I often hear people say, “I’m not religious, but I am spiritual.” The first part of that sentence is clear enough, because organized religions have been declining in attendance for decades. It is also true that the number of people who declare that they are atheists remains very small. But it isn’t so clear what it means to be spiritual.
My mother was both religious and spiritual. There was no distinction in her mind. She prayed at the Rama temple and displayed the loving kindness, compassion, and goodness that are spiritual ideals. The difference today is that so many people have struck out on their own, seeking to find a spiritual path that is individual.
That much seems clear, and the phrase “spiritual path” is used much more than ever before. But what is this path? How do you get on the path, and once on it, what do you do next?
To bring some clarity, let’s divide life into three broad categories: social, psychological, and spiritual. The social part covers all our relationships and actions that involve other people. Psychology covers our inner thoughts and feelings. Those two compartments occupy a huge portion of everyday life, so much so that each of us has a different self for each one.
Your social self is shown in public and at work. This is the self that others know from your behavior towards them. Your private self is psychological, the person you hear talking in your head and processing an unending stream of thoughts, feelings, images, and sensations “in here.” Because your social and private self dominates your day-to-day life, it is easy to turn to them for spiritual guidance.
If, like my mother, you are kind, thoughtful, loving, compassionate, and selfless, you will be exhibiting spiritual qualities in the eyes of society. Your social self can exhibit these qualities without your private self actually having any spiritual experiences. In the domain of psychology, the private self can strive for spiritual experiences through prayer, contemplation, and other means, such as positive thinking or never acting out of anger. But God isn’t experienced just by thinking or feeling.
However you approach it, the source of spiritual experiences isn’t social or psychological. The essential problem is a mistake about cause and effect. Leading a spiritual life and having the experience of inner light is an effect, not a cause. No amount of good works or positive thinking can substitute for being in touch with your spiritual self.
You can call this your higher self, true self, soul, or simply the self, which is mostly commonly found in the Indian spiritual tradition. If you are disconnected from your true or spiritual self, it takes a journey to reconnect. This journey on the spiritual path is looked upon as if it happens entirely “in here,” but in reality, the path erases the distinction between the inner and outer world.
Both worlds are experienced in consciousness. To see the color blue in your mind’s eye is the same as seeing the blue of a clear sky. Both experiences are the effects of the same consciousness. There is only one source, one origin, of everything you have ever experienced. You don’t have two consciousnesses. This isn’t easy to see because the active mind specializes in a huge range of moods, feelings, viewpoints, beliefs, and opinions. But these belong to your social and private self.
Your spiritual self is timeless, boundless, without birth or death. It isn’t personal, even though its effects (i.e., everything you experience) are made personal by attaching yourself to them. “I” is the vehicle for moving through both worlds, inner and outer. To make clear that “I” isn’t your true self, the Indian tradition uses “it” instead. “It” is pure awareness before the mind grabs hold and creates thoughts, images, sensations, and feelings.
In a word, your true or spiritual self is the pre-created state of your social and private self. From that perspective, you can’t ever be disconnected from your source. Disconnection would be devoid of thought, feeling, and identity. But you can be disconnected in the sense that you aren’t aware of your source. In a homespun analogy, you are like a pauper who doesn’t know that he has a million dollars in the bank.
This brings us to the heart of what it means to be on the spiritual path. It means living from your source more and more as you progress. You participate in a process that unveils your true self. You can be sure at this moment that your true self is having its effect already. Every glimpse of love, compassion, kindness, inner peace, creativity, and insight comes about because of an open channel to your source.
By the same token, anxiety and depression, along with all forms of pain and suffering, are also effects, in this case, the effects of not being aware of your true self. No experience, good or bad, is isolated. You can build an entire spiritual life from the simple experience of inner wakefulness. You can build an entire life from the impressions of your past suffering and trauma. The hurts we cannot seem to escape are sticky because they cluster around “I” and become embedded in its stories.
That’s why “I” doesn’t really participate in walking the spiritual path. Its steps consist entirely of being more aware. Meditation is the time-honored practice for establishing the state of calm, silent inner awareness. But to me, what is truly essential is both inner and outer awareness. Every experience, however insignificant, is the effect of consciousness. Once you grasp this in the abstract, you can begin to observe it personally.
What you are observing is simply self-awareness, the feeling of “Here I am.” This is the most natural feeling in the world. But it gets overshadowed whenever you feel “I am angry,” “I am depressed,” I’m bored,” “I’m dissatisfied,” and the countless other tags that can be attached to “I am.” In reality, “I am” is the cause; everything else you attach to your existence is merely an effect. The more self-aware you are, the more that this simple, natural state of “I am” blossoms, expanding until it becomes the silent backdrop of your whole life, inside and outside.
We will talk together about how the spiritual path works. What I wanted to convey here is simply the essence of what the path is all about, as opposed to what your life appears to be about.
Take a moment anytime today, as often as you like, to sit quietly with eyes closed and meditate on this thought: “I am here and now. I am aware. I need nothing more than this to find my spiritual essence.”
Namaste