Maturity
“Part
of spiritual and emotional maturity is recognizing that it's not like
you're going to try to fix yourself and become a different person.
You remain the same person, but you become awakened.”
Jack
Kornfield
I'm
embarrassed to say, that it has taken me lo these many years to
realize that no amount of therapy, meditation, or prayer is going to
change me into a different, and better person. All my traits were
laid down along with skinny legs and unmatched ears before I was ever
complete in my mother's womb, and reinforced like crazy during the
first five years of my life here on planet Earth. They are as
permanent as Mount Rushmore. I started this work-project of personal
change in my twenties, and four decades of toil and labor later, I am
still the very same person I was when I started. I have good traits,
and boy, do I have some bad ones. The only difference is, I'm
conscious of all of them now—well, maybe not all of them, but
enough to recognize them as first cousins. They pop up like ugly
trolls, and I think, “Oh, yeah, I know you. Aren't we kin?”
The
good news is, consciousness is everything! When we're awake, we
recognize that the brooding, critical, angry voice inside our head
belongs to us and not someone else. We may be able to conjure up ten
people to blame for its being there, but at this point, it's ours to
keep. We have to name it and claim it. But let's not forget the other
side—the good parts. The voice of compassion and praise, the side
that identifies with the wounds of another and feels empathy also
belongs to us. The trait we tend to have the hardest time recognizing
as our own is the light shining from our open heart out into a
hurting world.
I
am, and you are, the very same person as when we started life, but if
we have awakened, if we have become conscious, we are less likely to
project our bad traits onto others, and more likely to love others in
spite of their imperfections. We're also more able to see our own
goodness, and embrace our flaws as part of who we are—even skinny
legs and a bad temper.
In
the Spirit,
Jane
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