as a young man and aspiring poet to learn from the older
poets Crowe Ransome and Allen Tate. In order to convince Tate to
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take him on as a student, Lowell pitched a tent on Tate’s lawn and

lived there.
Neurological and behavioral studies show that it takes ten
times as many repetitions to correct a task learned incorrectly as it
took to learn the wrong thing in the first place. So the dynamic
that matches teacher with student in a formal setting is truly the
fastest path to learning. This has been recognized since the earli-
est academies were founded. Historically, the roles of student and
teacher have been among the most important and revered positions
in society. Each society has historically approached learning
slightly differently, and we are now the heirs to their experiences.
Historically, the roles of student and teacher have been

among the most important and revered positions in society.
Each society has historically approached learning slightly
differently, and we are now the heirs to their experiences.
The Sumerian civilization, known in the Bible as Babylonians,

may have been the cradle of formalized education. Sumer—which
was about the size of our Massachusetts—was located in
Mesopotamia, an area that now stretches from just north of
Baghdad to the Persian Gulf. It was the home of cuneiform, the
first known system of writing, and it was from this area that the
culture of learning spread. As early as 3000 B.C., the Sumerians
were creating study guides—word lists to be practiced by those
learning to read and write. By about 2500 B.C., there were
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schools throughout Sumer where reading and writing were

taught. We actually have some of their “textbooks” in the form of
clay tablets, as well as practice tablets used by students as they
learned their lessons.
The Sumerians called their schools edubba, or “tablet houses,”
because they were initially meant to be training houses for scribes.
The Sumerians employed thousands of scribes to keep track of their
social, legal, and economic matters. In this way, they were very
much like us, except their clay tablets would take up much more
space than our papers! As the range of material covered in the
school broadened, the edubba became the cultural center of the
nation. Scholars studied and developed knowledge of biology,
theology, mathematics, geography, and language.
The true experts in writing, literature, instruction, and scholar-
ship would have been the priests. Religion was at the center of
Sumerian society, just as the ziggurat temple was at the heart of the
city. Priests advised by an assembly of free men dominated society
and controlled the schools. In fact, control of education remained in
the hands of priests in most cultures until very modern times. In
part, their control of literacy allowed priests to maintain similar con-
trol over the people. In ancient Egypt, for example, the literacy rate
stayed at about one percent throughout the various dynasties. At one
point, the priests even intentionally made hieroglyphs more difficult
to read so they could preserve their hold on the mysteries and
knowledge they possessed.
We saw this occur, too, in medieval Europe, where the powerful
Roman Catholic Church forbade anyone to print or distribute Bibles
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for fear of public knowledge undermining the church’s authority.

Their fear was justified, for one of the first large printing jobs pro-
duced by Gutenberg’s new printing press was a tract listing the
church’s indulgences, the lucrative sale of salvation, time out of
Purgatory, and so on. When one of these tracts found its way into the
hands of Martin Luther, his disgust at the church’s corruption led to
the Protestant Revolution.
Argument over who controls the flow of information to students
continues to the present day. Debates over school vouchers reflect the
ongoing concern about the use of power to prevent certain groups of
people having access to education and the benefits it confers. In the
Western world, it is usually economic power that controls education,
but in other places, access to education is closely controlled by the
ruling religious classes. For example, in Taliban controlled areas
of Afghanistan and Pakistan, it is forbidden for girls to attend
school. Those who defy this rule risk physical attacks, sometimes
even death.
The use of education as an exclusionary tool is not restricted to
literacy or even to formal education. Even today, for example, some
Chinese kung fu masters will not accept non-Chinese students.
Regardless of the field you pursue, finding a teacher who is willing
to provide the training you desire is not always an easy task. Nor is
there any guarantee the teacher you choose will work in a manner
that is conducive to your learning process. In establishing any
teacher-student relationship, it is very important to consider these
matters and have an understanding of the different forms such
relationships can take.
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
When you do find a teacher, you will discover that the valid
mentor-mentee dynamic is often one of dueling opposites. The men-
tor applies pressure to the mentee, who wants to resist but must
acquiesce to some degree in order to learn. Too much passivity and
he becomes merely the master’s tool; too much independence and
he refuses to humble himself and learn from the roots of the art.
This continual tension between self-direction and self-abnegation is
the essence of the mentor-mentee relationship. At some point in the
process of mentorship, the student will always confront the teacher
out of pride and disbelief in the teacher’s wisdom. This is pivotal.
The mentee must resist, and the mentor must persist.
In this way, the word “mentor” takes on a fresh and revealing
meaning. It stems from the character Mentor in Homer’s Odyssey,
and backward from there to the Greek word for “advisor” and the
Indo-European root men, meaning “to think.” From here, mentor
becomes tormentor, the prefix tor from Old English “tower” or
“rock,” creating a term meaning one who casts down knowledge
from a great height but is impregnable to pity or mercy. The mentor
becomes tormentor when it becomes necessary to teach the mentee
that no mastery comes without suffering and sacrifice.
In a way, the suffering at the hands of the mentor is what impels
the mentee to cast himself from the school or academy environment
and into the world, where he finds his own mentees and the cycle
begins anew.
A LETTING GO
So with practice, the development of memory, and the insertion

of meaning, we come to mastery through one of three learning
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paths. These three have little in common with one another, but they
share the same spiritual truth: they demand the old ways and old self
be set aside. To truly enter into mastery, the seeker must let loose of
his or her old life and embrace a new way of thinking and being.
It is now when the pursuit of expertise becomes a spiritual
endeavor in much the same way as those who strive to have a rela-
tionship with God must let go of the absolute control they believe
they have of their own lives and place themselves to some extent
in God’s hands.
Buddhism teaches that attachment is the root of all suffering.
To what are we more attached than our sense of self, the inner
knowledge that tells us we have set our own course in order to
arrive where we are now? But we did not set that course; we rode
a wave set in motion by the Creator in accordance with His
design. We may have shifted slightly to one side or the other, but
our speed and latitude were still His. Yet, in passing into mastery
and attaining the wisdom and humility that come with it, we
finally achieve that self-determination we thought we possessed
as mere supplicants to knowledge.
Mastery is characterized by the act of letting go of both

the prior self and any sense of “knowing” or surety that
accompanied it.
Mastery is characterized by the act of letting go of both the

prior self and any sense of “knowing” (placed in quotes because to
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
believe you know is not the same as knowing) or surety that

accompanied it. As in Buddhism, refusing attachment—in this
case, to the idea that one knows anything or is in control of one’s
fate—is the ironic gateway to knowledge and control over destiny.
Take the fate of Jesus, for example. He passed from innocence as
a young man into knowledge as he came into His ministry at 30
years old. Then, as He was reaching the peak of his powers as an
orator, healer, and leader—becoming the Messiah—He allowed
Himself to surrender all that He was and be slain, only to come to
greater glory. In giving up all that He was, He cleared the path to
become all that He could be. Only by enduring this trial could
Jesus be reborn as the Christ and come fully into his mastery as
the reborn Son of God. Sacrifice, self-abasement, and the aban-
donment of all one once held dear are essential if any of us is to
emulate Jesus’ journey and come into our own inheritance as God
on this earth.
Learning of the trials and triumphs of the Savior also instructs
us in the two pivotal choices all seekers of mastery must face: The
first is the choice to believe that the disciplined, long-term approach
to mastery requiring ten thousand hours of unrelenting work and
sacrifice is the right choice. Christ made this choice at the outset of
His ministry when He chose to turn His back on the peaceful life of
a Nazarene carpenter and become itinerant preacher and holy man.
The student who fails at this choice will take the short cuts that life
proffers, and while this may result in the successful avoidance of
some suffering, the student will not achieve mastery nor realize his
or her destiny.
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The second choice is to persist past the nadir, the low point,
when it seems all the work has been for nothing, or when the price
seems too high to pay. In everyone’s journey to mastery, there
always comes a time when mastery seems beyond hope. At such a
juncture, the choice to press on is upon us. Jesus faced it in the
garden when He begged God to take the bitter cup from His lips.
Showing Himself in that moment to be fully human, in the next He
showed the Divine potential that resides within all of us when He
said, “Thy will be done.” Beyond the nadir may come more sacri-
fice, but also glory and victory.
LEAPS, EXCELLENCE, AND WILL
Finally, it is important to know that the journey to mastery does

not follow a steady upward course. Like any road, it has its bumps
and it smoothness, its peaks and its valleys. This is vital knowledge
for the student, who might expect to progress with predictable levels
of greater proficiency toward expertise and will be stymied and
frustrated when months or years go by with minimal gains. Instead,
progress usually comes in fits and starts. Progress toward mastery is
not steady, even if study and practice are. Years of plodding effort
can culminate in a second of abruptly realized perfection.
Abrupt bursts of peak performance or informational clarity will
often come after hundreds of hours, when it seems growth and
learning have come to a standstill. Chief among these irregular
sparks of proficiency is what I call the Leap of Achievement. These
are the moments all students cherish, when a new set of movements
clicks into place or a problem becomes clear.
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
For example, 16th century astronomer Johannes Kepler had

labored for decades to create a model of the solar system based on
perfect geometry, a concept he could not have known was erro-
neous. One night, after years of frustration and struggle with false
models based on a lack of observational precision due to the poor
instruments of the age, he stumbled upon the perfect mathematical
formula to describe the elliptical paths of the planets around the sun.
This became Kepler’s First Law of Motion, a scientific principle
that still stands. That sudden leap would not have been possible
without the years of study and carefully acquired knowledge, yet the
knowledge did not directly produce the Leap of Achievement.
Instead, it was time and repetition that led Kepler’s unconscious
mind to finally work things out.
The unconscious plays a powerful role in the pursuit of mastery
in any subject. Psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud was the greatest
theoretician of the unconscious, dividing it into the id (or
instincts, driven by a desire for immediate gratification) and the
superego (our sense of right and wrong). According to Freud, the
unconscious is a force of will that, while largely inaccessible to
the ego (the component that deals with reality when it comes to
satisfying the id, and which operates on multiple levels of con-
sciousness), both influences and is influenced by the conscious
mind. The unconscious is the perpetually operating cognitive engine
that serves as a storehouse of instincts, needs, desires, lessons, and
automatic actions. Bound together by a widespread network of neu-
rons that function in synchrony, the unconscious directs many of our
thoughts and feelings through functions that go largely unnoticed by
us and are rarely directed by our immediate free will.
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The computing power of the unconscious is staggering.

Unconscious synaptic processing makes up the vast majority of the
brain’s activity, and Nick Bostrom of Yale University estimates the
computing might of the brain to be approximately 100,000 trillion
floating point computing operations per second—about five million
times more powerful than the fastest computer chips produced
today. If the unconscious is responsible for eighty percent of the
activity in our brains—the rest being taken up by conscious percep-
tion, decision making, creativity, and the maintenance of autonom-
ic functions like breathing—then that is an almost unconceivable
engine of learning and remembering potency laboring away behind
the scenes. It’s no wonder we are capable of incredible leaps of
logic, insight, and talent when our unconscious finally draws into
parallel with our conscious intention.
Leaps of achievement eventually lead to Sustained Excellence,
in which elite performance is reproducible on demand. This is the
hallmark of mastery, yet there is no quick route to this level of
excellence, either. Progressing from rote learning to a sudden
breakthrough can take years, and it can also take years for thrilling
leaps of performance to produce excellence that can be called forth
by simple mental intention. We see this all the time in professional
athletes and musicians, artists who can summon forth years of
learning and practice into unconscious movements that free their
conscious mind to concentrate on the demands of the unique
moment: “How can I arc this pass to reach my receiver?” “How can
I play this violin chord to synch with the piano soloist?”
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
This bifurcation of the mind of a master represents the peak of

what is known as the Willed Effort Curve. As mastery of a subject
increases, the amount of conscious mental processing—will—needed
to perform essential actions decreases. At the same time, the mental
capacity available to fine-tune the results in real time increases. This
is one reason masters are masters: they do not need to spend any
mental awareness on the basics, and this frees them to create beauty
and precision according to the unique needs of the moment. The
singer Beyoncé, for example, doesn’t put much conscious effort into
the vocal tone in the middle of her range; instead, she pours her
energies into expression, phrasing, and soaring high notes.
Masters do not ignore the details. Instead, the details are woven
into everything they do. The fine shadings, the genius design, the
perfect three-point basket, the sermon before an audience of
20,000 without a stumble…these are symbolic of the conscious
and unconscious mind operating in perfect harmony.
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5
Lesson 5
THE CURRENCY OF MASTERY
“On this earth, one pays dearly for every kind of mastery…for hav-
ing a specialty one pays by also being the victim of this specialty.
But you would have it otherwise—cheaper and fairer and above all
more comfortable…” — Friedrich Nietzsche
There is a story often told about the creator of the Brazilian mar-
tial art Capoeira, which blends combat moves with acrobatics
that bear a strong resemblance to dance. Many years ago, when
creator Mestre Bimba (1900-1974) was in his eighties, he was
challenged to a fight by a cocky student in his twenties.
Unsurprisingly, the master’s mobility was limited by his age, but
he accepted the challenge. What followed was such a classic
example of youth and audacity versus age and wisdom that the
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
battle was very nearly cinematic. The young student launched

into a show of flying, flipping movement and flung himself at the
elderly master. In response, Bimba turned a simple, almost lazy
cartwheel and stuck his foot into the young man’s path. The still-
flipping young buck rolled himself directly into Mestre Bimba’s
rock-solid foot, knocking himself unconscious.
When he woke up he looked around bleary-eyed and asked,

“What was that?”
“That was my foot, my son,” Mestre Bimba answered. “Here
endeth the lesson.”
The road to mastery appears transparent: one begins as a novice

with more daring and hope than thoughtful stillness, invests years of
repetitive work, and emerges at the other end a master. Yet this is a
gross oversimplification. A collection of five tools—some well-
known but underappreciated, others less obvious—lies buried deep
in the valleys along the route to the level of effortless excellence of
masters like Bimba. They are:
Discipline
Patience
Scholarship
Originality
Economy
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This chapter examines those five tools, each of which is essential

to developing a different aspect of mastery.
DISCIPLINE
The word “discipline” has come to stand for the pitiless,

relentless inner drive that compels some to work without respite to
transcend their limitations in pursuits like triathlons or the
Olympics, and yet its origins don’t align what we understand it to
mean today. The word actually stems from the Latin disciplina,
meaning “instruction given to a disciple.” So, more correctly, dis-
cipline can be seen as ordered instruction imposed upon a student
from the outside. This would make the student’s dedication in
some ways an act of devotion—of discipleship—to the master.
However, in many cases discipline is self-created, particularly
when the seeker of mastery is alone and self-taught. Thus, we can
define discipline most accurately as a routine of instruction and
work through which the student is paying tribute to the state of
mastery rather than to the master himself. Given the humility of
most true masters, it makes sense that we would bow before this
exalted state rather than to those who have achieved it.
The achievement of mastery requires great discipline, defined in
modern terms as ”a work ethic that is developed to persist through
suffering, independent of all channels of reward.” Before we move
on, let us note the key words in that statement: “Developed”
implies—correctly—that discipline is not inborn nor innate. No one
is born with the ability to persist through hardships toward a goal. It
is something learned, usually from a mentor or master. “Suffering”
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
refers to the many hardships any devoted seeker of excellence

encounters, from physical exhaustion to financial loss. But
“reward” is at the heart of the matter. True discipline does not occur
in the face of immediate reward, but in its future promise. The
karate student endures the fatigue, pounding, and embarrassment of
his ineptitude not because he will be able to get a black belt today;
he will not. But if he has trust in his sensei, he believes that one day
his suffering will yield sufficient mastery to allow him to claim the
reward he desires.
To be disciplined means to be a disciple of your master

and have faith that your work and suffering will yield
treasures one day. It requires you to imagine the future and
trust you will arrive there having achieved all you set out
to achieve.
In this context, discipline is an act of faith, and we can see the

spiritual truth of this. How often in the Bible do we witness individ-
uals engaging in great acts of self-denial out of faith in God that
their discipline will be worthwhile? Moses fasted for forty days in
order to purify himself and receive the Law from God on Mount
Herob (Sinai). Numerous other figures from Scripture, from Elijah
to King David, engaged in the discipline of the fast in the faith that
God would reward their suffering. One could argue that given the
power He had revealed, Jesus’ remaining on the cross and fulfill-
ing God’s design was a supreme act of discipline; surely with
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such power He could have freed Himself! To be disciplined

means to be a disciple of your master and have faith that your
work and suffering will yield treasures one day. It requires you to
imagine the future and trust you will arrive there having achieved
all you set out to achieve.
Studying is a demanding occupation during which we will
encounter pain, pleasure, victory, defeat, doubt, and happiness. For
this reason, studying requires the development of rigorous disci-
pline, which we must consciously forge in ourselves. No one can
bestow or impose such discipline upon someone else. Either we
adhere to study with delight or accept it as necessity and pleasure,
or it becomes a mere burden and, as such, will be abandoned at the
first crossroads.
Studying is a demanding occupation during which we

will encounter pain, pleasure, victory, defeat, doubt, and
happiness. For this reason, studying requires the develop-
ment of rigorous discipline, which we must consciously
forge in ourselves.
Alain de Botton, in his book The Pleasures and Sorrows of

Work, describes the career of a painter named Stephen Taylor. For
nearly three years, Taylor spent almost every waking moment
painting a tree—one single tree, an oak about 250 years old. Taylor
painted the tree as seen from close up, far away, underneath, in
summer, in winter, in rain, and in sun. He drew detailed studies of
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
the bark, the mosses growing on the bark, the leaves. When he ran
into difficulties getting something just right, he turned to the mas-
ters, studying their paintings for techniques that might improve his
own. He spent over one hundred hours studying a single painting
by sixteenth century Venetian master Titian, from which he learned
how to paint leaves.
This kind of obsession seems odd, and even frightening to
some. Certainly the locals tended to stay away from the scruffy
looking fellow loitering in a field (although de Botton notes that a
passing tramp acknowledged Taylor). For Taylor, however, this
painstaking process of discovery and practice was quite natural. As
the author notes, Taylor’s ability to spend months on a canvas only
twenty centimeters square was the result of more than two decades
of study and research into his art.
When he finally took his paintings to be sold, Taylor’s income
was barely at subsistence level. Such was his dedication to his craft,
however, that he did not find this a hindrance. Rather than looking
for a job that made more money, Taylor’s next project was a several-
year study of a tributary of the River Colne. His example presents an
odd truth about discipline and faith: the reward each person expects
to receive as a result of disciplined work may mean something only
to that person. Some dedicated students will find reward in money,
but others will want the symbolic black belt. Still others want
acclaim from their peers, or the ability to scratch out a living
doing what they love, or the mental and spiritual peace that comes
with devotion and great focus. Your rewards need only mean
something to you.
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AIDS TO DISCIPLINE
As anyone who has tried and failed to diet and lose weight or
tried and failed to give up smoking can attest, discipline is hard.
As neuroscience has shown us, the human brain is wired, via the
primitive fight-or-flight center (called the amygdala) and the
dopamine receptor system, to seek short-term pleasure at the
expense of long-term gain. When given the choice, most people
will choose to have the cheesecake, use the credit card, or date the
good-looking person whom they know to be a drug user, because
their brains crave the dopamine rush that comes with immediate
pleasure. It requires conscious training in self-denial—and a
complete reorganization of one’s perception of reward—to give
long-term growth primacy over short-term delight.
For example, a man who is unfit and chronically overeats might
see exercise as odious torture and refuse to work out in favor of eat-
ing. But a man who has reprogrammed his concept of reward has
told himself that the energetic feeling he has after a workout and the
weight loss and fitness he will enjoy after a few months are more
important rewards than having a cheeseburger and watching televi-
sion. Becoming disciplined is becoming fully conscious.
However, there are things one can do to move the process along:
• Create a private space to work. According to author Annie

