If we are willing to see how we actually experience life, without filtering it through who we think we are or what we believe our life should be, we will soon discover the material for our inner work.
The closer our understanding comes to recognising charity as an inner practice, the more the ‘church’ within is a true church.
Can we avoid difficulties and times of struggle in this kind of work? The simple answer is no. But we can learn to navigate them and while it may be difficult to appreciate at the time, this struggle does contain useful material for us.
While we are identified with how difficult things are for us we will be constantly looking to draw the attention of others to ourselves and our suffering. This need to have our suffering affirmed by others through eliciting their sympathy only gives force to spiritual associations that bind us to an emotional life dominated by self-pity and other negative emotions.
