This article deals with my reasons for taking spirituality seriously.
There are right reasons and wrong reasons for spirituality. I suppose the right reasons involve loving God and wanting union with him as also loving your neighbour and wishing him well and wanting to serve him.
I am supposing all this because I don’t know. I have never been motivated by all these very noble reasons.
Following is one relevant quote from the classic book, Autobiography of a Yogi:
By ignoble whips of pain, man is driven at last into the Infinite Presence, whose beauty alone should lure him.
Autobiography of a Yogi [Original Edition (Complete), Premium Paperback
Following is taken from a Google search (AI overview):
This quote describes how suffering and adversity, despite their unpleasant nature, can ultimately drive individuals towards spiritual awakening and the “Infinite Presence”. The “ignoble whips of pain” are a metaphor for the trials and tribulations of life that force self-reflection and a desire for something beyond the physical realm
The quoted sentences above describe my situation exactly. I am not amongst those who love God.
But it is perfectly okay for that to be the case. Most people are like me, I think. They may fear God but they do not love Him.
So if you are not inspired by concepts of duty and love and service for your fellow man and sentient beings do not be disheartened. Spirituality is not one size fits all.
In my case I am mostly motivated by fear and some self help goals like wanting to stay sane while dealing with the pressures of day to day life. The fear is mostly the fear of death. I foolishly did a contemplation on death exercise some 15 or 20 years back without supervision and have been prone to morbid thoughts ever since.
It is perfectly okay to fear God if you do not love him. It is also perfectly okay to be filled with rage and hate and turn to spirituality for that reason. I am speaking from experience.
In my case I found my solution to the negativity in Buddhist mindfulness and meditation methods. I have moved on to Advaita Vedanta teachings since then but I am very glad I learnt Buddhist teachings.
Everybody who is interested in spirituality from a self help point of view and not really seeking a union with the Divine would do well to learn Buddhist mindfulness methods. It is perfectly okay to not make seeking the Divine the main goal of life. As I said earlier, spirituality is not one size fits all.
Be true to yourself, do not judge yourself for your negative feelings and do your Buddhist practices. And try to limit the damage caused by your negativity as much as possible.
If God is Love and the mystics assure us that He is then he will love you as well and not be looking for excuses to judge and punish you.
And lastly the main benefit I gained from spirituality is that along the journey I changed as a person. Why is that the main benefit?
Because we are stuck with our own company 24 hours a day. Others can escape from you if you are a toxic person but you can never escape from yourself. So it makes sense to deal with the negativity within you. Try Buddhist methods. They work.
This last para above is not in line with being choicelessly aware and seeing the Divine in everything. But that is a much higher path and one which I am only now beginning to explore. From the spiritual self help point of view the above few paras are perfectly sound advice.
So to summarize, I have been greatly benefited by doing the right thing (spirituality) for the wrong reasons and would like to encourage you to do the same.
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