Spiritual Growth: the Spiritual Challenge of Modern Times
To grow spiritually in a world defined by power, money, and influence is a Herculean task.
Modern conveniences such as electronic equipment, gadgets, and tools as well as entertainment through television, magazines, and the web have predisposed us to confine our attention mostly to physical needs and wants.
As a result, our concepts of self-worth and self-meaning are muddled. How can we strike a balance between the material and spiritual aspects of our lives?
To grow spiritually is to look inward.
Introspection goes beyond recalling the things that happened in a day, week, or month.
You need to look closely and reflect on your thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and motivations.
Periodically examining your experiences, the decisions you make, the relationships you have, and the things you engage in provide useful insights on your life goals, on the good traits you must sustain and the bad traits you have to discard.
Moreover, it gives you clues on how to act, react, and conduct yourself in the midst of any situation.
Like any skill, introspection can be learned; all it takes is the courage and willingness to seek the truths that lie within you.
Here are some pointers when you introspect: be objective, be forgiving of yourself, and focus on your areas for improvement.
To grow spiritually is to develop your potentials.
Religion and science have differing views on matters of the human spirit.
Religion views people as spiritual beings temporarily living on Earth, while science views the spirit as just one dimension of an individual.
Mastery of the self is a recurring theme in both Christian (Western) and Islamic (Eastern) teachings.
The needs of the body are recognized but placed under the needs of the spirit.
Beliefs, values, morality, rules, experiences, and good works provide the blueprint to ensure the growth of the spiritual being.
In Psychology, realizing one’s full potential is to self-actualize.
Maslow identified several human needs: physiological, security, belongingness, esteem, cognitive, aesthetic, self-actualization, and self-transcendence.
James earlier categorized these needs into three: material, emotional, and spiritual.
When you have satisfied the basic physiological and emotional needs, spiritual or existential needs come next.
Achieving each need leads to the total development of the individual.
Perhaps the difference between these two religions and psychology is the end of self-development: Christianity and Islam see that self-development is a means toward serving God, while psychology view that self-development is an end by itself.
To grow spiritually is to search for meaning.
Religions that believe in the existence of God such as Christianism, Judaism, and Islam suppose that the purpose of the human life is to serve the Creator of all things.
Several theories in psychology propose that we ultimately give meaning to our lives.
Whether we believe that life’s meaning is pre-determined or self-directed, to grow in spirit is to realize that we do not merely exist.
We do not know the meaning of our lives at birth; but we gain knowledge and wisdom from our interactions with people and from our actions and reactions to the situations we are in.
As we discover this meaning, there are certain beliefs and values that we reject and affirm. Our lives have purpose.
This purpose puts all our physical, emotional, and intellectual potentials into use; sustains us during trying times; and gives us something to look forward to—a goal to achieve, a destination to reach.
A person without purpose or meaning is like a drifting ship at sea.
To grow spiritually is to recognize interconnections.
Religions stress the concept of our relatedness to all creation, live and inanimate.
Thus we call other people “brothers and sisters” even if there are no direct blood relations.
Moreover, deity-centered religions such as Christianity and Islam speak of the relationship between humans and a higher being.
On the other hand, science expounds on our link to other living things through the evolution theory.
This relatedness is clearly seen in the concept of ecology, the interaction between living and non-living things.
In psychology, connectedness is a characteristic of self-transcendence, the highest human need according to Maslow.
Recognizing your connection to all things makes you more humble and respectful of people, animals, plants, and things in nature.
It makes you appreciate everything around you.
It moves you to go beyond your comfort zone and reach out to other people, and become stewards of all other things around you.
Growth is a process thus to grow in spirit is a day-to-day encounter.
We win some, we lose some, but the important thing is that we learn, and from this knowledge, further spiritual growth is made possible.
Spirituality & the Law of Attraction
Man is mortal. This is the universal truth and everyone should learn to accept it.
But, even though the days on Earth are limited, each one of us should endeavor to live an optimal life with a perfect balance of health, wealth, peace and success.
In order to live life optimally, you need to live for today and save a trifle for the future.
