Not Mine to Finish

My Guru made me realize a lot of things today -

You cannot come in the way of someone else's spiritual journey. It's theirs — they'll understand things in their own time, not yours. I used to feel like I was responsible for teaching them, for us figuring it out together. But that's not how it works. They're a separate person, with their own mind, walking their own path. Whatever they're doing feels right to them, even if it's wrong, and maybe they don't know that yet. Maybe they never will. 

Maybe someday it'll click — through someone else, through a different conversation, through nothing more than time passing. But it was never mine to force. Not when they weren't open to it. Not when they didn't want to listen. 

And if you've really loved someone, at some point you have to drop the ego. The obsession that says I want them, no matter what. Because wanting them regardless of what they want isn't love anymore, it's selfishness dressed up as love. It's ego telling you that you were the best for them, and maybe you were. But that was never yours to decide. It was theirs. They loved you once. Now they don't. That's it. 

I've always loved my family and friends, and I thought I understood detachment — love without clinging. I just never had to actually live it until now. I believed we were one, that she was part of everything, the way I thought I was part of everything to her. I think that's what made letting go so much harder than it should've been.

It was never in my hands, who stays and who leaves. All I could ever do — all anyone can do — is be honest. With myself, with her. And love without keeping score. I did that. I did what was mine to do. 

But choosing someone takes more than love. It takes commitment, a promise you make to yourself as much as to them. And if you fall short of that, or you decide the other person isn't capable of meeting you there, that's not a crime. It was just meant to happen, and nothing I do can undo it now. Understanding that — that's their work, not mine. And if they never get there, I have to leave that with them. Not carry it around as my own judgment on them. 

Someone who actually wants to grow stays open to hearing where they're wrong. Refusing to listen, insisting you're right no matter what — that's not strength, it just looks like it. It's immaturity wearing a stronger costume. Still ego, just speaking a different language. And if you can't own the part you played in someone's pain, can't say sorry when you've actually hurt them, then there's not much to feel proud of in how you loved them. 

Not everyone gets there at the same time. Some people don't get there at all. That's their journey too. It was never mine to finish for them.