Inner  Frontier
Fourth Way Spiritual Practice

 

Inner Work


For the week of July 2, 2007

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Rates of Inner Growth

Managing our inner work means, in part, managing our expectations of personal progress on the spiritual path. We tend to overestimate and overemphasize the value of the dramatic, short-term breakthrough into a higher state, while underestimating the long-term impact of slow but steady inner development. In the long run of a lifetime, gradual inner growth leads to revolutionary transformation.

The quick-hit spiritual high has tremendous appeal and certainly has value in giving us a taste of deeper possibilities. Occasional participation in a spiritual retreat or sessions of communal prayer or meditation can teach us important insights and put us temporarily into a higher-than-normal state. But the real power of the path lies in raising our normal state. And that takes persistence, day by day, moment by moment.

From young adulthood on, we rarely notice ourselves aging because the process is so gradual. Nevertheless, aging inexorably and irreversibly transforms our body. Yet noticing one’s own progress on the spiritual path is even more difficult. Not only is it slow, but we know neither what to look for nor how to recognize our own inner development. Wonderful surprises may be in store for us as new stages of our spiritual transformation unfold, as it were, unannounced, behind our back, and without our noticing.

But transformation takes time, a great deal of time. We may only notice changes on the scale of decades. That spiritual transformation takes a long time, however, does not mean the changes are small. Like compounding interest for many years, the accumulating effects of sincere and devoted spiritual practice lead steadily toward treasure. This has even been empirically verified by physical changes in the brains of long-term meditators: the more hours on the cushion, the more significant the positive changes revealed by brain scans.

This gradual quality of the path can lead to trouble in two main ways. One, we can become frustrated with our lack of apparent progress: we always seem to be on a plateau. And that frustration, particularly in the early years, can lead to abandoning the path. One antidote for that is to recognize the immediate effects of spiritual practice. Prayer, meditation, kindness, and presence make life richer now. Morning practice enriches our whole day. A second antidote comes through recognizing that the plateau actually slopes upward toward the mountain. We recognize that true transformation requires long-term practice, so we weave inner work into the fabric of our life.

The second way to trouble comes when we slacken our efforts because the path is long. The converse though is the real truth: the path is long because our efforts are slack. The frequency, intensity and depth of our practice determine our rate of progress. The more frequent and focused our inner work, and the more understanding, subtlety, and heart we bring to it, the more rapidly we turn the wheels of lasting transformation.

On another scale, though, we see that practice only for personal gain limits itself. We pursue the path because our inner work matters beyond ourselves. The spiritual energies we produce and the atmosphere of good will we create through our practice serves our family, our society, and the higher realms. We engage in spiritual work primarily because it’s the right thing to do. Secondarily, it builds our soul and brings us joy. So we need not solely concern ourselves with the speed of our ascent, though the motivating factor of hope for personal progress does help spur us on.

For this week, reinvigorate your regular, short-term efforts in the present, in service to your long-term growth.

See also: State and Station


     

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