. Caffeine musings this morning: Many of us spiritual types hold compassion as a deep personal value — and that’s as it should be. But I see a lot of us trying for “compassion” as the default response to life’s exigencies without first having truly faced our fear and our anger. True compassion rests on *detachment* and *power*. You can’t attain detachment without first having faced and conquered your fear, or you will be using a veneer of detachment to push your fear away — and it’s exhausting. You can’t engage your power without having faced and conquered your anger, or your power will be false and brittle. “Getting better” is not the same thing as having done the work. Forgive me, but “getting better” is not even doing the work. You’ve either done that work, or you haven’t. The most sincere subscription to spiritual ideals is NOT the same as the fruits of these accomplishments, and the proof is in your daily life of work and relationships. If you’re still doing things the way you did them ten or twenty years ago except with a coat of spiritual paint to dress it up, you haven’t done the work. If you have, your life has been transformed and it’s visible to everyone (except for the friends who left you because they needed you to be fearful or angry). I am grateful to Peet’s “Garuda Blend” for this riff.
Posted on: Fri, 19 Sep 2014 17:43:11 +0000
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