There is a fair amount of misunderstanding about spirituality. Often people think that being psychic, is what being spiritual is all about. Yet, this is one of the by-products, of spiritual practice. It is not the goal. Spirituality is not about sitting around ‘looking spiritual’, wearing new age clothes, being ‘in the clouds’ or thinking that you are more’ conscious’ and/or awake than others. Yet these may be a stage of the spiritual path.
Real spirituality is doing the inner work of removing our negative impressions, mind patterns, tendencies and habits and coming out of the false sense of separation (ego) that keeps us in ignorance of who we truly are. It is a long and steady process, of purifying the heart and mind. For this we need many tools and practices. Some of these are daily meditation and mindfulness practices. Learning to keep the body still, calming the mind, abiding quietly in yourself, as the Witness Consciousness. So, it is not about escaping into another world, it is about being fully here, in and as your true Self - Infinite Consciousness. Being totally alert and present to the drama of life but without being adversely affected, by the changing of the outer or inner circumstances of one’s life.
As you begin to relax and enjoy meditation then, you can begin to increase the meditation time, gradually. Not too fast or your head can heat up and cause adverse symptoms. Also not wasting valuable time in idle chatting, social media and instead using that time to train your mind.
Further more, one must develop love and devotion to God, with or without form. No spiritual practice is complete without devotion, as it would indicate that you are not aware of the reality of life, which is oneness. How could you not feel devotion when there is only God? Nothing before God and nothing after God. Only God. Formless God appearing as form.
Devotional practices such as prayer is often a request for worldly sense object, gratifications. They increase the load of misery and suffering. We are stressed before obtaining the desired object, as we are very anxious to fulfil our desire. When we fulfil the desire, the mind relaxes but soon the restlessness of mind arises, due to another unfulfilled desire arising. Desires cannot be fulfilled, one follows on from another, ad infinitum. Since all objects are temporal, it won’t be long before we feel sad at having lost the object, as the object breaks, becomes too old or a dear person passes. Everything in the ‘outside’ world are passing objects, including your very body. Either way, we lose our inner peace. We are using our consciousness to fulfil our desires, when in fact, we should use our consciousness to become Self-realised.
Faith is another very important aspect of the path of love and devotion. Without faith we can do nothing. Faith is everything. Think about this…you have faith in that you will reach your work place by car, safely or you would not get in the car each morning and drive to work. So, you do have faith in some aspects of life but not in others. Some people have faith in a Higher Power but not in themselves. Others have faith in themselves but not in the Higher Power. Those who don’t have faith in God, often feel overcome with emotions, when things don’t go well for them. Those with faith are more resilient, as they trust in the Divine plan, in the natural order of things. Having faith in oneself but not in God is not understanding that the body, mind and intellect cannot exist without the Higher Power, as it actually exists in It. Conversely, having faith in God but not in oneself, is not enough because of who and what we are - we are That! It indicates a lack of awareness of the Truth.
Every time we think, speak and do an action, we accrue merits or demerits (karma). The repercussions of our activities return to us, in like kind. Like attracts like. It is the law of attraction. We must train our mind to cultivate greater virtues, so that we accrue more merits, for the greater good. Since, we know that we are all one, it is our duty to serve others and see God in them or at least see a spark of God in them. We must look for the good in others, even when there is only seemingly a little good, in them. In this way, we become good ourselves. We see on the ‘outside’, what we see on the ‘inside’. Of course, in reality there is no division between inside and outside, as life is one undivided wholeness.
We are to offer the fruits of our actions to God, prior to starting our work, in this way, we would not wish to give God anything less that the best, of us. We are also to control our negativities and not express these, so that they don’t increase. What you ‘nourish’ grows….It is not easy to curb one’s weaknesses but this is the training - being mindfully aware of the weaknesses and improving our character. As we are triggered, then not to react outwardly in a negative way and let the moment pass-by and then respond skilfully, in a way that does not hurt others, on the contrary, responding skilfully to benefit them. We must never speak in anger towards anybody, it is better to walk away or be silent. That way we do not hurt others with our words and create bad karma for ourselves.
Furthermore, we must read some ancient scriptures e.g the Bhagavad Gita or the Upanishads, to learn the truth about God, ourself and about the world. We must imbibe the sacred utterances e.g. “Consciousness is Brahman” and “This Self (Ātman) is Brahman” and make them real to ourselves, by reflecting upon them deeply. In this way we will understand the truth of who we are. This is what spiritual practice is all about.
So, to summarise, we must do intense spiritual practice for as long as it takes, for us to wake up fully to who we truly are, to discover the Self, which is beyond the body, mind and intellect, to realise in the depth of our being that God and the creation are not two. They are one and the same. This should be imbibed to the deepest degree, so that it is reflected in our day-to-day life. This is a true spiritualised life. We are in the world but not of the world. We live in the awareness of that there is nothing external to myself. Then we will love everything and everyone equally. This is called enlightenment or self-realisation and this is the purpose of true spiritual practice. This is what liberates us from personal suffering. It is the only thing that liberates us from the false identification with the separate sense of self (the ego). So for now, we have more inner work to do.
I pray that we all progress steadily on the spiritual path and experience greater and greater love, peace and joy. Many blessings to you!
