Be convinced of your need of realizing that the Divine dwells within you, and that you may remain there with the Divine.
Those who are able so to enclose themselves within the little heaven of their souls where dwells the Creator of both heaven and earth ... may feel sure that they are travelling an excellent way, and that they will certainly drink of the [living] water from the fountain, for they will journey far in a short time.
*St. Teresa of Avila. The Way of Perfection. Trans. The Benedictines of Stanbrook. Rev. by Benedict Zimmerman. Adapted by writer.
31Jesus told them another story:
The kingdom of heaven is like what happens when a farmer plants a mustard seed in a field. 32Although it is the smallest of all seeds, it grows larger than any garden plant and becomes a tree. Birds even come and nest on its branches.
33Jesus also said:
The kingdom of heaven is like what happens when a woman mixes a little yeast into three big batches of flour. Finally, all the dough rises.
*Matthew 13.31-33, CEV
*John Main penned, in Letters from the Heart: Christian Monasticism and the Renewal of Community, "The experience of transcendence ... occurs within the nature of things ~ our nature ~ the parables of the Kingdom show that the essence of experience is natural growth." Regarding meditation, Main commenting on the parable of the mustard seed, notes, "Day by day we let the husk of the ego drop away and like a seed we die to self that we may fulfill the destiny that is our true meaning, that the potential of life within us may come to full fruition."
This is for certain: spiritual growth is as natural as any other growth. Spiritual growth, like all growth, is a reflection of the Nature of God. Not to keep growing is un-godly, a denial of the divinity within us each.
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Possibly, a correction needed to encourage others and ourselves in spiritual growth is the error of thinking such as un-natural, therefore, spiritual. What we believe about spiritual growth, as about anything, helps or not in our commitment to it.
Truly, too often spirituality is treated in an other-worldly, elitist way. Yet, such growth is unfolding of the hidden, but real, god-like potentials residing already within you. Simply because few persons avail themselves of the time and effort to grow in this way does not detract from the naturalness of such emergence of potential.
Likewise, too often spirituality is limited by the assumptions of religion. While religion is essential to spirituality, often the prejudices, intellectual and otherwise, in religion discourages a healthy understanding and practice of Christianity.
Simply put, at its most true essence, there is no spirituality defined by a religious group. Why? The Divine is not in any religion but as the Sacred within all things. Spirit is not Christian, Buddhist, Taoist, ...; Spirit is before all and the primal inspiration for any seeking for the Divine, any effort to grow into godliness.
Jesus verifies the universality of the spiritual impulse in his teaching. In the stories of the mustard seed and the yeast, he illustrates the "kingdom of heaven." A literal translation is the "Kingdom of the heavens."
What is this kingdom? This "kingdom" is the Potency God Is, as the Divine Influence permeates anything or anyone. Where ever and through whomever we see true Christlikeness, there we witness the kingdom of God, the manifesting Potency. We see Christlikeness in many ways and through many persons, including outside religion.
Now, we look at "the heavens." Likely, the plural infers that the totality of Reality is many dimensions. We tend to think of only two: heaven and earth. We, also, tend to think of these in spatial and material ways. This is due to our socialization and otherwise human limitations. And biblicism, or a simple and literal reading of the Bible, does not justify limiting our understandings by the limits of the writers of the Scripture, even as we live within our own intellectual limits, as well.
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