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Spiritual Growth
In life, advancement in spiritual growth is made through the discovery of certain Truths: Personal Truths and Universal Truths. The first step would be to discover as many Personal Truths as possible about oneself. One such truth, in my case, was the discovery and ownership of my sexuality as a gay woman. Another truth was the acceptance and ownership of being raped as a child, then gaining the knowledge to release the rights and restrictions of remaining a victim.
Personal Truths must be in alignment with Universal Truths, never in opposition. A Universal Truth I discovered was present in this quote:
One night I slept and dreamt that life was all joy;
I awoke and discovered life was but service,
I served and discovered service was joy.
Unknown
Another Universal Truth was given to me through therapy and I call it the Butterfly story:
A man was walking down the street one day and saw a butterfly struggling to get free of it’s cocoon. He felt sorry for the butterfly, reached down, and released him from the cocoon. He watched as the butterfly tried to flap its wings, but instead, watched it die on the sidewalk before him. This upset the man and he picked up the butterfly and brought it to a friend who was knowledgeable about such things and asked what could have happened. His friend responded by telling him that the butterfly needed to struggle from it’s cocoon in order to develop the strength to fly; by robbing the butterfly of it’s struggle, he made it too weak to live.
An understanding of the way in which these two Universal Truths interact is of the utmost importance because they must never contradict one another. Bluntly put, it must be understood the Service must never rob anyone of the necessary struggles, which are Essential to a healthy, happy life.
Awareness of Truths is only the first step, and it’s the easiest. Understanding and true acceptance of the fact that we serve no one when we rob anyone of a necessary struggle is a difficult skill to obtain and properly execute. This, along with total ownership of other Truths, is a Journey that is intended to take a lifetime