Dillard, “Appealing workplaces are to be avoided. One wants a
room with no view…when I furnished this study seven years
ago, I pushed the long desk against a blank wall, so I could not
see from either window. Once, fifteen years ago, I wrote in a
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
cinder-block cell over a parking lot. It overlooked a tar and

gravel roof. This pine shed under trees is not quite so good as
the cinder-block study was, but it will do.”
Not everyone has the luxury of a place to work without distrac-
tion, nor is such a place absolutely necessary—to each his or her
own space, but whatever space will be most effective is the one
the student should try to create. Jane Austen wrote her novels in
the sitting room of her parents’ home, surrounded by friends and
family playing cards, reading aloud, conversing, and playing
music. She kept her writing covered with a piece of embroidery
in case anyone should notice what she was doing. (Writing was
an unseemly profession for a woman of the time.)
The Brontë sisters also wrote in less than ideal circumstances,
with little privacy and a great deal of hardship to distract them.
They lived in a cramped parsonage with their father, who did
not particularly approve of their writing. Their lives were
marred from childhood by the deaths first of their mother and
then of each of the siblings until even Charlotte, the last of
Reverend Brontë’s children, died at forty. Yet from a very young
age, Emily, Anne, Branwell, and Charlotte wrote obsessively,
creating detailed histories and stories for their made-up king-
doms and developing the skills that later gave us Charlotte’s
Jane Eyre and Emily’s Wuthering Heights, the latter of which
was written while Emily’s beloved brother, Branwell, was
drinking himself to death and causing much consternation and
grief in the family.
— 124 —
Certainly, if great masterpieces of literature can be written under

such difficult circumstances, the lack of an ideal place to prac-
tice cannot be an excuse for failure. Yet such a place can be a
great help for the fitness of an enthusiast, writer, musician,
craftsman, or meditator.
• Develop a schedule. Two types of schedule can be of assistance

in pursuing excellence. The first, less concrete, kind is the
“master plan,” the long-term view of what steps you wish to
accomplish at what times. This sort of schedule allows one to
monitor one’s progress and feel a sense of accomplishment,
which can be quite handy at times of frustration or when one
has hit a plateau.
At the same time, expecting to adhere too strictly to such a
schedule can be detrimental. Each person’s development will be
different and what took one’s teacher a month to master may
take the student six. External events may also throw one off
schedule. As one pilot told his son:
Have a plan and fly the plan. But don’t fall in love with the plan.
Be open to a changing world and let go of the plan when neces-
sary so you can make a new plan. Then, as the world and the
plan both go through their book of changes, you will always be
ready to do the next right thing.
The second type of schedule is the day-by-day plan or to-do

list. It is a rare person indeed who has no other obligations
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
than the pursuit of excellence in his or her field, and those

who do not have that luxury will do well to learn good time
management. Most people must balance their practice with
the other responsibilities of daily life—work, family, house-
work, religious observances, and the many little errands that
eat up time. By establishing a daily schedule (and sticking to
it), a person protects the most important activities from being
overwhelmed by trivial impositions. About this Annie Dillard
writes, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend
our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we
are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a
net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker
can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time. A
schedule is a mock-up of reason and order—willed, faked,
and so brought into being; it is a peace and a haven set into
the wreck of time…”
The imposed order of a schedule allows one the freedom to turn
down claims upon one’s time. It provides a framework upon
which to hang the day’s work in such a way that it can be most
effectively accomplished. To those who insist that planning their
time will somehow diminish their creativity, I say that they have
never attempted to put food on the table or a roof over their
heads with said creativity. One learns the beauty of schedules
(and deadlines, the schedule’s virtuous twin) when one must
contend with life’s distractions and still pay the rent. A short
story composed with a press deadline in mind and a paycheck
— 126 —
on the line need be no less moving than one composed over a

season with nothing at stake.
• Remove temptation. Each person has a set of unique weaknesses

that may lure him or her away from work or eat up time that
could otherwise have been put to productive use. For some it
may be the television, the seemingly innocent claim that “I’ll
just watch until the next commercial,” or “I’ll just catch the local
news,” or “I’ll just watch until the next inning.” Perhaps the
tempter is a book that never seems to let one stop reading until
far past bedtime, or that new recipe that will take twice as long
to make as the old standard but might turn out really well.
Whatever the temptation, the only cure is resistance. In the
words of poet William Butler Yeats, “Every conquering tempta-
tion represents a new fund of moral energy. Every trial endured
and weathered in the right spirit makes a soul nobler and
stronger than it was before.”
The hardest temptations to resist are those innocuous social
activities in which people lose minutes and hours of their days.
Chief amongst these is the temptation to gossip—not gossip in
the sense of spreading malicious rumors, but the everyday chat-
ting without purpose in which all people, regardless of gender,
take part. How can one give this up without causing offense? It
is a part of our social nature that we spend a moment visiting
with the checkout clerk at the store, or with the neighbor who
always seems to take out the trash the same time we do.
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
(Facebook has become the bane of discipline in this regard. If

you wish to do great things, I urge you to either hide your
computer or disable your Facebook account.)
The monks at the Grand Chartreuse monastery in the French
Alps north of Grenoble have solved the problem of gossip and
socializing by simply giving up speech in almost all situations.
The head monastery of the Carthursian order, supported by the
sale of Chartreuse liqueur, is so isolated that no visitors are
allowed and automobile traffic is banned from the surrounding
roads. As documented in the film Into Great Silence, the monks’
lives are simple and austere. They speak only during their walks
and during the weekly chapter meeting. At all other times, the
only sounds are of chanting and prayer during services and their
work as they go about their daily routines. Most of their time is
devoted to contemplation.
Of course, the solution for most of us is not to avoid other
people or become a hermit or recluse, nor is it to give away all
of our possessions. Instead, a simple two-step approach to
resisting temptation can foster greater discipline. The first
concerns gossip and wasteful conversation: Identify those
people who routinely take up an inordinate amount of time,
either on the phone or in person. These are the people who
will call for no reason and talk for thirty minutes about any-
thing and everything, often saying things they’ve said before.
Such people must be treated firmly and kindly. If you find
you must avoid them, however, so be it.
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The second step is to catalog the temptations that tend to con-

sume your time, from the television to books to the Internet.
Then make plans to remove those temptations from easy
access during the times you are pursuing your discipline. Turn
off your computer. Remove the batteries from the TV remote
and ask your partner to hide them. Give away favorite books
you have already read. Do what you must to clear mental space
for uninterrupted work.
PATIENCE
“Patience is a virtue,” an old saying tells us. But this quote from
an unknown author gets at the beating heart of the matter: “Patience
is waiting. Not passively waiting; that is laziness. But to keep going
when the going is hard and slow—that is patience.” Patience is often
seen as passivity, when in reality patience is the art of quietly wait-
ing for things to unfold at their own pace rather than trying to force
the action. True patience demands real humility, because you give
up the arrogant notion that you have the power to set all events in
motion or order things as you wish them to be.
According to Cato the Elder, “Patience is the greatest of all
virtues.” Yet the ten thousand hours required to become an expert
seems alien to modern people. We are accustomed to getting what
we want right away. We can get food at a drive-through in less than
five minutes. We warm our leftovers in a microwave and order the
movies we want to see from an on-demand service, watching them
in our own home at whatever time we wish. One of the selling
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
points of Amazon’s Kindle reading device is that owners no longer

have to wait for a book to be delivered. Instead of relying on
overnight shipping (too slow!), readers can have a new volume in a
matter of seconds. How then, are we to endure the lengthy process
of achieving mastery? Saint Francis de Sales writes, “Have patience
with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself. Do not lose
courage in considering your own imperfections but instantly set
about remedying them—every day begin the task anew.”
In large part, our perception of how quickly things happen is
mistaken. We may be able to read a book within seconds of paying
for it online, but the making of that book, if it is of any quality, was
not a quick process. Sir Isaac Newton wrote, “If ever I have made
any valuable discoveries, it has been owing more to patient attention
than to any other talent.”
In her collection of essays, The Writing Life, Annie Dillard
notes, “It takes years to write a book—between two and ten years.
Less is so rare as to be statistically insignificant…Out of a human
population on earth of four and a half billion, perhaps twenty peo-
ple can write a book in a year. Some people can lift cars too…Some
people feel no pain in childbirth…There is no call to take human
extremes as norms.”
She goes on to cite examples:
The long poem, John Berryman said, takes between five and
ten years. Thomas Mann was a prodigy of production. Working
full time, he wrote a page a day. That is 365 pages a year, for he
did write every day—a good-sized book a year. At a page a day,
he was one of the most prolific writers who ever lived. Flaubert
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wrote steadily, with only the usual, appalling, strains. For twenty-
five years he finished a big book every five to seven years.
In the pursuit of mastery, one of the greatest dangers is impa-

tience with results. We expect dramatic, tangible results quickly,
even instantly. When we engage in a workout program, we want to
lose pounds in days and demand rippling muscles in weeks. A
novice writer expects to emulate James Joyce on the first try; a
learning pianist slams the keyboard with her fists when she cannot
play Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto after practicing for only
two months.
The danger in this demand for immediate perfection—and the
desire to quit if it does not manifest—is that we can miss the
incremental, often invisible, improvements that come as soon as
we begin disciplined work. The student of fitness begins gaining
muscle and speeding up his metabolism with the very first work-
out. The would-be novelist is honing her style even when she hates
the chapter she’s written. The pianist is developing his reflexes and
sight reading even though the notes sound clumsy. Mastery is not
simply about the final result; it is also about the gradual improve-
ments along the road that add up to expertise. Patience makes it
possible for us to reach those slow milestones.
Patience is considered one of the most important religious
virtues. Consider the story of Job. Job is a wealthy man with a large
family—seven sons and three daughters. He is also a very pious
man, offering burnt sacrifices to God on a regular basis and living
a life in accordance with Jewish laws. Satan suggests that Job is
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
only pious because he is wealthy and comfortable, that his religion

is superficial, so God allows Satan to subject Job to great hardship
as a test of his faith.
Satan begins by destroying all of Job’s wealth and killing each
of his children. He afflicts Job with terrible physical suffering,
covering him with boils that Job, crouched in the ashes of his home,
scrapes at with the shards of his broken pottery. Job’s wife urges
him to curse God for bringing him such sorrow and suffering, but
Job refuses. Then Job’s friends arrive, and instead of comforting
him, three of them insist he must have committed some great sin in
order to deserve such punishment. Having now lost his reputation in
addition to all else, Job maintains his innocence but still does not
blame God for his suffering, although he does question why he has
been selected for such a terrible fate and wishes to “argue his case”
before God in an attempt to be relieved of this apparently unjust
punishment.
Job’s fourth friend, Elihu, condemns the other three men’s
assumption that Job has sinned, but he also teaches Job that he is
wrong to want God to justify his actions. He says Job does not have
the moral standing to argue anything with God. When God
appears as a voice in a whirlwind, he excoriates the three friends
and seems to confirm Elihu’s position. He tells Job he has no
moral footing to question the supreme ruler of the universe but
must undergo everything with submission.
Apparently Job shows enough patience for God to find him
truly religious, because God gives Job twice as much wealth as he
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had before and grants him and his wife more children. Job lives
another 140 years in comfort, surrounded by his family.
This theme of patience in the face of unimaginable suffering is
common in many religions. The ancient Sumerians have a similar
tale in which a righteous man named Shubshi-meshre-Shakkan
undergoes great trials without explanation before being restored to
his previous comfort. Judaism also places great emphasis on
patience—a practice that has served its people well over many
millennia of exile and persecution. Yet even as it praises patience,
the Old Testament acknowledges the difficulties it presents.
Proverb 16:32 says, “He that is slow to anger is better than the
mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city.”
Ecclesiastes 7:8-9 says, “Better is the end of a thing than the
beginning thereof: and the patient in spirit is better than the proud
in spirit. Be not hasty in thy spirit to be angry: for anger resteth in
the bosom of fools.”
In Christian tradition, patience is one of the Seven Heavenly
Virtues. This list (Kindness, Humility, Diligence, Charity,
Temperance, Chastity, and Patience) derives from an epic poem
called Psychomachia, written in 410 A.D. by Aurelius Clemens
Purdentius, a Roman Christian. The title of the poem means “The
Contest of the Soul.” At a bit fewer than a thousand lines, the poem
is an allegory, a story that conveys a moral lesson. In it, the virtues
and vices are presented as characters. The vices attack their opposite
virtues (Gluttony attacks Temperance, for example), only to be
defeated. The poem also features appearances by characters repre-
senting the virtues (one such character is Job).
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
Galatians 5:22 describes patience (longsuffering) as a gift of the

Holy Spirit: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuf-
fering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.” The
Book of James, 5:7-8, urges Christians to wait patiently for the
Lord: “Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the
earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and
latter rain. Be ye also patient...”
Islam also teaches faith as a principle virtue. Muslims are
encouraged to keep good spirits during hard times and to persevere
despite hardships because such a course will bring greater rewards.
There are several passages in the Koran commending patience, one
of which reads, “No one will be granted such goodness except those
who exercise patience and self-restraint, none but persons of the
greatest good fortune” (41:35). Elsewhere, the Koran states:
It is not righteousness that you turn your faces towards East or

West. But it is righteousness to believe in Allah and the Last
Day, And the Angels, and the Book, and the Messengers; To
spend of your substance, out of love for Him, For your kin, for
orphans, for the needy, for the wayfarer, for those who ask, and
for the ransom of slaves; To be steadfast in prayer And give in
charity; To fulfill the contracts which you have made; And to be
firm and patient, in pain and adversity And throughout all peri-
ods of panic. Such are the people of truth, the God-fearing.
(2:177)
In Buddhism, patience is one of the paramitas, or “perfections,”

sought by those who aspire to be bodhisattvas, or “enlightened
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beings.” The Buddha achieved enlightenment in part through great

patience. After six years of traveling as a beggar, living a life so
acetic he nearly died, and studying under a great spiritual master, the
prince Siddhartha sat under a papal tree and resolved not to arise
until he had achieved Enlightenment. After forty-nine days of med-
itation, he succeeded.
No great goal, whether spiritual or worldly, can be accomplished
without patience. In the oft-quoted words of professional athlete
Brian Adams:
Learn the art of patience. Apply discipline to your thoughts

when they become anxious over the outcome of a goal.
Impatience breeds anxiety, fear, discouragement and failure.
Patience creates confidence, decisiveness, and a rational out-
look, which eventually leads to success.
SCHOLARSHIP
As a child, Jean-Francois Champollion learned that no one

could read Egyptian writing and determined that he would be the
one to do so. By age sixteen, he had exhibited extraordinary gifts as
a linguist and learned most known ancient languages on his own,
including Latin, ancient Greek, Hebrew, Sanskrit and Persian,
among others. He determined that his life’s work would be to deci-
pher the ancient and mysterious hieroglyphic language being
brought to light by Napoleon’s conquest of Egypt.
He became an assistant professor at France’s Grenoble
Academy, and when his position ended he continued studying on his
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
own. His discovery—that there was a phonetic relationship between

Hieroglyphic and Egyptian scripts—came after seven more years of
intensive, private study, and his knowledge made possible the trans-
lation the Rosetta Stone, seen as the key to understanding the
ancient Egyptian language. By 1822, Champollion had published
his accurate translation of the hieroglyphs and the grammatical key
to the writing system to near-universal acclaim. His work would
lead directly to the creation of a new branch of archaeological and
forensic historical science known as Egyptology.
While we love the very American narrative of the self-edu-

cated savant who trains himself to become a master in some
glamorous profession, the fact remains that in many pursuits
scholarship is not optional. If you are to reach an elite level
in a field such as engineering, science, medicine, law,
music or computer science, a rigorous and comprehensive
university education is mandatory.
Champollion was a scholar of language, and his achievements,

including his mastery of more than a dozen languages, would not
have been possible without studious scholarship. As I discussed at
the outset of this book, we seem entrapped in the Age of the
Amateur, when formal training in a subject has, in the minds of
many, been inexplicably transformed into a reason to distrust the
recipient of that training and instead trust the bearer of “natural” or
“instinctive” knowledge. It is as though the “official” knowledge of
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the halls of learning were nothing more than propaganda designed

to defy a certain group’s relative truth.
But this is a fallacy. While we love the very American narra-
tive of the self-educated savant who trains himself to become a
master in some glamorous profession, the fact remains that in
many pursuits scholarship is not optional. If you are to reach an elite
level in a field such as engineering, science, medicine, law, music or
computer science, a rigorous and comprehensive university education
is mandatory. It is simply not conceivable to reach any moderate level
of skill in a complex discipline without formal training.
As Daniel Pink points out in A Whole New Mind, repetitive train-
ing actually changes the brain so that one side becomes dominant,
depending on the nature of the skill. When the subject is linear,
analytical, rational and logical, the left brain becomes dominant
over time. Mathematics, engineering, law, and science are among
the fields of study that depend primarily on the left hemisphere.
When the subject is creative, intuitive, emotional, and demands
leaps of insight, the right brain is more involved. Art, music,
drama, poetry, invention, and entrepreneurship are among the areas
that activate the right brain. However, mastery is the full realization
of both brain hemispheres, connecting analytical and creative
thinking. A rigorous scholastic education is an incredibly valuable
addition to natural ability; learning a broad range of subjects related
to one’s core area of study activates the entire brain, left and right.
This is why great attorneys, for example, may be educated not only
in lawn but also in history, business, criminology, psychology, and
statistics, to name a few.
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
At the same time, it is important for the budding master of a sub-

ject to know how to balance formal education with self-discovered
knowledge. Despite the exceptional value of university scholarship,
learning at institutions can result in a student’s indoctrination into an
orthodoxy that sets back original thinking and leaps of insight. For
instance, the standard materialist thinking in many citadels of higher
learning holds that human consciousness is a mere illusion created by
the firing of neurons, and that we are essentially zombies who only
think we are conscious. This idea, ridiculous as it is, is taken seriously
by the majority of psychologists, philosophers, cognitive scientists,
and neuroscientists in the country.
Being in a setting where conventional wisdom is repeatedly
drilled into one’s brain can prove as detrimental to true mastery
as it can be beneficial. If the absorption of orthodox information
stifles unorthodox ideas and limits creativity for the sake of fitting
into the circles of those likewise conventionally educated, then
scholarship can actually set back the cause of mastery. Bona fide
mastery includes analysis and intuition in equal measure.
ORIGINALITY
This leads us to a discussion about the importance of original

thinking. An ability to concoct new ideas and confront accepted
wisdom that may be erroneous—to be viewed as insane or a
heretic—is often the source of breakthroughs in areas such as sci-
ence, medicine, and art. An excellent example of the importance
of originality comes from feudal Japan. Miyamoto Musashi was
a seventeenth-century swordsman and samurai famous for his
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fighting style and his innovation in the art of wielding the katana,
or Japanese samurai blade. Also renowned for The Book of Five
Rings, his treatise on military strategy, Musashi transformed
sword combat through the implementation of original techniques
that defied convention.
Though other samurai had carried two swords—the long katana
and the shorter wakizashi—for many years, none had fought using
both swords simultaneously until Musashi did so in his many battles
and duels. According to most historical accounts, he was fighting
against a large group of soldiers and drew his short sword out of
sheer self-preservation. Fortunately, having studied and mastered
swordsmanship for years, he had an inherent skill to use two swords
at once and make the most of his improvisation.
Originality is like the genetic mutations that further the evolu-

tion of biological organisms: sudden, intuitive and disruptive
to the existing order. The importance of original thinking
underscores the need to balance rigorous formal scholarship
with encouragement for daring new ideas, even those that
upset and anger the “old guard” who are resistant to the new.
Eventually, in his writings, Musashi codified the two-sword

combat style as a formal art known as Ni-Ten Ichi Ryu, which in
Japanese means “two heavens as one.” If he had adhered to the
strict and conservative samurai codes of his day, he would likely
have fought only in the manner handed down by his predecessors
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
and would not have invented an entirely new style. Not only would
he not have revolutionized the art of swordplay, but he might well
have not survived.
Originality is like the genetic mutations that further the evolu-
tion of biological organisms: sudden, intuitive and disruptive to the
existing order. The importance of original thinking underscores the
need to balance rigorous formal scholarship with encouragement
for daring new ideas, even those that upset and anger the “old
guard” who are resistant to the new. Flashes of insight have led to
seismic shifts in human culture and knowledge, from our under-
standing of consciousness and electromagnetism to Einstein’s
theories of general and special relativity, which overthrew Newton’s
centuries-old concepts of space and time. While it is vital to obtain
the fundamental knowledge of any discipline (anatomy in medicine,
for example), it is equally critical for the student of mastery not to
retain such fearful respect for traditional knowledge that he or she
is too timid to strike out with new theories and bold ideas.
Pablo Picasso, the legendary Spanish painter, was a perfect
example of this daring, convention-toppling mindset. After begin-
ning his career as an artist of a more typical style, he created the
Cubist school, which employed a strange and disquieting geometry
to depict ordinary people and objects. The reaction of the art world
was largely shock; one critic called the work exhibited by Picasso
in a London show “an abomination.” But of course, over time, the
sheer original brilliance of the artist’s vision has surpassed any
limited critiques about his work. Creating the new, something that
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every true master is called upon to do, demands defiant thinking

and reflexive originality that does not worry about consequences.
At the same time, one cannot exert this original force, as
Musashi could not have done, without a mastery of the basics and
fundamentals. Without knowing precisely how to wield a sword
with precision and dexterity, he would have merely been flailing
wildly with two blades. Thus we see again the symbiotic relation-
ship between scholarship and originality. You cannot be original
unless you know the conventions you are flouting; you cannot attack
the ossified wisdom of a stale system unless you have already mas-
tered its forms and techniques. This is common sense. This is why
no true master becomes an innovator without years of study of the
essentials. The greatest martial arts teachers had a decades-long
grounding in the arts set down by their predecessors before they set
forth to create aikido, jiu-jitsu and other combat systems.
Originality must always be paired with systematic, compre-
hensive knowledge of every aspect of the discipline you seek to
transform. When you possess that knowledge, you are free to stun
and appall limited minds with earth-shattering ideas.
ECONOMY
Return with me, for a moment, to that story about Mestre

Bimba, the creator of Capoeira. It is a classic of the genre of the
ancient martial arts master who repels the arrogant young upstart
with the simplest of movements. The life story of Morihei
Uyeshiba, the revered creator of the elegant defensive art known as
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
aikido, is filled with such tales. A small man of great humor,

Uyeshiba became renowned for his incredible skill in defending
himself from violent attacks launched simultaneously by five or six
of his students, many of whom were twice his size. The man known
as “o-sensei” would deflect and throw his attackers seemingly with-
out effort, and the encounters would always wind up the same way:
with the smiling old man bowing to a throng of astonished pupils
while his attackers sprawled, dazed and bruised, not knowing what
had just happened.
Mastery is, in part, the development of precision and economy.
No wasted movement, no wasted energy. Law of the Conservation
of Energy is a fundamental law of physics, and it reveals itself in the
efforts of the masters, from musicians to football players. Younger
students on the path to mastery are all sweat and showy effort; in
part, they are trying to impress others with their work, but they are
also trying to master the gross body movements required to com-
plete a task. As time passes, the student gains expertise in the gross
movements and concentrates on the finer, more precise actions. He
or she is also more mature and typically cares less about impressing
anyone and more about producing ever-better results. Eventually,
mastery is reached, at which point the student knows how to do as
much as possible with as little effort as possible.
The martial arts are emblematic of this ethos. With elderly masters,
no movement is wasted. Nothing is for show or ego. Their actions are
simple, elegant and effective. Why do a spinning back kick when a
leg sweep will take down an opponent faster and more efficiently?
The master has such deep knowledge of his art that he knows pre-
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cisely what to do and when to do it in order to achieve the precise

result the situation calls for. Nothing is wasted.
If you doubt the truth of this, watch a video of the late, great Les
Paul, the man credited with inventing the electric guitar. Watch him
in his nineties playing fast and precise, then compare his move-
ments to the dramatic gyrations of younger rock guitarists of the
same time. Paul, a slender and quiet man, produced incredible
sounds from his guitars with clean, simple elegance, like Fred
Astaire on the fret board. Younger players, more concerned with
impressing others and themselves, achieve half the artistic and sonic
beauty with twice the effort, sweat, and excess noise. With Les Paul,
not a note is out of place.
If you wish to pursue mastery, develop economy. Waste nothing.
This does not come easily, but you can cultivate the mindset of
economy even as you are striving to master the basic, gross skills of
sermonizing, carpentry, teaching, writing, or cooking. Economy
means shedding the ego and focusing only on the result, not what
that result says about you to others. It means becoming a student of
the fine points of what makes excellence in your field of study,
from the molecular interaction of acids, spices, and lipids in fine
cuisine to the weave of fabrics in the making of clothing. Focusing
on the small, significant details while painstakingly mastering the
large-scale skills is what makes a master—that and possessing the
humility to devote oneself to one’s study not out of a desire to
impress other people, but for the sake of excellence itself.
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6
Lesson 6
THE TRANSFORMATION OF MASTERY
“To focus on technique is like cramming your way through school.

