In my previous post, I wrote about Self Compassion and the Divine Mercy. The two have much in common; just as God shows mercy towards us, so we must be merciful towards ourselves. But is self compassion by itself a spiritual path?
I don't think it is.
To me, self compassion is an essential feature of well being. It's a self-counselling technique, one which may be taught by a therapist or learned from reading and applied to oneself. Without a similar approach to self observation, we can't make any progress in the Work or along any other spiritual path; certainly we can't become true Christians, able to love ourselves and other people, unless we show mercy towards ourselves.
But - like its companion discipline, mindfulness, which may be compared to the very beginning of self-observation - it operates purely on the natural level. There is nothing supernatural about it. And without the supernatural, there is no spirituality.
Neither self compassion nor mindfulness can, by themselves, function as a spiritual path. Why not? Because they begin and end with ourselves, whereas a spiritual path, by definition, leads us towards a Higher Power, towards God. Such a journey takes us out of ourselves, out of that short-circuit which is the natural, psychological level of life, where most people live for most of the time.
More, a spiritual path shows us how to treat other people.
Obviously, we need first of all to treat ourselves with compassion and mercy. That is basic to all spiritual progress, because we cannot love others or love God if we do not love ourselves. By loving ourselves, accepting ourselves with all our faults and defects, we place ourselves in a position whereby we can love others, who also have faults and defects. We accept that we are no better and no worse than others. We don't judge ourselves, and we don't judge others (though we must make value judgments about words and actions, otherwise we are lost in a maze of amoral options and fall into psychological entropy).
But someone who goes no further than self-acceptance is not engaged in a spiritual journey. That journey begins only when we aspire to reach a higher level of Being and Understanding, however we may describe that inner longing. To be spiritual beings - or rather, to understand that this is what we are, no matter how involved in matter we have become - we must have within us some idea of a Higher Power, of God.
All mainstream religions, all those which Gurdjieff considered to be real religions, have this awareness; that of ourselves we are nothing, can do nothing without help from above. And they all mandate that we must treat others as we treat ourselves, with compassion and mercy, with acceptance and understanding, knowing that we are all children of that same God and that He cares for all with equal love.
Equipped only with the psychological tools of mindfulness and self compassion, people may lead satisfied lives on the natural level, may reach a state of well being and personal comfort which nevertheless falls short of their real potential as spiritual beings.
And many, perhaps most, people are quite happy with this state. They may eventually, by leading the life of a Good Householder, reach an understanding that this life does not truly satisfy their deepest longings - but, again, they may never do so. We can't judge someone's ultimate Fate, whether they will reach a spiritual understanding in this life, or whether they may undergo further incarnations as they make progress towards such a goal.
My own teacher explained that Essence, if it does not develop, will simply be returned to the "universal melting pot" at the end of life. If people have made no efforts towards creating a soul, a higher being body, then they will have nothing permanent which can continue its journey after this life is finished.
We can't decide for ourselves whether this is the case for anyone else. We don't know what inner yearnings, what sufferings, someone with apparently no religious or spiritual orientation may be undergoing, nor where this may lead. We are not God.
And we can't see what the Fate of another may be, no matter how close they are to us; that depends on God, on the Higher Power in which they may say they don't believe, but which will still be present right up until their final moments, when they have the chance to decide whether to journey on, towards the Light, with all the purgatorial pain that might imply; or whether to reject that possibility, and hence to cease to exist at all.
So mindfulness, excellent as it is as a beginning practice and as a self calming technique, is not by itself a spiritual practice. Neither is self compassion. Either or both can make people happier in this life, but they do nothing towards guiding the individual into a spiritual mode of existence.
We are now reaching the time in the cycle of the seasons when the Earth is leaving the influences that reached their peak at Christmas, those radiations which come from the farthest reaches of our galaxy and even beyond, which contain the possibility of new creation.
We have seen how, correctly and consciously taken up, these very special energies allow us to grow in Being, to experience a new birth in our Essence.
Now, however, that season is drawing to a close and we are beginning to experience the stronger influences of the Sun and planets closer to us.
In our spiritual lives, we are now encouraged to put into practice all that we have learned during the time of year that preceded it, to allow the new understanding to be expressed in the way we approach the outer world.
Mrs Pogson taught that the Earth experiences a whole cycle of breath during one year. From the time of Christmas until Midsummer, St.John's Tide, the Earth breathes out the energies it has received, while from Midsummer to Christmas the Earth is breathing in again. Uniting this cycle with the changes in the position of the Earth and Sun in our galaxy helps us understand the type of energy appropriate for each season of the year, and guides us as to the right way to express our spirituality.
Those who practice mindfulness and self compassion with a spiritual aim will find that they may go out into the welcome summer season with new confidence in their ability to put all they have learned to use.
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