Читать книгу Triumph Of Love Over Ego - Saeed Habibzadeh - Страница 38

Experience is not synonymous with spiritual maturity; it only means that we have gathered a lot of experiences. Over time we acquire experiences that we use as the blueprint for dealing with situations in the future. This means that in time we base our behaviour more and more on experiences from the past and less and less on the facts of the actual current situation. This process happens so slowly that we are not consciously aware of it, but it will dull our senses and make us liable to use our experiences to form prejudices and pre-set opinions about people and situations we do not even know. This explains stereotypical thinking.

Another phenomenon shows us that we focus our attention on our personal conclusions and interpretations, while ignoring the specific reasons and origins of particular experiences. And so we continue to act in accordance with our personal interpretations instead of the facts.

But the more we use interpretations, the further away from the truth we get.

The next point to consider is this: if we have been successful with a particular course of action, we tend to use this same course of action in any given situation, without thinking about it further. This is how we end up with patterns of behaviour that can limit our behaviour and our perception. In barely perceptible ways, these patterns of behaviour control the way we behave. To us, this becomes apparent when, much later, we cannot come up with an explanation for our negative actions.

All this indicates that we can certainly amass a lot of experiences without expanding our consciousness or gaining spiritual maturity!

Experience does not equal maturity and does not guarantee that our chosen approach is the right one.

So, what exactly is maturity?

In this context, maturity is meant to denote spiritual maturity.

Spiritual maturity is achieved by liberating consciousness from ego.

Our ego places serious limits on our abilities and possibilities. Whenever our ego is in charge, we act like sulky little children. The farther away we move from our egoistic thoughts, intentions and wishes, the more we grow mature in spirit.

The more egoistic we are, the smaller our spiritual maturity. The more mature we grow, the more we will act and react with the common good in mind, since our ego is growing smaller.

It is a fallacy to imagine that we know all there is to know about something, just because we have experienced it for years. Experience does not guarantee that we will never encounter a new situation and that we always do everything correctly. It also does not guarantee that we have always done everything correctly, just because to date we have not noticed any mistakes. Our experiences can be very one-sided, which is particularly likely if we have had certain experiences that were designed to satisfy our ego. We may have experienced a great deal, but we will have learnt very little, because we have no real interest in life.

Experience does not automatically lead to spiritual maturity and spiritual growth.

We gain true spiritual maturity by dealing objectively and honestly with our experiences. This enables us to gain the insights necessary for us to expand our consciousness.