You sometimes get by, perhaps even get good grades, but if you don’t
pay the price day in and day out, you'll never achieve true mastery
of the subjects you study or develop an educated mind.”
— Stephen R. Covey
One of the unfortunate trends of our modern age is that more and
more young people are attending universities for one primary rea-
son: to receive training that will land them a well-paying job. This
is a reflection both of our dumbed-down culture and also of our
preoccupation with material wealth—a preoccupation that may
well (we shall see) be singing its swan song in the wake of the
forced simplicity wrought by the Great Recession. But around the
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
U.S., pure research and pure scholarship are endangered species, a

fact that is indicative of a culture rejecting the pursuit of knowledge
and discovery simply for their own sakes.
It was not always this way. Quite the contrary, in fact. When we
look at the long history of the greatest educational traditions, we
see they were designed less to impart skills and more to teach stu-
dents new ways of thinking, solving problems, and regarding the
world. They were transformative. A liberal arts college is not
intended to prepare students for a job. The idea behind the liberal
education is what social critic Russell Kirk called “the ordering and
integrating of knowledge for the benefit of the free person.” The
liberal arts college’s broad curriculum was originally designed to
expose students to the best ideas and thinkers in history and to give
them an overview of civilization and its values. This would provide
both personal and public benefit. To the students it would provide
a rich inner life and an understanding of their respective places in
the moral order, a goal that reflects the religious origins of the lib-
eral education. The liberal education is also supposed to instill in
the students a work ethic that will serve them well later in life, but
the modern version of college generally falls far short of that goal.
As one law student put it:
School is the worst preparation in the world for a career. Getting

a degree is a project, as opposed to a job, and the difference
between those two concepts is the difference between Saturday
and Monday mornings.
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From a social point of view, the recipient of a liberal education

is better suited to play the role of an invested and informed citizen.
There exists a standard against which to measure actions and by
which to make decisions in the role of a shaper of the republic. Also,
having been inculcated with the moral values of the most virtuous
of the forbears, the graduate of a liberal education is deemed more
likely to behave in ways that are conducive to the general good.
What the holder of a liberal education does not receive is job
training. The specific skills and activities required of a particular
occupation are acquired after the student has landed the job or gone
on to a specialized training program. The liberal education prepares
the student’s mind to learn, but the details of being a middle manager
or attorney are left to those in the field. Even specialized schools,
like medical or law school, teach more theory than they do everyday
practice. The physician learns a specialty by doing it during his or
her residency. The attorney learns from the hiring firm.
Often, the experience of simply gaining access to the proper
learning environment will help transform the student in ways that
become useful later. In many cultures, education is still not avail-
able to those who cannot pay exorbitant sums. The great Bruce
Lee found this to be true when he was a young man in Hong
Kong. He wished to study with the Wing Chun master Yip Man,
but he did not like having to compete with other students for his
sifu’s attention. He also did not have the money to pay for private
lessons. Lee solved this problem by standing outside Yip Man’s
door just before classes were due to begin. He would tell the other
students that their teacher was ill and class was cancelled, and
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
when all the students had left, Lee would go upstairs to Yip Man
and pretend to be baffled at the lack of attendance. In this way, he
was able to secure private lessons without paying the higher
price. His creativity in obtaining the private lessons was also
clearly not an isolated incident, as he also used it to gain super-
stardom and create his own unique martial style, jeet kune do.
YOU MEET ONLY YOURSELF
As we continue on our exploration of mastery, it is important to

understand that the pursuit of mastery is less about the acquisition
of skills than it is about the metamorphosis of self, particularly on a
mental and spiritual level. As you walk the road toward achieve-
ment, you will meet no one but yourself. All the teachers you
encounter, challenges you face, and opportunities you uncover will
be but reflections of who you are becoming in your journey.
The fundamental function of learning is to change you as a
being—to alter how you think, how you pray or meditate, your
emotional response to the world around you, your ability to retain
information, your compassion and sense of moral rightness, your
entire inner being. Mastery is a crucible that tests our ability to
withstand challenges to the very fabric of what we think we know
about ourselves. For example, a Japanese swordmaster named
Sakura was famous for his kinjitsu, or sword work. In his youth, he
dedicated years to his training. In his older age, he retired from
teaching and became a recluse in the mountains. An eager young
student named Hokoshi heard of the master’s skill and sought him
out in the hopes of becoming his pupil. One day while Sakura was
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in the woods hunting for food, Hokoshi approached him. Sakura

rejected his request and sent him away.
Hokoshi camped out near the sensei’s home and pestered him
every day for over a month, asking to be his student. One day
while the master was chopping wood, Hokoshi approached him yet
again. In feigned exasperation, Sakura accepted him as a student
with the condition that he would swear to abide by Sakura’s rules
in every way and demonstrate complete obedience without asking
any questions.
Mastery is a crucible that tests our ability to withstand

challenges to the very fabric of what we think we know
about ourselves.
Hokoshi spent the next three years living with the teacher, per-
forming all the chores of daily living, but receiving no training.
Finally he confronted the teacher, saying, “After three years with
you I’ve received no instruction at all in the art of swordwork.”
Sakura replied, “You’ve been receiving the best instruction in the
art during these three years. Now you are ready for the second level
of training.”
Sakura offered Hokoshi the option of leaving at this point or of
continuing his training. The young man reaffirmed his dedication
and remained with Sakura, who promised to begin the next level of
training in the morning. Before the first light, the young man was
awakened by having scalding hot water thrown on him. From that
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
moment on, in every moment of his daily chores, the master

attacked him and attempted to sneak up on him. These attacks came
at all times and Hokoshi had not a moment’s peace.
After a month, Hokoshi realized that he had to fight back. He
began to answer the master’s attacks quite skillfully. With that
realization, he transcended the academic learning process and
learned that the essence of the martial arts is to be able to respond
to any attack using any object at hand and to dispose of the attack
in a single stroke. This style of teaching, which works well for
people who respond positively to strong authority and who are
patient enough to wait for the object of their training to unfold, is
profoundly transformative. Hokoshi was not the same man after
his training as he was when he began.
As I wrote in a previous book, you and every other man

and woman on this earth are in a constant state of becom-
ing. The question is, what are you becoming? Adopting a
dedicated course leading to mastery is one way to control
the answer to that question.
We often speak of “being” something—a minister, a parent, an

electrician. But being is not our true state. Being is a static state, and
stasis only occurs at death. We are dynamic, evolving spirits. Our
true state is of becoming. As I wrote in a previous book, you and
every other man and woman on this earth are in a constant state of
becoming. The question is, what are you becoming? Adopting a
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dedicated course leading to mastery is one way to control the

answer to that question.
The journey to mastery is about becoming the being that God
intended when He created you. God has an ideal in mind of who and
what you could and can be. It is the mission and purpose for each
of us to bridge the gap between the person we are today and that
potential being of light and knowledge. The bridge that crosses the
chasm between who you are today and what you can become is built
from mastery—it is the mental and spiritual purgation, development
and refinement that can only come through the selfless pursuit of
something greater than your own selfish needs.
MASTERY WITH PURPOSE
That “something greater” is purpose. Purpose can be defined as

that which confers meaning on your actions, or as the reason God
has assigned you a destiny. There are perhaps other ways to define
it, but when it comes to mastery, “purpose” is this:
The knowledge that what you do is of supreme

importance to those who will never know you.
German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche said, “He who has a

why to live can bear with almost any how.” Which means that when
you understand why you invest the endless hours, work, discipline,
and sacrifice that mastery requires, it becomes easier to pay the
price for excellence. The question “why?” should lie at the heart of
anyone’s quest for expertise, technical perfection, or artistic bril-
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
liance. Why do you want to be a master at something? Is it to make

money or be famous? There is nothing inherently wrong with these
things; money is God’s power of change in material form, and fame
can enable you to reach and improve the lives of many. But wealth
and acclaim are empty in and of themselves. Without knowing
WHY you strive to excel at something, you are nothing more than a
skilled craftsman. It is the masters who also know the answer to that
question—“Why?”—who become legends, inspire millions, and
transform the world as well as themselves.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was an incredible orator, minister,
theologian and teacher possessed of a brilliant mind that was given
to him by God and that King honed to the point of technical mas-
tery through years of work. Yet without a purpose, he would have
been just another great speaker. Without a higher purpose—a why—
you will not pay the price of greatness. Without purpose, it becomes
easy to look at the mastery you have paid for with ten thousand
hours, and the material success that mastery has brought you, and
say, “I can’t risk this! I have to protect all I’ve worked for!” If all
you have worked for is the right to feed your ego by saying, “I’m
one of the best,” then that is all you have.
But consider Dr. King. He was willing to risk his ministry, his
freedom, his health, his wealth and ultimately his life for his pur-
pose, to forward the cause of civil rights for African-Americans—to
usher in a new era not just of greater rights but of people willing to
fight for those rights after he was gone. That is one of the things that
purpose does: it inspires. A karate sensei who is technically brilliant
but whose only interest is collecting students and fees inspires no
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one; when he dies or retires, the world will not be a better place for
his having been in it. But the same sensei who invests much of his
time in the purpose of helping to preserve the ancient writings and
history of the great teachers who created karate will inspire others
to follow in his footsteps.
Mohandas K. Gandhi would have remained a London attorney
had he not discovered his purpose in the nonviolent opposition of
British rule of India and the Indian struggle for independence and
dignity. Certainly, he might have been appalled by the British treat-
ment of his brothers, but without purpose he would have been
unlikely to risk losing the comfortable life he had worked so hard to
build. As he said, “All of your scholarship, all your study of
Shakespeare and Wordsworth would be vain if at the same time you
did not build your character and attain mastery over your thoughts
and your actions.”
We can examine the desire to make money through this same
prism. As I wrote in my book Cosmic Economics, money is the
material representation of God’s power to affect change in the
material world. It’s nothing more or less. God is pure Spirit, so He
cannot directly reach into and influence the corporeal aspect of
this world. But He can influence the non-corporeal aspects of the
universe such as Mind, emotions, and the spirit that dwells within
each of us. Money is a means of exerting Divine influence, and so
money itself is the potential energy of change; it is always dynam-
ic, always setting something in motion, whether it’s a property
transaction or the paying of someone’s salary and enabling them to
improve their station. Money, like electricity, can never be still. It
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
can be stored briefly, but if it is to achieve something, it must be

in motion.
If one of your goals for mastery is to make money, what will that
money serve? The computer geniuses who mastered programming
and went on to found Microsoft, Apple, Sun Microsystems, Oracle,
Google and other titans have become billionaires, but they have also
had a broader purpose: to advance technology that makes near-
instant global communication and learning possible, to create new
economic engines and to build tools that supercharge productivity.
There is no question that computing technology has transformed,
and continues to transform, the world. But did those geek geniuses
set out with that purpose or was it merely a side-effect of their quest
for mastery and money?
Money is not a purpose; it is a tool. Money is not the reason

for work; it is the result of work.
It was neither. The simple truth is that even though you might
perceive how mastery can produce money after you have become an
expert in something, it is impossible to perceive that potential while
you are headed down on the path to mastery. Why? Because you will
not be able to see the wealth-creating potential of your elite skills
and knowledge until you achieve the wisdom and clear perception
that make that skill and knowledge possible. In other words, the path
to money through mastery does not become apparent until after you
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are a master; you cannot conceive of it. Moreover, if you follow the
steep, rocky, and often painful road to mastering a craft, a martial
art, or a creative art and money is your primary motivation, you will
not arrive at your destination.
Money is not a purpose; it is a tool. Money is not the reason for
work; it is the result of work. If you live in a fancy house and drive
a fine car and enjoy fame, that’s wonderful. But what purpose does
all of that serve? If your mastery creates wealth but that wealth
does not serve a higher purpose than to serve your ego, you will
invariably fall, and in the fall you will gain humility and wisdom,
but your wealth will always be taken away.
MASTERING YOURSELF
Victor Frankl, Holocaust survivor, psychologist, and author of

Man’s Search for Meaning, writes, “Success will follow you pre-
cisely because you have forgotten to think of it.” What does this
mean? It means mastery, ultimately, is not about skill sets, muscle
memory, creating new neural connections through repetitive action,
or even leaps of insight—it is only about mastering yourself.
Through the experience of pursuing mastery, you change.
Many of the masters of philosophy, martial arts, and religious
thought of past and present times were men of rigorous self-denial
and asceticism. You may not have ever questioned why, but if you
have, it is likely that some part of you knows the reason: the act of
stripping away all distractions and attachments (a fundamentally
Buddhist way of being) leaves nothing but the Self. When you are
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
“in the zone” of your mastery, you are intensely focused on your-
self. The price you must pay to become a great classical violinist, a
world-class ice skater, or Teacher of the Year—the single-minded-
ness, tedium, failure and effort over at least ten thousand hours—
gives you no choice but to explore your desires, your real motiva-
tions for seeking mastery.
The process gives you no choice but to burn your spirit clean of
false purposes and false motivations. When Caesar crossed the river
Rubicon in 49 BC into what was then the Emilia-Romagna region
of what is today Italy, he was committing an irrevocable act of
war—crossing a point of no return. On the way to mastery, you will
run headlong into countless Rubicons, moments of trial when you
will have a choice to give up your pursuit or struggle onward. At
each Rubicon, you will discover yourself. If you choose to fight past
the difficulty, there will be no turning back. At such times, you will
find if your motivation is pure enough and strong enough. The gen-
uine pursuit of mastery exterminates hypocrisy and self-delusion.
You will not find arrogant or self-deluded martial arts masters;
the price of such mastery—the life that a true master leads—is sim-
ply too great for anyone to pay who does not desire mastery for the
sake of pure wisdom, pure humility and pure teaching. Morihei
Uyeshiba, the founder of aikido I wrote about earlier, was renowned
not only as a master of the defensive arts, but also as a deeply spir-
itual man. In 1940, he had an experience of pure self-transforma-
tion, saying, “Around 2 a.m., as I was performing misogi [a disci-
pline of meditating under a fall of icy water], I suddenly forgot all
the martial techniques I had ever learned. The techniques of my
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teachers appeared completely new. Now they were vehicles for the
cultivation of life, knowledge, and virtue, not devices to throw peo-
ple with.”
Uyeshiba went on to become perhaps the most revered and rev-
olutionary of all martial arts masters, because he was open to the
evolution of his purpose, or to the reason he had to continue to pur-
sue mastery. This is the final key lesson of this chapter: when you
reach complete mastery of your discipline, you must embrace a new
purpose or you will never evolve. Once you have reached a pinna-
cle, you must either embrace a new way of seeing what you know,
as Uyeshiba did, or consciously find new ways to become a new stu-
dent, ignorant of everything. Only by doing this can you then apply
what you know in ways that will continue your journey to mastery.
Perfect mastery of any discipline is never possible for us. Only
God can possess the totality of knowledge, wisdom, power and per-
ception perfect mastery demands. God is perfect mastery. But in our
endless struggles and striving to find mastery of something that
fires our passions and stirs our spirits, we are attempting to draw
closer to our Divine birthright. The path to mastery is the path to
becoming God.
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7
Lesson 7
THE SIGNS OF MASTERY
“Order and simplification are the first steps toward the mastery of
a subject.” —Thomas Mann
Writer and entrepreneur Beau Velli skirts the edges of our next topic
when he discusses the five phases of mastering a skill. For him,
these are:
1. Define—Determine the nature of what you are trying to

achieve.
2. Conceptualize—Decide the overall concepts that underlie
your goal. For example, if you seek a black belt in tae kwon do,
what ideas must you make real for yourself? Must you become
a devout student, physically fit and obedient?
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
3. Implement and build skills—Determine the skills you need

to qualify as a master, and then begin developing them.
4. Develop strategies—What goals do you wish to reach with
the skills you are developing? How will you reach them?
5. Develop efficiencies—Strip away all the unnecessary effort
and actions involved in completing a task. You have honed your
skills to a fine point.
This is a good list, but incomplete. What he writes about is not

mastery. It is the planning process involved in becoming a technician.
There is value in that if your only desire is to achieve a high level of
proficiency at something that will yield a good-paying job or bolster
your ego. And certainly, technical proficiency is one vital component
of mastery, but the Olympic athlete who has passion and drive but
lacks technical proficiency is an also-ran. True mastery, as we have
seen, is as much about personal spiritual and mental transformation
as it is about banking elite-level skills in a chosen field. If the road to
mastery does not cause you to evolve and become someone different,
then it is not mastery.
One of the signs that one has undergone the metamorphosis that
reveals mastery and has in fact become a true master is that there is
no longer a need to be limited to mastery in one area of life. The
person who develops the discipline, will, vision, humility, and pas-
sion to achieve excellence in one field can more easily branch out
into others; genuine masters are often jacks-of-all-trades. When the
mental and spiritual tools are in place, the rest is a matter of putting
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in the ten thousand hours needed to acquire the automatic and

effortless technical skill.
A perfect example of this is the late German filmmaker,
actress, and dancer Leni Riefenstahl. Born in Germany in 1902,
she began her career as a star dancer who appeared in many silent
films. After a knee injury in Prague effectively ended her dance
career, she became fascinated with the documentary film form
after seeing several nature films by director Arnold Fanck. She
quickly became an accomplished mountaineer and learned the
craft of filmmaking, graduating to writing and directing as well as
starring in her own films—a rare thing for a woman of the 1920s
and 1930s. Her success and popularity as an actress eventually
caught the attention of Adolf Hitler, then rising as the chairman of
the National Socialist Party.
Like so many of her day, Riefenstahl was beguiled by the
charismatic leader and in doing her part for the cause, made the
classic film Triumph of the Will, a documentary of the 1934
Nuremberg rally. She went on to cover much of Germany’s activity
in World War II as a war correspondent and documentarian,
drawing criticism from many fronts due to her stated naiveté
about the nature of the concentration camps and other Nazi
atrocities. Despite being admired by many great filmmakers
(including Jean Cocteau) and publicly stating that she regretted
ever meeting Hitler, she was shunned by much of the international
film community and eventually gave up the frustrating battle to
get more pictures made.
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
However, Riefenstahl was not done. Taking a passionate interest

