Your Unique Gift and Obligation
Craig Hamilton

At a certain point in our journey, the fruit of realization ripens on the vine and drops effortlessly back to the ground, seeding future generations with the love, clarity, and vision we've gleaned in our own lifetimes. In many ways this can be seen as the pinnacle of spiritual development, the most sacred stage of our mystical maturity—reflected in Buddhism as the Tenth Ox-Herding picture or the Bodhisattva's Vow, and in Christianity as the Sacred Heart of Christ that is exercised as selfless devotion to the poor, the powerless, and the disadvantaged.

After all, what good is your own realization if it doesn't help make the world a better place? How enlightened can you be if you can't express spontaneous kindness to a stranger at a gas station? If your spiritual practice does not directly translate to more love, more bliss, and more freedom in the world, does it really amount to anything more than self-absorption?