Jasmin Cori, MS, LPC

I was reflecting on the subject of spiritual maturity and thinking about how we get wowed by flashy psychic or spiritual gifts and by people who come in the right package (right credentials, right garb, right spiritual name), and we end up getting taken for a ride. I decided that as a whole we’re pretty gullible and we could use a more refined way of assessing things.  

            Having a background in clinical psychology, I thought about other areas of life, specifically emotional development and intelligence. I recognized that in both cases, in assessing maturity there are specific capacities that can be culled out and also a way to look at an overall level of development. 

            For instance, if we are looking at emotional maturity and considering a person who looks “together” in many ways but repeatedly has temper tantrums and fits of jealous rage, we likely conclude that person isn’t so mature after all. At best their development is “uneven.” The same with intelligence: If we look at the best-known intelligence test (the Wechsler with its famous IQ), we see that people can be very high in some capacities and low in others, limiting their overall IQ. 

            Maybe we should do the same with spiritual maturity, I thought. We could create a Spiritual Maturity Quotient (SMQ). Now if I were into pop books, this could be hot stuff. Imagine: People could take a paper-pencil test, find out their SMQ, and then go around feeling either better about themselves or worse, depending on the score. But then just taking a test and being into comparison would knock your score down, so maybe the concept is all wrong.

More seriously, my point is that spiritual maturity should not be measured by the extent of one’s most developed capacity but rather by looking at a whole range of capacities, along with some measure of their integration. Here are some of those capacities as I see them.

• A capacity for discernment, for being able to see what is true and what is false, what is so and what is fantasy or projection. The person with this skill has the capacity for what Zen teacher Toni Packer calls “seeing.” I like this word because it feels like seeing, a sort of x-ray vision.  It is seeing through appearances and recognizing the inner truth.
• The capacity to detach from self-images and identities. One who is caught in even the most beautiful spiritual identity is still limited because identity by nature is limiting.  It can never capture the magic of our infinite potentiality and changing expressions.
• The capacity to still the chatter of the mind, to drop into silence and experience through other organs of perception.
• The capacity to feel what is within and behind all creation—call it Being, Essence, or God.
• The capacity to let go, to surrender, to not hold onto things—be they grudges, praise, self-importance, material goods, roles, relationships, or anything else. 
• The capacity to see your own personality clearly, to recognize ego activity as ego activity and to recognize that which is more true than your personality.
• The capacity to be open, to not know, to not be in control, to tolerate emptiness and the deconstruction of your small self. This, like many of the other items in this list, involves several constituent capacities, some of which are not listed. 
• The capacity to recognize reactivity as reactivity, bypass as bypass, and to be with what is painful without drowning in it. If we can’t be with what is, we can’t let go of our defenses, and if we can’t let go of our defenses, we’re stuck in our constructed shell and can’t feel the true radiance of our being.
• The capacity to live what you know, to live according to your values and insights, to walk your talk. 
• The capacity for compassion and kindness and generosity. The development of the “heart qualities.” 
• The capacity to allow oneself to be invisible at times and to put yourself at the service of others.
• The capacity to take oneself lightly, to laugh at one’s own shenanigans, to make mistakes and not get all upset about it.  The capacity to accept one’s own imperfection.

I could go on, but you get the point.  I am suggesting that maturity can be assessed more accurately if we look at various constituent capacities. But that isn’t the whole picture. We also need a few meta-factors, things that aren’t exactly capacities but rather indications of wholeness. There would have to be some way to measure that, as well as how these qualities integrate into every aspect of life. 

Wouldn’t it would be great if I could quantify all this and put the test on the market? I could create a system of levels, ranging from “dull” (haven’t ‘woken up’ yet,  still slumbering) to “full beam” (an avatar or incarnation of the Divine). The levels in between might correlate with a system for rating light bulbs: low bright, medium bright, high bright.  It would give us another way to talk about ourselves. Instead of playing the alphabet game (“I’m an INFP.  I bet you’re an ESTJ.”) or asking “What’s your fix?” (enneagram, not drugs), we could ask what level they are on the SMQ. 

Oh, I suppose to really sell, I’d have to change my list to conform to how people more often talk about these things. The items would be more like, how many retreats have you gone to? How many hours have you logged onto the meditation cushion?  How many teachers have you had, and at what levels were they? Or, how many conversations have you had with God recently? 

At that point I started to lose interest, but then I got a really hot idea.  Not only could I measure these capacities and meta-factors, but I could take points off for certain things—just like in the game of life when you lose points for major boo-boos. So what would I take points off for?

• Hypocrisy. That’s a biggie. You know, the guru who requires celibacy but can’t keep his pants on.
• Self-deception/self-delusion. This is one I can’t stand. Why do we always think we’re so far beyond where we are?  It messes up everything.
• Encouraging false images, hiding parts of yourself so that you look like you are more together than you are.
• Changing your name too many times (more than three). Teachers get double penalties.
• Reciting too many spiritual aphorisms in one conversation.
• Having nothing on your bookshelves besides “spiritual books.” Take two steps back.  You’re a junkie.
• Not having any friends outside your spiritual community. This borders on cult.
• Not being able to cut vegetables without slicing your finger because you’re not in your body.
• Kicking your dog or humiliating your partner or child or parent.
• Needing someone else to take care of material life because you can’t come out of samadhi long enough to dial a telephone or pay a bill.

I was going strong.  It was especially easy to see what spiritual maturity was not.  Then my balloon burst. I saw that we don’t need a test. Life is a test. It constantly mirrors back to us how we are doing.  And then of course there’s death - that’s the acid test. What happens when you drop all of your costumes and roles, when your life as this recognized entity is over and your soul has gone home?  When you stand next to the incomparable light and look at your life, what will you see?  Maybe like all those books about near-death experiences suggest, it will come down to just one question: How well have you loved?