Spiritual growth is the need of very many people today, especially because of the stress that attacks most of us. Because of the demands of society upon us and because of the rising expectations which we impose upon ourselves, we tend to be stressful, unable to stay put, always going to and fro, and even if we just sit or stand still our thoughts go far away to myriad different tasks we think we have to do. It is in such a situation that we need to consider our spiritual growth.
Neglect of Spiritual Growth
The growth that most people think about is physical, or bodily growth. We have nutrition classes to make sure we eat healthy foods for our body. We have hospitals and clinics to take care of our bodies when they are sick. We have gyms to keep the shape of our bodies in beautiful form. We have gerontology to study the aging of our bodies and how to take care of their growth in old age. We have geriatrics which take care of the diseases associated with aging, of the growth factors of our bodies as they age. But we do not have spiritualogy to take care of our spiritual growth. If you search there is a term “spiritualogy” but it is connected with astrology or with spirituality as a topic, not as a practical science of spiritual growth. Only a few people know about this.
What Spiritual Growth Is
Spiritual growth is growth of the spirit in us. In trying to understand this reality we immediately face certain difficulties.
Difficulty number one is that most people equate our spirit with our soul. The dictionary itself defines spirit as soul. The main line churches look upon the spirit as only a modality of the soul, the way a soul operates or function. For them the human person is composed only of body and soul, as Aristotle taught. Unless it is clear in our minds that the spirit is a reality distinct from our soul, we cannot learn about its growth.
Difficulty number two is that the spirit is invisible. Unlike the human body we cannot see it. We can see the body grow in size or height but we cannot see the spirit as it grows. We can measure the growth of the soul or human mind in a person through tests, structured and informal, but we cannot use these tests to measure the growth of the spirit.
Difficulty number three is that the person who has not realized the birth or presence of the spirit in him can never understand the growth of the spirit. It is a case of experience is necessary to understand this reality. And most of us have not realized the birth or presence of the spirit in us. We may admit that we have souls, but it is difficult, or rather impossible, for us to admit that we have a spirit unless we have experienced its birth and growth in us.
But we have a way out of these difficulties.
The easiest way I have found to explain spiritual growth is by the use of the concept of surrender. Some reasoning is helpful to understand this concept, but then later we have to take a step of faith.
It is clear and easily acceptable that someone is greater than you, whether it be your parents or your teachers or your boss at work. It is also clear and easily acceptable that someone is greater than these who are greater than you, whether they be their parents, their teachers or their boss. You can stretch forth this chain of superiority and you will arrive at the concept of someone who is greater than all there is.
This someone who is greater than all that there is cannot be composed of matter. The reason for this is because matter is changing, is decaying and is not permanent. He must be composed of spirit and he must be pure spirit without mixture of matter or change or decay or impermanence, in order to be superior to all.
This spirit who is superior to all that there is some call the Absolute Spirit, that is, the spirit who has no limitations. He is therefore eternal and infinite. Some call him God, others call him Allah, still others use his personal name Yahweh or Jehovah. I prefer to call him the Spirit with a capital S.
Now here we have to exercise some faith. Because this Spirit is superior to all that there is, he is in control of everything that there is. Everything is happening according to his predesigned plan. His effect on the world has been very well expressed by that poem DESIDERATA in the lines “And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.” The universe is unfolding as it should because this Spirit is making sure that it does.
Still we take a further step of faith. This Spirit is working out what is best for you. This is true because he is all good, all wise and all powerful. He loves you, created you, and takes care of you everyday.
Now here the concept of surrender comes in. Spiritual growth is growth in your surrender to this Spirit as he works out his plan in your life. The more you surrender to him the more you grow spiritually.
This is because the more you surrender yourself to him the more you become like him and the more you acquire his goodness, his wisdom and his power.
This surrender can be quantitative: you surrender more and more areas of your life to him. You may begin with the food you take, then with the clothes you wear, the shelter you dwell in. You surrender these to him. Then you surrender to him your goal in life, your dreams, your plans, etc.
It is also qualitative surrender. Not only do you surrender more and more areas of your life to him, but you do this very often until it becomes part of your subconscious.