in the people and cultures of Africa, she became a master photogra-
pher, spending years documenting the lives of the Nuba people of
the Sudan. Her books with photographs of the tribe were published
in 1974 and 1976 as The Last of the Nuba and The People of Kau
and were both international bestsellers, and she received awards for
her photographic work. Finally, at age seventy-two, after lying about
her age to get scuba lessons, she took up underwater photography,
releasing books of underwater images in 1978 and 1990, and a doc-
umentary, Underwater Impressions, in 2002 on her 100th birthday.
After surviving a helicopter crash in the Sudan at age 97, this
extraordinary and controversial woman died in 2003, a few weeks
after her 101st birthday.
Technical mastery of one field would not have guaranteed

excellence in another; she needed to be the kind of woman
who could reinvent herself multiple times over eight decades.
Her mastery was the person she was, not what might have
been included in her résumé.
Set aside Leni Riefenstahl’s participation in the Nazi party; her

actual involvement will probably never be known and is not the sub-
ject of our discussion in this book. Look instead at her achievements.
She was a master in dance, acting, filmmaking, mountaineering, and
photography—each of which alone would define a life well-spent. Yet
she easily moved from one to another; as a door closed, she was busy
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prying open another and another. It was her spirit, vision, and stub-
born will to excel that made this possible, along with inborn creative
talent. Technical mastery of one field would not have guaranteed
excellence in another; she needed to be the kind of woman who could
reinvent herself multiple times over eight decades. Her mastery was
the person she was, not what might have been included in her résumé.
SIGNS AND SYMBOLS
How do you know that you have reached a level of excellence in

a field wherein you deserve to be regarded with the label “master?”
As with all things, there will be signs and symbols that reveal this
to you, if you have the clarity of perception to see and read them.
This is a basic fact of existence: God is always reaching into the cor-
poreal world with portents and signs in order to teach us, to show us
we are on the right track, or to inform us of a crucial turning point.
As Thomas Carlyle said, “The Universe is one vast symbol of God.”
Every journey is fraught with symbols and portents. The spiritually
learned will notice doors opening and circumstances pointing them
toward their highest purpose. The journey of mastery is no different;
you will encounter signs and portents along the road that will reveal
that you are on the way to mastering your skill.
Signs and symbols may be God’s way of pointing you toward
your destiny, but they may also be a means of testing your spiritual
maturity. Can you perceive the signs, both subtle and obvious? Can
you decipher their meaning? Can you distinguish a true Divine por-
tent from something that, while innocuous, may lead you astray?
Spiritual evolution is a critical aspect of mastery, and the system of
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
signs is God’s self-correcting way of ensuring only those who have

undergone the changes mastery demands gain the self-awareness to
call themselves masters. If you cannot see, you have not evolved.
If you know how to look for and read the signs, you will be
able to recognize when you reach the state of mastery, thus also
knowing when the time comes to move on to teaching others or
perhaps perfecting your abilities in another field. You will have a
guidebook to lead you on your path to mastery. You will, of course,
receive signs at every stage of your ten-thousand-hour journey.
However, the individual signs that reflect each person’s experience
in the near-infinite areas of expertise are so numerous they could
not possibly all be represented here. Instead, we shall focus on
those auguries that come when a person has ascended to the rari-
fied altitude of authentic excellence—or as great flautist James
Galway expresses it, “Mastery is indeed a complicated state.”
BREAKTHROUGHS
The ability to jump from one area of mastery to another with

equal success, as is discussed in the opening of this lesson, is one
of the signs that one is a true master. The next is a plentitude of
breakthroughs. As you progress to the level of mastery, you will
begin to experience spontaneous shifts in your thinking and
insights that seem to come from nowhere. These sudden flashes,
which are often referred to by self-improvement coaches as “aha!”
moments, represent the conscious manifestation of the unconscious
processing of your brain that may have been progressing without
your intervention for months or even years. As research has shown,
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perhaps ninety percent of mental activity is non-conscious, taking

place in areas of the neural network that are not even accessible
through normal conscious mentation, though some can be accessed
by experienced meditators. Apart from controlling the numerous
autonomic functions—respiration, heartbeat—on which we rely to
survive, the unconscious mind also conducts a massive “parallel
processing” operation during each second of each day, working
through the billions of bits of data our minds receive every minute.
We cannot see this mental machinery working; it remains invisi-
ble to the conscious, reasoning mind that is focused on decisions, acts
of will, deliberate analysis, and intention. Yet it proceeds apace, syn-
thesizing, inter-comparing, and analyzing an ocean of facts and
insights until it reaches conclusions—which then filter upward to our
conscious selves. It is at this point that we have a flash of creativity or
knowledge that changes the game by revealing a new invention, a
method for doing something that has never been attempted before, or
a creative idea such as a product name or a plot twist in a novel.
Such breakthroughs can even change history, as the one that hit
Cary Mullis, Ph.D., in 1985. A chemist working in molecular biol-
ogy to create processes to multiply DNA strands in vast quantities
for research, Mullis was struggling with the task until, as related by
Mark and Barbara Stefik in their book Breakthrough: Stories and
Strategies of Radical Innovation:
…Mullis was driving through the mountains north of San

Francisco with his girlfriend asleep in the car when it hit him.
He recognized that he could apply the polymerase reaction to
copy a sample of DNA. Then he realized that he could repeat the
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
action over and over again, doubling the DNA each time. Then
he realized that ten cycles would give him 1,024 copies, twenty
cycles would give him a million copies, and so on. Mullis later
received the Nobel Prize for his invention of the polymerase
chain reaction now used widely in molecular genetics.
In his description of the event, Mullis writes about how one
insight followed the next in a series of exciting revelations and the
potent Aha! experience. This rapid sequence of understandings is
the same pattern that many other inventors have described.
We cannot force breakthroughs to occur; they are the product

of our brains’ internal circuitry and the quantum processes that
underscore consciousness. But we can prepare our minds to func-
tion optimally in this way through the process of attaining mastery.
One reason the ten thousand hours are so critical is that this intense
time of practice and discovery floods the mind with fresh sensory
input and myriad facts, all of which the unconscious goes to work
processing. Over the years, as you continue to strive toward mastery,
more breakthroughs take shape in your subliminal (a term that means
“below the light,” or out of our field of vision) mind. Eventually,
when you reach a level of expertise that could be termed masterful,
breakthroughs bubble to the surface of your consciousness. These
reveal new truths and new paths you can follow to continue your
journey. If you are not having such breakthroughs, then you are not
exposing yourself aggressively enough to challenging information
and testing your developing skills.
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ENERGY
The next sign of mastery is a precious one: energy. when you

reach expertise, you will begin to enjoy a flow of nearly limitless
energy when practicing that which you have mastered. Many of the
elite in many pursuits, from writing to business, can attest to the fact
that when they reside in the center of their passion and have suffi-
cient skill and knowledge that they no longer have to spend their
mental energies on simple tasks, they can work seemingly endless
hours without fatigue.
This can be explained both in terms of logic and in terms of
spirit. As it pertains to logic, when you achieve mastery and cross
that invisible line separating student from master, you are no longer
exerting yourself trying to improve your technical abilities. This
frees your internal energies—including the bioelectrical impulses
that carry the stuff of conscious thought—to fuel your drive and
intention. Your energies re-channel from learning to performance.
Just as important, you become able to use your attention to work on
fine details, greater beauty or increased efficiency—refining what
you have learned. Such work is inherently joyous, and joyous work
causes virtually no drain on your energies.
The spiritual reason for this boundless energy is one of the
most sublime realities in the cosmos: When you embark on the
journey to mastery, you are also attempting to align yourself with
God’s intention for your future. As you learn, struggle, and fail, you
continue to create tension between your flawed state and the per-
fect harmony that exists when you are at the place that coincides
with God’s ultimate purpose for you. You battle this tension daily,
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
which exhausts some of your mental and physical energy. However,

when you finally reach mastery in that pursuit intended for you by
God, the tension ceases. People have compared this sublime state
to fighting the thunder of the waves to paddle a surfboard out into
the ocean, and then suddenly turning, catching a wave, and letting
its power carry them effortlessly to shore.
THE ZONE
Masters often find they push themselves further than they

thought possible, which can lead to a kind of hyper-learning state
that Ecological Intelligence author Daniel Goleman calls “flow”
and others call “the zone.” When a person is in “flow,” he or she is
completely absorbed by the task at hand. This absorption produces
a feeling of relaxation and even disconnection. The person may feel
that he or she is not actually controlling the actions, but rather merely
observing them. As Goleman writes, “That experience is a glorious
one: the hallmark of flow is a feeling of spontaneous joy, even
rapture.” Flow leaves no room for worry or even for thought. People
who are in flow may perform better than at any other time, but they
are not worried about whether or not that is true. They are simply
enjoying the task at hand. They are also so absorbed in their work
they may lose track of time or become unaware of what is going on
around them. As an example of this, Goleman relates the story of a
surgeon who, during a complicated operation, got so far into a
flow state that he did not notice when a portion of the ceiling
caved in. When the surgery was over, he was surprised to find a
pile of rubble on the floor.
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Flow can be cultivated. Deliberately focusing the attention on a

task is one way to get there. It may be hard to shut down the parts of
the brain that worry, and therefore interfere with concentration, but it
becomes easier with practice. Another way to encourage getting into
“the zone” is to attempt a task that is slightly beyond what you are
comfortable doing. A task that is too easy produces boredom, while a
task that is too challenging can bring about stress and anxiety. On the
delicate edge in between lies the sweet spot—flow.
Another way to encourage getting into “the zone” is to attempt

a task that is slightly beyond what you are comfortable doing.
A task that is too easy produces boredom, while a task that is
too challenging can bring about stress and anxiety.
Child chess prodigy Josh Waitzkin notes in The Art of Learning

that there are two kinds of concentration, what he calls the “hard
zone” and the “soft zone.” In the hard zone, a person is straining to
concentrate. He may have his fingers in his ears to block out distrac-
tions. His body is rigid with effort. In this kind of concentration, the
slightest distraction can break the train of thought and put him off
his game. But in the soft zone, the person is in flow.
Waitzkin illustrates the difference between the two approaches
with an Indian parable. In this story, a man wishes to cross a large
stretch of land that is covered with thorns. He has two possibilities.
He can pave over the whole thing with stones, forcing the world to
conform to his needs, or he can make himself a pair of sandals,
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
allowing him to do what he needs to do without transforming the

world around him. In the words of Ovid, “ Dripping water hollows
out stone, not through force but through persistence.” Paving is the
hard zone; making sandals is the soft zone.
You can imagine the infinite delight that comes with such a
state—the ease of working in perfect synchrony with Divine
intention. Everything becomes easier; tasks that were once ardu-
ous are now simple. If you do not experience this exultation, even
fleetingly, then mastery has yet to call upon you.
NOTORIETY
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow said, “Fame comes only when

deserved, and then is as inevitable as destiny, for it is destiny.” This
reflects the truth of this next sign: notoriety. Even if you do not
promote yourself (and the humility of the true master precludes
blatant self-promotion), when you achieve mastery, you will
become known. Either the manifestation of your performance—
art, writing, music, architecture—will speak for itself and you will
capture the attention of others, or you will create a spiritual cur-
rent that compels others to seek you out. Excellence has a way of
spreading; ask any blogger whose previously unknown work has
become famous overnight because his or her writing touched
thousands of people.
Notoriety, of course, can be both a blessing and a curse.
Typically, it only benefits the true master by offering him or her a
source of revenue for years of work. It is undeniable that if you gain
notoriety for your magnificence as a chef, your restaurant will be
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full, and if you become famous for your sculpture, galleries will
clamor to show your pieces and the cognoscenti will line up to buy
them. This cannot be discounted; we all need to make a living, and
money enables us to fulfill more of God’s vision. But notoriety
presents more of a test and potential trap than a blessing.
Witness the sordid story of Tiger Woods. The multi-racial golf
superstar had risen in no time to the pinnacle of his sport, serving
as a role model for young African-Americans who no longer saw
golf as a closed sport and becoming a cottage industry. He had the
world at his fingertips: wealth, fame, and a lovely family. And he
threw it all away in a barrage of adulterous, dishonorable, shame-
ful behavior driven by his ego. This is the trap of notoriety. When
years of hard work and sacrifice lead to elite performance, and
when that performance is recognized and lauded by others, we
can begin to believe we deserve the adulation. This flies in the
face of the humility that is the lifeblood of mastery. The products
of mastery—fame, money, influence, flattery—become more
important than the joys of mastery for its own sake. When this
occurs, we are in danger of losing everything.
On the other hand, some learn their lesson and discover how to
balance mastery and humility. Baseball great Rickey Henderson is
an example of this. Considered to be the greatest leadoff hitter of
all time, Henderson spent 22 years terrorizing pitchers with his
speed and power, breaking the existing stolen base record by nearly
500 steals. As great as his play was, he was equally famous for his
enormous ego. Henderson would frequently speak about himself in
grandiose, third-person statements, and when he broke Lou Brock’s
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
stolen base record, he said, "Lou Brock was the symbol of great base
stealing. But today, I’m the greatest of all time.” The public regarded
Henderson as a walking ego, an arrogant hot dog. So when he was
elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, anticipation was high for his
induction speech. Would he go on about how “Rickey was the great-
est” and continue to exercise his ego? No one knew what to expect.
In July 2009, the Henderson who took the podium shocked the
crowd by being grateful and humble. He concluded by saying, “In
closing, I would like to say my favorite hero was Muhammad Ali.
He said at one time, ‘I am the greatest.’ That is something I always
wanted to be. And now that the Association has voted me into the
Baseball Hall of Fame, my journey as a player is complete. I am
now in the class of the greatest players of all time. And at this
moment, I am...very, very humble. Thank you.”
Masters manage their notoriety without being seduced by it. In
fact, true masters often ignore it altogether, preferring instead to
focus their attention on continuing to progress in the development
of their skills and understanding.
RESTLESSNESS
Thomas Edison, a master of many, many areas of endeavor, once

remarked, “Restlessness is discontent and discontent is the first
necessity of progress. Show me a thoroughly satisfied man and I
will show you a failure.” Endless restlessness with what you know
and do not know is another sign that you are in mastery. When you
are working through those ten thousand hours to become an expert
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in computer programming, design, archery, or bricklaying, there is

always more to learn. Your mind is forever stimulated by an influx
of new information and new demands on your brain, motor skills
and insight. You may be frustrated, but you are rarely bored. What’s
more, you are intensely intrigued by the conventional wisdom of
your discipline because to you, it is still challenging.
However, as you proceed toward mastery, you will become

hungry for more and more knowledge, restless for that
which conventional wisdom cannot teach you.
However, as you proceed toward mastery, you will become

hungry for more and more knowledge, restless for that which con-
ventional wisdom cannot teach you. As you reach the point where
you have learned most of what there is to be learned in your field,
you will gaze about you for what comes next and find…nothing.
At this point, your mind, now highly trained and keenly observant
in your field, will begin asking “why.” Why can this not be done
differently? Why has no one come up with a better way? Why did
my teachers choose to teach me in that way?
“Why?” is the ultimate question for the student of mastery.
When you are learning your skill, you are preoccupied with more
elemental questions: how to execute a certain martial arts move,
when to remove a piece of blown glass from the fire, where to find a
piece of information for your book, what distance to run in training
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
for a marathon. These are the questions of the student. Masters may
still ask them, but the master’s mind is centered on questions of
purpose, meaning and reason—why questions.
To answer the boredom that can accompany mastery, and to
begin uncovering the “why” behind what you do, your mind and
spirit will inflict restlessness on you, a nervous state that drives you
to seek and discover the novel and challenging. This is a healthy
state, because from restlessness comes innovation and “Eureka!”
moments. If you do not find this restlessness, it is because you are
not thinking about the “why” behind your journey. You are settling
for technical skills or simple knowledge without a sense of meaning
behind them.
THE APPEARANCE OF STUDENTS
You are doubtless familiar with the Buddhist proverb, “When

the student is ready, the teacher will appear.” The inverse is also
true. When the teacher is ready, the students will appear. The final
Divine sign or symbol on the road to mastery is the appearance of
student in your life who wish to learn what you have learned and
accept your guidance on their own journey to mastery.
When you have achieved both technical mastery and the humility
and desire to serve that accompany it, your spiritual vibrations will
attract those who are ordained by God to respond to it and students
will materialize. You will not have to advertise for them; they will
appear and ask you to teach them. This is what is known as the
“chain of mastery,” in which the coach, sifu, or mentor passes on
what he or she has learned to a new generation of seekers. This is a
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solemn responsibility, because in making the transition from student

to teacher, you become an instrument of God. Think about it: your
knowledge has pulled to you those who feel Divine intention acting
upon their spirits, and they come to you in order to take the next step
in fulfilling their own Divine destinies, just as you once sought
instruction to fulfill yours. When you accept the role of teacher, you
are a surrogate for the Almighty.
If you have reached what you believe is mastery and are not
receiving the attention of students, there can be many reasons. One
is that you have actually not yet achieved the technical mastery
necessary to teach others and must continue working. Another is
that you lack the humility to share what you know; you are teaching
to receive honor yourself, rather than to serve your students. History
is replete with stories of egotistical, unbalanced and even dangerous
instructors whose primary objective was to command the obedience
of their pupils (and continue to receive their money) rather than to
teach mastery for its own sake from a place of humility and grati-
tude. Remember, a true master and teacher is grateful above all else:
for the gifts of God, for the opportunity to take his place in the chain
of mastery, and for the devotion and tolerance of his students as he
learns what it means to teach. For the true state of mastery will
remind you that you are always a student.
SPIRITUAL MASTERY
Mastery, the point of ten thousand hours, is merely the point

where you can begin true learning, which is creation and synthesis.
Remember that you are in the act of becoming; what you master
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
will become who you are. You will be an entrepreneur, a black belt,
a fluent speaker of Russian, or a violin virtuoso. Mastery is the
redefinition of the Self.
The signs of mastery are also the signs of spiritual growth and
new awareness. This is the reason mastery is at its core a spiritual
experience—it is about the transfiguration of body, mind, and
spirit. As you mature in spirit, your ability to see and read the
signs of mastery will increase. And as you follow those signs to
further mastery, you will reach new levels of spiritual maturity and
understanding. Regardless of the area in which your mastery
comes, as a pastor and deliverer of sermons, a chess player, a
winemaker, or a teacher, you will inspire some, teach others, and
help further the Divine design that resides at the core of Creation.
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8
Lesson 8
THE PAIN OF MASTERY
“Wisdom does not show itself so much in precept as in life - in firm-

ness of mind and a mastery of appetite. It teaches us to do as well
as to talk; and to make our words and actions all of a color.”
—Seneca
In his book Satchel, author Larry Tye writes of the legendary

Negro League baseball pioneer and Hall of Fame pitcher Leroy
“Satchel” Paige:
Satchel had never had much of a home. He fled Mobile, a

reminder of his segregated and impoverished lineage, as soon as
he was able. He barely unpacked in Chattanooga and
Birmingham, Baltimore and Cleveland. Pittsburgh was some-
where to deposit his clothes, his car, and his wife. Ciudad
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
Trujillo, Guayama, and Bismarck were vitalizing while they

lasted and spawned tales that lasted him forever, but they were
not cities he could or would return to. He had always been a
nomad but now he was looking for a safe place to linger.
Paige was the premier showman in black baseball from the

