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The Necessity Of Spiritual Practice

Spiritual practices are 100% necessary.

And to enter into a true way of spiritual life, is a requirement of a human life (that’s not going to end up wasted). Anything less, and it does end up essentially wasted. This is the Buddhist view, that it’s a waste of a human life to not use it for a higher way— to reach the Divine, to reach that which is beyond this life.

So spiritual practices are absolutely unavoidable and must be entered into, whether one wants to or not. And the spiritual way itself has to be adopted, whether the call to it is weak or strong. And every spiritual aspirant is in the same exact position of inherent difficulty.

The difficulty is: until you’re, in essence, surrounded by spirituality—you’re eating, breathing, walking, talking spirituality—until when you turn around, the spiritual will be there (you turn to the left, the spiritual will be there, when you look away, wherever you look, the spiritual will be there, in some form)—until that’s your actual experience and your actual situation, you will be at war with the spiritual necessity.

You’ll be at war with the body, and the mind, and what’s experienced as spirit or soul inside a person. Inside yourself you’ll be at war with it, because it naturally resists everything that represents the spiritual way, everything that represents spiritual practice, and everything that represents the Divine Reality.

So this has to be accepted. The hard part for most people who are serious in their spiritual intention and in their spiritual life—the really hard part is to recognize and accept that there’s no other way it’s ever been; no other way it can be; and no other way it ever will be—that the majority of the spiritual search, the majority of the spiritual path, the majority of the spiritual life, will be lived (and experienced) as a matter of resistance—as a matter of unwillingness. The very practice you engage in, or practices, the very fact that you take the path seriously, makes you more aware of all the resistance that’s naturally there.

That resistance isn’t the resistance of the one who is serious about spiritual life. That resistance is the resistance of the body, of the mind, and of the so-called spirit—of the soul that you’re in touch with, your kind of ‘deeper self’. And that’s not your real soul! That’s just your experience of yourself on a deeper level. So even that is in resistance to the truly spiritual, to the demand for surrender and for transcendence that is natural to the spiritual way and that any serious spiritual movement makes you more aware of.

Any movement toward the spiritual that really succeeds, that really takes you a step forward, will simply automatically and without fail, make you more aware of everything in your body-mind, everything in your spirit-soul, everything in your tendencies, everything in your habits, everything in your thoughts and feelings and desires—that doesn’t want to change or give up anything, that wants to remain ego-bound and focused on getting what “I” want and getting what’s good for me—what “I” believe, what “I” feel, what “I” surmise is good for me.

The body-mind wants its way.

The ego wants its way.

Even what we experience as our deeper self, our ‘soul’ (which isn’t the real soul) wants its way.

So when you go to spiritual life, when you go to practice, when you go to the Guru, when you go to meditate, when you go to do service, whatever you go to do that’s part of your Way, will put you immediately in touch with every other part of you that could care less and isn’t interested and just wants a good dinner, and a bunch of money in your pocket, and for people to like you and kiss your feet. And the more you get serious in spiritual life, the more you’re aware of all of that.

So you have to accept that that’s how it works for everybody.

The problem is, everybody starts to think, “Oh, everybody else is devoted and I’m a screw-up. Everybody else wants God, but apparently I’m just selfish. Everybody else is progressing. But luckily they can’t see inside me, what an absolute failure I am at this spirituality stuff, because I’m just noticing how neurotic I am and how greedy I am and how selfish I am and how unloving I am. And obviously this is gonna have a bad end for me. Obviously everybody else might make it but I won’t”.

So this is everybody’s attitude. Anytime you think ‘it’s just me’, you can be guaranteed that the truth is, it’s everybody. You never have this thought unless it’s everybody. When it really is just you, that’s when you never have that thought. That’s when you think, “Ah, everybody’s like that” (and it turns out you’re really the only one).