Spiritual Growth Makes You Calm
When this spiritual growth happens in your life you become calm amidst the stress in life. The reason for this is because you are more and more confident that everything is turning out for your best. Thus you no longer worry, but you go about your work knowing that you will succeed in whatever you undertake under the direction of this Spirit.
In this article we have learned that spiritual growth is the need of very many people today, that it is a neglected topic of discussion or learning, and what spiritual growth is. I hope that you have taken a step of faith by connecting yourself to the Spirit and surrendering yourself to him. In this way you know and are confident that you will succeed in life and thus you become calm amidst the culture of stress that most men and women experience today.
Click Here!
Here are my other blogs which may be of help to you:
http://bit.ly/devspirit
for your spiritual growth
http://bit.ly/alternativehealth
for your health
http://bit.ly/novotrends
for learning about the new trends around us
http://bit.ly/bepaidonline
for earning some income from the Internet
Here are your links to download the e-books for FREE. To download a copy of A NEW CHRIST by Wallace D. Wattles click this website http://bit.ly/anewchrist. To download a free copy of A NEW EARTH by Eckhart Tolle click this website http://bit.ly/ebookanewearth. I hope that you enjoy reading these free e-books and profit much from them, as I have also profited greatly from them.
Showing posts with label spiritual growth. Show all posts
Showing posts with label spiritual growth. Show all posts
3 Ways to Heighten Your Spirituality and Grow in Faith
Some things are so obvious that we do not notice them, we do not appreciate their presence. As the old saying goes, Familiarity breeds contempt.
The sun which gives us light and heat, the air we freely breathe, the water we drink—these and many more do not move most of us to say “Thank you” to the One who is their ultimate source. We take them for granted.
In the same way in matters that pertain to our spiritual growth we do not see the obvious. We invent ways and means which only complicate our path to spiritual maturity and fruitfulness.
Attempts to Heighten One’s Spirituality
There was a time in Church history, and this spanned many centuries, not just years, when monks and nuns flagellated themselves, whipped their backs with knotted cords, purportedly to perform penance for sins and imperfections, and to control their bodily desires. That was one of their ways to heighten their spirituality and grow in faith.
Again there were centuries when people in hordes undertook pilgrimages, also to heighten their spirituality and grow in faith. Today there are still pockets of these pilgrimages.
Whipping our backs and going on pilgrimages are complicated ways to heighten our spirituality and grow in faith.
Most of those who travel on the road of spirituality miss the obvious. They tend to complicate matters.
Go to the Sources of Your Spirituality
The first way is obviously to go to the sources of one’s spirituality and drink, as it were, from these sources. This means that you read your Sacred Scriptures. If you are a Christian, read your Bible. If you are a Muslim, read your Qur’an. If you are a Hindu, read your Bhagavad Gita. If you are a Buddhist, read your Tripitaka. Whatever is your religion or faith, read its sacred writings.
This is very basic and yet we need to be constantly reminded of this. The reason is because we can be easily misled to read other than these sources, and forget these sources altogether.
Every reform and revival movement in the Christian Church has always pointed the way back to the Bible. And every Christian group that sprouts has always claimed the Bible as its ultimate authority. A similar phenomenon has also happened among the other great religions of the world. They always go back to their sacred written sources.
The first way, therefore, to heighten your spirituality and grow in faith is to keep on reading the written sources of your spirituality: the Bible, or the Qur’an, or the Bhagavad Gita, or the Tripitaka, or other such sources. Reading these once in a while will not benefit you. You need to do this daily, just as you feed your body daily. You may read some pages, some paragraphs, some sentences. It does not matter, as long as you read a portion of such sacred writings.
This is so obvious as the first requirement for a heightened spirituality that very many people miss it. They think that it is so basic that after some kind of enlightenment they can proceed to more sophisticated ways of heightening their spirituality, like reading the latest book on spirituality, or performing some newly found unique bodily postures, mental exercises, ritualistic offerings, etc.
The truth is that the Spirit will always lead the sincere seeker to his writings, the sources of our spiritual life, the Word of God.
Let the Sources Transform You
The second way to heighten your spirituality is also obvious. It is to allow what you read in the sources of your spirituality to sink deeper into your life and transform you.
