Spiritual Maturity

Since spending a lot of time in our retreat centre near Sao Paulo in Serra Negra, I have been able to observe the exuberant nature here, how all of the elements are able to live with each other in harmony. You don't find trees fighting with each other in their effort to put their highest branches in the sunlight.

You don't find the grass making huge efforts to push its shoots through the topsoil to reach the same light. You can see how the wind, clouds, rain and sun combine to produce refreshing scenes every day. It's forever recycling itself. Just look at these beautiful irises in front of the building where I am (picture above). The potential for their splendid manifestation is in the bulb. Every year, around this time they bloom.

Even looking out the same window, where my office is, everything is different every time I look out - clouds and sunlight are always changing.

These are the things that remind me of spiritual maturity. For me, it is a sense of sufficiency, that everything is moving along nicely, not in the sense of standing back and just going with the flow. It's really because there is a relationship between internal order and how this influences the world we live in.

There is an understanding that worry is low-quality thinking, and that it's much more profitable to have inner control and peace and watch the wonders that happen around, from that state.

I've been thinking more about spiritual maturity in terms of some indicators. How humble do I feel? How protected do I feel? Does my spiritual state reflect the more than 40 years I have dedicated to developing it?

I can honestly say I don't have limited pride about what I have learned and know. It's that I'm really glad about how spiritual knowledge has helped me and others throughout my life. I do not feel that I'm better or worse than anyone else, just different.

There is an intuitive understanding that I don't need to compare myself with others. I just have to recognize and celebrate the many things we have in common. And any intellect or personality differences only provide variety for the play of life.
I understand that truth will always be self-evident. I do not need to prove anything. Only that which is really true has a future. Everything that is intrinsically wrong does not last.
I recently found two words in Sanskrit that reflect an important part of spiritual maturity.
Gaunibhakti is ego-based devotion, in which the person feels that he is "saved" and looks with disdain at any other kind of faith. This means to love one ideal, but feel aversion to other ideals.
Parabhakti (the highest level of devotion) means total loving devotion to the truth, so much so that there is no room for hatred of any kind.
This to me is the essence of spiritual maturity.

Text from the Live and Meditate Channel (https://www.youtube.com/liveandmeditate and https://www.facebook.com/liveandmeditate/) Videos #14 and #15