The answers to these three questions that I an including in this article below are based around my notes for the recent introductory class on Essential Spirituality. There is a lot of conversations that people have regarding spirituality that really lack any meaningful substance simply because the people involved have not really thought about or defined what it is that they mean by spirituality and spiritual practice. More than this, clear understanding of what the purpose of the spiritual path is will give us a clear insight into the benefits to be gained from engaging in it, thus empowering us to start doing it consistently in our day to day life!
The thoughts I have placed below are one possible way of defining the playing field.
What do we mean by spiritual practice?
Spiritual practice involves the process of consciously awakening each day to that which is most important and fundamental to our lives. It means creating the time each day to reflect upon this and allow that reflection to inform the way we view, act in and assess our lives and what we are choosing to do with it.
This reflection empowers us to creatively affect meaningful change in our lives, so that we no longer feel like a victim of random circumstance, rather we experience ourself as an active participant in generating our experiences and our destiny.
What is its purpose of spiritual practice?
Basic spiritual reflection (verified by the many sages of all spiritualities and religions across the ages) reveals that life consists of the potential for joy, rapture, beauty and ecstasy, within the context of many seemingly unavoidable experiences of pain suffering and injustice.
The purpose of spiritual practice is to prepare us to meet the challenges , uncertainties and sufferings of life in as effective a way as possible, whilst at the same time maximizing the potential for the experience of joy, happiness, ecstasy and rapture that life has to offer us.
How does spiritual practice affect practical change in our life?
Spiritual practice aims to affect positive practical change in our life by consistently improving the integrity and strength of the fundamental structure of our being.
Spiritual practice encourages our body, mind and spirit to work together in harmony to meet life's challenges and to grow.
Often in daily life our mind, body and spirit are either not communicating, or actively fighting against each other. An example of this might be a busy person whose body gets sick because it is tired from all the work that she is doing. Instead of giving compassion to her body, such a person may get angry with it for malfunctioning, and resist giving it the rest it needs. As a result the body takes longer to recover, and may even become more sick.
Integrated spiritual practice aims to flag up all these inconsistencies and conflicts between the different aspects of our being, and aims to resolve them so that we can turn and face the challenges of our life as a whole, integrated and strong unit, one that does not break apart under pressure.
Listening to three voices: A basic practice for bringing us back to that which is fundamental to our life.
This is a very simple, practical three stage reflection exercise/meditation. If you spend two minutes each day on each stage, that will give you a basic six minute spiritual practice!
Stage 1: Listening to the voice of your body.
Sit quietly in a comfortable position in an upright posture. Tune into your body's intuitive/instinctive consciousness. Allow your body consciousness to guide you to set a pace and rhythm of breathing that will best promote relaxation, healing and regeneration at this particular moment in time.
Stage 2: Listening to the voices in the mind.
Now turn your attention to the discursive thoughts in your mind. Be an observer of the inner chatter in your mind, consciously avoiding getting over involved in the discussion. Practice inwardly smiling at the thoughts and voices in your mind, whether they seem to be positive or negative, happy or sad.
Stage 3: Listening to the voice of silence.
Now turn your attention from the discursive thoughts in the mind to an awareness of the space and silence that lies between your thoughts, that surrounds them and interpenetrates them. Think of this inner silence in the mind as being like sky, with the discursive voices being like clouds. Relax into the sky-like silence and clarity of your inner being.
© Toby Ouvry Feb 2010 Please do not reproduce without permission.
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