Interview with Philip Carr-Gomm

Yeah, fierce grace, to me it has a number of meanings, but I think the meaning which really stands out for me is fierce grace is the passion that arises in spiritual development or spiritual awakening, the passion to heal the world, to make the world a better place, to relieve people's suffering, to bring goodness into the world.

And to me, it's very significant that a lot of the great mystics in human history, they weren't just hermits who lived in the forest away from the human world.

They were people who were very engaged in society.

A good example is Florence Nightingale.

A lot of people don't know that she was a very spiritually awakened person, a kind of mystic.

And she had this amazing energy.

They called it nightingale power because she had so much passion to relieve human suffering.

And she basically invented the profession of nursing.

And she brought in so many social reforms and health reforms.

And that all stemmed from her spirituality, from her mysticism.

So to me, that's what fierce grace is.

And that's what naturally arises when we undergo spiritual development, right?

And the fierceness, Steve, if you agree here, that the fierceness is that our world is in a challenging place at this moment.

It's fierce.

There's a lot of fierce things happening.

And instead of being overwhelmed by the fierceness and saying, oh dear, you know, I can't do anything.

we're using it as a trigger, as a catalyst to help wake us up and move forward.

So the fierceness of our world is not the enemy, it's the ally.

Right, Steve? Would you agree?

I agree completely, Serge, yeah.

We need to have fierce hope and fierce optimism to resist the darkness and the discord and the suffering in the world.

Exactly.

The fire, the passion, the spiritual energy that lies inside us has to glow brightly and bring healing into the world.

Yeah, right.