I once had a profound meditation, based on the feeling of being frustrated with my ability to extend a powerful and useful enough (in it's effects) love to others.

I was shown a cross. I saw the cross in my midst, the vertical beam running up the center of my body, the horizontal, through my arms.

The path of inner progress was the vertical beam, representing the path of raising consciousness from the physical emotional mental into the spiritual. From the desires of the body to the desires of the spirit.

The horizontal beam represented the outer path. The outstretched arms extending blessings, through relationships with others.

I was shown that the ability to extend love on the horizontal plane, through earthly relationships based from the 'heart' of the cross was dependent on the heighth to which we ascended on the vertical plane, and vice versa - the ability to rise on the vertical plane depended on our desire to extend our love on the horizontal. Only the desire to bless *all* of creation and humanity would trigger the vertical growth needed to access a love sufficient to the task.

But likewise, extending ourselves horizontally without expanding our foundation in spirit in the vertical relationship between us and God, heaven and earth, would result in a failed effort.

Only a balanced, coordinated growth in both planes would achieve the optimal result, either for personal enlightenment or the ability to effectively bless the outer world and those in it.

The words I was given were: "This is the way of the cross".

At that time, I was shown this due to my tendency to overextend myself horizontally, without sufficient vertical (inward) focus to compensate. And I've since realized that the majority of us in the west make the same error. The eastern lands and traditions make the opposite error, of working on internal/vertical growth without sufficient horizontal extension. This is why, some years ago, there was a great meeting of east and west, spiritually. They needed to understand our horizontal/outward focus, and we needed to understand their vertical/inward focus.