So whenever you’re thinking, whenever your mind says to you: “I’m the only one and this is a horrible secret”, that’s a guarantee that everybody has the same exact thing going on. Not necessarily that they feel they’re the only one, but whatever it is that makes you feel that way, whatever you’re noticing about yourself, about your greediness, about your pettiness, about your nonsense (what I call, just altogether, “nonsense”), whatever you’re noticing about it, you can be very assured that the same is going on in everybody. You’re not a special case (there’s never been a special case). And there’s never going to be a special case, because humanity is one, even by itself. Not from the standpoint of “All is One” (which is also true), but just even humanity itself, is just one organism, one functioning, one action going on—one movement altogether going on. One movement, the way a giant worm moves.

Think of it that way. If a giant worm is going by, bigger than you, and all you see is the back end, that’s the past. If all you see…. somebody else is standing way down the road, all they see is the front end—that’s the future. In between, is right now.

So when I say all of humanity is just one organism, I’m including everybody who’s ever lived before and everybody who’s ever going to live in the future when we’re all long dead. One organism; one entity; one humanity. So you’re not so different, in other words.

All your feeling of individuality is really not founded on anything other than your actual spiritual uniqueness. You have a certain uniqueness that’s you and you only. But that isn’t the foundation of your humanity. Your humanity is shared, your humanity is a group affair, a collective affair.

So any difficulties you have with spiritual life (and it’s fraught with difficulties) are not yours. They’re everybody’s. Everybody goes through the exact same set of circumstances, set of patterns, set of experiences—not always in the same order, not always to the same degree, not always in the same way. And not always interpreting it or experiencing it, exactly the same. But nevertheless, the basis is exactly the same for everybody.

You can’t have 100 people who are going to Mars and ignore the fact that 100 different experiences will occur—but they’re all going to the same Mars. When they get there, they’re all going to have their own experience of it, because they’re all coming from a different set of experiences and a different background and a different interpretation and a different upbringing and different way of looking at things. So 100 people go to Mars, there’ll be a 100 different experiences of Mars. But they’ll all be on Mars.

So when you go to the spiritual Mars, when you go to the spiritual, into the spiritual realm, that’s objective. The spiritual realm is as real as Mars. Everybody who’s going there is going to the same place and walking on the same path. But it’s experienced differently because everybody’s different. It becomes a unique trip, because you and I can walk on the same road, but we won’t have the same experience. I’ll notice something that you won’t, and you’ll notice something I’ve never noticed. So it’s not the same experience. Really, you can say it’s not even the same road—because my experience of the road will be very different than your experience, or a third person, or a fourth person. But objectively it’s the same road. We’re all on the same road.

So you have to remember this. Otherwise, you will inevitably fall into the idea that something unusual is going on with you. Because that’s what the ego would like you to think, always, that you’re the special case, you’re the problem child, or you’re the gifted one—either way.

So the feeling that somehow you’re having an experience different from everybody else is the trap you have to avoid. You should assume at all times, that you’re having the experience the same as everyone else—in your own version of it.

If everybody is looking at the moon, of course you assume that we’re looking at the same moon. That’s how you should think of it. Yes, everybody will have their own perception. Somebody will say, look how bright it is. Somebody else will say, look how round it is. Somebody will say, look how far away it is. Somebody else will say, look how close it is. That’s the same moon.

The spiritual path is the same as the moon. Everybody will have their view of it, their experience of it, their way of walking. But everybody’s walking on the same path. There aren’t endless spiritual paths.

One of the problems, in today’s parlance—the way people talk today—is there’s this idea that there are many spiritual paths. There aren’t. There’s only one. It has many forms. Many forms. I’ve been saying this for years and years: it has many forms. There’s no one right way. But there’s only one real path. No one has a monopoly on it. There might be whole new forms of it invented in the future, but I really don’t think so, because plenty have been invented already, and are mostly ignored by humanity. So we don’t need new forms. We need more people willing to experiment with the true path, willing to be walkers, not inventors.

Humanity doesn’t need new religions or new spiritual formats or systems. It needs more understanding of why more people should give it a try.

~ excerpt from a live “Spiritual Discourse” by Swami Premodaya – 7 October 2014

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