In all spiritual journeys, whether it is a Christian, Muslim, Hindu or Buddhist spirituality, whether your path is Yoga or maybe you don’t ascribe to any path.
Maybe your path is plant medicine.
A lot is talked and spoken about sacrifice, you gotta sacrifice if you want to go deep beyond the veil, it is a phrase in a lot of different ways.
However, it’s a very vague term, what is there to be sacrificed, what is the role of sacrifice in a journey of growth?
Well, the word sacrifice comes from the root sacred offering, which means to give something willingly, and it’s not giving anything.
A sacrifice in Shamanic cultures, as well as the Yogi ones, for example: You don’t give the ugliest flower nor put the rotten fruits in an altar.
When they think about their Gods it’s not that you give what’s left of you, what you don’t like, no.
You give grains, the prettiest flower, the cleanest water.
A sacrifice is not that you let go or give up that which is ugly, that which is not working in your life.
A sacrifice is not to give what’s left of you, it is to give what’s best of you, and this is the real challenge in a spiritual journey.
Because we imagine: “Okay, i want to become a more loving human being, i want to be a better man so i gotta stop being lazy, stop being disrespectful with my close ones, stop being afraid of certain things.“
So i imagine that i need to sacrifice my laziness, my grumpiness, my anger perhaps, this is not true.
Because it is very easy, although, some people will differ.
But generally speaking, it’s quite easy to let go of the things that we know are bad for us, sure, some people have addictive tendencies, they cling to alcohol, substances, people, food or work.
They find that in this process it’s hard to let them go, even though they know they’re bad for them, the truth is that it’s hard to let them go.
Because there’s something very good that they’re providing.
Sacrifice is not to give up the ugliness, the things that you don’t like about your life, but in the spiritual journey, it is to give up especially those things that you really like about your life.
For example, before i started this journey, a big part of my work was to be a dating and relationship coach.
A big part of my identity was to be The Party Guy, i was always the one dancing, drinking more than the other people, trying to be the one hooking up with the hottest woman.
That was my identity, i took a lot of pride on that, a charming, ladies man, the life of the party, a big guy.
That was rough when i started my spiritual joruney, because i understood that:
Maybe my insecurity, some of my fears were easy to let go of because i didn’t like them, i didn’t want them, but when it came to this carefully curated persona that i had built, that had created some results in my life.
When i came to letting that go, it was difficult.
Because it is hard to let go of something that is good or that is working.
But good is the enemy of great.
The enemy of Excellent.
Good enough is the enemy of all that could be and most of the times (if you pay enough attention to your life) the reason that you’re not where you are financially, emotionally, spiritually.
It’s not because of things that you are not doing, it’s not because of things that you’re doing wrong.
But because of things that you’re doing that are a little bit right, they’re giving you some results, so you cling to them like most toxic relationships.
If they were 100% toxic people would leave in a hurry, but a couple of days of the month, your husband is very nice or your girlfriend is quite sweet so people cling to these moments.
They hold on tightly because sometimes it works, even though the rest of the time is quite ugly.
Sacrifice means that we’re willing to let go of that which is working a little bit and we trust that something greater may come.
That something much bigger much more profound, beautiful and more aligned may spring from life.
From ourselves, from life itself towards us.
So sacrifices in a journey of growth are not about letting go of what’s ugly, they’re letting go about the things that are working.
The job where your boss is an ass or they pay you very little and where you have to commute for 3 hours, it’s very easy to quit.
In the other hand, the one where you’re making good money, even though it may be sucking your soul, it takes a different kind of human being to let that go of.
To let that comfort go. The very nasty, ugly partner.
Eventually you’re fed up, you let them go, but the one that is a little bit nicer yet ugly you cling tightly to, because some of it is okay.
So my invitation with this video is for you to understand that if you want your life to be radically different, what must be let go of especially are those things that are working in your favor.
Because those are the things that you’re clinging the hardest to, those are the things that have made up your personality.
Whether you think of yourself as sweet, sexy, whatever positive qualities you believe you have, these are more enslaving than the ugly ones.
Because the ugly ones you don’t want them, you want to part with them, but these nice ways of being or these positive traits you want to cling to.
Because they make you who you are and the spiritual journey is dying to who we think we are.
Dying to the personality, the identity that you have built.
So that your true nature, your deepest expression can come forth.
Death is not easy, sacrifices are not easy.
But i promise you they’re worthy.
And life changes a lot when we let go of who we are, both good and bad, because then we become empty containers, empty vessels for something higher to act through us.
I believe that a person has not lived until they have walked this earth with an empty mind, not because they’re dumb, but because it’s clean.
Because it’s free from attachments, because it’s free from conclusions, assumptions, judgments.
Only when we are fully empty, only when we have made space can life touch us.
If your cup is already full you cannot receive, if it’s not only empty but there’s a vacuum inside, life and the divine have no choice but to flow towards it in a very abundant way.
I hope that you’re able to pay attention to the things in your life that you hold in high regard, especially the ideas of yourself, concepts of yourself that you really like.
That you understand that even that has to go, are you willing to let it go?
That’s a different question.
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