Your Spirit
Most of the time, I have no clue. I mean I don’t know what I’m doing with my life. I feel like this is true of a lot of people. What are we all doing?
When I was a younger, it occured to me after going to many religious camps that life could possibly be about spirituality. The reason I came to this conclusion was that people who had been doing meditation claimed that they reached states of bliss and joy and happiness. So I tried it. It seemed that when I did very simple and very little meditation, the same was true for me.
I guess to me the point of life is to be happy. I don’t really see any other reason for living. I mean there are other obvious reasons. But the only other reason that is obvious to me is that we came here to love. Everything we do I feel is in pursuit of either happiness or love.
Now I know that sounds a little bit airy fairy. It might be, but the truth always sounds a little untrue. The real truth often seems to good to be true.
So I guess the next question for me is: What’s god got to do with it? I honestly think that you can be an atheist and be spiritual. You don’t have to believe in the religious notion of a god. Some people think of god like a computer, he is the main server and we are all networking to the main source. So I guess for me it doesn’t matter if a person believes in god or not, that is not the point of spirituality.
Then what is the point? I believe the purpose is to recognize that we have a spirit, and also that you and me and everything on this planet and universe, share a spirit. You can call that conglomeration of spirits god if you like, or the Great Spirit or whatever you want to call it.
The notion that we are all one, is an ancient belief that pervades many religions. But I don’t think of it as a religious belief. I think of it simply as a spiritual truth. So what is the difference between religion and spirituality?
That, my friends, is the real question.
Religion is based on certain scriptures of a certain tradition that was inspired by a particular prophet, usually. Spirituality is not as concerned with what scriptures you use or what prophet you follow, it is about the message of how we can enhance our own spirits. It is about our connection to our souls. Spirituality often mixes ancient traditions and religious beliefs with modern traditions and rituals.
There is a saying in Buddhism: Religion is like a boat, once you get to your destination you don’t have to carry the boat on your head.
For me personally, the destination of my religious journey was spirituality. I started with the Sikh faith. Sikhism is a minority religion in India. The primary message of Sikhism is to meditate and to do service. We call it
This is a pretty tall order for just reciting and remembering the name of god. But it’s not that simple. You have to concentrate on it, it is about realizing your true nature is the nature of god. That you and god and already one, you just don’t know it. It’s really I have found about feeling love for the entire universe, which is all part of god.
My meditation practice was kind of haphazard and all over the place. I started by just repeating the name of god, we call him Waheguru in Sikhism. Then later I tried doing silent meditation where I concentrate on my breathing. That did not work out so well for me because I found my mind would wander all over the place. Saying a word over and over again, it is called a mantra, can help you focus your mind.
I tried all kinds of things like driving my car in a scenic area and listening to music. Although that was meditative in nature, it was not what I would call the best meditation for me. I found when I just sat down and breathed deeply and repeated my mantra, I started to feel peace and joy right away, while I was doing it. And then I found that I started to be simply happier and less anxious in my life. I also noticed that the depression that I had been struggling with on and off went away.
It was like magic. In fact I have been doing half an hour of meditation in the morning for six months now and I have never been more mentally and emotionally stable and happy. I want to add another half and hour in the evening, I can imagine it may double my joy in life.
Sitting meditation is not for everyone. Some people cannot sit down and quiet their minds, and some people just feel like they cannot sit still. I still think you should try, but walking meditation, where you concentrate on one thing at a time, like a leaf or a blade of grass also works well. I have heard that running can cause runner’s high which seems like a form of meditation to me.
Anything can be a meditation. However sitting in a concentrated meditation for a short period of time every day, preferably in the morning so it sets up you day, really makes a big difference. I never really understood how much of a difference it can make until now. There have been days when I did not meditate in the last six months and I became anxious and even depressed after a couple days. Sometimes it would happen in just one day.
This is just my experience and I’m not trying to tell anyone what they should do with their lives. However I completely and totally recommend meditation if you want to be happy. You will start to feel love for everyone and everything. It’s like a drug. When people do Cocaine they start to love everything, but the high goes away and then eventually kills them. You can get that same high through meditation.
That’s all folks.
nina