1920s to the 1950s, and one of the greatest pitchers of all time. He
was also an inveterate barnstormer, a player who would travel at a
moment’s notice to any town and play with any group of ballplayers
against any opponent in order to collect a paycheck. Satchel knew
he was a great and entertaining pitcher, and at the peak of his pop-
ularity he was earning double the amount earned by the great New
York Yankee, Joe DiMaggio.
However, Paige was also lonely and misunderstood. His endless
days on the road were wearying, and his habit of disregarding the
contracts he had signed with various Negro League teams made him
numerous enemies. Most of all, he felt that as the unquestioned
finest African-American pitcher of the first half of the twentieth
century, he should have been accorded the honor that instead went
to Jackie Robinson: becoming the first black player to break the
color barrier and play in the Major Leagues. Paige never overcame
his bitterness at being, as he saw it, forgotten and underappreciated
by the black players who came after him.
The marvelous and colorful story of Satchel Paige is but one
example of the pain that can accompany mastery. His genius exhib-
ited itself early, and part of that genius was to defy the system of
black baseball at the time. His incredible talent and ability to pack
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a stadium with ten times the fans it normally drew allowed him the
latitude to flout contracts and tradition, and he pitched more than
five thousand games in his long career. But he paid the price in
loneliness, and in being seen as too bold and colorful for the con-
servative major leagues. In part, what made him a genius—a master
of his craft—was what alienated him and condemned him to a life
of feeling like an outsider from the world he so badly wanted to join.
Mastery is often accompanied by pain.
The journey toward mastery and the ensuing position of
being an elite expert in a field are often misunderstood by those
who do not seek mastery, themselves. Masters are frequently
shunned by the societies in which they live; they occupy a place
outside of the mainstream and do not conform to their culture’s
standards or expectations, which in most societies tend to focus
on the accumulation of material goals and material wealth. But
mastery is inherently immaterial, which puts it at odds with the
pursuit of money and possessions. As we know from experience
with many cultures, those who lie outside the accepted confines
of behavior and values are often regarded with xenophobia, “fear
of the foreign.”
There is a widely discussed reason for this, based on so-called
“terror theory,” a psychological theory developed by Skidmore
College psychology professor Sheldon Solomon, University of
Arizona psychology professor Jeff Greenberg, and Colorado
University at Colorado Springs psychology professor Tom
Pyszczynski. Terror theory deals with the sometimes-crippling
emotional reactions some individuals have when confronted with
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
the certainty of human mortality. According to this theory, the cul-

tural worldview held by an individual is a “symbolic protector” that
acts as a buffer between life and the reality of death. This is why
people endeavor to have their worldview confirmed by others and
struggle with such vehemence against those who do not share their
views on politics or religion.
People who do not comprehend why mastery holds such

meaning for those who pursue it can start to question the
meaning of their own lives and the purpose that animates
them. In such circumstances, it becomes easier to make the
would-be master an outcast than to admit that one’s own
priorities might be misplaced.
In this dynamic, a world view that is utterly opposed to the views

of the majority can provoke the majority to devalue the importance
of the minority worldview and shun or find conflict with the person
or people who hold it. In the case of mastery, someone who has
imbued the achievement of mastery in art, science, athletics, or
craftsmanship with a level of meaning that exceeds that of more typ-
ical pursuits, such as gaining wealth, can become an existential
threat to people who hold more common values. People who do not
comprehend why mastery holds such meaning for those who pursue
it can start to question the meaning of their own lives and the purpose
that animates them. In such circumstances, it becomes easier to
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make the would-be master an outcast than to admit that one’s own
priorities might be misplaced.
Another reason geniuses and masters of all stripes have his-
torically been separate from acceptable mainstream society is as
old as the Bible: envy. As the first century Greek philosopher
Onasander wrote, “Envy is a pain of mind that successful men
cause their neighbors.” Watching someone pursue true mastery,
with all the dedication, discipline and passion that such a pursuit
requires, is humiliating to those who see their own failures
brought into sharp relief by the light of your excellence. He who
has never had the will to become fit and run a marathon will often
loathe the neighbor who is able to do such a thing because the
non-marathoner feels diminished. Great artists, musicians, and
entrepreneurs throughout history have been beset by small men
who felt their own lives were diminished by accomplishments
they should have celebrated.
THE AGONY OF “RADICAL MASTERY”
Of course, not all masters are cast out by their societies; if that
were the case, then few would pay the price to pursue mastery. But
there are many other types of pain that can be intertwined with the
quest for perfection:
• Isolation from social circles uninterested in your field of study

• Poverty
• Ridicule
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
• Legal action, arrest, or imprisonment

• Illness due to the fatigue involved in relentless study
• Estrangement from family and friends
Again, not all masters experience such pains, but many do. The
sacrifices involved in investing ten thousand hours into developing
exquisite technique and awareness of an intricate skill guarantee the
master-to-be will be forced to spend less time with loved ones, who
may be resentful. However, many masters find that the pains of self-
imposed separation from society or penury are worthwhile when
they reach the rarified plateau of elite skill, particularly if their field
leads to a substantial financial reward, as with Bill Gates, or power-
ful social or political influence, as with Dr. King.
However, when an individual practices “radical mastery,” in
which he or she pursues a course of action that challenges or
contradicts established conventional wisdom, he or she is far
more likely to be subject to painful punishment from society in
the form of ridicule, loss of employment, or even prosecution.
Transcendent masters are often rejected by the society they purport
to serve with their genius, only receiving their due after their death
when the work is finally given consideration. This is not just, but
mastery has nothing to do with justice. It is about the fulfillment of
God’s purpose for each individual regardless of the consequences.
Oscar Wilde was not only one of the great comedic play-
wrights of the latter half of the nineteenth century, but one of its
most trenchant wits and social commentators, as well. Author of
plays like The Importance of Being Earnest and of eternal witti-
— 182 —
cisms such as, “The only thing worse than being talked about is
not being talked about,” Wilde was a brilliant writer and observer
of England’s culture. He was also homosexual at a time when
homosexuality was illegal, and an open admirer of the Roman
Catholic Church at a time when the best thing an Englishman
could say about a Catholic was that he was a “papist bastard.”
When Wilde’s novel The Portrait of Dorian Gray was published in
1891, the reaction of his critics was hysterical. One reviewer vili-
fied the book, which took Wilde’s typical delight in shattering
English social mores, and condemned it as “a poisonous book full
of moral and spiritual putrefaction which constantly hints, not
obscurely, at disgusting sins and abominable crimes.” Near the end
of his life, in 1895, Wilde was imprisoned, ostensibly for an affair
with a younger man, but his trial and decided guilt were as much
a matter of his relentless criticism of English society as his openly
gay lifestyle.
Galileo Galilei was perhaps one of the best examples of a per-
secuted genius. Born in sixteenth century Italy, he became a superb
physicist, mathematician, and astronomer. Stephen Hawking has
said, “Galileo, perhaps more than any other single person, was
responsible for the birth of modern science.” But Galileo’s most
brilliant and earth-shaking revelation also ruined his life. In 1616, at
a time when the all-powerful Catholic Church and most scholars
believed in the geocentric theory that the earth was at the center of
the universe, Galileo supported and defended the ideas of
Copernicus, who said observation and mathematical calculations
proved that the earth was simply a planet orbiting the sun. Despite
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
being correct, Galileo was forced by church officials to “abjure,

curse and detest” his opinion and found “vehemently suspect of
heresy.” In the end, he was forced to spend the rest of his life under
house arrest at his villa near Florence.
It would appear part of mastery is accepting that you can

expect to suffer in some way in pursuit of your greatness,
and also accepting that this suffering will prove to be for
the greater good. In fact, we could go so far to say that
the suffering and pain a student of mastery experiences
directly correlates to the purity and quality of his course
toward mastery!
For a more contemporary example, scientists Stanley Pons

and Martin Fleischmann announced in 1989 that they had suc-
cessfully produced what was then known as “cold fusion”: a
process that could, in theory, produce limitless energy using the
same type of nuclear reaction that powers the sun, but without the
massive heat and nuclear fuel. Fusion has been the Holy Grail of
energy physicists for many years, and the initial response to the
news was thrilling. However, when other scientists could not
replicate the results of Pons and Fleischmann, and several exper-
imental errors were found that could explain their results, the
mood of the scientific community turned dark. Pons and
Fleischmann were ridiculed and the field of cold fusion came to
be regarded as a “pathological science”; that is, a field that would
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not die despite never producing positive results. However,

research continues into this supposedly dead field, including
work by the U.S. Navy. Today, the two scientists have relocated to
France to continue their work away from the scorn of U.S.
researchers.
All these individuals were masters in their fields, among the
elite or pioneers in their chosen disciplines. But their passion
drove them to defy the dominant culture of their times, and they
paid the price in various ways. It would appear part of mastery is
accepting that you can expect to suffer in some way in pursuit of
your greatness, and also accepting that this suffering will prove to
be for the greater good. In fact, we could go so far to say that the
suffering and pain a student of mastery experiences directly cor-
relates to the purity and quality of his course toward mastery! This
is a controversial statement and impossible to prove, but it may be
that one can assess one’s progress toward becoming a master
according to the level of suffering one experiences. The more you
challenge the status quo and set out into radical territory, the
greater your progress toward mastery, but the more you will likely
be censured or punished by others.
THE PAIN OF FAILURE
Perhaps the most common pain anyone who seeks mastery

will experience is the pain of failure. It is a fact of life that the
only person who never fails is the one who never tries. Failure is
an inherent part of the learning process; indeed, we are likely to
learn more from our failures than from our successes. Emerson
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
wrote, “He has not learned the lesson of life who does not every
day surmount a fear,” and the fear of failing may be the most
common fear of all. Yet, as integral as the risk and mental exer-
cise of failure is to eventual success, it also comes with personal
recrimination, a fear of time wasted, doubts, and even the risk of
squandering financial resources on lessons or equipment. It is no
wonder the terror of failure can stop some students dead in their
tracks before they ever embark on their journeys.
Most people have been conditioned to fear failure, especially if
others might witness it. The mockery or criticism of others can be a
strong deterrent to future learning. Nonetheless, it is the person who
takes the risk who merits respect. In a speech given in 1910, Teddy
Roosevelt said:
It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how
the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have
done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the
arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who
strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again,
because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who
knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends
himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end,
the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he
fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall
never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither
victory nor defeat.
— 186 —
Vital though it is to learning, the fear of failure is not something

a person can put aside easily, even when it may be irrational. In their
book Nurture Shock, Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman discuss the
surprising neurobehavioral finding that telling children they are
smart actually impairs their learning and development by making
them shy away from trying the unfamiliar out of the fear of failure,
because failure will mean they will not receive future praise for
being “smart.” In detailing what they call the “inverse power of
praise,” the authors reference psychologist Dr. Carol Dweck and
her work comparing the performance of schoolchildren who were
praised for their intelligence and those praised for effort. The
children praised for hard work notably outperformed the “smart”
children by a substantial margin. Regarding Dweck’s research, the
authors write:
Dweck had suspected that praise could backfire, but even she
was surprised by the magnitude of the effect. “Emphasizing
effort gives a child a variable they can control,” she explains.
“They come to see themselves as in control of their success.
Emphasizing natural intelligence takes it out of the child’s con-
trol, and it provides no good recipe for responding to a failure.”
Such fears can impair the dedication to rigorous learning that

leads to mastery and even to the basic learning that is necessary to
function in daily life. The Brazilian teacher Paulo Freire spent his
life in study and in teaching literacy to the poorest laborers. Both in
his own experience and even more in those of his students, study
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
and learning presented great difficulties. As Freire notes in his book

Teachers as Cultural Workers: Letters to Those Who Dare to Teach:
There is always a relationship between fear and difficulty…The

issue here is not denying fear…The issue is not allowing that
fear to paralyze us, not allowing that fear to persuade us to quit,
to face a challenging situation without an effort, without a
fight…One of the most dreadful mistakes we can possibly
make…is to retreat before the first obstacle we face. Such a
retreat makes the mistake of not accepting the responsibility
presented by the task…to those who must complete it.
One of the most extreme examples of a person taking this advice

to heart is that of the novelist John Banville. When asked by an
interviewer if he liked his own books, the author replied, “No. I hate
them all. With a deep, abiding hatred. And embarrassment. I have
this fantasy that I’m walking past Brentano’s [bookstore] or wher-
ever and I click my fingers and all my books on the shelves go
blank. And then I can start again and get it right. I hate them all.
They’re all so far below what I had hoped they would be. And yet
one goes on. Here I am starting a new book.”
Banville’s hatred for his own work reflects a common fear
among people who dedicate themselves to the pursuit of excellence.
To overcome the fear of not living up to one’s own standards
requires persistence. Another writer, Tobias Wolff, remarked:
Everything I’ve written…has seemed to me, at one point or

another, something I probably ought to abandon. Even the best
— 188 —
things I’ve written have seemed to me at some point very unlike-

ly to be worth the effort I had already put into them. But I know
I have to push through. Sometimes when I get to the end it still
won’t be that great, but at least I will have finished it. For me,
it’s more important to keep the discipline of finishing things
than to be assured at every moment that it’s worth doing.
In The Writing Life, Annie Dillard recounts a conversation she

had with a neighbor. She had asked him how his painting was going,
and in answer he told her a story about another resident of their
remote island. It seems everyone on this island scavenged driftwood
because building materials were scarce and expensive to import.
One evening, a man noticed a good log floating just off shore. The
high tide had just turned, but the man did not want the log to get
away, so he took his rowboat and went after it. He chained the log
to his boat and started rowing for home, but the tide had turned and
it swept him and the log away from shore, out past the end of the
island. All this time the man was rowing for home, but moving away
from it.
In the middle of the night, the tide finally turned and pushed
him toward home again. Between his rowing and the tide’s current,
he reached home just at first light. Asked about it later, the man said
he had a bit of a backache, but he didn’t volunteer to show his
hands, either. That, said Dillard’s friend, was how his painting was
going: “The current’s got me. Feels like I’m about in the middle of
the channel now. I just keep at it. I just keep hoping the tide will turn
and bring me in.” Just as this painter persisted even as he felt he was
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
failing, the student must persist through plateaus in his or her

advancement.
The other side of this experience is that of having tried to
advance too quickly and gotten in over one’s head. This failure is not
one of skill, but rather an overabundance of enthusiasm. The nine-
teenth century English artist Sir Joshua Reynolds, in a speech to a
group of students, said that effort exceeded methodic study in
improving a student’s art:
By leaving a student to himself, he may possibly indeed be led

to undertake matters above his strength: but the trial will at least
have this advantage, it will discover to himself his own deficien-
cies; and this discovery alone, is a very considerable acquisition.
Failure—facing it, managing it, and overcoming it to press on

with learning—is a core aspect of the experience of mastery. It may
in fact be the essence of the journey. Failure remains God’s and
nature’s greatest classroom, the source of our self-discovery as well as
our determination, and the laboratory in which new ideas are tested.
NO CHOICE
But now we must ask the obvious question: if mastery usually

involves pain, why pursue it? Why not settle for a less perilous life
of mediocrity? To be sure, some individuals do. But they are not the
ones who become our great leaders or perspective-shattering cre-
ative minds, our world-changing theologians or star athletes. But as
we discussed earlier, the rewards of such endeavors are not certain;
— 190 —
many masters become pariahs or victims of violence. The simple

explanation to the question of why anyone would choose painful
mastery over easy mediocrity is that the true student of mastery has
little or no choice in the matter. To pursue this path is less a decision
than it is a compulsion or holy mission.
It is not uncommon to hear those who have spent decades in the
act of pursuing a field of study insisting they “had no choice.”
These individuals are motivated by passion, which, as we have seen,
is a word that translates as “suffering.” To follow your passion, you
will suffer, and that is what this chapter is about. What separates
those who achieve mastery from those who settle for what Thoreau
called lives of “quiet desperation” is that masters are willing to be
guided by the voice of their passion; they allow it to become a cur-
rent that pulls them away from the mundane, and toward excellence.
To follow your passion, you will suffer, and that is what this
chapter is about. What separates those who achieve mastery
from those who settle for what Thoreau called lives of “quiet
desperation” is that masters are willing to be guided by the
voice of their passion; they allow it to become a current that
pulls them away from the mundane, and toward excellence.
The source of this passion is God. A passionate drive to fol-

low a course of discovery has no basis in biology or in upbring-
ing; the children of fourth-generation attorneys might choose to
become musicians or other creative artists even though no one in
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
their lineage has ever shown a hint of creative talent. Why?

Because God placed the seed of this intense compulsion in their
spirits at conception, knowing that it would lead them to a path
that served His purposes. This is why when we are fully in the
place of our passion, time, pain and cost do not matter. We can
work for hours or days without rest and feel as fresh at the end as
we did at the beginning. Passion is a conduit for tapping into a
reservoir of Divine energy.
With this in mind, you can perhaps see how the surrender of the
self that accompanies such passion can leave some people uneasy,
even frightened. It is unnerving to find oneself in thrall to impulses
and drives that seem to have no rational starting point; Americans
are not a people comfortable with revelation, nor with surrendering
control of our perceived independence. We place great importance
on the things of this world—things that require time and work to
acquire—without considering that the best way to acquire the
material comforts we want is not directly but indirectly—even acci-
dentally—through the development of our passions.
Still, this loss of command over volition can be disturbing to
some. They wonder, where is their interest in other things? Are
they no longer balanced individuals? Those who fear the implica-
tions of mastery frequently lament that they fear they will be
forced to give up their careers and their livelihoods in order to give
in to this all-consuming quest for passionate excellence. Indeed,
that is sometimes the case. But it need not be. The ability and the
necessity to balance the force of passion with the practicalities of life
varies with each person, as well as with each person’s Divine calling.
— 192 —
For some, mastery may mean turning away from an established

career—or even an established life—to attend law school, travel to
a distant country, or immerse in intensive study at a retreat or
spiritual center. For others, the passion that drives mastery can
co-exist with the needs of daily life. Every individual with a deep
and acknowledged passion must wrestle with this balance, keep-
ing in mind that the ultimate end of passion is not to serve the
Self, but God.
Because the passion and purpose of mastery plug you into a
powerful cosmic energy source that often leaves you little choice
but to surrender, many people pursue mastery at a younger age. This
is for the most prosaic of reasons: they have fewer connections to
sever, fewer established relationships to overturn. It is easier to give
up everything to travel to China and study kung fu with the Shaolin
masters when you are twenty-three and have no one depending on
you than it is when you are forty-three and have a spouse, children,
and a mortgage.
However, in the end, what determines whether you give yourself
to your passion and dare the pain and sacrifice of mastery will be
whether you are serving God with your mastery. Remember that the
pursuit of excellence exists to lead you through the evolutionary
door God has ordained for you so you can become the person He
had in mind before you were born. If you have this purpose fore-
most in mind when you weigh the pros and cons of the price of
mastery, you will feel pride and faith in your surrender of Self and
joy in giving yourself over to your purpose. If you are serving God,
you will know you are on the right path.
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
On the other hand, if you wish to become a master only to gain

wealth or influence or to support your own ego, then you will feel
disconnection and fear. Fear of failure. Fear of loss of what you have
today. Fear of ridicule. Fear of impoverishment. Fear of losing years
to the wrong decision. Examine your fear, or lack thereof, and you
will always know if you are on the right road.
HEALING THE PAIN
The remedies for the pain of mastery are not the remedies we
apply to woes of the material world. When something causes us
discomfort or anguish in our daily lives, we avoid it. When an
exercise at the gym results in a sore shoulder, we find a different
exercise. When the prospect of meeting an ex-lover stirs up
painful emotions, we avoid the meeting. But this is not the logic
of the spiritual world, and mastery is at its heart an adventure of
spirit. Avoiding the passion and pain of the mastery calling we all
feel in our hearts is the path to misery and desolation—a life of
purposelessness.
The greatest agony of mastery is that of passion suppressed.
The world is filled with people who, at one point in their pasts,
confronted their fiery, consuming need to follow a certain path—
as a politician, perhaps, or a minister, or an inventor—and turned
away from it, usually because it was “not practical.” Have you
taken the time to notice the spiritual energy of these “compro-
misers?” There is a reason “miser,” defined as “one who lives
meagerly to hoard money,” is the latter half of the word: those
— 194 —
who compromise their deepest God-given passions in order to

take the safer road live meager lives and have meager spirits.
They often despise what they have ended up with and angrily
regret having passed by their opportunities to live a spiritually
rewarding, but possibly more financially difficult, life.
Compared to a lifetime of regret and separation from God’s
purpose, the pain of potential temporary failures—or any of the
other pains inflicted by society upon those who pursue mastery—
seem insignificant. The exaltation of plugging into your “passion
source” for a brief time, followed by the severance from that
source perhaps for the rest of your days, is a far worse agony than
never knowing passion at all! So, in effect, the surest way to blunt
the pain of mastery is to reside so completely in that zone of God’s
purpose that the lesser pains inflicted by the journey simply do not
matter. Any pain of separation from others, financial difficulty, or
scorn from those who do not understand your intentions will be
more than offset by the power and exhilaration you experience as
you draw ever-closer to your goal.
Only two percent of God’s family of more than six billion
humans currently living in this world will ever brave the trials that
come with mastery in order to reap the greater rewards of living a
life of energy, meaning, and purpose. Clearly, they will find the
price worth paying. Will you?
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9
Lesson 9
THE DAO OF MASTERY
“The birth of the new constitutes a crisis, and its mastery calls for
a crude and simple cast of mind—the mind of a fighter—in which
the virtues of tribal cohesion and fierceness and infantile credulity
and malleability are paramount. Thus every new beginning recapit-
ulates in some degree man’s first beginning.” — Eric Hoffer
The Confucian concept of the Dao, or Tao, means “way” or “path”

in some translations, but more revealingly, it also translates as “fun-
damental or true nature of the world.” When we examine the nature
of the world as it relates to mastery, we see that behind the entire
panorama of mastery and its pursuit looms the inherent dynamic in
which the new is subject to suspicion, intellectual violence, and
sanction. The Dao of mastery is the tension between the seeking
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
master and the surrounding world as he or she stretches limits, tests

conventional wisdom, and shakes the comfortable delusions of
some individuals.
The essence of this tension was the journey of Jesus. The core
of his work as a teacher and leader was the upsetting of the norms
of his Roman-dominated Jewish society, and to his disciplines
(those who receive discipline from a master) he imparted wisdom
guiding them toward the risk taking and escape from comfortable
self-deceptions that led to the transformation of his time period. The
earthly experience of Jesus was a study in the tension between
power and responsibility, teaching peace and inviting conflict, exer-
cising one’s will and submitting to the purpose of God.
Of all the teachers in the history of the world, it is Jesus who has
influenced the most people and provided the greatest and clearest
lessons. As the Son of God, Jesus knew all he needed to know about
his role on Earth and God’s plan for humankind. This did not lead
him to be lazy or complacent, however. Although he did not need to
practice his art of preaching in order to improve, over the course of
his three-year ministry on Earth, he spoke frequently in public to
large crowds and small gatherings. He did so because while his tran-
scendent spiritual nature granted him the mind and power to speak
truths no other man could utter, Jesus needed to train his listeners
in discipleship and teach them how to hear what he was saying.
He was both an authoritative leader who spoke absolute truths
to his students and someone who devoted himself to serving them
and ensuring their spiritual well-being. In John 13:13-15, Jesus says
to his disciples:
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Ye call me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am. If I

