Saints Transmissions: Saint Francesco of Assisi
Be Onto Others
ST: I find myself constantly judging others and many people have annoying habits that irritate me such as bragging about themselves, gossiping, or complaining about situations in which they don’t clearly have the facts. Name dropping bothers me too and I simply cannot stand hanging around people who feel that they are the center of the Universe and never practice any mindfulness. For example, men who don’t put the toilet seat down when they’re through using the toilet or people who leave the cap off of the toothpaste hoping someone else will put the cap on for them. This is okay for children, but I’m talking about adults.
Saint Francesco of Assisi: Yes, it is hard living among our brothers and sisters especially the less conscious ones. How do you feel compassion for someone wrapped up in them? How do you deal with people who spout off violent sentiments and words most of the time when they don’t even have the facts? How do you deal with people who gossip and judge others so that they can feel more righteous and lift them above the rest of humanity? These are ancient problems and the solutions are actually ancient too. Just look to the teachings of our Great Spiritual Mothers and Fathers.
Let’s look at Buddha for example. Buddha says that the path to enlightenment is to rise above ourselves and to connect with our higher self, that part of us that is connected to God or the Divine. Buddha would tell us to detach from our personal stories and practice non-attachment compassion. Still how do we do that? How do we detach from our emotions and still feel something as profound as compassion? This we struggle with and believe me the Buddhist path is no easier than a mystical Christian or mystical Jewish or mystical Muslim path. We can no longer allow others to push our buttons and the only way to reach that point is to deeply heal our wounds. In order to do that you have to admit that you have wounds and then allow those wounds to come up to the surface. You know a wound is most gruesome right before a true healing occurs.
I’ll give you an example. A soldier is injured in battle, a deep gashing wound. The wound is stitched and bandaged but without removing the bacteria that causes infection. So even though this wound is covered with a neat white bandage, it’s festering and can lead to gangrene. So a surgeon must remove the stitches and clean out the infection from the wound before it can heal. Now apply this same concept to stuck emotions and old wounds. You might cover up those wounds by pretending they don’t actually exist or rationalizing that you are silly to care about the hurt you feel. You might busy yourself or get involved in a relationship (that won’t work out unless you heal those wounds), or you might feed an addiction so you can avoid dealing with those wounds. But now they fester and only that you become emotionally numb which isn’t the same as emotionally detached. So you see where this is going. You cannot live a mindful life and not deal with these wounds. And dealing with emotional wounds means that you must revisit painful experiences, but this time from a place of deeper understanding—something we call compassion. Now do you see where this is going?
Now once you heal these wounds other people’s behavior won’t bother or irritate you. I guarantee this. The reason for this healing is that you are no longer providing a mirror for other people’s behavior. They are no longer providing a reflective surface to you to witness your shadow parts and patterns. Then my dear when you reach this point, you are enlightened. Only the thing about enlightenment is that you don’t realize you are enlightened or if you do you’re not going to brag about it. An enlightened person doesn’t walk up to you and point out the obvious simply because the enlightened person doesn’t care what anyone thinks of him or her. Ego has been squelched. When you finally reach that place of Unity Consciousness you know that to judge others is to judge yourself. But you’re healed by this point and whatever you see in others is their enlightened or higher selves. You have obtained the keys to Nirvana and you can choose to stay there or get involved in the cosmic cycle once again.
Now I mentioned Buddha, but you can apply these same teachings to any spiritual master because this is the only game in town so to speak. If you want to feel closer to God, and the God within you, you must clean out those wounds and endure the process or the journey that it involves. Think of yourself as a knight going into battle with a fierce dragon or use whatever symbolic story will guide you through this journey. Don’t allow complacency in the door. And watch for arrogance, greed, and hatred. Watch for fear and send it running. You only need to focus on love, kindness, and compassion. Live your life in simplicity and you will experience less distractions and more time with the Divine. When you have many things, you have many bills and many worries. There is too huge a price to pay for luxuries and success. The true success is Spiritual Enlightenment and everything else is hooked to a story (which you need to toss out) or an addiction of one kind or another. Of course you are the one who must decide if you want to obtain enlightenment in this lifetime. If the answer is yes, then I advise you to get to work and to unburden yourself before Mother Earth does that for you.
Remember that we love you.
Blessings,
Saint Francesco of Assisi
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