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5 Tips to Know if Your Spiritual Practice is Working
There's a lot of fantasy in this world. But what I'm interested in is how we as a human species can create more reality. Spiritual practice can be a catalyst for this, a means in which to show us how to go inside ourrselves and untangle the knots of where we’re running from the reality of now to heal and transcend into the moment. That’s what I’m into. So how can we do this? How can we gauge the berometer of the capabilities of what our practices can do to transform our quality of life? Here are some tips on how to know if your spiritual practice is working. 1. Spirituality is not about philosophy, theology, dogma, a belief system, a certain frame of thought to make your existence more comfortable. Spirituality is meant to shake you to rid yourself of these things to ultimately bring you closer back to Truth. Adyashanti says, “Truth is not based in the known. Truth is an outreaching into the unknown. Truth is that which gets you to reach out beyond what you think you know, beyond what you imagine you know into the unknown. Truth is that which will question itself. So truth, the desire for truth, the love of truth that which will get you to question yourself.”
2. I will never forget this exchange. I asked her, “What do you love about your practice?” and she replied, “It makes the suffering in my life easier to deal with.” I then replied, “For me, it makes my life better.” A prime example of perspective, right? Whatever practices you gather into your life to use, they should be enhancing the quality of your everyday life. The practices are not meant to engage you in a cave and leave you there. The practices are meant to teach you in the cave and engage you in the cave to implement them in the moments of life. Although, there are moments in life where you may go through a cave period. I went through 3 years of deep solace and aloneness. That’s OK. Disengaging to reengage is allowed. If you need the space to back up before re-entering, take that amount of life-time to give it to yourself. Don’t force it, but you’ll feel it internally if you need it. Go into your practice however you want to meet it.
3. SANKALPA. What is your intention? What is the seed thought behind and underneath of why you’re practicing in the first place? What do you want to bring forth? What do you have the desire and longing to nurture and cultivate? What is your intention? For your practice and for your everyday life? Keep coming back to your intention. When you start to see your intention fueling your thoughts, fueling your actions, fueling your waking moments throughout the day that’s when you know you’re on the right track.
4. Are you growing? Are you evolving? Are you transforming into a better and more refined human being day by day? If your inner domain is expanding then by the law of cause and effect, your outer domain will then transform, shift and expand. It’s a force of nature, there’s not much you can do to stop it—it just happens. Spiritual practices are meant to to raise your frequency…consistently and constantly. Al(l)ways. The beauty of evolving is that it never stops and there’s no finish line. If you’re growing that means you are doing great work!
5. Things like beauty, balance, love, art, nature, ease, harmony, happiness, joy, neutrality, flow, clarity, understanding, compassion, and love love love become well, just the everyday. They don’t become ideas anymore, they become real. Things we strive for become embodied. Things we practice become integrated into the fibers of our being. Things that once were a dream become reality. You know your practices are working when life gets better and better, day after day.
Published February 20, 2012 at 10:00 AM