then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, ye also ought
to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example that
ye should do as I have done to you. (King James Version)
Jesus had greater powers over the physical world than did per-
haps any other master of any discipline, yet he chose to use them
only in ways that served the understanding of those around him.
What good is physical spectacle when it does not enhance the stu-
dent’s understanding of the underlying personal transformation?
When Jesus wandered the desert for forty days, the Devil tempted
him to use his Divine power for his own good, appealing first to his
animal appetite for food and then to his human vanity, which leads
to the hunger for power. But Jesus was able to reject the Devil’s
temptation. Even while enduring the most horrendously painful
death imaginable, Jesus did not yield to the temptation to misuse his
mastery. Luke 23:35-37 reports:
And the rulers also with them derided him, saying, He saved
others; let him save himself, if he be Christ, the chosen of
God. And the soldiers also mocked him, coming to him, and
offering him vinegar, and saying, If thou be the king of the
Jews, save thyself.
How many of us could resist so much temptation to not just

escape physical suffering, but also to force our persecutors to eat
their own words? Is that not the secret wish of everyone who has felt
unjustly accused or belittled? The master who wishes to be a teacher
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
must keep the example of Christ ever before him and be forever
alert for signs of vanity and pride in his behavior and thoughts.
Jesus led by example as well as by precept. As a skilled crafts-
man, he had a profitable trade that would have provided a comfort-
able life and allowed him to enjoy the pleasures of marriage and
family, but when he demanded that his followers give up everything
to follow him, he, too, gave up all of his possessions and left behind
his family to travel and live with his disciples. Even before he
demanded that his disciples give up these things, he had eschewed
them himself.
Jesus also recognized the flaws of his students and worked
patiently to correct them. For example, the other disciples were
upset with James and John—who sounded more like political
cronies seeking appointments than humble students and seekers—
when they asked for special places in God’s Kingdom. Jesus could
have been offended by their crassness; he could have pointed out to
them that they were missing the gist of everything he had been
teaching. In doing so, he would have satisfied the outrage of his
other students and alienated James and John, perhaps forever.
Instead, he helped them understand the root of their question and
acknowledge why it was not appropriate. He turned what could have
been a conflict into an effective lesson that healed the divisions
among his followers.
Jesus had spent his life in a carpenter’s shop, working among
and interacting with common people, so he knew how to use the
incidents and events of everyday life to make his points in ways
his students could understand. This kind of teaching is called
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apperception, which means using the familiar as a springboard

to teach the unfamiliar. Jesus was also very skilled at crafting
stories that would both entertain and instruct. Parables are an
invitational way to teach; they offer a lesson in a nonthreatening
way and provide a pathway for people to see things in a new light
by appealing to our innate attraction to narrative. This is why
people will throw away a pamphlet filled with facts and figures,
but will then stop to read one that tells personal stories, even if
the two pamphlets are for the same cause. Parables connect infor-
mation to human experiences and concerns.
Parables are an invitational way to teach; they offer a lesson

in a nonthreatening way and provide a pathway for people
to see things in a new light by appealing to our innate
attraction to narrative.
Tension enters into Jesus’ teachings in many of the short, mem-

orable sayings he used to illustrate key ideas. Many of these, still
in common use today, are subversive of the traditional order of the
day. Examples are, “Let the dead bury the dead,” and “Love your
enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” These types of
easy-to-remember sayings are similar to proverbs such as “A stitch
in time saves nine,” but they counter the conventional wisdom of
the day rather than support it.
Jesus was a master at creating memes, self-contained units of
cultural awareness that are passed on through generations by behav-
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
ioral transmission. A meme can be an aphorism or a habit, such as

knocking on wood, and it passes along cultural information in the
same way genes pass physical information. They can be infectious,
just as viruses are infectious bits of genetic code. Memes have great
power to erode existing ideas that lack a strong foundation of values
and that don’t benefit others. A good example would be the phrase
“reduce, reuse, recycle,” which was coined for Earth Day, the first
of which occurred in 1970. Derided by industry as another “tree
hugger” slogan, it has persisted through two generations to become
a hallmark of the environmental movement. Although today’s mas-
ters cannot hope to come close to Jesus’ skill in crafting memorable
bits of instruction, the method remains a powerful and disruptive
teaching tool.
Jesus understood the importance of provoking tension and
disquiet in his students as a means of encouraging intense intro-
spection and learning. He used questions as a way to stimulate
thought in his listeners. In this way his style was similar to the
Socratic method in which the teacher asks a question and then
guides the student through his initially incorrect answers until he
reaches the right one. For Jesus, the question/answer process
sometimes followed the Socratic pattern, but at other times he
would use a rhetorical question to lead into a lesson. The question
served as a doorway through which he could guide the student.
Example: when the Pharisees and Scribes were upset that Jesus
would eat dinner with sinners, he asked them whether a shepherd,
finding all of his sheep safe except for one, would not go in
search of the lost sheep.
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Finally, Jesus believed passionately in what he was teaching. He

had no doubts about the rightness of his work or his calling. Even in
Gethsemane, when he wished he could avoid the pain he knew was
coming, he accepted his role and his purpose and trusted God to
lead him through it. It is sometimes hard to see how passionate
Jesus was in his teaching. Other than his display of anger at the
moneychangers in the Temple, he behaved in a very self-possessed
and controlled way. It is only in the tone of his words that the
urgency of his message and his awareness of the brevity of his time
to achieve his goal shines through.
Jesus’ pacific presentation should not mislead. Rather than
indiscriminately expending his physical and emotional strength, he
stored up his emotions to be used in a focused and deliberate way.
Through the Gospels, we can see clearly that the essential tension of
mastery also exists between the master and his students. The most
obvious duty of the student, once he or she has accepted a place
with a master, is to fully accept the master’s authoritative role. This
requires careful consideration, trust, and—once the commitment
has been made—total obedience and acceptance by the pupil.
Another frequently overlooked characteristic of discipleship is that
it is a community experience. The disciples did not live alone and
study apart from their brothers; they lived communally and attended
Jesus’ lessons together. In this way they not only learned from
Jesus’ teachings but from one another’s failures and strengths, and
from their own conflicts and tensions (of which there were many
during the three years of Jesus’ ministry).
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
Finally, there is the tension between the demands of mastery and

the outside world. There is always a push-pull between the needs of
family, friends, work, and society and the pure, single-minded pursuit
of excellence. Jesus told his followers that they had to leave their
homes and families to follow him. One way of reading this lesson is
that in order to advance, we must leave behind the comfortable and
the familiar. Our homes are our safety zones. When we are far from
home we feel uneasy. Yet without enduring the discomfort of the new,
we cannot learn. It is only by venturing out into the unknown—court-
ing the tension—that we progress.
A NEW SELF
The tension that characterizes the journey to mastery rises to

the surface in the necessary self-transfiguration of the would-be
master. A new self must emerge as the ten thousand hours tick
away, and this new self will often be in conflict with the people
and obligations in the student’s life prior to mastery. In accordance
with this, as you continue your journey you must look to the devel-
opment of three crucial qualities that will empower you to handle
the tension and then convert it into an energy source to fuel your
continued ascension: a warrior’s will, a runner’s endurance, and a
poet’s ability to inspire.
• A warrior’s will—The purpose of gaining mastery is to eventually

project it outward in order that its Divine energy can provoke
beneficial changes in others, and that those changes will in turn
draw others toward their own mastery. A true master, by his or
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her very existence, contradicts the established paths and destinies

many people have set for themselves, and in doing so, changes
others, alters society, or creates the new. This is what causes
many to fear masters or see them as threats. You will need the
will and strength of a warrior, as Jesus did, to maintain your
course in the face of the resistance to that which is novel or which
gainsays the conventional way of carrying out life’s business. As
British scholar Reg Revans said, “Unless your ideas are ridiculed
by experts, they are worth nothing.”
A master must be prepared to do battle for the survival of his or
her ideas or skills. Sometimes this fight will be in the personal
realm, where loved ones will misunderstand the sacrifices of
time and attention you must invest in order to become a master.
On other occasions, the fight will be in the commercial world
as you struggle to make art or a business idea into a success.
For example, in the late 1990s, a man named Jeff Bezos was
widely ridiculed in the business world for his overly ambitious
plans to grow his Internet company beyond the bounds of what
was considered sustainable at the time. E-commerce was a tiny
component of the overall economy, and a flood of commentators
and experts insisted Bezos’ efforts would fail.
However, in the face of withering criticism and shrinking financial
support, he defended his idea. He realized he was on the verge of
mastering e-commerce and he continued growing his company.
When it came close to failure time and again, he pulled it back
from the brink and kept it going until the rest of the world caught
up with his idea. Today, the company has redefined online sales
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
and dominates the $60 billion world of e-commerce. Its name?

Amazon.com. If Bezos had surrendered his mastery in response to
the weight of external tensions, the company would not exist. That,
or someone else would eventually have created something similar
and Bezos would be kicking himself for giving up.
• A runner’s endurance. The goals of mastery are self-transforma-

tion, the creation of a new way of being or doing, and—with the
conduit of the transformed self and innovation—serving and
teaching others. This requires time. Even after you have
achieved mastery of your chosen skill, you may still spend many
more years of false starts and resistance in order to create some-
thing from that mastery. This is the tension of the free market,
in which ideas are tested and their weaknesses exposed. In some
cases, the market rejects the ideas from one master until a new
generation is ready to accept them from another. The legendary
auto designer Preston Tucker was decades ahead of his time,
designing power steering and fuel injection—among numerous
other forward-thinking features—for his cars in the 1950s, long
before they were part of the mainstream. However, not only
were the Big Three automakers fearful of his ideas, but the car
buying public was not ready to embrace them. As a result,
fewer than twenty Tucker cars were produced—and yet the
advances Tucker invented are a standard part of automotive
engineering today.
— 206 —
As a master-in-waiting, you must develop persistence and the

ability to endure through trials and disappointments, because the
natural tension between the new and the established may well
restrict what you can achieve in the short term. In fact, the
course of mastery is designed to facilitate persistence and
endurance: beyond the need to establish the neural patterns
needed to produce automatic proficiency with a skill, the time
invested in the mastery of anything ensures that by the time
you reach that elite status, you will endure nearly anything to
vindicate your hard work and sacrifice. Victories that come too
easily are also easily abandoned when the going gets tough.
• A poet’s inspiration. Jesus spoke with unmatched eloquence.

Other heralds of great and wrenching change—Abraham
Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Nelson Mandela—have exhibited
nearly inhuman eloquence in inspiring others and promoting
their causes. As a master, you become an ambassador for the
potential of humanity to achieve God’s purpose. In order to
communicate this truth to others and move them to take up the
cause of mastery, you need to be able to speak and write with the
words of a great poet or orator. You must be able to clearly com-
municate your experiences and the rewards you have reaped.
Imagine that other people see what you have accomplished and
ask you how you have done it. You inform them matter-of-factly
that it took thousands of hours of work and sacrifice—that it was
blood, sweat, tears, and pain. What do you think their reaction
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
will be? It’s doubtful you will have a line around the block to sign
up for your classes! But when you can respond with empathy,
understanding that those who have not taken your journey cannot
possibly understand it fully, you can communicate with metaphor
and inspirational language to fire the imaginations of the listener.
This is what great preachers do when talking about the
Kingdom of God; they inspire others to have their own visions.
Each person must find his or her own way to mastery; no one can
walk your path, because it is yours alone.
Your most effective tool for converting the unconverted and
drawing people toward mastery will always be yourself. The
popular saying is true: actions do speak far louder than words.
How do you live? Are you healthy? Joyful? Prosperous? You are
your most eloquent testimony. As Francis of Assisi said, “Preach
the word whenever possible. When necessary, use words.” He
meant that truly preaching the word meant living the word and
demonstrating the power of living in God’s purpose by exam-
ple—not proselytizing about it and then going off to live in
opposition to what you were just talking about. Mastery obeys
the same dynamic. Those with a true desire to pursue mastery
will follow you because of what they see you do, whether that is
a martial arts demonstration or the playing of an instrument. You
are your instrument.
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BLESSED ARE THE INSUFFICIENT
Despite all this, the greatest and most lasting tension in the
realm of mastery is the tension that exists within you, the student
who seeks mastery. Mastery is a decision as much as it is a pursuit
and a strategy, a decision to move beyond the areas of life in which
you are talented and accomplished into a zone of uncertainty.
Basically, questing for mastery means admitting your talent is insuf-
ficient to fulfill God’s intended purpose.
Thus an intractable element of the Dao of mastery is risk. There
are no guarantees when you step off the edge of the familiar into the
zone of the unknown. Everyone who ever chased expertise and
greatness in anything exhibited extraordinary courage in doing so.
Each risked the loss of time, the humiliation of failure, and perhaps
poverty and the permanent harm to their health or reputation. Yet
they had faith that mastery was not only possible, but necessary in
order to serve the Divine will. Jesus understood the risk and
courage he was asking of his disciples when he abjured them to
leave everything they knew and follow him, and by doing so, they
proved themselves worthy.
Even when the cause of your mastery and risk is just and right,
there is no guarantee of safety. Of the twelve apostles, eleven died
for their determination to carry out the will of God. Less than a year
after Jesus was crucified, Stephen was thrown out of Jerusalem and
stoned to death. About ten years later, James was martyred by Herod
Agrippa, a great persecutor of Christians. After another ten years,
Philip was whipped, imprisoned, and crucified in Phrygia. Matthew
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
was impaled by a sword while preaching in Ethiopia. Jesus’ brother

James was beaten to death even though he was an elderly man.
Matthias, the man who replaced Judas, was stoned and then behead-
ed. Andrew was crucified, and Mark was hacked to pieces in
Alexandria and then displayed in front of the statue of a pagan god.
Peter was crucified in Rome during the first persecution of Nero,
and Jude, Bartholomew, and Simon were each crucified elsewhere.
Paul died by the sword. Thomas was speared. Luke was hanged and
Barnabas was martyred in an unknown way. Even John, who
escaped martyrdom, had to endure being immersed in boiling oil,
although the Lord protected him from death. Serving God’s purpose
can exact a great price in this world, but you must be willing to risk
the price to be a master.
The poet Walt Whitman also sensed the importance of risk to the
development of the soul (and by extension the talents with which
the soul is endowed). His poem, “A Noiseless, Patient Spider,” talks
about this:
A noiseless, patient spider,

I mark’d, where, on a little promontory, it stood, isolated;
Mark’d how, to explore the vacant, vast surrounding,
It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself;
Ever unreeling them—ever tirelessly speeding them.
And you, O my Soul, where you stand,
Surrounded, surrounded, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing,
—seeking the spheres, to connect them;
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Till the bridge you will need, be form’d

—till the ductile anchor hold;
Till the gossamer thread you fling, catch somewhere,
O my Soul.
Without the daring and persistence to keep our focus on the

empty, unknown space ahead of us, we can never achieve success,
whether in our spiritual life or our other pursuits. To focus upon the
promontory under us, the “solid ground” of the familiar, keeps us
rooted in the past.
Furthermore, everyone you encounter on your journey toward
mastery will be a reflection of the courage you show in admitting
your own insufficiency and stepping into the unknown. We know
that each of us meets only himself on life’s odyssey, and this is true
of mastery. The courageous seeker will find teachers, mentors, and
fellow pupils who exhibit the same courage and complement areas
in which he is weak; the fearful and doubtful student, on the other
hand, will find weakness and anxiety. The more profound your
courage—the greater and more daring the risk you are willing to
take for your mastery—the more often you will encounter others
who shed new illumination on your dimly lit road.
The trek into mastery is a trek into undiscovered country.
Shakespeare’s “undiscovered country” in Hamlet’s soliloquy (Who
would fardels bear, / To grunt and sweat under a weary life, / But
that the dread of something after death, / The undiscovered country,
from whom those bourn / No traveler returns…) refers to the
unknowable state of being beyond death. But for us, the quest and
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
struggle to master that which we crave with our soul leads us down
roads of self-awareness that otherwise remain closed to us. There,
we will always encounter other seekers of all kinds, and that is the
final source of tension in the Dao; the tension between who you are
trying to become and the people you encounter along the way will
either animate and fuel your progress or block and hinder it.
Like attracts like. Purity of purpose will attract those who

also pursue greatness for selfless purposes. Greed will
attract those who will use you for their own ends. Love will
bring to you those who wish more than anything to serve
others, including you.
Like attracts like. Purity of purpose will attract those who also
pursue greatness for selfless purposes. Greed will attract those who
will use you for their own ends. Love will bring to you those who
wish more than anything to serve others, including you. How you
resolve the tension and harmony between yourself and the people
you meet on your journey will largely determine the result of your
sacrifice. Consider the apostles: After what happened to their mas-
ter, the disciples must have lived in constant awareness of the threat
they faced. They could have wavered and renounced what they had
come to know, but this would have meant becoming something
other than what they had become, which is perhaps the ultimate act
of cowardice. In their lives, then, they would have attracted other
men of cowardice who would not have carried on Jesus’ labors.
— 212 —
Instead, they continued for years to do what they had set their minds
to, even as they learned again and again of the murder of yet another
of their brethren.
In his book Why Courage Matters, John McCain defines the
standard by which courage should be judged: as “acts that risk life
or limb or other very serious personal injuries for the sake of others
or to uphold a virtue.” Based on this demanding criterion, the apos-
tles demonstrated immense and prolonged courage. Through that
courage, they drew to themselves similar people of courage and
faith who spread the Word.
Few of us will experience situations that demand we display the
kind of courage demanded of the apostles. In our practice of our
faith and in our pursuit of other kinds of mastery, we are unlikely to
be killed or tortured. Nonetheless, courage is a virtue of discipleship
that we must cultivate if we are to merit success.
— 213 —
10
Lesson 10
THE LIFE OF MASTERY
“Personal mastery is the discipline of continually clarifying and

deepening our personal vision, of focusing our energies, of develop-
ing patience, and of seeing reality objectively.” — Peter Senge
As our exploration of mastery nears its end, we approach the prac-

tical realities surrounding it. My goal in writing this book is not
only to educate you in the spiritual and philosophical principles
behind mastery, but also to provide practical instruction that will be
useful to you as you walk the path toward your personal mastery.
That is the purpose of the exercises throughout this book, and also
of these final two chapters. Whether your goal is to further your
career in the ministry, turn the journey toward mastery into a min-
istry of its own, or pursue a skill or area of knowledge to further
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
your secular career, you can employ “applied mastery” to making

steady progress toward the objective God has set out for you.
It could be safely said that the material in this book is cen-
tered on “mastering” the concept of mastery: understanding what
mastery means, what it requires, and the purpose behind it. As
with all disciplines that change the mind and the heart, mastery
itself is a subtle, precarious state of being that often contradicts
our expectations. It is an intersection of spiritual and physical
reality that requires both to be successful. You cannot achieve
mastery without the material, physical investment of time and
effort ten thousand hours of training demands. Yet you cannot fol-
low this path toward its ideal goal—self-growth, humility, and a
passion to serve others while fulfilling God’s purpose—without
spiritual transformation, as well. Mastery may well be the most
practical manifestation of spirit, because the subject of your
devotion will imprint real, tangible changes on your life, as well
as internal changes that can only be felt and known by you.
Life is the subject of this chapter, in fact, because we must dis-

cuss one of the realities of mastery, which is that what we can
pursue and master alters with the passage of time.
Life is the subject of this chapter, in fact, because we must discuss

one of the realities of mastery, which is that what we can pursue and
master alters with the passage of time. Recent research has shown
— 216 —
that the reality of time may be very different from our concept of a
unidirectional “flow” of causality that takes us from birth to death
in this corporeal realm. The mathematical and quantum physical
aspects of these new arguments are staggeringly complex, but their
essence is that while our everyday experience of time may be irre-
versible, time may in fact be reversible when it lies outside of our
perceptions. Studies of the paranormal by researchers such as Dean
Radin, Ph.D., have even shown that causality—the ability of thoughts
or actions to cause other events to occur—can flow backward through
time, and in fact there is nothing in physics that prevents this from
happening. However, we travel in one direction through time, and so
we must face the reality that as we progress on our temporal journey,
it can and will affect our journey toward mastery.
HOW LIFE CHANGES MASTERY
One of the simplest, most practical truths about mastery is

