To reach the pinnacle of peace, fulfilment, and tranquillity called Self-realization, we have to work on cleaning away from our real nature the accumulated conditionings that hide its pristine beauty. That process of cleansing is called spiritual practice or Sadhana.
PROGRESS ON THE PATH
The material world generally accepts quantitative evaluations as measures of prosperity and success:
- How much have you earned?
- How much did you save, produce, sell and acquire?
Material success depends on how much, how many, or how often.
Spiritual seekers habitually apply the same quantitative measures in estimating their own inner achievements. Automatically they congratulate themselves on the quantity of their “glorious sadhana”.
However, quantitative measures are false indicators of spiritual progress. In spiritual practice:
- It is not how much we read,
- But how much we understand and
- Reflect and meditate upon the concepts that assure success.
- The quality, intensity, sincerity, devotion,
- understanding, and enthusiasm of the heart
- with which we do our sadhana determine the true heights to which we rise in our self-mastery.
Spiritual seekers often suffer chronically from lack of progress on the path.
From their diaries, it is clear that if quantity alone were demanded in spiritual practice, such seekers would have nothing more to do. And yet their experience is that they find themselves exactly where they were three years ago. Indeed, it is a painful disappointment.
The cure for such seekers is easy to prescribe, but perhaps more difficult to practice.
What they need is a sharpened tempo in their spiritual seeking:
- a quickening of perception,
- alertness of the soul,
- and a warmer ardency in their embrace of the goal.
These qualities cannot be developed by themselves, one at a time; but seekers will find themselves, absorbing them when their minds gain a deeper harmony.
Harmony comes as a result of two processes:
- Discrimination (vivek):
The positive process of gaining a clear picture of the all-satisfying goal and the straight path to it.
- Detachment, dispassion (vairagya):
The negative process of detachment from all dissipating urges.
Once these two qualities are carefully cultivated and fully developed — discriminating appreciation of the Real and detachment from the false — the rest of the pilgrimage becomes pleasant and sure, though in no way easy.
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Reference: Chinmaya-Tej, Jan/Feb 2015