Reading the Bible or other sacred books will not benefit you if you read it just for the sake of reading it, to get information or even insights for a better life. You need to be quiet and still and let what you read penetrate your mind and heart. Just as what you eat needs to be digested to be of some benefit to your body, so also you need to digest, as it were, the Word of God to get the full benefit of it.
To do this you need a quiet place where you can be alone with your God. It does not matter whether it is in a desert far away from civilization or on top of a condominium in the midst of a bustling city, in a bedroom or a garden beside your house, in a Christian chapel or a Muslim prayer room in a mall. What is important is that you are alone and in a quiet place. If you own your office time you can hang a notice on the door knob of your office, with a sign that you cannot be disturbed because you have a very special visitor.
The purpose of going into such a quiet solitary place is for the Word of God, what you read in the sacred books, to sink into your life and transform you into this Word of God. Just as physical food is transformed into you, the reverse process takes place in the spiritual life. As the Word of God enters your life, it transforms you into itself, so that you become a word of God for others.
You start by thanking your God for the opportunity to be with him alone. Then you think about you have read in the sources of your faith. Then when you can no longer think about you read, you just stay there no longer thinking about anything. In this way what you read will penetrate more and more your heart.
How long do you do this? Twenty minutes per day would be the minimum to achieve some immediate palpable effect. But you can extend it to one or two or more hours if you have time.
The Third and Final Step
And the third way is perhaps the most obvious of all the ways although most people seem not to like it. Adam and Eve, or whoever were the first human beings, did not like it. Since their time, their descendants have not liked it, this third way. They continue to disregard it. But unless we go through this third way, our reading the Scriptures and pondering over their words in a solitary place are just a waste of time.
All the evils we see and experience in our world are the result of disregarding this third way.
This third way is expressed very simply in a four-letter word: obey. Ralph Waldo Emerson hit it right when he wrote: “The whole course of things goes to teach us faith. We need only obey.”
You simply obey what the Spirit tells you to do. As you commune with him in silence and alone, he reveals to you his secrets, primarily more and more of himself and secondarily more and more of what he wants you to do. You simply obey.
That is all there is, to heighten your spirituality and grow in faith. 1) Read the sacred scriptures of your faith. 2) Let the words you read sink into your consciousness and subconsciousness in a quiet, solitary place. 3) Obey what the Spirit tells you to do.
Do these and in a very short time you will rise above the material elements of this earth and enter more and more into the regions of the spiritual realm.
The sun which gives us light and heat, the air we freely breathe, the water we drink—these and many more do not move most of us to say “Thank you” to the One who is their ultimate source. We take them for granted.
In the same way in matters that pertain to our spiritual growth we do not see the obvious. We invent ways and means which only complicate our path to spiritual maturity and fruitfulness.
Attempts to Heighten One’s Spirituality
There was a time in Church history, and this spanned many centuries, not just years, when monks and nuns flagellated themselves, whipped their backs with knotted cords, purportedly to perform penance for sins and imperfections, and to control their bodily desires. That was one of their ways to heighten their spirituality and grow in faith.
Again there were centuries when people in hordes undertook pilgrimages, also to heighten their spirituality and grow in faith. Today there are still pockets of these pilgrimages.
Whipping our backs and going on pilgrimages are complicated ways to heighten our spirituality and grow in faith.
Most of those who travel on the road of spirituality miss the obvious. They tend to complicate matters.
Go to the Sources of Your Spirituality
The first way is obviously to go to the sources of one’s spirituality and drink, as it were, from these sources. This means that you read your Sacred Scriptures. If you are a Christian, read your Bible. If you are a Muslim, read your Qur’an. If you are a Hindu, read your Bhagavad Gita. If you are a Buddhist, read your Tripitaka. Whatever is your religion or faith, read its sacred writings.
This is very basic and yet we need to be constantly reminded of this. The reason is because we can be easily misled to read other than these sources, and forget these sources altogether.
Every reform and revival movement in the Christian Church has always pointed the way back to the Bible. And every Christian group that sprouts has always claimed the Bible as its ultimate authority. A similar phenomenon has also happened among the other great religions of the world. They always go back to their sacred written sources.