that our ability to master certain crafts or pursuits changes with
the passage of time. This is undeniable. Let us first explore the
mastery of the young up to age twenty-five. When you are young,
your greatest assets are your most untamed: physical energy,
enthusiasm, and curiosity about the world. Your physical stamina,
agility, and reflexes are at their peak, so many of your pursuits
will be physical. Our common stereotype of the master is that of
a young person precisely because physical skills are the easiest
for us to perceive: the silky smooth golf swing, the grace of the
gymnast, the high-flying slam-dunk in basketball. So our “referen-
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
tial frame” for mastery shifts to take the shape of a young Olympic
athlete or martial arts student honing perfect musculature and
lightning movements.
In some cases, this is an accurate mental image. Take Tiger
Woods, for example: Because of the intentions of his father, Earl, to
turn him into an expert golfer, Woods was swinging golf clubs at
age four and working hours and hours every week to master the craft
and sport of golf. If we assume that thousand hours of refinement
means practicing for two hours per day for fourteen years, then by
the age of eighteen, when most young people are just beginning to
decide what their interests are, Tiger was already a master! (Now,
we can unpack the totality of Tiger Woods and perhaps claim that
his recent disgrace was a product in part of this early intensity, but
exploring the effects of early mastery on later life is not the purpose
of this book.) Woods became a master as an adolescent precisely
because his work and physical gifts perfectly matched his station in
life at the time.
When you are young, you have certain assets that make pursuing
mastery in a deeply physical skill easier than it will be when you
are older. Your most obvious advantages are more speed, stamina,
eyesight, reaction time, resilience to injury, and strength than you
will likely have at any time later in life. This allows young people
to put in hours of training that would leave an older aspirant in the
hospital with muscle tears and heat exhaustion. But there is more
to the difference. At twenty years old, it is very likely that you have
the time to pursue mastery with a single mind. You do not have a
family to raise. You may not need to work at a job to pay your bills.
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You may live with your parents and so not need to take care of a
residence. Life is simple, and you can afford the luxury of immer-
sion into the deep waters of mastery.
Thus when you are young, it is easier to allow yourself to be
absorbed by the physical, mental and spiritual journey and dedi-
cate many hours each day and each week. You can spend your days
running, cycling and swimming in order to become a triathlete, or
programming computer software in order to become a master
computer engineer. You can allow yourself to be consumed by art,
music, science or athletics. There is an inverse relationship between
age and the time spent in the quest for excellence: the fewer years
you have walked this earth, the more hours you can invest.
MASTERY IN MIDDLE AGE
Does this mean, then, that a quest for mastery cannot begin in
middle age, when you are perhaps forty or even fifty years old? It
does not. It simply means that as our bodies and minds shift and
morph with the passing years, so too must the nature of our mastery,
even as the essential truths behind mastery remain eternal. When
you are forty-five years old, you will be unlikely to have the same
passions and interests you had when you were twenty-five, nor will
you be likely to possess the same physical abilities. You will not be
able to train as long or as intensely. You will have given up some of
the passions that so preoccupied you when you were in your teens
or twenties, and you will have discovered new ones. When Steve
Wozniak was a twenty-something, he spent countless hours in his
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
garage designing the first Apple computer. Today, in his late fifties, he
spends his time developing new technologies and working to further
computer education in schools. From geek to philanthropist—a perfect
example of how the focus of mastery changes with time.
Perhaps more relevant is the fact that in middle age you will
likely have more demands on your time, energy, and attention.
You will probably have a career, and are likely to have a family
and children who depend on you. You will have debts to pay and
obligations to fulfill. Disappearing into mastery would cause the
collapse of all that you have built over the decades and all that
you hold dear. Instead, mastery must take shapes that are less
time-consuming. Examples include writing, education, martial
arts, craftsmanship and carpentry, working on cars and electronics,
and other occupations that do not demand total absorption.
Does this mean more immersive options for mastery are off-
limits to the middle aged? In the past we assumed this was the case,
but this has proven to be less true than we formerly thought. Recent
research provides hope for the ability of the middle aged (and even
the elderly) to excel in areas requiring greater physical agility, but
the results of such research are even more promising in the areas of
mental capacity. For decades, medical science has assumed older
age meant an automatic, slow loss of mental acuity—speed, mem-
ory, the ability to learn new skills and beyond. However, a new
class of neurological studies reveals this is not the case. Scientists
are finding that while the physiological functions underlying brain
activity do show some slowing and degradation with age, the
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underlying mental functions need not make us less able. Basically,

research is showing that we actually grow smarter in some areas
during middle age, which stretches from the forties to the sixties.
Consider the following passage from an article by Barbara Strauch
in the Harvard Business Review:
It’s true that by midlife our brains can show some fraying.
Brain processing speed slows down. Faced with new informa-
tion, we often cannot master it as quickly as our younger peers.
And there’s little question that our short-term memories suffer.
It’s easy to panic when you find you can’t remember the name
of that person you know in the elevator, or even the movie you
saw last week.
But it turns out that such skills don’t really matter that much.
By midlife our brains have developed a whole host of talents
that are, in the end, just as well suited to navigating the mod-
ern, complex workplace. As we age, we get better at seeing the
possible. Younger brains, predictably, are set up to focus on the
negative and potential trouble. Older brains, studies show,
often reach solutions faster, in part, because they focus on
what can be done.
By the time we reach middle age, millions of patterns have been

established in our brains, and these connected pathways provide
invaluable perspective—even when it’s subconscious. For instance,
some middle-aged managers I’ve spoken with talked about how
solutions seem to “pop'” into their heads “like magic.”
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
Because of this evolution, our brains are actually better able to

sustain mastery as we age if the mastery involves experience,
judgment, patience, and wisdom. So, skills such as map reading,
orienteering, many kinds of craftsmanship, gardening, and other
slow-paced tasks are beautifully designed to be the target of the
mastery of an older person, who has greater self-knowledge and
awareness. The mastery of youth—fiery, passionate, chaotic, and
revolutionary—tends to give way to mastery that is more deliber-
ative and purposeful.
Furthermore, the perspective of age teaches us that one of the

greatest joys in the world—and one of the greatest ways to
discover and serve God’s purpose—is to become excellent at
something and then spend our lives engaged in that activity.
For example, as a 45-year-old, you are more likely to seek mastery

as an aspect of your career and then use it to help you earn a living
and create wealth. There are several reasons for this. Most obviously,
the idealistic enthusiasm of youth is tempered by the realities of
aging, which include the need to earn money and the knowledge
that few people can actually “change the world” by themselves.
Furthermore, the perspective of age teaches us that one of the great-
est joys in the world—and one of the greatest ways to discover and
serve God’s purpose—is to become excellent at something and
then spend our lives engaged in that activity. This “being in one’s
passion” is an exalted state, and many middle-aged masters pursue
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skills and then apply learned entrepreneurial abilities to turn their

knowledge into careers.
Consider parenting. More Americans than ever are becoming
first-time parents in their forties, which raises many questions about
whether parenting is an innate ability from God or something
learned. My belief is that it is both: the raw material of being a good
parent is part of our spirit because we are made in the image of God
the Father, and at the same time it is a part that must be honed and
refined over time through experience. Is a parent a better parent
after having a second child due to the experience gained from rais-
ing the first? Are firstborn children led astray more often than their
younger siblings because their mothers and fathers are less sure
about discipline, instruction, and development?
Mastering parenting is something that occurs almost exclusively
in middle age because that is when opportunity comes. As Malcolm
Gladwell writes in Outliers, much of achievement has to do with the
luck of having an opportunity come into your life at the right time,
when you are ready to seize it. With parenting, the opportunities to
learn occur primarily in the early years of the family’s growth,
typically before a parent is forty-five years old. Before this, par-
enting skills rely primarily on lessons taught by one’s own parents
and the innate skill that comes from God. However, studies show
that firstborn children tend to have higher IQs than their younger
siblings and score higher on standardized achievement tests, so their
parents must be doing something right. This suggests parenting is a
skill that can be mastered, but that can also be done effectively
before mastery is achieved.
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
MASTERY IN OLD AGE
Until very recently, those past the age of sixty-five were thought
to be waiting for their passage from this world into the next. There
was little else they were perceived as being able to accomplish. The
conventional wisdom was that the brain was shrinking and could not
develop new connections, ideas that had been held for decades were
set in stone and impossible to change, and older individuals were
incapable of embracing new technologies, like the Internet. This has
since proven to be completely untrue. Today, people over the age of
sixty-five run countries and corporations. They win Nobel and
Pulitzer prizes. They lead huge congregations. They compete as
Master’s athletes (an apt name, to be sure) in everything from track
and field and triathlons to volleyball and swimming. For example,
the 2009 Ironman World Championships held in Kailua-Kona,
Hawaii featured forty athletes age seventy and older. This is quite
different from the popular image of the frail senior rocking on the
porch with a glass of lemonade!
Still, as we examine mastery, it is important to admit that with
the passage into our senior years comes the reduction of some
abilities. Memory fades slightly, and mental processing slows.
Energy drops, and yet sleep comes less easily. Strength and flex-
ibility suffer, as well. That is nature as designed by God. And
while you may have more time to pursue a chosen area of mastery
because full time work has given way to retirement, there is
another reality to face, another question to ask: if you are seven-
ty years old, do you have enough time remaining on this earth to
spend the ten thousand hours that are needed to achieve mastery?
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This assumption that the little time remaining could make the
work seem like an exercise in futility has dissuaded many a
would-be older master from becoming involved in a craft or skill.
Of course, this argument ignores something we have already
discussed, which is that a vital part of mastery is the transformation
it provokes in the student, not just the achievement of a certain level
of technical ability. Apart from that, age brings several assets that
well serve the goal of mastery:
• You have the strong desire to disprove popular wisdom, and per-
haps even the doubts of those around you, and prove you are
capable of growth and positive change at an advanced age.
• You are skilled at managing your time.
• You are wise about your strengths and liabilities.
• You are probably less entranced by the possibility of attaining
wealth and material gain from your mastery and, as such, are
more likely to pursue mastery for the right reasons, i.e., service
to others, fulfillment of your own passion, and a desire to be
closer to God.
• You have vast life experience you can apply to your training.
This also makes you a more effective teacher, which is an
important facet of mastery.
The realities of age will also shape what you choose to master.
The pursuits of a 75-year-old are very unlikely to be the same as
those of a 30-year-old. You are apt to choose something that suits
your priorities and level of self-awareness. This is why older mas-
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
ters frequently pursue areas of knowledge that are more spiritual in

nature: poetry, ministry, meditation, teaching, art, or philosophy, for
example. What could you devote ten thousand hours to, starting
today? What mastery are you willing to begin pursuing, knowing it
will take as long as fourteen years to achieve and aware that you
might not make it because the Lord could call you home?
Does it even make sense to embark on the road of mastery

at age seventy-five? I would suggest that it matters more
than ever.
Does it even make sense to embark on the road of mastery at

age seventy-five? I would suggest that it matters more than ever.
Part of our journey and mission here on this earthly plane is to
serve God to the best of our abilities, and the quest for mastery
serves this purpose in two vital ways: First, it becomes an elixir of
life for the aged, extending useful life by years or decades. Think of
the most vital, vibrant seniors you have ever known. What did they
share? A sense of purpose. In his book Blue Zones, longevity
researcher and adventurer Dan Buettner writes, “A study of some of
the world’s most long-lived people, the Blue Zones project, discov-
ered that having a sense of purpose—or ‘having a reason to get out
of bed’—was a common trait in many of the world’s centenarians.”
Science now recognizes that purpose leads to a better life and a
longer lifespan: BusinessWeek reported in 2009 that Dr. Patricia Boyle,
a neuropsychologist at the Rush Alzheimer’s Disease Center and an
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assistant professor of behavioral sciences at Rush University Medical

Center in Chicago, studied 1,238 adults averaging age seventy-eight
and found those with a higher sense of purpose had about half the risk
of dying during the follow-up period as those who did not have a
strong purpose.
“It can be anything—from wanting to accomplish a goal in life,
to achieving something in a volunteer organization, to as little as
reading a series of books,” Boyle said.
So, no matter your age, it may make more sense than ever
to embark on a course of mastery for the sake of the self-
reinvention that is a part of this process.
The pursuit of mastery would certainly qualify as a purpose, and

an intensive, involving one. Further, once one reaches mastery and
becomes a teacher, that purpose carries on. So, no matter your age,
it may make more sense than ever to embark on a course of mastery
for the sake of the self-reinvention that is a part of this process.
AN OPPORTUNITY FOR REINVENTION
Mastery acts as a conduit to a long, healthy, and meaningful life

at any age. It is also a key to shifting your perception of the more
frightening and chaotic periods of your life. Let us consider the
Global Financial Crisis of 2008, 2009, and 2010. Between
December 2007 and the date of the completion of this book, the
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
American economy shed approximately eight million jobs, leading

to crushing unemployment and underemployment. Yet within the
dislocation and fear of job loss and potential economic ruin lies the
potential for self-reinvention and reinvigoration through mastery.
When people are cut loose of their moorings, many will find a
gateway to new purpose. The loss of the routine shakes many from
their complacency and comfort and frees them to consider follow-
ing their passions, something they might not have done had they
remained in a comfortable, predictable economic position. Never
are we more complacent and less likely to take risks—not just to
become masters, but any risks at all—than when we are comfortable
with our incomes, homes, relationships, and selves.
For example, by some accounts, entrepreneurship has risen by
twenty percent during the Great Recession. We tend to cling to the
illusion that things can go on unchanging—that if we stay as we
are, things will stay as they are. This is folly. Children grow up, our
bodies age, governments change, cities grow, and populations shift.
We cannot remain static, because the act of living is a dynamic act:
becoming, not being. Therefore, we must work to remain relevant
to ourselves and in tune with God’s purpose for us; job loss can
become an incentive for greatness and mastery if we choose to see
it in this empowering way rather than allowing ourselves to wallow
in despair and self-pity. There are three reasons the otherwise trau-
matic loss of a job can be empowering:
1. It frees time to work on mastery. Yes, you need to earn a liv-

ing. But with a job that demands less time, you have more time
to pursue a passionate enterprise given to you by God.
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2. It awakens you to the impermanence of things. Struck by the

reality that you have little control when your fate is determined
by others, you choose to seize control and determine as much of
the path of your life’s journey as you can, which is what God
encourages you to do.
3. It sparks your creativity. The saying should be “unemployment
is the mother of invention” rather than “necessity is the mother of
invention.” When you must find a way to earn a living, you will
become creative, and you will find invention and purpose in your
ideas as you have never known before.
The recession then becomes a perfect testing ground for mastery.

Millions are without work, and without reasonable prospects for it
in the near future. Why not pursue mastery in something that will
not require financial resources or time away from searching for
employment? At the least, such an effort is empowering and can
lend the unemployed individual strength and hope while fostering
discipline and humility. And at best, the area of mastery might lead
to new economic opportunity—launching a small business, being
noticed by an employer, creating something of value that others are
willing to buy, etc. When dire economic times put us on the edge of
a self-transformation that is centered on doubt, fear, and worthless-
ness, mastery can remind us that we are the children of God, creators
in our own right. We are far from powerless.
A wonderful spirit-based example of this is my friend Bishop
Carlton D. Pearson. Those of you in the Pentecostal world are
undoubtedly familiar with Bishop Pearson, who at one time was the
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
leading light and fastest-rising star in our firmament, heir to the tra-
dition of Oral Roberts. As you also probably know, he lost his
church and his reputation and was branded a heretic when he decided
he did not believe in the existence of Hell and began preaching his
message of “inclusion”—his belief that all people are saved. His
downfall was swift and savage and could have ended with poverty
and despair.
Mastery leads us on an adventure into ourselves—an

adventure that leads to God’s purpose.
I will not argue for or against Bishop Pearson’s theology here; I

will only state that I have the ultimate respect for any who speak
their disruptive truth when they have much to lose. But that aside,
he believed God had a purpose in sharing such a revelation with him
and chose not to take his fate passively. He decided to master a new
form of communication: writing books. He found himself at a new
church and was interviewed on national radio and television pro-
grams, and he eventually wrote and published two books: The
Gospel of Inclusion and God Is Not a Christian. These books have
helped him begin his courageous journey back to prosperity and rel-
evance, because nothing means more to such a man than being able
to touch lives and shape souls, regardless of whether the mainstream
agrees with him.
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In Bishop Pearson’s journey, we can see the power of the deci-

sion to pursue mastery. It restores our efficacy and capability. It
channels our passion and our pain. It guides us through life’s
darkest places with surety. It lends shape and reason to our pas-
sions and lights the end of our personal tunnel. Mastery leads us
on an adventure into ourselves—an adventure that leads to God’s
purpose. At the conclusion of the adventure, you are changed in
body, mind, and spirit. Or as the great Albert Einstein put it:
Creating a new theory is not like destroying an old barn and

erecting a skyscraper in its place. It is rather like climbing a
mountain, gaining new and wider views, discovering unexpected
connections between our starting points and its rich environment.
But the point from which we started out still exists and can be
seen, although it appears smaller and forms a tiny part of our
broad view gained by the mastery of the obstacles on our
adventurous way up.
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11
Lesson 11
THE MINISTRY OF MASTERY
“You cannot attain mastery by patterning yourself after another or

by following custom or tradition. Sheep do that. Masters and lead-
ers never do.” — Roger McDonald
We have spoken of the crisis afflicting ministry in this country; now

we come full circle. We began looking at the idea that a lack of
attention to mastery has yielded a generation of pastors ill-equipped
to excel at their vocation. We conclude by examining the concept
that the very qualities that make a good minister—a passion for
teaching, leadership qualities, the desire to give and serve, the con-
viction of a calling, and total commitment—are also the qualities
that facilitate true mastery. In your calling as a minister, if that is
your calling, mastery actually becomes a ministry unto itself. Even
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
if you are not in ministry, mastery can be the way you minister to,
and nurture, the world around you.
The fact remains that there are many ways to come to ministry,
just as there are many ways to come to mastery. This book looks at
several paths that are intertwined. Although some people may fall
into the ministry simply for lack of direction, or because it seems
like a way to do something good, most of those who seek to become
ministers hear a calling. This call may come early in life, when one
is making choices about one’s career, but it can occur at any time.
It takes a careful examination of what is attractive about the

life of ministry to reveal the motives behind the feeling and
help a person make a wise decision. Once the exaltation of
the charismatic role model fades, what remains is the true
sense of calling. If it remains powerful once the exaltation
passes, then it is more likely that the calling is genuine.
There are some constants that seem to hold true across the gen-
eral experience of people called to God’s service. The first is that the
call contains a very distinct sense of summons. For some people this
may be a dramatic, life-altering moment, a true vision. For others it
may be as quiet as an intuition that this is the right decision. Still
others may suspect this is the way they should go, but not feel the
desired sense of assurance until well into their studies. For these
people, the preparation for ministry is an exploration that will let
them discover if this is the life they are meant to lead.
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One sign of a calling to ministry may be an aptitude or innate

fondness for the skills required in this work. Most ministers enjoy
working with people, feel compassion and a wish to care for others,
enjoy the mental exercise of Bible study and sermon writing, and
are comfortable speaking before a crowd. In other words, they have
a natural aptitude for the skills mastery will hone to excellence over
many years of ministry. Again, we see the parallels.
If a person suspects he may be called to the ministry, there are
several steps he can take to clarify his understanding of this percep-
tion. The first is to take time to fully experience what he is hearing
or feeling. The influence of a powerful speaker or the example of
an admirable person may lend a would-be minister a strong desire
to imitate that person, but this is not necessarily a sign that he or
she is called to ministry. It takes a careful examination of what is
attractive about the life of ministry to reveal the motives behind the
feeling and help a person make a wise decision. Once the exalta-
tion of the charismatic role model fades, what remains is the true
sense of calling. If it remains powerful once the exaltation passes,
then it is more likely that the calling is genuine.
COMMITMENT
Patience is a virtue, particularly for someone hoping to under-

stand God’s plan for his or her life. Entering the ministry is not a
decision to be made lightly. It is life-altering and will require a life-
long commitment to the hard work of serving a congregation. The
counsel and advice of a professional minister can be invaluable in
making this decision. Someone already leading the life under
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
consideration can provide insight into the aspects of the experience

that a mere observer might overlook. Married people in particular
should make this decision carefully and over time since it will have
far-reaching implications for a family, not just an individual.
Getting involved in the active life of the church can allow a per-
son to experience some of what a life of ministry entails. Although
being a lay leader of worship or teaching Sunday school cannot
provide an accurate sense of what a minister does and goes through,
it can give a person an idea of whether the work of maintaining a
place of worship for the benefit of others will agree with him. One
of the primary characteristics required of a minister is the ability to
put the needs of others above his own. Like the master, service to
others is paramount to ministry. If a person finds himself completely
unwilling to consider the wishes and needs of those close to him,
the ministry may not be a good place for him.
One of the primary characteristics required of a minister is

the ability to put the needs of others above his own. Like
the master, service to others is paramount to ministry.
As with mastery, the person called to ministry must address his

own personal weaknesses. No one is without character flaws, but
the pastor must work harder than most to overcome them and make
sure they do not impede his ability to lead others. Congregations
almost universally expect their pastors to be morally superior to the
rank and file members. Flaws in integrity or morals will do more to
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damage a church than almost anything else. An honest and thorough

