There are acts that are thresholds or bridges. They are actions that lead you somewhere else; they allow you to change your inner sphere, your situation and even your stage of life. It does not matter whether they are great or small actions from the usual point of view. How is that? I asked him with great interest, since I generally found myself in a situation very different from the one I wished for.

I have told you many times, he said to me. Events are bearers of meaning; they are not what they seem. Get used to seeing what they bring especially for you; inquire into the allegorical side of things… you must open your spiritual senses so that you can perceive this. You can look at things from the coarsest place, from the merely physical, or you can welcome everything that happens from the spirit. And this becomes a true dialogue with God.

I objected that I could not spend my life in a continuous analysis of what was happening in order to see what lesson or teaching everyday events brought me. And he told me that it was not a matter of analysing, that it was much easier and more direct to notice what God was saying through events. “The heart needs to be softened,” he used to repeat to me, smiling. He was not referring to sentimentality or to being pained by everything, he made that clear to me, but to an awakening of the heart.

Culture, with its prevailing values, has left our heart fossilised, turned to stone. We become incapable of deep perception. Bringing the heart to life is the step prior to awakening the spirit and its corresponding senses. How is that done? I asked, somewhat incredulous, but eager for it to be possible. The first thing is compunction. And what is compunction? “It is what you feel when you become aware of the evil that has been worked through you over the course of your life…”

This last was a real blow to the heart, because I had hardened myself precisely so as not to see that very thing, exactly what he was saying. That is, so as not to recognise how many times I had been an instrument of evil for myself and for others. A malaise that had become actions and that resulted from a profound ignorance. Tenacious selfishness was only one of the faces of that darkness…

elsantonombre.org