The way I understand being spiritual may vary from dictionary definition of it. Some of my choices in life were more due to the circumstances that I grew up in than a conscious meditated choice. So, spirituality in my early life was more thrust upon me than my personal choice.
About the time when I came of age and was struggling like any teenager with changes internal and external, I found the activity of simply sitting down to just watch the night sky; sounds made by crickets and other creatures; the starlit sky, or the splendor of the moon lit sky; now all these were merely watched alone with no adult supervision.
I began to like staying by myself and just watching without any judgement about the scene in front of me. I started to love everything I saw in front of me. I felt the love being reflected in me. I wanted to know why I felt such immense peace within me.
Not Aware That I Was Meditating
This became spirituality for me. I did not seek bookish confirmation for any of my experiences where I sat down and blanked my brain activities keeping just the minimum activity functioning. The attraction factor was the sense of wellbeing that I felt within me. The more peaceful it got, the more I was interested in spending time with myself and nature.
Somehow, I like the night much better than the day. Initially, when I participated in this activity without my family’s knowledge and on the sly, I knew how to hide from my family and those stolen moments put together marks my life with something that was far above the education I got from the schools, colleges, and universities.
True Value of Self-Education
Then, slowly I would explore watching the morning sunrise, sunset, and the blue dome – the sky! In slow progress I would sometimes feel the peace seep into my daily life. Around this time, I had shifted from autorickshaw to public transport to go to school.
During this time, I felt immense joy travelling early to any destination. That practice remains with me till date. I try not to be late for any event or class. I would always get to the venue earlier so my spirit settles down in the space. Time, Space, and Energy, these elements have a way of getting filtered into my consciousness.
Match the Experience With Supportive Reading
One of my personally joyful activities is to read books. A through bookworm and I found that if I place a question to the universe then, the answer to it would be presented as a book. In this style, I have been reading The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Pearle and other books that answered the questions I placed.
Slowly, I was making progress in my life and yet did not know I was spiritual. Only that when peaceful, I felt god within me. The frequent collection of sense records, calming effect that comes from connecting with nature. All these factors helped me to define Spirituality in my own terms.
Warm Quilt of Things Spiritual
I made a quilt in fashion using all my personal experience in life to cover the seeking soul. This warm quilt that stood tests of time and beliefs held within me. I knew for certainty that there is much more than that meets the eyes. Sometimes an understanding arrives at the onus of internal reference points which are hard to explain to others.
Around the time of my final years in High school, I understood that the experience that I have been feeling was a kind of meditative practice. For some time, I was a little worried that I might have jumped into the occult bandwagon. But then, the steadying factor came in the form of Yoga practices that I accepted in my early college days.
I read more about yoga and meditation. I did this all without a guru or a mentor. The more I practiced the yoga exercises the more I became peaceful within me. I am not saying that I don’t have my moments of flustered challenges where my reactions are predictably human. But in the inner reference, I am always calm and collected.
Collective Consciousness and Channeling Them for Good
Around the third and final year of college, I understood a lot more and was mature inside me. During the days when I was studying Pranic Healing course. I understood that the peace that I felt within can be directed to another suffering person and help them to achieve balance and peace.
In Pranic Healing course, I liked the twin heart meditation the most. I would be seen meditating and praying for the world to heal and thereby its people, animals, and things. You pray for all things small and big. I often use Saint Francis of Assisi’s prayer:
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen.
—St. Francis of Assisi
This prayer has been my foundation stone in all that I did in the past, doing in the present, and will do in the future. If we are to check out all the religions in this world the common factors between them are many than the differences.
I understood this early on and walked peacefully accepting all from various religions. The highest point of Vedic literature also states that we came from one and became many and eventually we will all become one. From nothing to something to nothing again. That in this human journey of a short vacation trip on earth, we as humans should be reaching out to more people, things, animals, plants, and beings without practicing any discrimination among them.
That according to me is being spiritual. I have learned this lesson multiple times. Sometimes, we are sent here to just learn one lesson and the teacher above wants to know that lesson by heart. So, if you feel that you have the most problems in the world, then look at your brethren around you. Then, you will know that you are not alone on this spiritual trip to this Planet Earth.
Itinerant Storyteller 