Once you start to awaken, no one can ever claim you again for the old patterns. Now you realize how precious your time here is. You are no longer willing to squander your essence on undertakings that do not nourish your true self; your patience grows thin with tired talk and dead language. You see through the rosters of expectation which promise you safety and the confirmation of your outer identity. Now you are impatient for growth, willing to put yourself in the way of change. You want your work to become an expression of your gift. You want your relationship to voyage beyond the pallid frontiers to where the danger of transformation dwells.
When you begin to sense that your imagination is the place where you are most divine, you feel called to clean out of your mind all the worn and shabby furniture of thought. You wish to refurbish yourself with living thought so that you can begin to see.
As Meister Eckhart says: Thoughts are our inner senses.
When the inner senses are dull and blurred, you can see nothing in or of yourself; you become a respectable prisoner of received images. Now you realize that 'eternal vigilance is the price of liberty' and you undertake the difficult but beautiful path to freedom. On this journey, you begin to see how the sides of your heart that seemed awkward, contradictory and uneven are the places where the treasure lies hidden.
You begin to become true to yourself.
And as Shakespeare says in Hamlet: To thine own self be true, then as surely as night follows day, thou canst to no man be false.
The journey shows you that from this inner dedication you can reconstruct your own values and action. You develop from your own self-compassion a great compassion for others. You are no longer caught in the false game of judgment, comparison and assumption. More naked now than ever, you begin to feel truly alive. You begin to trust the music of your own soul; you have inherited treasure that no one will ever be able to take from you. At the deepest level, this adventure of growth is in fact a trans-figurative conversation with your own death. And when the time comes for you to leave, the view from your death bed will show a life of growth that gladdens the heart and takes away all fear.
1 comment:
It is so great to see how John’s work continues to weave “words of love . . . an invisible cloak, to mind your life.” I want to support you in sharing that inspiration and love; and I am also responsible for minding the technicalities connected with the preservation of John’s estate and literary legacy.
John’s family would be very grateful if you would add to your quote a note that gives the title of book from which the quote is taken, as well as the copyright attribution ( © John O’Donohue. All rights reserved). It would also be great if you could provide a link to the web site: www.johnodonohue.com — so that those who want to know more about John can come to us.
warmly and with gratitude,
Lindaa
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