The spiritual being that you already are is already awakened, already conscious, already empowered, and already eternally free. You are an infinite being, who will live forever. You are connected to the greatest source of divine love you can imagine! You don’t need any method, teaching or person outside of you to access this. All that is needed is a deep relaxation into the source of what you already are. You are the authority of your life and you decide when, where, and how you will find, feel and experience the Divine.
Your spiritual essence is not hard to find. It is always here now, forever shining and radiating like the Sun. It is quietly and continuously pulsating a loving gentle energy, a softness that has the quality of pure light. This lightness is always happening (even while you’re reading this) and is available to you anytime you really relax inside. This lightness has a pure conscious quality about it, which ultimately brings total meaning, richness and a sweet reverence for life. It’s guiding your life towards an unconditionally loving state of bliss, joy and freedom which you’re meant to be resting in. It is the ultimate experience in life which everyone is seeking.
Whatever spiritual path you find yourself on is the right path for you in this moment of your life. Even if you don’t think you’re on a particular path, your soul is, and it is right on course, totally devoted to fulfilling its mission and completely aligned with its destiny. To find your path, start with looking inside yourself and feeling into the most soft gentle energy you can fathom. Let the worries of your day take the back burner for a few hours and open yourself to the softest, sweetest energy you can possibly imagine. You’ll need to be very sensitive and vulnerable to find it. It takes a very deep listening, an eternal listening, which is willing to wait forever for these blissful feelings to come flooding in. When you do find the soft sweetness, relax into it. Dissolve into it. The feeling of absolute joy and freedom it brings is one the greatest rewards you could ever imagine.
Perhaps you’re wondering what exactly is a spiritual path and what are the secrets to walking it? Well, the spiritual path is not really a linear path that one walks from A to B, but rather a deepening and opening into this present moment of existence. It can only be found in this moment. This “ordinary” moment and experience of your life contains the extraordinary connection to the Divine. The God Source is always here, always now and always available to you. Accessing this gentle vulnerable eternally listening energy inside you is the key that opens the door to finding God. The experience of surrendering to this way of living your life will lead you to the ultimate destination. The kingdom of God is always available within you. It simply takes 100% devotion and surrender to this light gentle spiritual essence which you already are.
There is a significant change in our experience of life when we become intrigued by the more subtle and sensitive quality to life. It’s as if you were always weaving a tapestry with normal yarn, and then one day you switched to using strands as thin as a spider web. This super subtle quality is the doorway to the Divine, and can only be found through deep stillness. This level of deep stillness can only be accessed when there is nothing, absolutely nothing agitating the mind. This means no chemicals, no caffeine, drugs of any kind (including sugar), or adrenaline kick inside your brain can be there, or any intention trying to take you to some “better” state of mind. If you are trying to get somewhere “better”, you will miss the greatest spiritual experience of all. Whenever we can naturally organically be fully here now, we have the best chance at accessing this super subtle spiritual energy inside.
“The day on which we come to know the supreme consciousness within us, then the outside world will also appear to us like the expanse of the supreme consciousness.” ~Osho
When you think about the idea that you are an infinite spiritual being, it’s as if you’re turning on the flashlight to see a treasure chest of diamonds hidden in your closet. This little flashlight allows you to get a glimpse of your real nature, yet to truly receive the wealth from your treasure, you have to learn how to totally relax into it. When you do this, you’ll see that the greatest hidden treasure is not just in your bedroom closet, the entire foundation of your house is actually made of diamonds! You’ll discover that you don’t need to continue searching “out there” for a few small gems when you already are sitting on a diamond foundation. You are that which you are seeking, and it is through this inner self enquiry that you discover the divine abundance of the spiritual path inside.
The secret to living in a continuous spiritual experience all day long is all about letting your innermost being merge with all that is. This merging can feel like an absorption, where the drop of water is taken in by the Ocean. The perpetual spiritual experience in life seems to occur when there is a deep willingness to meet with God directly, and communicate with the Divine whatever you are going through. It comes down to having total radical honesty with yourself, being totally fearless, accepting your darkness and your light. This level of intense honesty typically happens when we are forced to face some darkness or experience an intense emotional pain. This pain is what gives birth to the spiritual experience, removing the veil the ego has pulled over our eyes, forcing us to let go of our ego’s grip on our life, and become completely surrendered to the will of God.
