A Lovely Sunday for Growing

Today while amidst my flowers and bee-hives I started to think about how much of our lives are a continuous journey. In truth we never stop moving or growing and the whole time we rarely realize it.

A plant starts as a tiny seed and eventually grows into whatever it's mature form may be. We often forget this, and to our detriment, when dealing with spirituality. I have had many friends and students jump into areas of spirituality, religion, and dogma that may be well beyond their maturity level to ever understand in the way it was meant to be understood.

This "jumping ahead" without a strong root base to hold you steady can often lead us to uncertainty and doubt within our particular faith and path. Several times, I have had friends who have become deeply involved in Hinduism, they may see the parts like deity worship that are exceptionally beautiful and try to jump into understanding it's finer details before ever letting their roots grow in the early philosophies and will sooner rather than later fall over and burn out entirely... usually deciding to move onto yet another path.

I have seen the opposite happen as well. People who grow strong roots but either are place in bad soil (in this I mean possibly a bad community) or who themselves stop their own growth and never try to emerge beyond pure philosophy. Eventually their roots bulge and burst and their faith withers and dies and they too move on to something different.

Faith, in any religion or path, must be handled carefully. One must nurture the seed with an understanding of the philosophies before you choose a direction and then you must let yourself grow (questioning and doubting are a part of growth but with a strong base to hold you stead fast this questioning often makes faith stronger than ever) eventually blossoming and then creating fruits and seeds that you and others can appreciate.

In this, I mean no offense to anyone who has started on a particular path and moved on as we do all have our own path to make. Though, I have seen to often individuals becoming overly involved to quickly, being extremely fervent and suddenly fading out like a burnt out light bulb (or in this instance a dried up flower).