The first way, therefore, to heighten your spirituality and grow in faith is to keep on reading the written sources of your spirituality: the Bible, or the Qur’an, or the Bhagavad Gita, or the Tripitaka, or other such sources. Reading these once in a while will not benefit you. You need to do this daily, just as you feed your body daily. You may read some pages, some paragraphs, some sentences. It does not matter, as long as you read a portion of such sacred writings.
This is so obvious as the first requirement for a heightened spirituality that very many people miss it. They think that it is so basic that after some kind of enlightenment they can proceed to more sophisticated ways of heightening their spirituality, like reading the latest book on spirituality, or performing some newly found unique bodily postures, mental exercises, ritualistic offerings, etc.
The truth is that the Spirit will always lead the sincere seeker to his writings, the sources of our spiritual life, the Word of God.
Let the Sources Transform You
The second way to heighten your spirituality is also obvious. It is to allow what you read in the sources of your spirituality to sink deeper into your life and transform you.
Reading the Bible or other sacred books will not benefit you if you read it just for the sake of reading it, to get information or even insights for a better life. You need to be quiet and still and let what you read penetrate your mind and heart. Just as what you eat needs to be digested to be of some benefit to your body, so also you need to digest, as it were, the Word of God to get the full benefit of it.
To do this you need a quiet place where you can be alone with your God. It does not matter whether it is in a desert far away from civilization or on top of a condominium in the midst of a bustling city, in a bedroom or a garden beside your house, in a Christian chapel or a Muslim prayer room in a mall. What is important is that you are alone and in a quiet place. If you own your office time you can hang a notice on the door knob of your office, with a sign that you cannot be disturbed because you have a very special visitor.
The purpose of going into such a quiet solitary place is for the Word of God, what you read in the sacred books, to sink into your life and transform you into this Word of God. Just as physical food is transformed into you, the reverse process takes place in the spiritual life. As the Word of God enters your life, it transforms you into itself, so that you become a word of God for others.
You start by thanking your God for the opportunity to be with him alone. Then you think about you have read in the sources of your faith. Then when you can no longer think about you read, you just stay there no longer thinking about anything. In this way what you read will penetrate more and more your heart.
How long do you do this? Twenty minutes per day would be the minimum to achieve some immediate palpable effect. But you can extend it to one or two or more hours if you have time.
The Third and Final Step
And the third way is perhaps the most obvious of all the ways although most people seem not to like it. Adam and Eve, or whoever were the first human beings, did not like it. Since their time, their descendants have not liked it, this third way. They continue to disregard it. But unless we go through this third way, our reading the Scriptures and pondering over their words in a solitary place are just a waste of time.
All the evils we see and experience in our world are the result of disregarding this third way.
This third way is expressed very simply in a four-letter word: obey. Ralph Waldo Emerson hit it right when he wrote: “The whole course of things goes to teach us faith. We need only obey.”
You simply obey what the Spirit tells you to do. As you commune with him in silence and alone, he reveals to you his secrets, primarily more and more of himself and secondarily more and more of what he wants you to do. You simply obey.
That is all there is, to heighten your spirituality and grow in faith. 1) Read the sacred scriptures of your faith. 2) Let the words you read sink into your consciousness and subconsciousness in a quiet, solitary place. 3) Obey what the Spirit tells you to do.
Do these and in a very short time you will rise above the material elements of this earth and enter more and more into the regions of the spiritual realm.
Click Here!
Here are my other blogs which may be of help to you:
http://bit.ly/spiritdev for your spiritual growth
http://bit.ly/alterhealthcare for your health
http://bit.ly/novotrends for learning about the new trends around us
http://bit.ly/bepaidonline for earning some income from the Internet
Here are your links to download the e-books for FREE. To download a copy of A NEW CHRIST by Wallace D. Wattles click this website http://bit.ly/anewchrist. To download a free copy of A NEW EARTH by Eckhart Tolle click this website http://bit.ly/ebookanewearth. I hope that you enjoy reading these free e-books and profit much from them, as I have also profited greatly from them.
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