I find it very comforting that Jack Kornfield says that even after ecstatic “enlightenment” experiences people have trouble when they go back to “the World.” The wounds of childhood are still unhealed and a lot of spiritual practice is necessary to learn to live in community.
From After the Ecstasy, the Laundry p220
“Most of us in spiritual life have to go through a large measure of family healing… My family pain had been covered over in my early monastic meditation… But it was there underneath, waiting, unconsciously influencing my whole way of being, and when I returned to family and to intimate relationships, the struggles all came back…
“To find myself still struggling with my emotions was hard. I needed the assistance of both meditation and therapy before I could acknowledge the deepest levels of fear, anger, judgement, and grief I carried. The therapist was essential as a compassionate witness, another being to help me face the images and fears I carried in my body, everything that I had not been able to face alone. I saw how much the old patterns had reinforced my small sense of self. In the face of pain in our family, my brothers and I had each become regularly depressed or angry, fearful, cynical, needy or cautious. These deep wounds remain part of each of us to this day, but by opening to them, we begin to lessen their power.
“Perhaps this is the best we can do: to help when we can; to witness each other with kindness; to offer our presence; to show the trust we have in life. Spiritual life is not about knowing much, but about loving much.”