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Ideas to think consciously about your spiritual goals and evaluating spiritual paths
During my current visit in India, some of the discussions included questions about spirituality. These are typically of the form, “Should I do meditation?”, “I have so much access to Reiki and am not feeling the pull” and so on.
I started thinking about how can I help them make a conscious decision about it. Using this line of thinking made me come up with this article. It has helped me identify my own spiritual options better.
My response to the above question is typically another question which goes something like this, “It might seem you are looking at a spiritual path, did you consider what is it that you are looking for?, what would be an ideal goal?”. If there is no response, “If you have not thought, maybe it is worthwhile to consider what are the goals of various spiritual paths and see if any of those goals appeal to you and use that to make your decision ?”
This comes from my personal belief that it can be worthwhile to find out where a teacher or method is leading, before following them.
In a simplified, incomplete and somewhat rough way, I prepared a small list of some non controversial and some controversial methods, some references and their goals as seen by mostly an outsider (myself.)
Disclaimer: Many of these paths develop some common capabilities, for example Awareness to different degree can result from many paths, so the list below does not include all goals for a certain path.
Spiritual Goal: Path leading to that goal (some references)
Balance, Space and Quietness: Yoga Postures (as in Hatha Yoga, Yoga Asanas) like those done at your local Yoga center or Yoga practice at home in silence from written instructions (Think Iyengar\Kripalu Yoga sequences, not a Yoga DVD) and Tai chi.
Personal development and self-growth: Intention manifestation (Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill or Ask and It Is Given: Learning to Manifest Your Desires by Esther Hicks), A different view of reality (StevePavlina.com Podcast #016 - The True Nature of Reality) and Abundance model versus Scarcity model (Deepak Chopra, etc)
Increasing peace and emotion management: Quiet or Solitary time, see the book Clarity Quest: How to Take a Sabbatical Without Taking More Than a Week Off by Pamela Ammondson for reference and Self-nurturing, a good references for which is the “Clearning the field exercise” in the CD set Yoga for Emotional Flow: Free Your Emotions Through Yoga Breathing, Body Awareness, and Energetic Release by Stephen Cope.
Weight loss: Typical Vinyasa Yoga practice or Hot Bikram Yoga.
Increase connection to universe, expand knowledge: Dreaming (Conscious Dreaming: A Spiritual Path for Everyday Life by Robert Moss), Erich Schiffman’s Moving into stillness teachings and Increasing Psychic capabilities (Erin Pavlina’s recommendations)
Getting near to God: Most classical religions (Christanity, Hinduism, Jewism, Islam, Sikhism, etc), Using sound as energy (The Yoga of Sound by Paul, Russill and Classical Indian and Western music) and Devotion\Bhakti Yoga including ISKCON.
Indian Multi-aspect system: Eight steps of Yoga as mentioned in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras and expanded by ancient teachings such as Tantra and recent teachers such as Krishnamacharya and Sivananda and their disciples.
Companionship\Sangha: Local church, temple, meetup.com, online groups, small retreats.
Healing others: Massage, Reiki, Increasing Psychic capabilities (Erin Pavlina’s recommendations)
Increasing self-energy: Reiki, Following a code of conduct such as Yamas and Niyamas or the precepts in Goenka Vipassana course.
Helping others: Volunteering at Local charities, Soup kitches, Red Cross or similar areas, People examples include Bono, Mother Teresa, Charity Focus people including Nipun.
Happiness through deattachment as everything is fleeting: Buddhist paths including hardcore retreats like Goenka Vipassana and Zen retreats as well as more balanced approaches as taught by Erich Schiffman, most American Buddhist Teachers, etc.
Ruthlessness and\or build discipline: Mexico Native American Indian methods such as those advocated by Carlos Castaneda, Chinmoy, Goenka Vipassana, etc
Mindfulness and thereby self-knowledge: Most meditation methods help in this areas, the quieter the better.
Some examples of using the above in your spiritual path:
-If helping others is not your main calling, Reiki might not be the best match for you.
-If peace is what you seek, consider getting some sleep, some quiet time, follow exercises in Yoga for Emotional Flow instead of volunteering where you will need to provide peace to others.
Some guiding words:
1. Embrace your choice, keep your eyes open and start, answers and other methods will come as you progress.
2. Find someone who has been there and liked it. Also try and find someone who has not liked it. Treat each view as an opinion. 43things.com is a good resource for this.