At the same time, do not live your life for the interest of others but live it for yourself.
Live your life on the basis of your beliefs and not altogether under the act upon of others although you should take do good from the words of others.
There is an inner voice or moral sense that keeps speaking to you.
Listen to your moral sense speak to you and understand what it has to say to find the aim of your life.
Every person’s life should have a purpose and it is essential to live for this purpose to live an optimal life.
Enjoy what you do in trying to achieve your life’s purpose.
If you are not basking what you are doing and do not have the zeal to take it advancing, then you are believably wrong at describing your purpose in life.
If you are not living your life trying to accomplish its purpose, you will find things failing all-round you.
This is so because you have a lot of electronegativity completed you and the action that abides by is bound to be negative.
This is called the law of attraction which states that like appeals like.
This may lead to many problems like relationships going sour, unfitness to cope up with stress at the work place, etc.
For this reason, it becomes very vital to understand the purpose in life and follow it with ardor to accomplish it and above all, enjoy doing what you are doing.
Access this purpose in life with a positive mentality and the actions that follow will by all odds be auspicious although you might have to work a lot toward it.
The joy should be in the journey and not the address.
Follow your inner voice that is speaking to you. Learn to empathize what it has to say.
Identify your life’s purpose and live everyday like there is no tomorrow and endeavor each day to come one step closer to your purpose in life.
By learning to do this, you will not only enjoy each and everyday of your life, you will learn to live your life optimally.
Insights into Spiritual Enlightenment
Spirituality is one of the main topics in the streets today. Most of the periodicals, newspapers and even books have specific sections meant for spiritual awareness.
This is because the society has come to realize the importance of spiritual enlightenment to the entire body.
All in all, nobody has ever come up with the exact definition of spiritual enlightenment. This is because it varies according to one’s religious beliefs.
As a matter of fact, words are not enough to define spiritual awareness. It carries so much depth that only actions can describe it.
When it comes to the spiritual sense of it, many mistake it for the optimum spirituality level that one can reach.
The truth is that spirituality has no end; it is journey in the spiritual realm.
There are certain insights that help in enlightening us spiritually.
To start with, knowing that enlightenment is just but some sort of higher awareness is one of the main insights that lead to one’s growth spiritually.
By higher awareness, I am simply referring to the awareness that you are a spit in a physical body. Most of us do not know this, we think of it in the opposite manner.
Many think that we are physical beings with a spirit inside.
With this realization, it becomes even easier to face life’s struggle since you will have the mentality that they are just but mere earthly problems that should not bother you at all.
Another insight that defines spiritual enlightenment is that the world is just as it is and will never change.
In short, this means taking the world just as it is without any form of dissatisfaction or regret.
With such a realization, you will understand that the world is perfect just as it is. All that happens in it, whether good or bad, is just because of the divine law.
Nothing happens just as a mistake, everything has a purpose. Individuals with such understanding show a lot of maturity in life.
The third insight is all about inner peace. In fact, this is the most important of them all.
It so happens that each and every time an individual shows some sort of spiritual enlightenment, his or her soul is normally at peace.
Enlightenment and disorder are two things that will never go hand in hand.
This is because inner unrest tends to suffocate the spirit in you hence bringing unconsciousness within your inner self.
Intuition Is a Part of Spirituality
Many a times, you may have faced situations where you might have been in a tumbled situation.
If you take a decision in a certain way, then it can harm you or your loved ones, and if you take it the other way, then it can harm you or your loved ones too.
Generally, a person left in such a situation hears decisions from the mind. Very few listen to the decisions given by the heart.
Those taking decisions from mind think it wise and logical. You must always hear the call of your spirit during these times.
However, many people do not know how to hear and talk with your soul or spirit.
There is a secret, which if a person practices, can hear and talk to his or her heart to take the right decisions.
Most of the people cannot make the difference between a thought and a call of spirit. They assume it the same.
Though both are nearly the same, there is a very little difference between the two. And, the only person who is able to understand this difference tastes real success.
The difference is like differentiating between a glass of water and a glass of soda.
