Cultivating Spiritual Maturity: An Honest Look at Our Commitments (Lalitha)

We’ve got to have necessity to cultivate spiritual maturity. The foundation that we need for maturing is always being built stronger. What do we expect from our spiritual practice? What are we willing to pay for it in terms of our attention, time, and necessity? When we cultivate spiritual maturity, we open up senses we don’t even know we have and develop the capacity to “eat” the “substance” of necessity. What kind of risk can we sustain—not to our life—but to our comfort zones, beliefs, opinions? We may say ‘no’ to many things, but we can say ‘yes’ to a one-pointed aim up until our last breath. We become a bit alchemical as one substance (ourselves) changes into another. The universe will not take us seriously unless we take our sadhana (spiritual work) seriously. It can also be helpful to find something to do that delights us and to develop being rather than doing. We can work with the mantra, “I welcome that which You would have me serve. I welcome that which You would have serve me.” We can develop three things to increase our capacity: holding our seat, being invisible, living long and strong. At some point we will need help, as in any artful endeavor. We could look around, relate to, and “borrow” from those who have a practice that has produced fruit such as wisdom, being, and common sense. We want to deepen our practice but don’t really want to change. The teacher-student relationship is a type of apprenticeship. What most people call the “guru within” is the voice of our comfort zone. Good company is priceless and can help us to refresh the stagnant condition of our comfort zone. Lalitha is a spiritual teacher residing in British Columbia, Canada, who has been a disciple of the Western Baul Master, Lee Lozowick, since 1982. Her teaching style is rooted in the activities and responsibilities of ordinary life. Her most recent books are Waking to Ordinary Life and Cultivating Spiritual Maturity.