3. In order to be successful, the spiritual pilgrim needs three distinct qualities in approximately equal measures: Common Sense, Skepticism and Openness. by Jacob Needleman in the book, Spiritual Choices: The Problems of Recognizing Authentic Paths to Inner Transformation by Dick Anthony, Bruce Ecker, and Ken Wilber.
4. Do not go knocking on doors you do not want opened or want to go through.
Finally as a counter-view to the above, from the wisdom deck card I read the day I was thinking of writing this entry:
All different types of meditation and mysticism are means for realizing God. From Srimad Bhagavatam, 2.5.16.
Thanks to Flickr and Skinnyde for the image.
Update: Changed link above to a more highly recommended edition with the original text intact of Think and Grow Rich.
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Dear Mr. Chaudhary,
I enjoyed reading your blog entry “Ideas to think consciously about your spiritual goals and evaluating spiritual paths“ today and note especially your recommendation of Napoleon Hill’s “Think and Grow Rich.”
Concerning your website page…
http://blog.rajgad.com/spiritual/2006-12/ideas-to-think-consciously-about-your-spiritual-goals-and-evaluating-spiritual-paths.html
…I hope you will consider changing your link there for “Think and Grow Rich” from the one you now use to, instead, the one for “Think and Grow Rich!: The Original Version, Restored and Revised” (ISBN 1593302002). The new link would take you to Amazon.com page:
http://www.amazon.com/Think-Grow-Rich-Original-Restored/dp/1593302002/sr=1-1/qid=1166458972/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-5152977-7931221?ie=UTF8&s=books
You may be particularly interested in the following relevant comment (page 4) by August Turak, founder of Elsinore Technologies, Inc., and the Self Knowledge Symposium Foundation: “Zen teacher Richard Rose said a spiritual seeker could find Enlightenment by following Napoleon Hill’s “Think and Grow Rich!”, and substituting ‘God’ or ‘Truth’ wherever the book says ‘money.’”
I am the editor/annotator of this new 412-page edition of Napoleon Hill’s classic work. Among other things, the new book eliminates, through very subtle editing, some outdated, obsolete terminology and also language that was acceptable in 1937, but which today would be considered sexually or racially offensive. Most other versions of the book still contain this language (including the version to which you now refer your blog readers).
What I have done is this: to restore Dr. Hill’s book to its original manuscript content (it was first published in 1937, but abridged in 1960), annotate it with more than 50 pages of endnotes and footnotes (some of the persons and events he discusses are generally unknown to readers today), index it thoroughly, add an appendix with a wealth of additional information about Dr. Hill and his work, and revise the book in ways to remove certain impediments (noted above) to reading the book today. None of these things had previously been done with TGR.
To learn more about this project, I invite you to visit www.tgr-restored-revised.com . The “Editor’s Foreword” there provides more complete information, and the “Testimonials” page will demonstrate how this new book is being received around the world.
Our new edition of TGR! is superior in every way to other versions on the market. It is not an “abridged” version, as are virtually all of the others on the market since 1960. It is a trade paperback, not a pocket-size mass paperback. It is 412 pages versus 256+, depending on the edition. It looks better, feels better, reads better than any other edition.
If you examine “TGR!: The Original Version, Restored and Revised,” I think you will see why it has become the “version of choice” among so many Napoleon Hill devotees, entrepreneurs, and other students of success and high achievement. We believe it would be a valuable addition to your blog pages and a popular link for your visitors. We hope you will either link to our new edition, instead of the current one, or else include our link on your web page as well.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Sincerely yours,
Ross Cornwell, President
The Mindpower Institute
1208 North Main Street
Anderson, SC 29621
www.mastermindpower.org
Comment by Ross Cornwell — December 18, 2006 @ 9:38 amRoss,
I have updated the link to the edition of “Think and Grow Rich” that you
recommended, it seems like a better version. I look forward to reading it.
Thanks for the information.
Amit
Comment by Amit D. Chaudhary — December 20, 2006 @ 1:40 amI love your website. I am a firm believer that we create our own destiny as well. I am fairly new to blogging and wondering if you wouldn’t mind linking to each other to assist each other with more website traffic and exposure. You can check out my blog at http://susanvlz.blogspot.com.
Thanks for the information.
Susan
Comment by Susan — February 16, 2007 @ 6:58 am