Late Night Chat with Jeff: Feeling Unworthy, July 15, 2024, live on Baba Zoom

We have some informal chat after every arti, the "post-arti party"! But once a week, Jeff Wolverton joins us for some serious mining of the spiritual depths. Join us for conversation, more readings, songs, quotes - you never know what treasures will be uncovered!

Topic: The Feeling of Unworthiness

Dear folks of Baba,

One of you made a suggestion as a topic for discussion--the feeling of unworthiness--which we have touched on previously. It is very elusive because it is not only a debilitating emotion but also a self-deprecating attitude facing many Baba lovers in their lives with Him. To disentangle the emotion connected with unworthiness from the negative attitude toward our self is a part of the solution. Many have inherited, in passing through childhood, a feeling of unworthiness that can come from a variety of sources: parents, siblings, their peer group and teachers, and also, they may have brought it with them from their previous lives. Understandably, the negative influence of this can often affect our relationship with Baba. That is, we can even feel unworthy in front of Baba, which is the last thing He wants us to feel. Unlike many people in our lives who love us with strings attached, Baba loves us unconditionally. Even Darwin Shaw, when he met Baba for the first time, was unprepared for the experience of Baba’s unconditional love. It is rarely ever seen in this world!

One of the most insidious contributors to unworthiness is our mental ideals that we have bought into, which are set too high for what we are capable of achieving. We wind up always falling short, and sadly, the people in our life often remind us of that. One thing I learned from the mandali is that our ideals should be practical—what is the next baby step we can take—not the impossible achievement of the highest. We don’t learn to play the piano in one week! The ego has a way of colluding with the mind to guilt-trip us when we fall short of our mental ideals. On the other hand, the ideals formed in the heart are much more compassionate, not so black and white. The heart knows just what we are capable of in the present, our next step. In fact, the ego is fighting a battle for the supremacy of our attention, and it is a victory for it when the ego can get us thinking negatively about ourselves instead of remembering Baba and others with love. The ego can also hide in feeling superior to those who have a healthy attitude toward themselves, seeing their attitude as naive and an expression of the ego! Or the ego can hide out in envy of others, rather than having a positive appreciation of the valuable qualities they express.

We are a mixture of love and selfishness, and to expect that we will always be loving is to expect the impossible. Inevitably, we are going to have to witness ourselves being selfish sometimes and learn to forgive ourselves from the heart, and not let the mind find fault with and demean us. That is, we need to listen to the compassionate voice of the heart, not to the critical voice of the mind. Someone might say, can’t this lead us to being complacent? Yes, and that is something to be aware of but not to the extent that we pressure ourselves into striving for something that is beyond our capacity. And if we become complacent, it is Baba’s job to see that we grow and awaken; He won’t let us rest on our oars for too long.

I know this is an enormous subject, and these are only some of the aspects of unworthiness. How much has the feeling of unworthiness been a part of your life? What triggers this feeling in you? What are some of the ways you have found to respond to this feeling of unworthiness? Was unworthiness something you experienced much more in your early years with Baba, and now you are more accepting of your shortcomings? This is one of Mehera’s favorite quotes of Baba, “Seeds germinate in soft soil. I plant my seed of love, not in your strengths, but your weaknesses." Humility can be greater than strength.

In His love, Jeff

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