“Gratitude is our native state. Generosity is its maturation.”
—Charles Eisenstein
 

 would say that an enormous number of people involved in spiritual growth and personal development are doing it for their own sake. Whether that be to experience more peace, get better sleep, develop a nicer looking physique, live in the now, acquire more money, have closer relationships, etc. Somehow all of their introspection is, to be quite frank, for themselves and their individual gain. Ego working out its own enlightenment.

Now, before any voice in your head screams, “Yeah, that’s you! You’re seeking what’s selfishly good for you…” please keep in mind that tending to your inner landscape is an excellent first step. You really can’t be expected to put the oxygen mask over someone else’s face if you’re passed out on the floor from lack of air. You must do the work yourself. My teacher highly encouraged us to use our experience to see how we suffered so we could deal with that first. We needed to put the disease in our heads to rest before focusing on the illness around us. And as she used to colorfully say, “The world doesn’t need another screwed up person trying to save it.”

But there is a part two.

If part one is to work extremely hard to acquire your freedom, then part two is the mirror opposite of that. You must abandon yourself so that you may tend to the freedom of others. Instead of “what’s in this for me?” the focus shifts to “what’s in this for we?”

Once we attain Center, which is our native state, we begin to express compassion, which is its maturation. Compassion is experiencing non-separation and acting from that understanding. It is living and breathing from that understanding. One who is living from Center cannot help but act this way. It’s not the action first. Many people attempt to “act” compassionate to get to Center, but that’s not how it works. Compassion can’t help but exude from Center. Just like light can’t help but glow forth from the sun.

That’s why I’ll say it’s important to train yourself to keep your attention HERE at Center. Once you’re living HERE at Center – compassion, generosity, kindness, and joy are by-products of that residence. You’ll really have no other choice.

And that’s what growing up spiritually looks like.