Friday, December 4, 2020

SPIRITUAL GROWTH...THE SUPREME PARADOX

I wonder if the feeling that spiritual growth is so difficult to maintain is because it seems to directly oppose our reasoning mind...or, "reasonable" thinking.

Spiritual growth is the supreme paradox: We begin with an excitation...I found it!...then dig deeper till we get to flummoxed...whaaa?

When I read that Gandhi, a man I greatly admire, studied the Sermon on the Mount every day for forty years, I decided to give it a go, so I start my day reading a bit of the Sermon then pondering that. In that continuing study, I began again this morning with The Beatitudes.

At first, I read those seemingly throwaway lines...blessed are the poor in spirit, the meek, etc., till I got to: "Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so men persecuted the prophets who were before you."

Who's kidding whom? That's a Whoa! Stop! Shut Up!

That is precisely why I am grateful I started out willing to study the Sermon. It now makes spiritual sense...my mind has been exchanged.

I doubt not that is the basis for my blinding flash that the secret to life itself is give over, give up, give in. I can't even count how many shrinks, therapists and counselors I paid over the years trying to fix me...so I could feel self-confident, stand up for myself, Be Somebody.

When I read that Meister Eckhart said, “the spiritual life is more about subtraction than it is addition,” I knew my suspicion that we need to shuck our shields, not bolster them was on target, and I quit turning to shrinks to solve my me-problem. 

I have read that spiritual growth always comes through the wounding. Only through an exchanged mind did that make sense. For the wounding is ego deflation...not just ego reduction but ego deflation. A lifetime project...for God to walk us through. Back to the Sermon.

Thank you. 

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