Published in Odyssey magazine: April/May 2007

The wise beneficence of the universe recently presented me with an uncomfortable lesson which resulted in new awareness and a way of being which has, hopefully, now become part of me. This lesson was that of applying discernment with individuals. There are many other areas in which we need to learn discernment, particularly that of spiritual knowledge, personal choices, styles of living and more but I wish to particularly focus on using discernment with people.

Like others, an aspect of my spiritual training has been to see the God in everyone. I believe I am becoming quite successful at this, and together with an open heart developed a child-like naivety, an innocence, with little rootedness in the “real” world, and without consideration for the shadow of others. The lesson was a requirement and a wake up call!

One morning the doorbell rang. There stood a young man of pleasant demeanour with open face, shining eyes and dignified bearing. He was difficult to understand as he spoke very fast and his English was incomprehensible but the gist was that he was from Malawi and looking for work. I was not able to offer him this but gave him money.

The next day he was back…and the next day…and the next…

At one point he did some gardening and painting but still he returned to receive from my open hand, not just money now but a bed, an old belling stove tucked away in the garage, a chair and blankets among other things.

Occasionally he arrived with parts of him wound up in bandages, a black eye or two, bruises, cuts and once with a broken arm in plaster. His friend said of him, “This one, he lack wisdom”. He could have been talking about me!

I came to call my regular visitor the Stalker. One remarkable characteristic was his tenacity. If I ignored the doorbell, followed by the loud door knocker, he would find his way around the property and stand under my bedroom window calling me. As I tried to become more “hard to get”, he hid among the bushes in front of my house and jumped out at me as I left. It is fortunate I am not of a nervous disposition!

The scenario deteriorated to such an extent I called the security company a couple of times. My dear stalker, for I do love him, reasoned with one of the officers who was about to remove him by force: “But she is my mother”. What insight! I had made myself the unending supply without conditions-and certainly without discernment.

I am ashamed to admit to you that on occasion my maternal instincts were obliterated by blinding anger. The ruthless regularity of visits from my stalker were just too much for me. How long does it take to learn a lesson? In this case it was weeks before I started to put down boundaries.

The final outcome of this sorry saga is that visits are now limited to one per month in which I make a donation towards his living costs, actually I pay his rent. I am happy to do that and am at peace.

My lack of discernment in this situation was neither serving the young man nor myself. He was not being encouraged to stand on his own feet and take responsibility for himself. The problem was that I could truly feel his pain. My heart broke when he would say to me “I am suffering.” I knew it and felt it. Even after putting down limits to his visits, I see someone who is lost, hopeless, disempowered, weak, gentle but always polite and, like me, lacking discernment. The light shining from his eyes is often dimmed now but he has wonderful qualities: the tenacity I mentioned before, openness, warmth, energy, enthusiasm and intelligence. When will things change for him and the door to opportunity open? I don't know and I inwardly weep for him.

So what was happening? What was the learning? Why, in some way, was this a gift? With reflection, I realized that my siblings and I were strictly programmed to “Think only of others first. Stop being selfish”. Combined with the spiritual discipline of seeing God in everything and everyone and maintaining an open heart, a deep imbalance and misalignment was created in me. I “leak energy” to others.

If we stay with ourselves, in balance and alignment, in the flow, we are able to experience the other person, who they are, their energies and intentions. We can see them clearly and will not be taken for a ride, be defrauded, abused or taken advantage of. Put in another way, as a wise man recently said, we need to live from the inside-out, rather than outside-in. Outside-in is both the consensus reality and source of the programming which has caused woundings, in my case “Think of others first”. By living from inside-out we are living from the real, authentic, wise being within. Then we are enabled to be discerning.

Until we have mastered this we are easy to read and easily abused. Living from inside-out makes us stronger rather than weaker. We still maintain the open heart but we are more open to the flow of information and more conscious to the subtleties of what is being presented to us. Being conscious in this way means we are not giving energy away. We have choice as to whether we are in effect of someone else's machinations or not. It is, like many things disciplined hard work to train oneself to live from inside-out but worthwhile because we will be more integrated, besides which, this way serves as an infallible protection from being taken advantage of or abuse.

Many years ago I sat on a selection panel which had the onerous task of choosing counselors. I heard some selectors complaining because they felt they were being forced to judge. This was not so. Selectors were being asked to use their discernment. This is far from judgment and it would be foolish to go through life without the ability to discern. The consequences could be serious and, in my own example, the outcome was fortunate. I was lucky.

We know now that to be whole is to balance our inner male and female, the within and the without, spirit and matter, joy and sadness. The ultimate is maintaining within ourselves the high frequency of bliss and being able to hold the polarities of dark and light without being swept into them. It seems that the training to put the inner before the outer, to live inside-out, is one of the first steps towards this state of being.

Mystical teachings describe how on the path of spiritual growth we return to the state of the child. William Blake referred to our journey as being from innocence into experience and back to innocence with wisdom. As we return to the Divine within us and our hearts are resplendent with wisdom and love, we may indeed be deceived but not knowingly and even happy to go along with the dance of deception, probably with a sense of knowing the outcome and the lesson for the other person and in a state of loving non-attachment. This statement is no thumb suck! I read somewhere that the most loveable attribute of Jesus was his innocence despite his perfect wisdom. Everything he said or did was dependent upon his connection with his inner being, the God within.

Being discerning and accessing the intuitive voice, means to live calmly and develop the habit of trusting feeling in our bodies as well as sensing the energies of the other person. Warning signs are affected by a tightening, a pressure. A sense of expansion and even release indicates this as well. The truth is revealed when we are aligned and attuned to our inner being. We do not need any more than what is presented in the present moment.

Without exception we all carry the ability to “know”. We are all one, all connected. Our bodies “know” if we turn off the chatter and listen with equilibrium and calm. We will discern accurately for ourselves in each situation and with each person and after it will become automatic no matter what is going on outside us.