Measuring Maturity

 The measure of your maturity is in how spiritual you become in the midst of your frustrations. 

Samuel Ulman

According to many spiritual masters, we can measure our progress on this spiritual path by how much things that used to bother us so much bother us now. I had a little test yesterday when I spilled tea on my computer.  Not thinking it was much  I wiped it off and left my laptop where I usually leave it...and went to work.  When I came home and sat down to write...which is the thing I feel so compelled to do all the time...it started to short circuit on me a bit and kept shutting off. Then it suddenly went all black. I knew then it was more than a bit of tea that landed inside my computer. I knew my computer might be in trouble!

At that moment I had a choice: to react in the way I have been conditioned to react, or to respond spiritually to this situation and its possible outcome. 

 Normally, I would have instantly panicked and jumped around screaming, "OMG!  All my work is on that thing...all my years of writing and what not! So much of "me".... I might have lost it all! If this computer doesn't work I don't know what I will do! I need to write!!Why does the universe always punish me so??" I would have been in a very negative frenzy!!

But...I didn't react in that way.  

I certainly felt a bit of worry and fear in the core of my gut. I certainly acknowledged what the worse case ssenario would mean. But I also took a deep breath to remind myself that I have  been operating most of my life by listening to ego and that I don't want to do that anymore. I knew that I have a conditioning in me - a core belief...that tries to prove itself with every challenge I experience. It tries to convince me that "What can go wrong will go wrong in my life...that things will not work out...that the universe must be telling me I am not meant to write...I am not good enough anyway."  I reminded myself that it was just a belief that I adhered to already too much in my life and do not have to listen to it now. I told myself that it is just F.E.A.R. ( false evidence appearing real) . I reminded myself how much this  F.E.A.R. has taken me from experiencing life fully and freely. I reminded myself  that I am now committed to truth rather than my conditioning, that I am committed  to a new way of being. That beingness involves letting go of my attachment to outcome, to the "personality" I define myself as...and means building trust that Life has my greater good in mind. I looked at this possible loss as another opportunity to grow in this faith and truth.

I also reminded myself in those few moments I was calmly picking up my laptop and placing it in rice that though I love to write...I am not just a "writer"...I am so much more than my writing.  If the universe is telling me that writing is in the way of me becoming that which "I am" then so be it. I will listen. I knew what was really important and that was deeper than my computer, or my writing.

I then spent the rest of the day with this compulsion in my gut to write, knowing that I couldn't.  It left me feeling a bit ancy and bored, finding it hard to sit still.  I just kept reminding myself of the above until the feeling went away. I had to do that often.

Then, finally at some point,  I forgot all about the computer, went about my business until bedtime. I meditated a couple of extra times because I had more time to spare. I woke up this morning and proceeded to take the laptop out of the box to turn it on ...without an ounce of concern about the outcome.  Somehow, I knew it would be okay. ...or at least, I would be okay with whatever.  And it was! I was!

Wow! Here I am writing on my laptop.

Yeah,  this little experience showed me that though I still may be stumbling around in the  "dark night of the soul" stuff on this lag of the journey...I am progressing. I am maturing. Infact, the momentum is picking up. I am beginning to move a lot faster toward the light.  Pretty cool.

All is well in my world!