How to start a spiritual journey is to ask how to make a shift in your consciousness. A spiritual journey is an awakening to a different relationship with the mind, and an awareness of the truth.
If you have not yet come to the realisation that you are not your mind, or your thoughts, this is a blog for you.
This blog will cover the following:
- What Is Spirituality
- Practice Mindfulness
- Time In Nature
- Diet Changes & Detox
- Meditation
- Practice Gratitude & Surrender
- Friendships
What Is Spirituality?
Your first step, figuring out what spirituality means to you, because it means something different to all of us. For some a spiritual path means to align with a particular God, religion or deity. For others it is something beyond a belief system.
Personally speaking I follow the latter. It resonates with me that any belief system is a creation of the mind, and as the mind dies at death, so does that belief system. I follow that consciousness and ‘isness’ is something beyond belief.
But we are all different in our spirituality. I would recommend listening to different views of spirituality from current speakers and old teachers alike. You may find that many modern day teachers follow very old teachings anyway, however keep an open mind and open heart.
One thing I can say for certain is that you will find that love and forgiveness is at the heart of any understanding of spirituality. Keep this at the forefront on your spiritual journey.
Practice Mindfulness
Mindfulness is being aware of the present moment, of the now. It is very important. Likewise, being aware of your thoughts and emotions is key. Practicing mindfulness will let you inside yourself and in to the realisation you are neither your thoughts or your emotions. They are just visitors, they come and they go. You are the watcher of these things, not those things themselves. For example, you feel sad, you are not sadness.
Your thoughts come and go as the mind seeks an identity to cling on to. Sometime they are nice, sometimes not. Your ‘ego self’ is the personality, the identity you think of as ‘you’. Being mindful will allow you to explore an awakening within yourself and recognise how to view the world from the ‘real you’.
As well as listening to your thoughts and feelings it is also important to listen to your body. How does it feel? How does it move? Be quiet for a moment and let your body speak to you. You’d be surprised how many little illnesses and niggles you can identify and cure when you give some attention to yourself in this way.
Spend Time In Nature
You will come to realise that nature is what makes everything beautiful. The sunlight that lets us see, the trees that clean our air, the animals that we share this planet with. All wonderous!
As your mindfulness has it’s influence on you, you may well find yourself drawn more towards the simpler things. Walks in nature, spending time in quieter areas of where you live, even having more plants in your house is a good start. It all has a calming effect and allows space for some self exploration.
Nature is all around us, and we are nature. We come from nature and it nourishes us. When you go looking for the answers within, one of the biggest you will find is that nature is what you need.
Diet Changes & Detox
Many on their spiritual path adopt vegan or vegetarian diets, or cut down on consumption of animal products. This is because the meat and diary industries are violent slavery practices against our fellow non-human animals. The very thought of harming those that share our home goes against the spiritusal grain. Try to remove the violence from your plate and be free of supporting that process.
There are many amazing animal liberation activists such as Ed Winters (Earthling Ed) who are worthy of listening too..
Removing poisons such as alcohol and recreational drugs is also important.
Meditation
Meditation is considered ‘trendy’ these days, it has been commercialised and changed to suit a business narative. That isn’t to say however that it isn’t one of the most useful things you can do on a spiritual journey.
Meditation is thousands of years old and is still the key to self discovery even today. There are many different types of meditation from many walks of life. Research and practice. The use of plant medicines such as Cacao can be very beneficial in your meditation practice.
Whilst meditation is the art of connection to your soul, likewise is is also a great stress reliever and great for relaxation.
Practice Gratitude & Surrender
“Thank you” – the simplest and greatest mantra there is. Thank you for this life, for the love and equally the lessons. Thank you for the people, the animals and the air, you name it. And yes thank you for the bad times and the tears.
Practice gratitude for everything that is, that has been and what will be. Surrender to life. This is easy to write and not so easy to do, I know.
Understanding that we knows the good times because we know what the bad times are like. We know the cold because we know the heat. We know happiness becuase we know sadness. This non-dualstic view point on life will lead you to be grateful for all that is.
Summary
Just like everyone else, your spiritual journey is your own. There will be ups and downs and sooo many lessons learned along the way. There will be loss of some of your ego and some serious humble pie to be eaten.
The above are the first steps, but not the only steps. Quite frankly you may invent your own steps as you go.
These steps will help you gain a feeling of peace and happiness that will be more than fleeting. Pleasure that comes from attachment, and by that I mean having the latest this or that, pales in comparison to the deep feeling of conscious peace once you are connected to your true self.
A very simple and to the point blog. Loved it.
Thank you Eva!