The Key To Spiritual Growth
The whole spiritual life, when honestly examined, boils down to
Awareness. As you study spiritual traditions the world over, this
is the one common factor that occurs over and over again.
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A famous dying Zen Master, was besought by her disciples for her
final words of wise teaching to them. She replied "Awareness!".
Those were the only words she would reply, despite repeated
attempts to persuade her to say more. That word, awareness, was
the summary of her entire teaching.
Hence, it is much easier to cut through all the confusion and
contradictions, if you are willing to bear this simple point in
mind. Awareness is at the heart of Enlightenment and ultimately
leads to it. That is why the Buddha and others stressed the
importance of mindfulness practices; being aware of your
breathing, of your eating, of your walking, of everything that
you do at all times.
We are a mystery unto ourselves. We act, and do not know why we
acted as we did. We wish to improve ourselves, and yet cannot
understand the seemingly infinite inertia that holds us firmly in
our habitual places.
The secret to spiritual growth is Awareness – at all times and in
all places. It is through the simplest practices of Awareness
that you can advance; slowly and imperceptibly at times like an
unfolding flower; rapidly and dramatically at others, like a
crashing wave washing away seaweed and debris lying on the
beachside.
The major problem that most of us face is balancing our urge for
inner growth with the practical difficulties of living in modern
society with its myriad demands on our time and energy. Here are
a few ideas to ease that problem:
(1) Remember that there is no division between spiritual life and
mundane existence; that EVERY practical occurrence can be used
as an opportunity for spiritual and personal growth. Take it on
yourself to see where the personal growth lessons lie in EVERY
daily experience or problem you encounter.
(2) Schedule several brief but regular "time out" sessions in the
day, where you can close your eyes, breath slowly and regularly,
and just center yourself. If you can find a place of silence and
solitude to do so, then so much the better.
(3) Learn to trust yourself and your insights more. Remember that
outer teachers and spiritual traditions exist only to point you
to the ultimate teacher: the Higher Self within. Cultivate
Awareness of your inner prompting and be willing to follow them
more.
(4) Keep a journal of your discoveries. This serves as a powerful
feedback process. No lesson you learn is ever forgotten, and
every lesson feeds back into your awareness.
(5) Remain persistent, determined and encouraged. It is very easy
to become discouraged in personal work and feel you are getting
nowhere. No work on inner growth is ever wasted. Make no
comparisons with others, and have no expectations. Let your
growth proceed as it must… at it's own pace. Each person's
needs are individual, as is the rate of each person's growth. All
that is required is persistence and commitment to increased
awareness.
Remember that you can cultivate Awareness, and increase
self-understanding in so many situations. Contemplating the
clouds. Watching two work colleagues interact. Inwardly
observing your own emotions and reactions in situations and
interactions. Through meditation. By using your journal.
Let your spiritual growth be light and playful; not heavy and
"deep" to the point of being a weight around your neck. You don't
need bells and incense. You don't need "channeled" teachings from
someone else. And you don't need tons of self-help tapes, books
and seminars.
All you need is you, and your willingness to grow and develop. A
teacher can help you greatly (and is even necessary at a certain
stage), and a spiritual tradition can serve to ground you in
established wisdom. However, don't let all this get you down, or
make the whole thing worrisome. There is so much you can do with
the practice of simple Awareness and inner observation.
By simply doing this, you can make so much advancement on the
path to enlightenment and freedom from suffering. Moreover, the
good news is that you can remain in this world; centered and at
peace in the midst of all circumstances, free of fear and inner
suffering.
Awareness. Cultivate it – and let it cultivate you.
Copyright Asoka Selvarajah 2005. All Rights Reserved.
_______________________________________________________________
Asoka Selvarajah is a writer on personal growth and spirituality, and the author of "The 7 Golden Secrets To Knowing Your Higher Self". His work helps people achieve their full potential, deepen their understanding of mystical truth, and discover their soul's purpose. You can subscribe to his FREE ezine, and get his FREE ebook "Inner Light Outer Wealth" at:
http://www.aksworld.com/AspireToWisdom.htm?imk=Blog _______________________________________________________________
You have permission to reproduce this article in your ezine, website or offline publication as long as you do so in its entirety, and include both the copyright notice and the resource box at the bottom.
You can visit Asoka’s Mystic Visions site at: http://www.aksworld.com
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Comments on The Key To Spiritual Growth
A good teacher is the one who does not spoon-feeds us, but the one who teaches us to discover that source of knowledge in ourselves. The one who does not claim to do things for us, but make us do things on our own by making mistakes and learning from them in the process. And Awareness is one of the basic step towards this inner journey. It opens our consciousness to reach that source of knowlegde in us.
To help gain more awareness – staying close to nature, going for walks in natural environments helps a lot. Observing the trees, leaves, flowers, noticing presence of birds and other life-forms, feeling air around, etc, we get our senses trained to be in awareness.
It is a pity that as we grow up, we loose this natural ability to stay in awareness. To learn observation and awareness we must learn from a young child. A child has its eyes actually observing the things , noticing colors, shapes, textures, instead of having some other thoughts when looking at those things. It is that awareness that actually cultivates a child until it stops cultivating it!
Why young kids are so good at picking up new things, new information, new technologies? They are more aware than the adults who have stopped learning.
There is a good list of do's and do-not's in the article by Asoka. I would like to add just one more in do-not's and that is not to get fascinated by supernatural powers. If we are working to acheive powers like clairaudience, clairvoyance,.. or if someone is exhibiting it, something is not at its place. They can be a mean but not an end, not a goal in our spiritual progress.
Thank you for spelling this out in such simple terms, ( that may be so simple that they look to common, heard before, to easy! )
This and the post about the road instead of the result, is a breathe of fresh air at this point in my life- even though I've heard it before and it made sense then. Now it also make's sense and even moreso!!