By simply welcoming whatever deep emotional pain you can summon inside yourself (perhaps an old forgotten childhood memory) you can use your pain to open up and access your spiritual connection with the Divine. The pain we feel as humans is the compost needed to fertilize our awakening. Pain pushes us deeper into trust, to find healing and freedom from pain. It forces us to give up and connect with a higher power within. The blissful effects from feeling your pain and letting it push you deeper into your spiritual essence is the secret to staying on the spiritual path no matter what curveball life throws your way. It’s good to know that some form of pain is always here, always available, and there is an eternal supply buried very deep inside.
The signs that you have found your spiritual path are profound and obvious. Each moment of your day is an adventure with the Divine. You have the natural urge to sing that sweetest song your heart is yearning to sing. You are completely free from worry, fear and live your live in complete devotion to love. You feel that you are truly cared for by the Universe and constantly provided for and held in its loving embrace. You know your being is totally received by God, with the greatest adoration and respect. You deeply honor humility and vulnerability as it creates the receptivity needed to form the spiritual bridge which allows you to feel this intimate connection with the outer world instead of a separation from it.
“When you want nothing, seek nothing, expect nothing, then the Supreme State will come to you uninvited and unexpected. Stop making use of your mind and see what happens. Let go of the idea that you are not aware of yourself as the ever-present, changeless inexpressible Reality. Just let go.” ~Nisargadatta
Before writing this article I asked myself, “Who am I to write and publish an article such as this?” Many people have asked me about my work through the years, and how writing enlightening articles for the world is connected with and impacted by my own spiritual path. They are curious if I’m “walking my talk”, practicing what I preach, the soul initiator of this wisdom, or I’m passing on borrowed information acquired from others. I thought about this question deeply and came to the conclusion that when I look deep enough into the core of things, everything always has a grain of truth in it.
Whenever I sit down to write something meaningful, most days I feel that I am just a flute, an empty vessel through which the Universe is playing a spiritual song. Other days I use my writing to find clarity around personal situations I’m facing, and learn how to unravel myself and approach these issues from a more enlightened perspective. A majority of the time, I feel like I am a co-creative scribe who is dancing with the divine, playing his flute as well as being played by it. For me there are always three sides to every coin, and it seems we can only see the two opposite sides when we’re riding on the edge.
In no way would I ever call myself a guru, spiritual teacher, or pretend that I have all the answers to life. That load is too heavy of a burden which I would never want to carry. I simply have had a tiny glimpse of the enlightened state when I started my spiritual path meditating in India in my mid-twenties, and for those few months I was riding the edge between the limited ego mind and infinite consciousness, totally able to see both sides clearly during every life situation I experienced. That little glimpse of clarity inspired me to the point that I’ve not stopped writing at least one article a week since the year 2000.
I find the central aspect of how one knows they are truly walking a spiritual path in life, is that the main focus of their mind is not on the outer world, nor dealing with the issues of their inner world, yet on the realm which is beyond both. The spiritual world is a dimension to life that brings total peace to how you experience your outer world and inner world. It is connected to both worlds, yet it is born from a place that has transcended both worlds. This is why the spiritual path is so attractive and yields the most profound states of peace and happiness. When you are really walking your spiritual path, nothing can phase you or shake you. The clamoring drama of your inner and outer world is mere entertainment, a play on the spiritual stage which the real life is lived.
We all are searching for ways to help the world and feel good about ourselves. Finding out what truly inspires you in life is an essential key towards taking a step each day on your spiritual path. Just look at the word “In-spiration” and you see it stems from “in-spirit”. Whatever brings deep inspiration to your life is going to elevate your consciousness and bring you closer to spirit. The key is here is learning what you need to let go of so that each experience in life becomes a spiritual one.
If you think your spiritual path is a separate aspect from your real life, reserving the spiritual experience only for yoga class, meditation time, or Sunday morning at the church or temple, you’re missing out on the sacred temple that is within your being all day long. When you bring infinite awareness and divine consciousness to any action, you’re making space to include the spiritual connection, and anything you do can become a spiritual experience. Washing the dishes, going to a business meeting, checking your email, or being stuck in traffic can all be deeply profound spiritual experiences. Simply being present to the divine consciousness inside you is where the spiritual path starts, continues and ends.
