1.
Realistic, Not Idealistic
An idealistic approach to life seeks perfection:
a perfect mind, a
perfect body, a perfect family, a perfect job, and so on...
However, spiritual
maturity involves understanding that these utopian ideals are
ultimately unhelpful and unrealistic.
Furthermore, when applied to the spiritual journey,
idealism
is harmful because it romanticizes certain teachers and
states of consciousness, which can lead to becoming trapped
and walking down the wrong path.
Therefore, instead of
being idealistic, spiritual maturity involves non-idealism or
being realistic and down-to-earth.
2. Being
Kind and Compassionate
Kindness comes from an open heart, and an open
heart is a sign of spiritual maturity.
Without practicing
kindness toward ourselves for our shortcomings and human flaws
and others for their imperfections, we live a constricted and
unhappy life.
And the more
constricted and mind-centered we are, the more immature we are.
Practicing self-love and coming from a place of compassion
toward others helps us to step outside of the judgmental and
rejecting mind and into the wise all-embracing heart.
3.
Patience, Persistence, and Commitment
We live in an instant gratification world where we want fast
results, and we want them now...
But that's not how
the spiritual path works.
A big part of
spiritual maturity is understanding that everything in life
works in cycles.
Birth, death, and
rebirth are part of our inner and outer landscapes, and
there is a season for everything...
As such, being
patient, persistent, and committed are all signs of a
spiritually mature approach to life, knowing that awakening
isn't linear, but is instead cyclical.
4.
Present-Moment Focus
Having a present-moment focus means finding the doorway to
peace, freedom, and love right here and right now.
The mind tends to
imagine that peace, freedom, and love can only be found in the
future, in some ideal situation. But spiritual maturity is about
finding the gateway to freedom in whatever situation we find
ourselves in within life.
As Buddha
said,
"Only here can we
find true liberation."
5.
Down-to-Earth and Integrated
At the start of our inner paths, it's normal to compartmentalize
our spirituality and file it away neatly from the rest of our
"everyday mundane lives."
But at some point, to
move into more spiritual maturity, we need to merge both the
sacred and mundane - and that is what making our spiritual lives
down-to-earth and integrated is all about.
The best way to directly experience all that we learn about is
to actively incorporate it into our life at work, our personal
relationships, and even the way we run our households.
In this way, our
spiritual paths aren't merely a separate practice we dedicate 15
minutes to in the morning:
they become our entire lives.
In other words,
everything we do is done in service to the 'divine'.
6.
Questioning Everything and Being a Freethinker
Being able to question those who teach us is the next aspect of
spiritual maturity.
Blindly following or
naively believing everything that others in positions of
authority say isn't a wise idea.
In fact, it's
very dangerous to go along with what certain spiritual
teachers and gurus say without asking our own questions.
(This is how
cults and destructive groupthink are born.)
We need to be
freethinkers and,
find the truth out for ourselves directly...
We need to be the
wolf, not the sheep, and sniff out what's true from what's false:
it's our right to do this!
There's no point in accepting everything someone says without
experiencing it for ourselves (yes, especially if they appear
all-knowing and in a special place of high authority...!).
Questioning and
cultivating spiritual discernment are of utmost priority and
importance and are central to spiritual maturity.
7. Ability
to Be Flexible
Being flexible
means,
understanding
that there's no one "perfect and absolute way" to walk the
spiritual path.
Dogmatically holding
onto beliefs about how something "should" or "shouldn't" be done
on the awakening journey is just a sign of immaturity
and an egocentric fixation on beliefs.
Flexibility
allows for nuance, differentiation, and diversity which
fosters an environment of peace and tolerance.
Rejecting others
because of what they believe creates fear and resentment,
which is certainly not a sign of spiritual maturity.
8.
Embracing Polarities
Black-and-white thinking results in a dualistic and painfully
divided way of seeing and experiencing the world.
However, when we
learn how to embrace opposites and polarities:
human and divine,
sacred and wild, happy and sad, angry and peaceful, right
and wrong,
...we find harmony and wholeness...
We touch into
non-duality, which is a mature way of relating to life because
it goes beyond the mind and into the very nature of being.
9.
We-Centered Instead of Me-Centered
Spiritual maturity is about moving from a me-centered way of
experiencing life to a we-centered approach where we can
experience the interconnectedness of everything.
When we are in
relationship with life, we find a sense of harmony and flow.
But when we are
in resistance to life (the opposite of relating), we feel
cut off, disconnected, and alone.
Spiritual maturity
involves moving from resistance to relating with the various
situations, people, and experiences that emerge, no matter how
difficult.
10.
Embracing the Simple Things in Life
Wanting to look,
behave, or feel special and "super enlightened" or
"extraordinarily awakened" is a sign of immaturity and that
the ego is at work behind the
scenes.
Embracing
ordinariness and the simple things in life, on the other hand,
is a sign of spiritual maturity because it embraces ourselves
and life as it is.
There's no need to
behave a certain way, look a certain way, speak in a special
way, or add or subtract anything from life.
Life is seen to
be fine as it is.
The ordinary is
extraordinary.
Spiritual maturity
means,
being comfortable
with being yourself just as you are and operating in a very
down-to-earth way...
11. Nondual
Consciousness
Nondual consciousness sees unity within everything, and
as such, it's a sign of spiritual maturity.
When we live
through the mind, we divide and cut up the world into
concepts and ideas, missing the wholeness that is already
right here, right now, underneath thought.
This tendency to
divide the world and to operate from an isolated little "me"
(which is another thought) is at the root of suffering.
As such, nondual consciousness is a return back to
life-as-it-is before the overactive mind came in and
dissected and divided it into various labels, beliefs, and
ideas.
The return to this
way of seeing is what has been referred to through the ages as
the path back to,
heaven, freedom,
oneness, enlightenment, or Self-Realization...
