Well, we all feel the necessity of our spiritual develop but we don’t know how this spiritual develop will begin? In the beginning everyone feel so fascinated towards spirituality which so normal but the process of spiritual development requires sincere efforts for long time with faint in the process. Only through spiritual development one can achieve Santsosha (contentment) and have the feeling of fulfillment.
Spiritual development: 6 simple tips to begin
You must make it clear that without the proper understanding of process, you cannot actually progress. Similarly here your understanding of what is spirituality and what is foundation of spirituality must be clear.
What is spirituality?
Spirituality is a journey towards the pure consciousness (true self). But there are many ways given to understand spirituality according to different traditions and masters. In spite of being different they have lot of similarities and almost same goal. You must avoid distractive theories regarding spirituality because they will delude you form actual path of self-journey. Therefore you must have clear understanding of spirituality but at the same time you always must make efforts towards refinement in your understanding of Spirituality.
In the Bhagwat Gita, Shri Krishna explain spirituality in this way –
“परमं स्वभावोऽध्यात्ममुच्यते “| ( paramam swabhavo’dhyAtmamuchyate)
“Spirituality is to know, to realize and to see that supreme reality of inner consciousness (or true self).”
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Foundation of spirituality
The ultimate practice to increase spirituality within is ‘Meditation’. Lot of people knows it and they do meditate based on whatever their understanding is but they are not able to gain much with it. Why so? Are they missing something? Yes they are! They are missing ‘ability to focus’. One thing you must understand that without the ability to concentrate, you will never be able to achieve the real state of Meditation. So first you need to learn the art of Concentration.
There are many aspirant of spirituality trying to enhance their ability to concentrate but cannot attain noticeable success. Why so? Are they lacking something? Yes they are. They lacking a pure mind because a pure mind can only fully concentrate and then only the state of meditation can be achieved.
So I would say that foundation of Spirituality is a pure mind. Without a purified mind one can never be fully qualified for spirituality. Even if we analyze the teaching of great sages, they all have mentioned Chita-shudhhi/Chita-parikarma/Chita-prasadanam means purification of mind is required to build a strong foundation for spiritual journey. An unpurified and wandering mind can never help you to realize or see that supreme reality of inner consciousness (or true self).
Sage Patanjali says about Chita-Prasadan in yoga sutra that through cultivating attitudes of friendliness towards happy, compassion towards the miserable, joyfulness/gladness towards virtuous and indifference towards the evil, the mind becomes tranquil. In Buddhism also we find the same concept which is known as ‘Brahma-vihara’.
Friendliness
When somebody is happy, feel happy, feel friendly towards them. Because then you also open a door towards happiness for you. In a subtle way, by cultivating friendliness towards who is happy, you immediately start sharing his/her happiness; it has become yours also – immediately! By being friendly towards happy people, you become attuned to happiness.
Compassion
You need to understand that compassion is not about co-suffering, means you feel the pain and suffering of others and you also become the same. Compassion means when you see a person in misery you feel his misery therefore you would like to help the other person to come out of his misery; you would like to do whatever can be done. You are not happy about it, but you are not miserable also.
Gladness/Joyfulness
MUDITA means gladness/joyfulness/ sympathetic joy. Mudita is the feeling of joy and appreciation towards those who are virtuous, doing something useful for society. If you always criticize and find the faults in others that simply mean you more focus on negative and you unknowingly slowly start to poison yourself.
Indifference/Forgiveness
Indifferent must be towards their no-virtues deeds but not to them because indifference does not mean apathy. When you see someone doing wrong deeds or non-virtue acts, you must make them understand about their acts and how they are inappropriate. But remember don’t involve in it too much. You must forgive them so they can be motivated to do good deeds.
Conclusion
In our spiritual journey there are many challenges but one of them is emotional imbalance. You must learnt to transcend your emotions by cultivating attitudes of friendliness towards happy, compassion towards the miserable, joyfulness/gladness towards virtuous and indifference towards the evil because these attributes helps you in purifying the mind and mind becomes tranquil.