evaluation of your personal qualities and a plan to address and cope
with weaknesses and temptations must be a part of the decision-
making process. As you can see, the road to mastery mimics the
road to ministry in many ways: the need for self-knowledge, the
presence of a powerful calling, and a genuine leap of faith.
Mastery also demands that we jump into a commitment to per-
form incredible work and maintain discipline with nothing but the
faith that a reward awaits us at the end of the road. Ministry is a rig-
orous path that is built on faith. Jesus’ disciples did not consider the
consequences of their decision to follow him. They left their nets or
account books and stepped into line behind their master. The minister
of today must take responsibility for the lives of those he will affect
by his decision, but in the end, if the call is there, a person can no
more ignore it than could the disciples. When the decision is made,
it should be whole-hearted and enthusiastic. In the leap of faith,
there is no looking back.
MANY PATHS TO MASTERY AND MINISTRY
A brief overview of one Midwestern church provides an example

of the varieties of ways in which a person can be called to this “mas-
tery of ministry.” This church was served for years by a man we will
call Reverend Brown (all the names in this story are pseudonyms by
request of the persons involved), who followed his father into the
ministry, as did his older brother. The family tradition of serving
through ministry continued into the next generation when Reverend
Brown’s son also became a minister, first serving in a church only
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
fifty miles from his father’s and then stepping into his uncle’s shoes
when the elder man retired.
Reverend Brown served his church for more than two
decades, managing at the same time to raise a large family and
earn his Doctorate of Divinity. When Reverend Brown retired, he
was replaced by Reverend Charles, a highly skilled and devoted
minister who had spent the first fifteen years of his adult life as a
very successful corporate attorney. He graduated from Harvard
Law School and earned an MBA at Emory. Only after he turned
forty did he realize his life was not fulfilling. After much soul-
searching, he realized he had a call to the ministry. He gave up his
high-paying partnership, enrolled in seminary, and began an
entirely new chapter in his life.
While serving in this church, Reverend Charles met, through an
outreach program, a troubled young man named Jim Longfellow.
Still in his teens, the boy had been arrested for burglary and drug
use. Although he did not have high hopes for turning the boy’s life
around, Jim’s uncle brought him to the outreach program in an
attempt to help him. Somehow, after several meetings and more
than a few rough periods, Reverend Charles made a connection with
the young man.
Within two years, young Longfellow had completed his GED
and, with a recommendation from Reverend Charles, was accepted
to a nearby Bible college. Upon completing his studies, Longfellow
first completed numerous years of mission work overseas, then
returned to Reverend Charles’s church where he served as an assis-
tant pastor for several years. Only when Reverend Charles was
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asked to accept a regional administrative position did the young

man agree to accept the title of Reverend before his name.
Reverend Longfellow has served as the pastor of the church for
five years now. In style and appearance he is very different from his
predecessors. He dresses more casually than most reverends and
looks to untraditional venues to grow his congregation. For example,
once a week he holds an informal chat at a local coffee house. This
event is open to anyone, especially nonbelievers, and has been quite
successful in gaining converts. In the tradition of the student-
become-master becoming a teacher in turn, Longfellow has also
become a mentor to an aspiring pastor. Through his encouragement,
the church gained a new assistant minister specializing in recovery
ministry, Reverend Lindberg.
Reverend Lindberg’s first career was that of a special forces sol-
dier, fighting all over the world. Between assignments, he dulled the
pain of his experiences by abusing drugs and alcohol, to the point
that he nearly died several times and had to have a large portion of
his liver removed. After meeting Reverend Longfellow at the coffee
house, he began to study the Gospel seriously and, after a year,
sought admission to seminary. Now a recent graduate, he has turned
his attention to helping those who remain lost in the wilderness he
so narrowly escaped himself.
These four pastors, serving in a single church, embody the
limitless diversity of ways in which God calls people to min-
istry—and reflect the equally infinite manners by which people
find their way to mastery. If we look, we see that each pastor was
able to find something in his previous experiences that contributed
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SPIRITUAL MASTERY
to his ministry, each served some kind of apprenticeship under a

mentor, and each was willing to put in the many, many hours of
hard work necessary to master the diverse elements of his calling.
The parallels between ministry and mastery are too numerous and
stirring to ignore.
SPIRIT PLUS MENTOR
Another common ground mastery and ministry share is that

hopeful pupils on either path often make the error of assuming nat-
ural gifts are enough to reach the highest levels. They are not enough.
Natural gifts are not a substitute for careful, patient, and precise
training in martial arts, classical music , or apprenticeship at a trade,
and the same is true for the ministry. Too often, Christians simply
assume that the Spirit will take hold of us and imbue us with what
we need to pursue this calling, and this, too, is an error. The Spirit
does play a role, but its role is to carry the calling to those with the
gifts that can then be developed through hard work. That hard
work—at least ten thousand hours of diligent, relentless training—is
needed to turn the Spirit’s calling into exceptional aptitude.
This highlights the importance for the novice minister to con-
nect with a worthwhile mentor. There is only so much one can learn
from a book or a training video, no matter what the subject. John
Fairfax and John Moat write that for every aspirant…
…there must come a time when the general grounding is no

longer reliable, when he must look for guidance beyond the
book. At this point the only reliable guide is someone who has
— 240 —
traveled further along the way. In other words, a practitioner of

the art, someone who has made the pursuit of [it] his or her life.
In his essay, “Culture, Mind, and Education,” Professor

Jerome Bruner writes that there are two approaches to the idea of
learning. The first is computational. It is concerned with how the
brain acquires, processes, stores, and synthesizes information.
This approach, Bruner writes, “takes information as a given, as
something already settled in relation to some pre-existing, rule-
bound code that maps onto states of the world.” This kind of
understanding of learning has its limits, however. Bruner
describes these limits as similar to trying to understand how a
hand works without taking “into account whether it is equipped
with a screwdriver, a pair of scissors, or a laser-beam gun.”
Too often, Christians simply assume that the Spirit will take
hold of us and imbue us with what we need to pursue this call-
ing, and this, too, is an error. The Spirit does play a role, but
its role is to carry the calling to those with the gifts that can
then be developed through hard work.
The second approach to understanding the mind is called cultur-

alism. It recognizes that without culture, there is no mind. The ways
in which we process information, even the understanding we have
of the symbols we use, are all culturally mediated. For example, the
letter H in English is pronounced as an aspirated sound, as in
— 241 —
SPIRITUAL MASTERY
“horse,” but in Russian, this same symbol represents the sound

found at the beginning of the world “new.” The very ways in which
we process information depend on our ability to work within an
understandable cultural context.
Bruner puts it this way:
On this view, knowing and communicating are in their nature

highly interdependent, indeed virtually inseparable. For how-
ever much the individual may seem to operate on his or her
own in carrying out the quest for meaning, nobody can do it
unaided by the culture’s symbolic systems. It is culture that
provides the tools for organizing and understanding our worlds
in communicable ways.
The great difference for the minister-in-training or any other

student is that when you finally reach the level of mastery, new
information does not have to tread the same tiresome path to be
incorporated into your knowledge base that it did when you were
learning as a pupil. By the time you achieve a level of proficiency
where you can be referred to with the honorific “master,” your neu-
ral pathways related to the skills of your calling are so ingrained
and deeply grooved that any new material that falls into those areas
simply integrates into your mind. As a master, you can incorporate
and synthesize new knowledge faster, and produce challenging new
ideas at a rapid pace, seemingly without effort.
— 242 —
BURDENS
Anyone who has chosen to follow their calling into the ministry
can confirm that the road comes with its share of burdens. Certainly,
it can strain a family situation that is not supported by communica-
tion, respect, and a shared sense of mission. Yet if we make ministry
the analog to mastery, then there are other burdens that come with
ascending to a place where you are a masterful shepherd of the souls
of others. First among these is that you must continue to both learn
and challenge yourself. Only masters who learn for all of their days
and who force themselves to venture far from their comfort zones
break new ground, and the same can be said of ministers. This is not
easy; ministers are nothing if not extremely challenged to find time
for the spiritual given their earthly duties. As Baptist preacher Vance
Havner said, “It is one of the ironies of the ministry that the very
man who works in God’s name is often hardest put to find time for
God. The parents of Jesus lost Him at church, and they were not the
last ones to lose Him there.”
But a true master and minister is a lifelong student, contin-

ually venturing into areas of different beliefs or unbelief
and confronting political and social beliefs that contradict
his or her own deeply-held system of regarding the world.
It is easy to be lulled into a false belief that once one has reached
the heights of mastery in ministry or any other pursuit, one can rest
— 243 —
SPIRITUAL MASTERY
on one’s laurels. This is completely understandable; with thousands

of hours of toil behind you, it is very tempting to sit back and say,
“Well, that’s done.” But a true master and minister is a lifelong stu-
dent, continually venturing into areas of different beliefs or unbelief
and confronting political and social beliefs that contradict his or her
own deeply-held system of regarding the world. Only in this tension
(part of the Dao of mastery) can growth occur.
The other burden of ministry and mastery is that of sharing what
you know with others. This may not seem like a heavy burden, but
when faced with the time demands of running a church, it can be
overwhelming. But a true master in any discipline is also a teacher
who will attract students to him based on his humility and desire to
serve. When students, disciples, or congregants gather, the master
minister must be prepared to guide them and share his or her wis-
dom to further their own journey toward spiritual mastery.
Fortunately, for the minister who finds time running like sand
through his fingers, there are options for sharing his wisdom:
• Mentoring—This is the Christ role in your life: teacher, men-

tor, example of personal mastery. That was Jesus’ primary pur-
pose: to reveal to us how we could discover and nurture the
inherent divinity within us all. As a mentor, you do more than
teach—you demonstrate through your actions how to conduct
your affairs so others can learn from you by example. You can
take others under your wing as so many ministers do, but your
teachings will be more about relating your past experiences
and demonstrating your character and commitment than about
formal lessons.
— 244 —
• Speaking—Fortunately, ministry is a natural profession for

speakers. If you cannot write a stirring sermon and deliver it to
a group of people in a way that moves hearts and minds, you are
in the wrong profession. As a speaker, whether in the context of
ministry or of some other form of presentation, you can relate
stories of all kinds in ways that carry the listeners along on a
narrative journey. Great oratory is a learned skill that is certainly
a part of the minister’s tools of mastery, and it comes only with
time and practice.
I encourage you—particularly as a minister but also in any line

of study that leads to mastery—to speak often and to learn this craft.
The words of great speakers—from Lincoln and (Franklin)
Roosevelt to Douglass, King, and Churchill—move mountains,
change the course of nations, and shape the purpose of those who
serve God. Never underestimate the potency of your words.
Consider the incredible impact of the words of Nelson Mandela on
April 20, 1964 as he, accused of sabotage, stood before a South
African court. His later conviction would send him to prison for
twenty-seven years, but his defiant and masterful speech set the
stage for his ascension to the figurehead for the activism that ended
the vile policy of apartheid. The full speech (recently voted one of
the twenty-five greatest speeches of all time) is very long, but what
follows is the concluding section. Notice how it rings with the con-
viction and moral strength that should reside in any great sermon:
Africans want to be paid a living wage. Africans

want to perform work which they are capable of
— 245 —
SPIRITUAL MASTERY
doing, and not work which the government declares

them to be capable of. Africans want to be allowed to
live where they obtain work, and not be endorsed out
of an area because they were not born there. Africans
want to be allowed to own land in places where they
work, and not to be obliged to live in rented houses
which they can never call their own. Africans want to
be part of the general population, and not confined
to living in their own ghettoes. African men want to
have their wives and children to live with them
where they work, and not be forced into an unnatu-
ral existence in men’s hostels. African women want
to be with their menfolk and not be left permanently
widowed in the Reserves.
Africans want to be allowed out after eleven o'clock

at night and not to be confined to their rooms like lit-
tle children. Africans want to be allowed to travel in
their own country and to seek work where they want
to and not where the labour bureau tells them to.
Africans want a just share in the whole of South
Africa; they want security and a stake in society.
Above all, we want equal political rights, because

without them our disabilities will be permanent. I
know this sounds revolutionary to the whites in this
country, because the majority of voters will be
Africans. This makes the white man fear democracy.
— 246 —
But this fear cannot be allowed to stand in the

way of the only solution which will guarantee
racial harmony and freedom for all. It is not true
that the enfranchisement of all will result in racial
domination. Political division, based on color, is
entirely artificial and, when it disappears, so will
the domination of one color group by another.
The ANC has spent half a century fighting
against racialism. When it triumphs it will not
change that policy.
This then is what the ANC is fighting. Their struggle

is a truly national one. It is a struggle of the African
people, inspired by their own suffering and their own
experience. It is a struggle for the right to live.
During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this

struggle of the African people. I have fought
against white domination, and I have fought against
black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a
democratic and free society in which all persons
live together in harmony and with equal opportuni-
ties. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to
achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I
am prepared to die.
• Writing—Set your insights about your journey down on paper

so they will outlive you. This is what I am doing today. The
beauty of the written word is that it does not require your
— 247 —
SPIRITUAL MASTERY
involvement beyond the writing; neither does it allow your

input. What I mean by this is that giving someone a book allows
you to speak directly to their mind without having to spend your
valuable time on personal instruction, or ask them to set aside
special time to listen to you; your participation ends with the
handing over of the writing. Additionally, your removal from the
process means you do not have the opportunity to influence the
learner’s understanding of your material; as befits any journey
toward knowledge, the student must take those halting initial
steps on his or her own. You can publish a book, articles, or a
blog about your journey and educate thousands without ever
meeting them.
If you doubt the power of the written word to change hearts and
minds, consider these words penned by Thomas Jefferson, gentle-
man planter of Virginia, in 1776:
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for

one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected
them with another, and to assume among the powers of the
earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature
and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opin-
ions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes
which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created
equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the
— 248 —
pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments

are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the
consent of the governed. That whenever any form of govern-
ment becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the
people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government,
laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its pow-
ers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect
their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that
governments long established should not be changed for light
and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath
shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are
sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to
which they are accustomed.
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing
invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them
under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to
throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their
future security.—Such has been the patient sufferance of these
colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them
to alter their former systems of government. The history of the
present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries
and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of
an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be
submitted to a candid world…
…We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of
America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the
— 249 —
SPIRITUAL MASTERY
Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions,

do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these
colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united
colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent
states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British
Crown, and that all political connection between them and the
state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and
that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy
war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce,
and to do all other acts and things which independent states
may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a
firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we
mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our
sacred honor.
Clearly, these words had an impact that resonates to this day.

The power of words driven by passion and purpose cannot be
underestimated.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Ministry is one road to mastery, but there are many others. If you
have chosen the ministry as your possible vocation, then it should be
clear as we finish our journey together that the path to becoming a
great pastor is very close indeed to the path to mastery for any
endeavor. Self-awareness, humility, commitment, and a sense of duty
to serve are central to the calling to ministry and to mastery in any
— 250 —
other area of life. It could be said that all ministers are masters, but
it could also be said that all masters are ministers, too.
Any true master is dedicated to propagating the ideas behind his
or her journey: service; growth; discipline; and perseverance. If we
define the minister as one who shepherds others out of the darkness
of ignorance or depression into the full awareness of their standing
as a child of God, then any master of any skill is a shepherd.
Musicians light the way with song, poets with verse, sensei with
training and physical prowess, and artists with visions of what the
world can be. We are all masters in waiting.
Mastery represents an ever-open conduit of knowledge running

from God to Man, and through the lens of Man’s mind to
Mankind. The final lesson of this book is that as a minister of
mastery, you have a sacred duty to pass along what you know
through your words and actions.
What have you mastered in your life that you could teach, mentor
about, or write about? More to the point, what are you doing about it?
Mastery represents an ever-open conduit of knowledge running
from God to Man, and through the lens of Man’s mind to Mankind.
The final lesson of this book is that as a minister of mastery, you
have a sacred duty to pass along what you know through your words
and actions. A duty. A holy charge to bring enlightenment to your
corner of the dim world. God has placed the calling to mastery in
— 251 —
SPIRITUAL MASTERY
you for this reason, and it is the same for us all. Each of us has an
area at which we excel, about which we can teach others. Your life’s
goal should be to find and pursue that excellence in the service of
the Creator. By doing so, you become a Creator as well.
Have you been pursuing “accidental mastery”? It is well past
time to embrace the journey. May God bless your road and your
steps upon it. As the Buddha said,
“Meditate. Live purely. Be quiet. Do your work with mastery.

Like the moon, come out from behind the clouds! Shine.”
— 252 —
About the Author
Bishop E. Bernard Jordan is your most trusted name in prophe-

cy. In 1989, he predicted the 2005 Gulf Coast natural disaster, storm
Katrina, that had a devastating effect on the people in New Orleans.
The Master Prophet has prophesied to literally millions of people.
He has traveled to Swaziland, South Africa, and delivered the
Word of the Lord to the Queen and the Royal Family. He has
prophesied in many nations, including Germany, Canada, Korea,
and throughout the Caribbean, bringing a clear word of counsel to
the leadership of those countries.
He has been featured on NBC’s Today Show, FOX 5, Good Day
New York, CNN, and various other networks. He was also featured
in The Daily News, New York Times, New York Post and Newsday
with some of his congregates as well as in an interview in Billboard
magazine on his views concerning social issues. His life-changing
— 253 —
SPIRITUAL MASTERY
messages on reformation and liberation have sparked acclaim, as

well as controversy, as he teaches the mystical truths of God’s Word.
He is the founder of Zoë Ministries in New York City, a prophetic
gathering with a vision to impact the globe with Christ’s message of
liberation. Bishop Jordan has written more than 50 books including
best-sellers, Mentoring, Spiritual Protocol, What Every Woman
Should Know About Men, The Power of Money, Cosmic Economics,
and New York Times Bestseller, The Laws of Thinking: 20 Secrets to
Using The Divine Power of Your Mind To Manifest Prosperity. He
holds his Doctorate in Religious Studies and a Ph.D. in Religious
Studies. He and his wife Pastor Debra have five children. You can
watch him live on television on The Power of Prophecy telecast or
through live streaming, just visit his site at www.bishopjordan.com.
— 254 —
FREE
WRITTEN PROPHECY
As seen on TV !
¤
To get your free personal written word
in the mail from me,
Master Prophet E. Bernard Jordan,
simply visit our site at
www.bishopjordan.com
and follow the prompts.
The Master Prophet will see the Mind of God on

your behalf and he will give you the ANSWERS
YOU HAVE BEEN SEEKING.

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title page to come

by Master Prophet E. Bernard Jordan

Printed in the United States of America

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form

I would like to thank each of these prophetic partners for

Prophetess Rosonya Adil

Pastor Patricia Burns

Prophetess Ophelia Hayes Jones

Brother Bennie Miles

Introduction: Mastery at a Crossroads ..........................................1

increasing numbers of ministers leaving the church each year and

those training for the ministry benefit from a mastery-based learn-

EXPERTISE AND CIVILIZATION

Human civilization correlates with the development of individual

exceeding that of the modern specialist (knowledge of things like

In the relative safety of the villages and cities, with a surplus of

people, governed by their appetites and desires, to make unwise

children were left to die rather than being allowed to become a

ing to eat it. When confronted by a group of Spartan soldiers, he

THE HERMETIC TRADITION

Cultures even more ancient that those of Classical Greece show

Greenwich, England, and the thirtieth parallel. The pyramid is

allows the initiate to achieve insights more quickly the longer

The Hermetic tradition is the oldest known model of academic

pursuit of excellence. Our own culture harbors the remnants of

THE WAY OF THE PUNDIT

Unfortunately, our modern society is one easily moved by

information but lacking in understanding. We can see them fre-

THE CULT OF THE AMATEUR

Yet punditry is everywhere, and its addictive quality is as mys-

who violated the ethical standards of his profession could expect

were truly horrible, trained reporters later found the reports of

Romantic poets, however, chose to live amongst the savages they

expertise, nor to the fact that his anonymous antagonist on the

Timothy, my son, I give you this instruction in keeping with the

We have explored the historical pursuit of expertise through several

Most important, what does it take to become a master, and what

flying roundhouse kick, playing a Mozart piano concerto, or

deeper reasons behind the idea of mastery as a state to be devoutly

TEN THOUSAND HOURS

In his bestselling book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell defines

Again, nature and nurture play a role in the gestation of greatness.

Again, nature and nurture play a role in the gestation of

Talent is vital, of course. No one ascends to the highest

As Gladwell points out, the acquisition of mastery is extremely

THE MYTHS OF MASTERY

• Mentors are accidental. For every Mr. Miyagi, the mentor

master them. Imagine a young Thelonious Monk playing end-

can doubt Michael Jordan’s mastery of a basketball court. Yet,

THE THREE FACES OF MASTERY

I have distilled mastery into what I believe is its true essence,

1. Automatic. The most basic aspect is physical, in which the

2. Synergistic. With genuine mastery also comes the insight and

also creative. So a young Beethoven studies with the great Josef

3. Pedagogic. Finally, a true master is also a teacher who has

So a true master is an effortless performer, a creator, and a

directed outward toward synthesis, communication, and discovery.

THE MASTERY FORMULA

Journalist Michael Bugeja says, “Education is a lifelong experi-

I would suggest is that while experience is the most vital ingredi-

What I would suggest is that while experience is the most

The first of these additional ingredients in our mastery formula

passion and convert it into energy as an engine converts gasoline