Part I
When one is illumined, he sees himself as the one Spirit throbbing beneath all minds and bodies. Such a person, after liberating his own personality, tries spiritually to liberate other personalities—knowing that they belong to his own Self.
–Paramahansa Yogananda
Fortunately, this desire to help others evolve usually springs up fairly early on one’s path. It’s also fortunate that enlightenment doesn’t have to be fully ripened for the pathwalker to receive tremendous benefits.
Enlightenment teachings work all along the path as long as the practitioner is consistent and internalizes the transformation and wisdom that’s made available. You don’t have to be on the final tier of illumination to reap deep rewards. At each stage and everyday, enlightenment practices keep suffering away, and make life successful and beautiful in every area, not only your spirituality.
Enlightenment is the transformation of personal consciousness to universal consciousness. According to the wisdom traditions of the world, this transformation is not an anomaly or departure from human nature, but rather the actualization of human potential. –Deepak Chopra
Human potential is part of your entire life. You apply your human potential at work, in business, at home, with your family, with your friends, in sports and recreation, in your own mind and your body. Doesn’t everyone want to be better at life?
Mainstream methods of success and happiness focus only on material concerns, and not only in the sense of money or possessions. Material also in the sense of brain or thought improvement, emotional intelligence (which is a good thing), physical prowess, career goals and personal development.
Intelligence is valuable. What’s worth considering is what “smart” is and what kind of “smart” are we talking about? People read smart authors, follow smart people in social media; there’s smart money and investing, smart career moves, smart real estate and smart car buying.
But are we actually any smarter? We haven’t found a peace solution for the Middle East, a true alternative to oil, the economy is in the tank, global warming is still denied, pharmaceuticals are the answer to all our personal and health issues and people go hungry every single day.
As we move more fully into the universal values of the cosmos, we progressively express the qualities of love, compassion, intuition, insight, imagination, and creativity. We find that our thinking and behavior begins to function in harmony with the forces of the universe, and we notice more conscious choice-making, observations of synchronicity around us, the spontaneous fulfillment of our desires, and the manifesting power of our intentions. –Deepak Chopra
News flash! Overarching methodologies are all-encompassing, i.e., enlightenment filters down to all aspects of your life and the world. Enlightenment addresses your innermost self which like a giant Russian nesting doll encompasses all of you. When a transformative practice is used to evolve your innermost self your body, mind and outer life are also bettered. You can address all those parts one by one, or work on the central being in which those parts are unified.
The most important thing about spirituality is that it gives you awareness or puts you in touch with who you are. Who you are is not what you have been doing on this earth-plane, who you are related to, and so on. Who you really are is the Being whose task it is to understand the infinite levels of awareness, of consciousness. –Dattatreya Siva Baba
This is so because spirituality is both the only way out of the conundrum of human existence, and also the way of making your everyday shine! The two are one, there isn’t any separation between your spiritual and financial, familial and personal excellence. How could there be? Your outer life is an extension and only a brief moment in the life of your unified, real Self.
Divesting instead of investing in your spirituality (which uncovers enlightenment) keeps you in darkness or ignorance. There are many more choices to counter what’s unsatisfactory in your life than the list of professionals and services you may find in the phone book. Spirituality is a comprehensive response to the challenges of life, offering practices, philosophy and art. You must realize that solutions are right there in whatever is unsatisfactory. Awakening is always available but you must initiate it.
The practices of awakening make it possible to melt your hardened habitual nature and patterns. You use a method, a technology or system for everything else in your life. The guarantee of spirituality is that everyone can awaken! The practices have been designed by others who have traversed the inner planes. These practices are time-honored and have worked for so many in different cultures and times. In this day and age there are new and effective practices that enrich the field of human awakening.
Will you at least dip your toes?
Related:
Energetic Integrity
How Oneness leads to Energetic Integrity
This is a reminder that Reiki Help Blog will be hosting the 177th Carnival of Healing to be published on February 21, 2009.