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Tag: spiritual progress

What is the proof?

It has become a big deal to proclaim and trumpet the number of hours one spends on spiritual practises including attending satsangs, doing yoga asanas, meditating or reading scriptures. These activities quickly find their way into facebook, instagram and other social media. Nothing wrong in that.

One person spends her time attending seven Skype satsang sessions every day. Yet she herself admits to having all sorts of issues – desires, attachments, problems at home, problems at work – you name it.

Why this disconnect? Why do the hours in satsang or spirituality not translate into real life positive changes?

The answer is simple. Because there is no application. The change we seek must come from within. Reading a book or attending a discourse have little meaning if the learnings are not applied, consistently, day after day. To quote an oft-quoted example, we can all read 100s of books on the technique of swimming, but will never learn unless pushed into the water.

This does not mean we must reduce the hours one is spending on these good activities. But an hour spent less, instead of resulting in regret, should ideally culminate in real world implementation. Came across some lessons on anger management? Super, now see if you can control your tongue – no lashing out – especially in the company of your irritating but well-intentioned friend. Read something about the importance of being charitable? Great, now go out and see if you can donate 10% of your income this month to a charity of your choice.

In this case, the proof of the pudding, is in the doing.

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Report Card: E for Everyone

We are all constantly chasing material progress. And we understand progress. Two houses are better than one, and two million bucks is better than one million.

But what of spiritual progress? Is there a report card?

According to Swami Tejomayananda, there are only two questions one must answer when evaluating one’s own spiritual progress.

  1. How much does everyone want to be in my company?
  2. How much do I want to be in the company of everyone?

Note, that this is everyone. Not a cherry picked group of friends or family members or colleagues that we have a predilection for. Or a specific set of people we detest and wish to avoid at all costs.

Spirituality is about training the mind to accept and enjoy everyone and everything as they are. Even that nosy bothersome fellow at work, or that pesky old neighbour next door, and also that cranky boss who calls you up on the weekends for extra work.

If we are making progress spiritually, we will be courting inner peace, and the answers to 1 and 2 would be ‘very much’, if not more.

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