Maintaining a Good Spiritual State

 

PhotoCredit: Shanti Yoga Training School

Maintaining a Good Spiritual State

We become seekers by choice or by accident – seekers of the ultimate truth. We set out in search of a spiritual guide and if we are lucky, we meet a genuine self-realised Master or Satguru. We establish our soul-level connection, get initiated into his flock of disciples and commence our spiritual practice. Unlike the olden days, modern society does not envisage a hermitage where you can go for your spiritual education and practice. In modern society, we have to live amidst the cacophony of noise and surfeit of information and entertainment – print, visual and now digital even!

It is very easy to lose one’s way even after taking initiation, because the temptations in modern society are far too many for us to walk away from easily. We have friends, relatives, colleagues who will mock us for being ‘spiritual’ – as very few people really know what it means, even though awareness is increasing all over the world. Thus, maintaining a good spiritual state literally becomes a test of our character and commitment to our Master.

Just as we make a conscious and decided effort to strive for physical fitness, we should do the same for our inner well-being. Once we start our meditation practice, with time we learn to go deep within our own self, the deeper we go the first thing which happens is we start seeing our own faults. This is the first step – we see our faults and then take steps to ensure that we do not repeat them. The corollary to this is we stop seeing faults of others – we stop unnecessary criticism out of spite or jealousy. We learn to introspect on our own faults and find the reason for them – then after understanding the cause we learn to overcome those faults.

We learn to accept life’s situations rather than resist them. Resistance always is because of the ego and the feeling of ‘why me’? Acceptance of life’s challenges makes your inner core stronger and you learn to ride life’s waves, tidal waves even, as you continue to maintain balance and an aura of positivity. We learn to accept who we are for what we are and face life’s challenges positively. Similarly, we learn to accept others as they are and stop being judgemental. Meditation helps us to accept ourselves, the way we are, love ourselves the way we are – acceptance is a sure-fire way to maintain your blissful state. We learn to stop holding grudges and forgiveness comes easily as the love and compassion grows within us with each passing day.

Connection with our Master or Satguru through regular meditation, connection with the vast collectivity of positive souls through meditation, helps us maintain our vibrational frequency at a high level. We can thus easily maintain our inner state of peace, calm and well-being by introspecting, accepting and connecting on an ongoing basis, such that it becomes a way of life for us.