“Thought is the sculptor who can create the person you want to be.” ~ Henry David Thoreau
Its important to know that these “secrets” to finding your spiritual path are not really secretive at all, yet it’s information that may simply be temporarily hidden from plain view. Perhaps the greatest secret which is most hidden from the world, is knowing that ultimately, you are the God Source, the sole creator of your reality. You define what is real and true, and what is false. You decide what is right and wrong and good and bad. If you say that something is sacred, then it is sacred and that’s that! If you decide that making love with your beloved is the easiest path to entering a spiritual experience, then that manifests as the reality for you. By owning the fact that your thoughts create your reality, you could simply say, “I am already on the most perfect spiritual path and heading towards the life of my dreams!” The moment you believe it, then it is so.
Often it happens that we are tested by life to go deeper into our spiritual nature, and grow beyond our current level of spiritual evolution. This is that time in our lives when we feel stuck, lost, confused or simply frustrated by everything. When this occurs for you, any insight, revelation, or answer that you’re looking for can be found by getting very quiet and still inside. In perfect stillness, and having infinite patience to getting there, and you become absorbed by the greatest totality of existence. You merge with the entire Universe, become absorbed by God, and realize on a very visceral level that you are the God source itself. You know without a doubt that each drop of water contains the vital essence of the entire Ocean.
Letting the God Source into your heart is what I call the Divine Absorption. It is what happens when the little “me” who was struggling to get its huge needs met, suddenly is liberated from suffering. Any feelings of lack, limitation and smallness fade away as this absorption takes over. This experience is the deepest “let go” that you can handle. It’s a total letting go of any attachment to the body, the mind, the thoughts, the attachment to the thoughts, the desires, dreams and the yearning to change anything in this world. The absorption comes from relaxing into the stillness, and letting everything be exactly as it is. This is one the fastest approaches I’ve found to finding your feet are on the spiritual path. It instantly causes the mind to step out of any smaller pool its stuck swimming in and into the vast ocean of consciousness which is your basic nature.
There are as many different ways to access this spiritual essence as your mind can imagine. If you are a super down to earth person and just cannot relate to anything I mentioned above in this article, just take a good look back at your past and find the most potent alive and juicy experience of life that you’ve ever had! Perhaps you got married, moved to a beautiful home, had a baby, suddenly discovered your life mission, or were simply mesmerized by a beautiful sunset. Whatever your juiciest life moment was, there is a door inside it to access your spiritual connection. The secret here is to find the quality and feeling that it brings into your body and breathe into it. Any experience that opens your mind and heart at the same time, falls into the realm of that which can open you up to a spiritual experience.
Once you’ve found the quality of what a really good feeling is like in your body, the next question is how can you feel deeper into that sensation and expand it throughout your day? Explore how you can continue to let it expand into your relationships, your conversations and your life? By putting your attention on the deepest juice from the best feel good memory of your life, you will open up new energetic doorways inside you and soon manifest the connection with a spiritual experience all day long.
Perhaps the most enlightening part about discovering your spiritual journey is knowing that it cannot be done by the pure force of will alone. There must be a deeper level of surrender involved, where you are more interested in letting go than attaining. Your heart is open to having a conversation with God and find yourself always opening yourself up, opening, opening, opening to an energetic exchange with the Divine. The opening is the key and golden secret to everything. So it’s not about getting anything from the opening, its what the opening sensation does to your life and the kind of life you tend to live. When you commit yourself to total opening, you’ll find the most mundane and ordinary life experiences become the most divine and sacred.
Remember, the moment to moment path of spiritual experience is the one we all long for and fear the same. We all want a feeling of oneness and deep relaxation in the body, yet we have to let go of complete control to receive that experience. We all want deep peace, unstoppable confidence and an invincible feeling of trust, yet we must be able to sit in the fire of our greatest suffering and let it burn away everything. This swinging between the letting go and the holding on is what naturally occurs for all beings walking the spiritual path. There is the ego who is desperately trying to get its needs met through its old habits of effort and struggle, and the soul who sits back, knows, trusts and manifests instantly. I feel that the most enlightened path is to welcome both sides and simply choose to trust that the Universe is listening and is paying very close attention to your every thought and feeling. This allows you to feel close to God, to relax ever so deeply, and find the most solid foundation that allows a daily spiritual experience to blossom.
“It is the most beautiful moment in one’s life when there is neither confusion nor certainty. One simply is — a mirror reflecting that which is. With no direction to go anywhere, with no idea of doing something, with no future – just utterly in the moment, tremendously in the moment.” ~Osho
No comments:
Post a Comment