My best friend started losing his hair. During the two decades we’ve known each other, his hair has been a constant source of concern for him, but recently the process accelerated. In response, he lopped it all off.

The odd thing is that I’ve also noticed a shift in his personality to accompany his new look, and I’m not the only one. His wife started calling him an enlightened being.

One could claim it’s because he looks more like a Buddhist monk, but I’m not sure. I think he’s an absolutely great guy… smart, funny, wise, patient, and talented in so many ways. But enlightened? Not the first thing that comes to mind.

We’ve been through it all in our 20 years together – marriage, divorce, birth, death, financial collapse, screaming success, sickness and health. He knows me better than anyone else living on this planet and I work very hard to see him in his truth. There are undeniably great things coming out of his mouth… insightful, beautiful, profound things. It is the kind of stuff Yoda would say, and I realize, stuff I would say!

I am the philosopher in our relationship. I am the one obsessed with personal development and spiritual growth. It is my livelihood and my life, seeing the bigger picture and helping people to do the same. I realized that the odd thing about how my best friend was now speaking, was that it sounded like my own voice.

My spiritual teacher often talks about how those on a right path will be the ones to change the world. It will not be the richest or the loudest or the most powerful, but the yogis and seekers, for whom love and compassion are sacred, who will lead the way. He talks about those who outwardly appear to have achieved what is honored in our world, but who are unkind and uncaring people.

The test of one’s advancement towards enlightenment lies not in how long one can sit in meditation, how many times one can wrap a leg around one’s head, or how many followers one can accumulate. He teaches that it is all about how, not who, you are in the world – how you treat your family, the people you love, and even the people you don’t like that much.

It is about what type of steward you are for the things left in your care.

My teacher also says that the impact of those people and their actions can be felt far outside their direct sphere of influence. It has been scientifically measured that one’s happiness is increased by having happy friends, as well as by the happiness of the friends of friends, whom you may not even know!

That is a pretty wild idea if you think about it.

It is as if happiness was an invisible vapor that we all breathe, and the more of it produced, the more we all feel it, even if the source is not near us. Wow.

This makes me think conscious evolution of the soul (otherwise known as enlightenment) must work in the same way. Kindness is infectious, as a slew of commercials have been pointing out in a recent ‘Pay it Forward’ campaign.

We will likely never know how far out the wave of our actions will travel or how our own awakenings (or stumbles) may trigger another person’s awakening (or stumble).

This idea is very appealing to me, as I find the task of uplifting one person at a time, and getting to a critical mass of transformed beings in my lifetime, completely daunting. Perhaps the reality is that the shift does not rely on just one person; it also includes all the people that that one person touches.

This can be very empowering, and completely terrifying at the same time. With all this reach, it becomes even more important what we say and do.

I want to think I played a big part in my best friend’s wisdom, whether it is new-found or not. (My daughter happens to play a large part in how polished his head is.) I know he has played a huge part in mine.

I want to know that those with whom I connect are the better for it, and that those with whom they connect experience the same. I want to be the source for their clarity, conscious behavior and commitment to being a force for good.

There was a funny shampoo commercial when I was growing up that taught us all about the multiplicative effects of our connections. A beautiful blonde with fabulous hair told two friends about her shampoo, and they told two friends, and they told two friends. The TV screen soon filled with all the gorgeous women with newly-dazzling hair, just because one person told two friends.

Like smoke, secondhand enlightenment appears to not be any less potent than its firsthand sibling.  Let’s fill the air with awareness, compassion, love and the knowledge of our own power to affect change, so that others far and wide can breathe it in. Let’s make kindness viral, fabulous hair optional.

What’s YOUR part in the spread of kindness? Tell me below…