modesty..?

I had a wonderful remembrance last night. I’ve had this realisation before, post Iboga for one, and no doubt many times prior to this, though it has become lost in the daily fog of grounded life. Lying on my bed last night pondering what issues might still be buried within me, the word modesty came to me.

Modesty is a quality I’ve always thought very highly of, both in other people and as something I’ve aspired to myself. However, it also appears to be rather a substantial block to experiencing the unadulterated whole of yourself. Modesty claims that you are not responsible for the good that you do. It denies you of experiencing the love and gratitude which people offer, and it reduces your abilities and identity to a size manageable to your fragile sense of self. Any concept too grand will be denied by your little self because it can no longer embrace the idea of being little whilst shouldering the responsibility of being so much more.

In those very fortunate times where my little self has been forced to retreat I have known whole heartedly the perfection of myself and everyone. we are often surrounded by a wealth of concerns and problems usurping our vital force, and yet even at the very centre of all of this confusion we demonstrate the most astounding acts of compassion for other people. I have known so many, experiencing truly dire life situations, tormented by terrible self images, who quite literally will go out of their way to do something wonderful for another person; to brighten their day while their own is so laden with clouds. In fact the truth is I see this every single day without exception. A great example; yesterday on my bus to work I listened as a woman half heartedly recounted her story of spending Christmas in hospital, alone and thereafter bound to a wheelchair. However with such fervour and passion, and immense sympathy did she respond to the young lady with a learning disability who claimed to have an earphone stuck in her ear canal! Beautiful!

The thing is we all do this almost without exception day to day. But do we pause to absorb the beauty of our actions, our thoughts? Do we say to ourselves ‘wow that really was a lovely thing to do’? I can guarantee that the majority of us don’t. We brush it off, chide ourselves for wanting credit for something so small. Curiously even those who might make a big deal out of it and demand attention are only doing so to readdress the balance and alleviate the pain of having such poor self esteem.

But my God if you ever allow yourself the opportunity to reflect on your life, without judgement or criticism, but with the kind loving heart you would display to those close to you; you will experience something beyond words. The more darkness you encounter, the more grief you experience, only adds to the shear wonder of those tiniest fragments of goodness you have displayed. They radiate something so incredibly profound, that were you; for a split second, to embrace the spark of divinity that lay within them, to accept that at your very core you are a creative expression of all that is, and has ever been; and finally to love yourself entirely in that expression, then your every problem would dissolve into the nothingness from where it came.

xxx