Introspection

 

Photo Credit: Zenful Spirit

Introspection

In modern times introspection is the need of the hour. In a spiritual context, it means the sincere examination of thoughts, feelings, words, actions and motivations in order to keep them uplifted and beneficial. When we introspect daily – the last thing before going to bed – it brings us closer to our soul.

Introspection involves ruminating on the day’s events, one by one, not dwelling on any single event for any period of time, but just briefly reviewing all the activities – all the circumstances that you have faced, and most importantly how you faced them, your attitude in each situation as you tackled it – whether it helped you in taking care of your karma or adding to it!

With daily introspection you will begin to notice your faults, you will also realise that you had virtues too, which you were not aware of! If possible, make a spiritual diary or if you are capable, them prepare a mental diary where everything is noted! Over time the diary becomes your guide as begin to see the mistakes you made, whether any mistakes kept repeating themselves – these were the ones you needed to give special attention to.

With a Satguru for guidance, this diary becomes the voice of your Guru – as all the mistakes noted in the diary are the lessons in which you failed – so it is the Guru’s voice narrating the mistakes and giving you solutions for course correction.

Another and probably the most important purpose of introspection is to ascertain all our unwanted character traits. And if you truly observe you will notice that ego is the only fault you have! Ego manifests in all the limiting habits of thought and behaviour that spring from our identification with the body and that delude us into forgetting we are in truth a divine soul made in the ever-perfect image of Paramatma.

Real introspection means to examine not only our thoughts and reaction, but to go deeper and deeper, down into our attitudes and underlying motives. As we look at ourselves in the mirror of daily introspection, we should never identify with either our faults or our virtues. This is another principle that is very important in connection with the art of introspection: Remember always what you really are: a soul, absolutely perfect — an individualized spark of God; a spark of Spirit.

The mortal limitations we have gathered around us in the form of habits, tendencies, moods, and so forth are nothing but maya, or cosmic delusion. This maya is everywhere. Without the delusion of maya, the universe could not exist. It is the influence of delusive ignorance that makes us imagine we have a separate existence apart from God and lose sight of the native perfection of our souls. But we are not this maya. We are not these faults, we are not these imperfections; they belong not to the soul but to the ego — the soul in its mortal state of identification with the little human body and mind and their limitations. We are already a perfect being. What we are trying to do on the spiritual path is to restore that perfect nature which God has already given to us as a part of His own being, and allow it to express itself.