Daily Spiritual Practice

                             ... in your own Sacred Space 

In this frantic world of schedules, pressures and responsibilities, few people find peace or tranquility. We have learned to chase after this and chase after that, yet without peace and tranquility, we really have nothing. For many people, peace and tranquility seem elusive, or perhaps are simply ignored, yet without them, our lives continually feel incomplete and lacking "something".

One of the most reliable paths leading to peace and tranquility is the quiet enjoyment of daily spiritual practices. Even half an hour each day of sincere spiritual practice can produce tremendous changes in a person's life.

In speaking of the need for one's own special sacred place, the great American mystic Joseph Campbell said that it is absolutely necessary to have a place set aside specifically for spiritual practices and inner awakening:

This is an absolute necessity for anybody today. You must have a room, or a certain hour or so a day, where you don’t know what was in the newspapers that morning, you don't know who your friends are, you don’t know what you owe to anybody, you don’t know what anybody owes to you.

This is a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be. This is the place of creative incubation. At first you may find that nothing is happening there. But if you have a sacred place, and use it, and take advantage of it, something will happen. ...

Most of our action is economically or socially determined and does not come out of our life... the claims of the environment upon you are so great, that you hardly know where the hell you are! What is it you intended? You're always doing things that are required of you; this minute, that minute, another minute! Where is your "bliss station"?” Try to find it! Put on the music that you really love... or the book you want to read. Get it done! And have a place in which to do it! There you'll get the "thou" feeling of life. ...

If you follow your bliss, you put yourself on a track that has been there all the while, waiting for you. And the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in the field of your bliss, and they open the doors to you. I say, follow your bliss and don't be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.

The Power of Myth; Sacrifice and Bliss, Joseph Campbell

Eventually, every place and every situation will be sacred ground, but in the beginning it may be very helpful to create a special sacred space, even just a small space such as a meditation cushion, or a prayer rug, where the one and only activity is your own spiritual practice.

Meditation is highly recommended by many spiritual teachers, and the end product of all the different forms of meditation is liberation from our excessive preoccupation with the noisy chatter regarding "I", "me" and "mine", leaving us free to more clearly understand who and what we really are.

Meditation is not a way of making your mind quiet. It's a way of entering into the quiet that's already there - buried under the 50,000 thoughts the average person thinks every day.

Deepak Chopra

There are many forms of spiritual practice, such as prayer, chanting, meditation and contemplation, yet there is only one goal, and that is freedom; freedom to follow the still small voice within, freedom to follow the greatest yearnings of the heart, freedom to discover bliss beyond description.

In the beginning you should not even think about meditation. Just try to set aside a certain time of day when you will try to be calm and quiet, and feel that these five minutes belong to your inner being and to nobody else. Regularity is of paramount importance. What you need is regular practice at a regular time.

Every day there is only one thing to learn: how to be honestly happy.

Sri Chimoy

So, if you'd like to find a better way of life, a life full of love, harmony and beauty, a life full of bliss, then it's absolutely necessary to take time each and every day to visit your own "bliss station", a place where all that matters is learning to become aware of who you are and what you are becoming, a place where love, harmony and beauty are able to bloom and flower in complete safety and tranquility.

 

Wishing you love, harmony and beauty,
      wahiduddin