Skepticism gets a bad wrap, especially for those of us who follow The Path of Lovingness. To be skeptical is not to be beady-eyed and always looking for the wrong. As the root of scientific inquiry, skepticism is more about being neutral and staying in the “what else is also true?” frame of mind. When someone presents as beauty, we also inquire as to their shadow. When someone presents as shadow, we also inquire as to their beauty. So, we must learn to listen beyond what may be spoken on the surface level. We listen by entering into a kind of silence so that we can hear more clearly the quiet voice in our bodies and hearts. We listen with our eyes by observing behavior, looking for congruence and incongruence between words and actions. It does not mean we cannot also be loving, accepting and open – it simply means we seek a fuller truth than the one which might be being presented.
The path of the Spiritual Warrior is to be as fully human as possible – to live all of our truths, to honor each emotion and state of being as valid…including doubt. We hold the multiple and paradoxical sates of lovingness, openness, and trustingness – while also gently holding enough sacred doubt to open a window for wider truth to exist. The Toltec wisdom to ‘be skeptical, but listen’ implies that we go deeper than our stories about who we are, as well as others’ stories about who they are. We look beneath the presentation self in order to see a more Authentic Self.
Questions for practical application
- What am I not seeing?
- What am I hiding?
- What is the beauty here?
- What is the shadow here?
- What else is also true?
May you sit into silence so that you may hear the quiet voice of truth. May your trust be tempered with sufficient doubt for wisdom to live fully. May you be fully human and accepting of the full humanity of others. May you know peace.
Sabrina Santa Clara ~ Authentic Alchemy x3
Spiritual Counseling ~ Temecula, CA
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