How you live your Spirituality is, to a great extent,
determined by how you relate to your parents.
The relationship between finite human being and infinite
mystery is very much like the child-parent relationship, where the finite human
depends for guidance, protection, sustenance and purpose on the great Divine.
Spirituality can be experienced in a third person
perspective, ‘it’, or God the Object: God ( the infinite, eternal wisdom, love
and power) has become everything, and appears as what I see, hear, smell, taste
and touch. Spirituality in first person is the experience of being at one with
the All; "I Am at one with Spirit, or Emptiness”. God in second person
perspective is the beloved that you relate to with devotion.
When I started my Integral Spirituality practice, the 3-2-1of
God, I had no problem seeing God as the object in all which emerges moment by
moment; and I learned how to experience God in first person perspective through
inquiry.
When it came to God in second person perspective, ‘thou’, I
noticed a knot forming in my throat, and tears behind my eyes. No matter what,
I was not able to relate to God as a beloved Other.
Our childhood experiences with our parents or care-takers
shape our relationships later in life, as we unconsciously project our
expectations and unresolved emotions upon the ones in front of us; this is wide
spread knowledge within the world of psychotherapy; experts in couple relationships
therapy encourage and support us in resolving childhood pain so we can move on
with our current connections.
One could look at the Divine as supreme parents, the Divine
Father representing the masculine aspects of Wisdom, Love and Power: guidance,
protection, provider, discipline – and the Divine Mother representing the
feminine aspects of Wisdom, Love and Power: supporting, nourishing, healing,
sustaining. How we regard and what we expect from our worldly father becomes
how we regard and what we unconsciously expect from the masculine aspects of
God; and how we regard and what we expect from our worldly mother becomes how
we regard and what we unconsciously expect from the Divine Mother.
If as a child you received more criticism than praise from
your father, you will expect the Divine Father to keep a thorough record of
your mistakes and to ignore your accomplishments. Or if your mother’s affection
was scarce, and you haven’t received all the hugs and kisses you wanted, you
might see Divine Mother as cold, distant and unavailable. Your expectation to
have prayers fulfilled will be impacted, and your spiritual life will never be complete
until you have addressed, resolved and transformed your relationships with your
parents.
Where to start?
1.
First, recognize that the Divine Parents are one
and the same with the Infinite, Eternal Love, Wisdom and Power, and as such, it
is impossible that the Divine doesn’t care for you (because Love cares about
all), the likelihood that your prayers are heard is 100% because God is
omnipresent, or everywhere, including on the lips that utter the prayer (the
one who prays and the one who grants are not two); and there is no prayer too
big or too small, because God is omnipotent, and at one with the realm of all
possibility. This recognition will help you become aware of your projections, thus
freeing you from being stuck in preconceived perceptions and expectations.
2.
Second, make amends with your parents, if they
are still alive, regardless of how they showed up for you. Through your
personal growth work and spiritual practice, you have abilities – wisdom,
knowledge and skills – that they don’t, and ability calls for responsibility.
It is your responsibility to reach out and open your heart to Mother and Father
for no other reason that ‘because you can’.
3.
Third: consider the help of a good, wise,
skilled and compassionate therapist, who can guide you through approaches that
lift up the emotional burdens of unresolved childhood painful incidents and
trauma. Even if you practice self-therapy with EFT and other methods, nothing
can replace the focused attention of another on you, because when something
went wrong within the psyche, it went wrong within a relationship with another;
and it can only be amended within a relationship with another, which is what
therapy primarily offers, within a safe and compassionate space.
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