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.