' Life is often our greatest teacher '...

I find that this is often overlooked within the context of spirituality. Many of us are using our spirituality as a way to avoid life, to avoid seeing things we really need to see, to avoid being confronted with our own misunderstandings and illusions. It is very important to know that life itself is often our greatest teacher. Life is full of grace—sometimes it’s wonderful grace, beautiful grace, moments of bliss and happiness and joy, and sometimes it’s fierce grace, like illness, losing a job, losing someone we love, or a divorce.

Some people make the greatest leaps in their consciousness when addiction has them on their knees, for example, and they find themselves reaching out for a different way of being. Life itself has a tremendous capacity to show us truth, to wake us up. And yet, many of us avoid this thing called life, even as it is attempting to wake us up. The divine itself is life in motion.

The divine is using the situations of our lives to accomplish its own awakening, and many times it takes the difficult situations to wake us up.
The irony is that most human beings spend their lives avoiding painful situations. Not that we are successful, but we are always trying to avoid pain.

We have an unconscious belief that our greatest growth in consciousness and awareness comes through beautiful moments. We may, indeed, make great leaps in consciousness through beautiful moments, but I’d say that most people make their greatest leaps in consciousness in the difficult times.

This is something a lot of people don’t want to acknowledge—that our greatest difficulties, suffering, and pain are a form of fierce grace. They are potent and important components of our awakening, if we’re ready for them. If we’re ready to turn and face them, we can see and receive the gifts that they have to offer—even if the gifts sometimes feel like they are being forced upon us. Whether the circumstance is illness, the death of a loved one, divorce, addiction, problems at work—it’s important to face our life situations in order to see the inherent gifts that are available.


~ Adyashanti ~
The End Of Your World