Have you ever seen a baby learning to walk? How they pull themselves up, let go and fall on their bum? How they eventually learn to hold on and stand up? The surprise on their face when they eventually fall on their bum again? How they hold on to something, then let go then fall? And they chuckle and they laugh and then they get determined and try again. Ever seen one give up? They might get tired and want a break but they head back to learning to walk as soon as they can. Eventually they start to stand alone, then totter, then they gain confidence and begin to walk, occasionally slipping back to land on their bum. As they progress it is one step forward, two backwards and sit on their bum laughing. Then they haul themselves up again and start again.
Not many babies who are learning to walk cry at landing on their bum. They don’t give up. They don’t sulk. They don’t make excuses. They are not afraid. They do not hurt themselves. They find joy in what they are doing. They live in the moment, experiencing life as love.
The spiritual journey is rather similar to learning to walk. We find a prop. We hold onto it until we feel able to move on without it. We make progress, then slip back. We land on our bum a good few times. but unlike the innocent babes, we don’t giggle. We do not accept what is. We complain, we struggle, we get angry, we want to know why everything is not coming to us easily. We fight the process of learning to walk instead of delighting in it. Why do we do this? Because we have forgotten the joy of being, of creating, of learning that we knew as babes. Can you remember learning to walk for the first time? I can’t – but I can’t remember my first attempts to walk the human journey as a spiritual being either. I can remember some of the things that I had to deal with to learn, I can remember feeling resentful, fighting the circumstances that were there to teach me. I do remember resisting the learning, the teaching of life experience. And being stubborn, it took a long time for me to learn to accept life experiences as my teachers and mentors. For those who found their way to this truth as young people I have much admiration.
The point is that we need to become as (very) little children, toddlers, to learn the lessons of being in a state of loving security and creativity. We need to be spiritually like the toddler learning to walk physically. We need to learn to enjoy the experience, to live in the moment and not to fight the experience.
It is not easy. There really are no short cuts. Acceptance of what is and living in the moment each moment of each moment of each day is what is required. It is painful. It involves loss. It involves letting go of fear and the illusion of control. But the results are worth whatever you go through on your journey to learn to live in unconditional love with yourself and others.
The invitation to you is therefore to be willing to embark on or continue on this journey; to allow life and all its experiences to be your teacher and mentor. To learn to live moment by moment, trusting the creative universal cosmic force to provide for you as it does the trees, the lakes, the birds and the animals.
pcoljp 