And what are coming back to me are feelings from the last time I felt anything close to equilibrium, when I was about 14. Something happened then (I was not molested, although that would be a good guess) which changed how I approached life. My light–which was to be sure not that bright to begin with–dimmed.
I think most of us are like this. You lose your childish pleasure in things as you slowly find out about all the bad things that can happen in life, and start worrying about them, start anticipating them. We shrink. I shrank.
But this is not a necessary process. If I might generalize very broadly, the best spiritual teachings are about how to retain the childlike wonder and thoughtless grace of a child, with the wisdom and capacity of an adult.
Bad experiences come and go. The pain comes, and if you let it, it goes. What so often stays, though, is the change in your base expectations of life. “if this is how life is”, I probably said unconsciously to myself, “then I’m not going to feel that any more, or open myself up in any way.” That “setting” stays, and for most of us it stays across a lifetime.
Bob Dylan (Nobel Prize Winner, although not acceptor) had that great phrase “I was so much older then/I’m younger than that now.”
I think I am going to generalize and say that the point of most spiritual work is recovering spontaneous delight in life. This is the root, the seed, of whatever then becomes possible beyond that, but very few of us even get that far.
I would like to shine. I would like to be able to teach with my being. I think it is possible for me, in this life, although certainly I have many miles to go.