I believe that to be spiritual means to exist and create in full consciousness, in balance with both the divine feminine and masculine. The Power of Shakti by Padma Aon Prakasha, on the very first page, defines the divine masculine as pure consciousness and the divine feminine as the creative life force that manifests that consciousness. When both are working together, you get creation from pure wisdom. What a beautiful thing, right?

Julia Cameron, in The Artist’s Way, teaches that life itself is a creative project. We may not consider ourselves writers or artists because we don’t play an instrument or paint like Van Gogh, and maybe we even suck at cooking. Yet, our lives are our greatest masterpieces. No one else can create our lives for us.  

The problem today is that Western culture values only productivity — go, go, go. No time to slow down and develop pure consciousness. No time to be creative and try to manifest one’s own dreams and projects. Always working for someone else on someones else’s agenda. We get a total of five years to play, if that, before we’re thrown in school. After that, the schooling continues, only to dump us out straight into a job, or for the lucky ones, possibly a meaningful career. We get two weeks of vacation time every year. Two weeks to play — that’s it! How does one develop true spirituality with no time to come into contact with the divine?

As a current student of social entrepreneurship, I observe many creatives and entrepreneurs, mostly male. As a female woman of color, I never dreamed that I could become an entrepreneur. Business? That’s for rich people. You need to have money to make money. Innovation? That’s for the techies in San Francisco. I don’t even know how to code. 

I also didn’t have any female minority mentors growing up, and a recent panel I attended made me realize that other young women like me have faced the same reality. The Female Quotient (FQ) is a women-founded company and hub on my university campus that focuses on supporting female entrepreneurs. The panel I attended was hosted by FQ, and the panelists were all amazing women in my age group. One was eighteen years old with plans of running for city council in 2020. Another was a senior in college already launching a nonprofit. The third panelist had a family history that could bring you to tears, and here she was, a badass activist for immigrant rights in Los Angeles. To put the cherry on top, the moderator worked with Obama in the White House. Needless to say, I was in awe of these women. There was a palpable energy of sisterhood in that room, and I couldn’t help but wonder if I wasn’t being awakened to the divine feminine in that moment. All of these incredible young women were creating with compassion and love for others at the forefront of their work. 

All entrepreneurs are creative individuals, but danger lies in unconscious creation. Our society oppresses women perhaps because it worships a dangerous divine femininity — creation with no consciousness. Businesses today are responsible for exploitative working conditions, unequal distribution of wealth, and populations’ declining health, among other evils; yet, you’ll find that major corporations only care about these things when they affect their profits. Social entrepreneurs attempt to bridge this divide by proving to corporations that caring about not only profit but also people and planet is actually an excellent way to do business. Research shows that socially responsible businesses outperform traditional businesses in the long run, and when run by women, even more so. This is not to say that women entrepreneurs are superior to men, but rather to suggest that businesses created with concern for more than profit may be more successful in the long run because they have been created in alignment with the divine feminine. 

So, what would the world look like if all businesses were created by people in alignment with the divine feminine and masculine? What if every entrepreneur considered him or herself a “spiritual entrepreneur”? What if all businesses had a soul?

To be spiritual is to be aware of one’s own divinity and one’s responsibility to exist and create in alignment with this divinity. It is a discipline and a practice, and the world will be better off when we are all spiritual creatives, especially our entrepreneurs.