Spiritual Development Essay II

The goal of spiritual development, in my opinion, is gaining the willingness and ability to:

* look within one's self and discover the inconsistencies within one's own belief system, and then work to resolve those inconsistencies in order to strengthen the solidarity of our own internal belief system
* look at how one has been relating to the world at large and, using the "new and improved" version of one's beliefs, work to eliminate the inconsistencies between what one believes and how one acts in the world and how one treats others
* and, three, to continue to think about and refine these two spheres of thought throughout life, putting into practice any changes made to one's beliefs so that our beliefs and actions remain more or less consistent as we grow.

This process may result in an abandonment of a traditional religious belief, it may entail a change to a totally different belief system, or it may result in the person remaining within their current belief system but pursuing it with renewed understanding and more active involvement. However, as long as the goal is an improved ability to discern "truth" and to put that truth into practice, then the result will hopefully be greater spiritual development.

In my view, there are many barriers to achieving a state of continual spiritual development. The first is the fact that we often find it quite difficult to be honest with ourselves about who we are and what we really believe. Everyone wears various masks in their every day life that show only the parts of ourselves that we want the rest of the world to see. We even wear masks that serve to show only the parts of ourselves to ourselves that WE want to see! It is not fun to look at the primitive and sometimes violent emotions that churn behind our facades. The hardest part of true spiritual development is it requires you to pierce through the masks you wear and delve into the mess that lies behind them.

In my experience, it is often quite painful to admit that you are even wearing a mask - nearly everyone wants to believe that they are "honest" and "good" and the general consensus is that "good honest people" don't wear masks. And certainly "good honest people" don't have all that violent emotional churning going on behind the scenes! So, while a mask may be what we think we need in order to live with ourselves in peace, the more masks that we create the less we are able to access what lies behind them and the less we are able to do the work that is required to advance our lives spiritually.

Therefore, mentoring others in their spiritual development, while rewarding at times, can also be a very complicated and dangerous undertaking. It is more than enough work for most of us to just mentor ourselves. Helping others to undergo that difficult process is even more tricky. However, if the person requesting mentoring is sincere in their wish to undertake the task, there are a few things I believe can be done to aid them in this that go beyond simply pointing them in the direction of helpful resources.

First, we should not try to tell our mentee what they should do, even if we think we have the "right" answer, or that they are in some way not being honest with themselves about something they do or believe. Popping delusional bubbles is best left to the person who has them. If they cannot do it, then that generally means it cannot be done at that time. So we as mentors should try to leave any arrogant "I'll just HELP them out of their delusions" attitude at the door. In fact, popping one's own delusional bubbles is a skill that is so worth the work required to hone that we as mentors should strive to not deprive our mentees of the experience.

Second, I think mentors should resist the temptation to try to do all the mental work for a mentee when they are struggling. It's okay to make a few suggestions, but if you try to map everything out for them that you think they should be doing, then they won't own the process and owning one's own journey is imperative for achieving true spiritual development. Besides, who says we as mentors can really know it all anyway? That is serious arrogance! Worse, if the mentor is shown to be right about some things, the mentee may begin to try to relate to their mentor as yet another authority figure interceding between themselves and their concept of god. While that kind of regard might please some people's egos, adding yet another layer between our mentees and the divine is not at all what mentors should be working towards.

Third, I believe we should make peace with the fact that some parts of this journey are just going to be painful. There's little that can be done about that, and perhaps it is just as well. We all tend to value the things we've had to work the hardest to obtain, and spiritual development is no different in this respect. A mentor needs to learn to "sit with the pain" when a mentee is experiencing it, and allow the pain to do the work it needs to do without too much interference. Comforting a mentee is definitely appropriate, but I think it is important to realize that taking away the pain is not always the best thing to do: sometimes it is necessary to fully experience the pain of our own shortcomings in order to bring about the desire for true change.