Qualities of Spiritual Maturity

Spirituality in education could promote the following qualities of spiritual maturity.

• love, compassion and service: Love and compassion are often associated with the beginning of a true spiritual life. Love dissolves confusion and fear and elicits kindness, openness and respect. Unless we love and trust ourselves, we cannot love others. Compassion goes beyond a personal form of love to a love of all creation.
  
• honesty and authenticity: No longer lying to ourselves and others about what we are doing and what the consequences are. To live as we really are without delusion about the reality of the past, the present, our selfhood and behaviours.
• physical, emotional, mental and spiritual clarity: Physical clarity has to do with attention to the body's health and real needs. Mental and emotional clarity have to do with awareness, discernment and lucidity. Spiritual clarity has to do with wholeness, simplicity and sensitivity.
• responsibility and discipline: Becoming accountable for ourselves without feeling excessively responsible for others. Dependable and creative completion of our responsibilities and a disciplined approach to personal growth.
• serenity: A state of equanimity, inner tranquillity and peacefulness in the face of challenge and change.
• personal freedom: Letting go of attachments and living questions and problems into answers and opportunities without drama, escape, or avoidance.
• tolerance and patience: The ability to embrace self and 'the other' in spite of perceived weakness or difference. To even move beyond tolerance to acceptance and celebration of difference and diversity. Patience means to take events and experiences as they come without complaint or expectation. It also means all things have a natural time and place to be.
• faith, trust, and inner security: The ability to live without anxiety or doubt. An inner security free of fear and deprivation.
• wisdom and understanding: Deep insight, possible at any age, expressed through everyday action.
• gratitude, humility and willingness: Gratitude is the recognition of the little miracles that occur everyday. Humility is the ability to move beyond arrogance and grandiosity toward an honest acceptance of ourselves with all our perceived limitations and faults.
• hope, happiness, joy, and humour: Hope and happiness are states of well-being and contentment emanating from a deep feeling of inner wealth irrespective of outer events or experiences. Joy and humour spring from a warm heart and a sense of the 'cosmic game'.
• connection with the earth, nature and everyday life: Even though we may find great inspiration in sacred systems or transcendent experiences, we recognise the sacredness of daily activities, other people, other life forms, inanimate matter, and nature. "It's no good being an angel if you're no earthly use."
• living in the present moment: The ability to live in the present rather escaping to the past or the future. The ability to constantly 'let go'.
• a sense of wonder, mystery, and reverence: A direct experience of the cosmos which is unitive, inclusive, and expansive. A sense of being aware of the profound interconnectedness of all creation.
• a sense of purpose and place in space and time: A sense of the unique and necessary place and personal contribution of each individual being in the world. "Where does my deep gladness meet the world's deep need?"

Reference : Grof, Christina. The Thirst for Wholeness HarperCollins, 1994.