session 8 - compromise

The speaker reflects on compromise and sacrifice in life, sharing personal experiences of feeling torn between spiritual path and marriage. They emphasize the importance of maintaining integrity and alignment with one's dharma, truth, and purpose. Discussing the search for truth and meaning, they mention the concept of 'truth force' and the significance of recognizing and following one's deeper calling. The message encourages making sacrifices and compromises while staying true to individual paths, listening to inner guidance, accepting imperfections, finding stillness, and experiencing joy. What have I given up to stay true to my path? Reflecting on compromise and sacrifice, I mean all of life, this whole life is a matter of compromise and sacrifice. In my experience, let's take up one at a time, compromise. Compromise is just a major part of life. We have to compromise all the time until it doesn't feel like compromising is aligned with our higher purpose and our dharma anymore and sometimes we have to draw the line. I was married and when I was married I felt like I had to compromise my spiritual path. What really was calling me during those years was kind of at odds with the situation that I found myself in. Not that my partner was dissuading me from following my spiritual path, I just felt in my heart that I was living in two worlds and they were not complementary and that rift really started to cause a feeling of dread in my own being. I knew that I wanted to pursue something deeper and I knew that I married not because of a feeling that it was aligned with my dharma, but because I thought I wanted to marry. Because I had examples in my life of marriage that were successful and positive and I wanted to go down that same road and yet in the end it wasn't the path for me and that was very painful for me and for my partner. I took responsibility for my part in that and we make errors and judgment in life, that's what this life is. It's about making our choices, reflecting on them, understanding what does and doesn't work, what did and didn't work, being honest with ourselves and others. I felt and I have felt in my life that compromise sometimes can have a cost that's too high and by too high for me it's about if the compromise sacrifices my feeling of integrity and purpose. Integrity, it's maybe an overused word these days, I mean it's good that we're all talking about integrity. Sometimes things get watered down, but if you can compromise and maintain integrity you're on the right path I think. Because it's okay to compromise some of the things that we want for others, it's important and in fact it's a wonderful exercise as long as it doesn't make you deviate from the path of Dharma, from the path of your highest truth, from your goal, for me anyway, my own deepest desire and need to deepen my relationship to the divine, to the present moment, to a spiritual path, to philosophical inquiry, I mean this is, I'm speaking for myself, this is what's always driven me to an extent, is the search for truth and meaning. Meaning is a loaded one too and we can get lost in language, oh boy, language is so limiting and yet that's the tool that we have and so we work with it, I'm working with language. Even as I'm talking now, I have to circle around ideas in my own mind to be able to just point at them. Sri Ramakrishna, that's the first time I've said his name in this podcast series, talks about something called truth force. When you hear something that's true, it strikes with a certain force and isn't that wonderful? Somebody else can say something and you can feel the truth of it, probably because that person has experienced what they're talking about it and so the voice carries a different factor of Shakti, of power of truth and we feel that and we recognize that truth. Even in my own reflections here, I can feel when I'm landing on something that's truthful versus just scraping away some of the layers of sediment that have to get scraped away in order to find the gold. And then around we go. Sacrifice and compromise. Make sacrifices, make compromises, yes. Do things for your loved ones, yes. Do things that make others happy and make you uncomfortable, yes. Always check in with that quiet, still place in your own being that tells you through language or through a feeling or through some unrecognized, not unrecognizable, some intangible but qualitatively powerful sign or message or feeling or instinct that tells you, yes, this is good, this is aligned with your path of dharma, with your higher truth, with your deeper calling. And this might not be for everybody, this is a matter of what stage are you at in your own evolution. You know, these words that I'm talking now, some people are going to hear them and be like, yeah, wow, that rings true. Other people are going to be like, what the hell is this guy talking about? And both of those are right, because it just depends on who's listening and where we all are in our stage of development. If a guru, a highly enlightened being listens to this, they're going to be like, oh cool, this guy's like a cute little toddler on the spiritual path, cool, great. But you know, sometimes you see toddlers holding hands and walking down the street together and that's beautiful. And so here we are, holding hands and walking down the street together. Make sacrifices, make compromise, stay aligned in your own dharma, in your own path. Be open hearted, be open hearted, listen for the signs. Don't expect perfection out of yourself or others. These are things I tell myself, allow, allow others to be imperfect, allow yourself to be imperfect. Rest, breathe, find stillness, find things that move you in the direction of peace and stillness. From that peace and stillness comes the most powerful dynamic action you can achieve and do. And from that springs joy. What else is there in life?