Understanding the difference is essential if you want to grow up as a successful individual.
Intuition plays a major role while communicating with your spirit. Many people have this element of intuition more while many have this element less.
However, by the help of meditation and spiritual guides, it is possible to attain this property of intuition.
Intuition is like a message that you inner soul tries to convey you. It is different from thoughts.
An intuition is always positive and if negative, then it is in the form of danger warnings.
Only when a person attains spiritual satisfaction, then he is able to reason out intuition from his or her soul.
An intuition guides you, solves problems, helps you to alleviate from a stressful situation, and relieves anxiety and so on.
Many a times, it has been seen that mysteries could be resolved by this property of intuition.
Overall, it can be called a trust and faith in your inner self that leads to the attainment of the element of intuition. It must not be confused with confidence.
Confidence is something different that is temporary.
A person can lose confidence anytime, but if a person gains spirituality and intuition, then it is a permanent attainment.
The Value of Spiritual Self-Discovery
When people embark on a journey of self-discovery, they usually focus on the physical and emotional side of their personality.
Rarely do people consider the importance of spiritual self-discovery, even if they identify as spiritual side to their personality.
When we take the time to explore the part of our psyche that we sometimes call spirit or soul, we discover a unique and different aspect to our personality we may not even have realized existed.
We are people made up of physical, spiritual, intellectual and emotional dimensions.
We experience the world and the experiences we go through in the world, by looking at them through these dimensions. This is not new.
We know that humanity has always considered these dimensions.
Roman and Greek mythology, Roman astrology and ancient religions are all testimony to the very real role that spirituality has played in human development.
We perhaps identify best with the moment we see a magnificent sunrise, or an amazing act of nature that leaves us in a state of bewilderment and wonder, recognizing there are things in our life that are beyond our ability to control.
We have a conscious or unconscious desire to know this power and it is what we can term spirituality.
When people think of spiritual wellbeing, they usually think of God. Whoever or whatever they conceive “him” to be.
Some consider him a supreme being and others consider him as “the man upstairs” a belligerent father figure.
Still others reject the concept of any sort of being, and find their spirituality in the earth, or in nature.
So how do we discover the spiritual side of our personalities?
Some people discover it through embracing formal religion, others discover it through yoga or some other form of meditation that causes them to focus in on themselves and still others go on a journey of self-discovery and call this a religious experience.
Some have compared this spiritual awakening with a heightened sense of experiencing.
As we allow our inner selves to experience life at a deeper level than just what seems obvious around us, we begin to relate to things in a different way.
In whatever we choose to embrace the spiritual side of our personality, when we do focus on spiritual self-awareness we usually discover we come alive in our personality and this has an effect on how we relate to self and others.
We have established that to embrace our spiritual side we need to acknowledge it exists.
As we embark on a journey of spiritual self-discovery, we often find aspects of our personality and our character we didn’t know about before.
Most people find it awakens something inside them that they describe as “completing them” or “filling a hole” in their lives.
We subconsciously or consciously make bargains with “god” when we find ourselves in a position of need.
For many people, this moment maybe considered a moment of spiritual awakening.
This is for most people, the time when they stop asking for proof of a higher being and start talking or acting as if there is one.
Once the situation has resolved, for many, life continues without any more thought of “god” until another crisis and then the automatic response is to turn thoughts once again to help from something or someone outside our conscious control.
For others though, that moment of self-awareness and spiritual awakening, stimulates something in them and they start to question reality, as they know it.
People who go through a spiritual crisis or who choose to change religions often experience this moment in a different way.
They may find themselves rejecting their existing and questioning relevance.
The end of such questioning for some people may lead to the choice of a completely different spiritual path.
Some people think of having faith or a spiritual awareness is like following something blindly without proof.
Whilst in the early days of a spiritual awakening this may seem an uncomfortable place to be in for many people, once embarked on, most people come to accept there are many things in our lives we accept without proof.
We know for example that humankind will live and die, or we will feel sleepy and need to sleep at night.
Our experiences train us to believe that things happen and we anticipate them happening.
