Love and Ignorance

So I read a few articles today by Andrew Cohen (Evolutionary Enlightenment) where he was talking about the undeveloped emotional landscape of the vast majority of us adult human beings.  He didn't put it in those exact words--his words had more to do with narcissism and ego--but they are pretty much the same thing when you start looking at the identifying behaviors.

Such stupid ignorance--yes, stupid ignorance--is rampant.  People walk around asleep and don't even know it.  They are so full of their own interpretations of reality that it would not even occur to them that they might be acting their way through their life rather than consciously choosing who they are and what is true of them.

Most of us would be surprised if a cultural anthropologist observed us for a year.  We'd find out all sorts of things about ourselves that we'd probably find angering (because we'd dislike hearing it), disappointing, revealing, and, well, new.

What Cohen was talking about in some of his articles was the difference between integrity and spiritual evolution and how common it is to search for the latter and ignore the former.  He said that it has been his experience that there aren't a whole lot of people he's met whose character combines the two.

Boy, he ain't kiddin'. 

Sorrow

How is sorrow attached to being sorry?

How many of us connect sorrow with that little phrase?

How many accept their own actions as having caused sorrow and, then, further, feel sorrow as a result of having hurt another?

We are so glib in our apologies, and so often we self justify out of our ignorance rather than malice. Of course I include my own actions and thoughts here; I am not accusing anyone but, rather, all of us--if you can call it accusing.

Soft hearts usually have been badly broken. The one with the soft heart has battled the tendency to harden the heart to stone, but the choice to surrender overcame the choice to get even. Talk about acceptance!

Letting go takes courage. This I understand. It has been easier to cling to what hurts than to be all alone adrift at sea.

Funny what I learn. Over and over. There is no absolute lesson but this: Love one another.

Part 1: We Are So Certain of What Is Fate

I've been thinking about the odd certainty with which so many of us live our lives, as though our choices were perfect, as though we were never wrong, as though love were nothing important at all.  Most of us just go through the motions of every day.  We may as well be each other because we are so little in touch with our innermost self and how alone we are in this universe.

I suppose my friends are right when they say I think about more things, and more deeply, than do most others.  So I wonder how many others ever stop to question their conclusions and leave room for wonder, leave room for change.  We get so invested in being right that we slam doors and insist on locking them. Keep Out, the sign on the door insists--even to ourselves.  We only pretend to know ourselves and usually we are fantastic at judging others. We make assumptions about motives, we analyze behavior, we act with impunity towards others and never feel one ounce of remorse.  We are clueless as to how we injure the innocent because we wholeheartedly believe we are innocent ourselves.  I am sure I have been often guilty of this as a mother and that I was guilty of this as a wife.  Now, I work hard at recognizing my fallibility, but not to the point where I condemn myself.  Rather, I have become my own friend.

For years, I extended love and compassion at my own expense.  Foolish, blind, needy, but well-meaning.  So much for being enlightened!  Now I am a little wiser, a little more compassionate to myself, a little more able to laugh at how intense I am, a little more able to see how very good I am, how very true I am--but let me also admit that I still get hooked by my own thoughts and struggle with letting go.  It's a process, this whole thing of being human.

Are you open to this in your life?  








.