When we embrace spirituality, we are embracing something that enables us to find our place in the universe.
We all ask ourselves, “why am I here’ and “where am I going.” Whatever we call our spiritual reality; these are two fundamental questions we ask ourselves.
Spirituality helps us to discover the answers to those questions. Spiritual self-discovery can be a journey that embraces our true humanity.
It provides us with a sense of personal “completion” and wholeness.
The World Is Moved More by Spirituality than by Men
There is no doubt that what is abiding, universal and impersonal has a greater appeal to man than what is fleeting, limited and personal.
Spirituality, being such, has more appeal to humanity than men do. This is true in all aspects of human existence as it is in the knowledge man has gained.
However, great a man may be, he has his limitations. He is in no way superior to the ordinary human beings as far as defects and shortcomings are concerned.
However, spirituality, the children of his heart, have universal appeal. Therefore, spirituality influences man more truly and deeply than personalities.
On the other hand, there is no scope for any doubt that personalities appeal more to the common man than spirituality.
The reason is that a man who is concrete is more palpable than spirituality, which is abstract.
However, the likes and dislikes of a common person do not determine the standard of human conduct.
A bit deeper insight into the matter will reveal that we worship personalities; we really pay respect to them because they embody some lofty ideas or ideals.
In the field of science, men who put forth spirituality were often ridiculed. They were even stoned to death but spirituality triumphed in the end.
Copernicus was insulted and Galileo was tortured to death but their ideas like the torchbearers have been guiding the destiny of humanity through centuries.
In addition, greatness of a literature or a religion is determined not by the number of men writing it but by the amount of ideas, truths or spiritual words contained in it.
Literary writers like Shakespeare, Tolstoy and Tagore have left an indelible imprint on the mind of humanity not because of their impressive personalities but because of the ideas and spiritualism contained in their books.
On the other hand, a Sadhu in saffron robes cannot become a prophet. He can become Lord Buddha only if he has great ideas to convey to millions.
All these examples support the conviction that ideas or spirituality is greater than men are.
Without ideas or spirituality, men are philistines (uncultured, commonplace people).
In fact, he is the true benefactor of humanity who gives ideas to the world and enlightens the world with spirituality.
The greatest contribution of the greatest men to the material welfare of the world will be short-lived only.
The ideas and spirituality imbibed from the great men transform the very brain, mind, and soul of man. As a result, humanity must become better and nobler.
Understanding the Concept of God
Whenever we speak of anything spiritual, we can connect it to our inner soul. Some others may connect it to the word God.
However, this is a very complicated thing and this sense can only be attained through practical experience.
Spirituality is nothing but the felling of the existence of God in our soul. God is great. He is omnipotent and omnipresent.
His presence is in every human being and in every corner of the world. He is big, but He is so small that His every little bit, is in every corner of the world.
Go back to those school days when you studied Biology as a subject.
During the practical classes, many a times you may have watched unknown things happening under the microscope.
These things are the ones that you had not known until then. It is like a discovery of a new civilization of microorganisms.
We all know that a microscope magnifies a thing 200 to 400 times, than it is.
Moreover, you will be surprised to know that God is even smaller than that, though not yet proved by the scientists.
The universe has so many large things that are too small to see. This is again a controversial topic, yet there is truth to it.
For instance, humans can hear a sound range of 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz.
Nor can they hear anything below 20 Hz, called infrasonic sound; neither can they hear anything above 20,000 Hz, called ultrasonic sound.
Similarly, humans cannot see anything that is too small to see, or too large to see. Like hearing range, they have a sight range too.
Therefore, God is so great that he is too small to see.
The definition of God and belief of His existence may vary from one individual to the other.
Some people believe in God, while others do not believe because they cannot see. Every individual has his or her own point of reason.
However, it is proved that whether or not people believe in the existence of God, a spiritual force works on this universe and everything happens on the work we do.
If we do any good work, we get good results, and if we do anything bad, we get bad results.
It is like a divine feeling that brings the positive feelings within you in times of fear, mishap, or any ill conditions.
Thus, the real existence of God or this spiritual force lies in your soul.
