Spiritual Discipline :: Cultivating Spiritual Experience

Spiritual discipline is the process of engaging in specific spiritual practices on a daily basis, training, disciplining, and mastering ourselves for the purpose of regularly attaining spiritual experiences. This is how we cultivate a direct knowledge and understanding of Spirit.

Spiritual Discipline :: Direct Spiritual Experience

Spirit is not a concept or an idea. It is not something you must ‘believe in’ to experience. Nor does an experience of spirit require faith, except perhaps the valuable forms of faith: faith in yourself, faith in the growth, creative, and learning processes, and the general faith that if you put in the effort towards something, that your efforts will be rewarded.

An experience of spirit or of spiritual awareness is a definite experience of emotion, perception, and energy which we can cultivate with various spiritual disciplines for a definite result. This spiritual awareness is cultivated over years of practice, because it is a process of personal mastery and growth as much as one of reconditioning and honing ourselves. You will begin to experience these changes relatively quickly, in some form at least. However, in general it will take a few years of practice for these changes to begin to really take form in your behavior, perception, mind, life, and emotions, in the exact same way that knowledge and skill are accumulative in any art or discipline. Like progressing from being an amateur musician to composing symphonies. The difference is incredible, it just takes time.

Spiritual awareness is born of a process of refinement through conscious spiritual discipline which in time completely transforms how we think, feel, perceive, relate to others, learn, act, and create – literally every aspect of our lives. It does so without us necessarily being conscious of the changes as they occur because the shifts are subtle and minute, yet powerful. Like the sanding down of our edges and erroneous internal constructions, until we realize one day that we are radiant in a way that we never noticed before.

These changes rise to the surface of us in how we feel and behave, rather than moving downwards from dramatic external changes. In my experience it is only in hindsight that the full extent of our progress and transformation can be comprehended. Yet even then it is unlike anything else, because it is hard to see and differentiate between who we may have been before, once we have come to a realization of who we have been all along, the identity that has always been deep beneath the convolutions of the ego.

The Practice of Spiritual Discipline

When I say spiritual discipline, I am referring to very specific practices that we engage in to directly cultivate spiritual awareness and foster spiritual experience. Spiritual awareness is not a matter of faith or belief. It is a direct experience of another level of being, a force, an awareness, a power within each one of us. Unlike religions which are generally founded on quasi-historical-mythological-legendary-parable-ethical-morality text, where we are taught to “have faith” in God, pray at certain times per day, go to weekly religious gatherings, or study a specific book. Though in order to what? In order to one day gain entrance into heaven? As opposed to cultivating in your life now an experience of emotions that can only be described as divine and heavenly, and a vision of Self and Universe revealed directly, perceptually, that is unbounded potential, and nothing short of miraculous. As Jack Johnson:

“[Back when] heaven was a place,
still in space, not emotion.”

I do not believe that dogma has a place within the realm of spiritual cultivation, because true knowledge is gained from direct experience of something, not from reading words about it. We do not need descriptions from others of what “spirit” or “god” or “brahma” or “allah” or “yaweh” or “the force” or “universal awareness” is like when you are perfectly capable of experiencing it yourself. Thus the foundation of spiritual discipline is in these practices which cultivate spiritual awareness through your own efforts directly. As such, the practice of spiritual discipline is a commitment to refining and purifying yourself.

Dogma often gets in the way because these preconceptions obscure and distort the quality and nature of spiritual experience in accordance with whatever dogma one adheres to. Moreover, they promote not only rigidity in thinking, but close-mindedness at best, and violent, aggressive intolerance at worst. But these limitations are naturally broken down by spiritual discipline and spiritual experience as part of its natural course to release the constraints on our perception so we can see what we are, as we are, as all things are. Erroneous conclusions cannot long persist when confronted directly with experiential evidence.

In some ways it is preferable to go in without any beliefs or preconceptions that could distort your perception of the experience. One of the more unfortunate side effects of religious dogma is that when spiritual experience does occur, it is obscured through the lens of a belief system, contorted whatever the cost to support that belief system. Or it is misunderstood completely by the belief system to negative and potentially destructive effect. Especially when we are taught to venerate something outside of ourselves which we give our power away to, as opposed to looking within and finding an undifferentiated divine source and awareness within ourselves and realizing that this unbounded potential is ours to realize and work in our own lives, and that is found equally within all things. A unifying perspective, rather than a polarizing one.

I believe that in the history of human evolution, religion will be seen as a phase where we required faith in “God” and in an afterlife to get us through the phase, because people were not capable in those times of achieving transcendental experiences of the divine because they did not possess the technology (so-to-speak) or the understanding to do so. A bright light at the end of the tunnel allowing us to endure through ages of ignorance, violence, suffering and darkness. This at the same time served to at least help people (by frightening them with the concept of eternal hell and damnation) into behaving more appropriately. However, this was not entirely successful, for religion was often responsible for the most heinous atrocities.

We do not live in those ages of darkness and ignorance any longer, thus we should respectfully and gently, without any force or conflict, begin to shed those old concepts. In this modern age we have far more sophisticated and advanced practices of spiritual discipline which are, if I may, spiritual technology and understanding available to us which we can learn, practice and apply to our lives to cultivate direct spiritual experience. Thereby cultivating our own personal relationship to the divine, from wherever we are in the world, regardless of race or gender, which we can also carry within us wherever we go.

Image Credit: Parker Tansem

This is an experience, not a belief. It is a direct spiritual experience born from practice which can be cultivated and achieved again and again, no matter who it is that is cultivating their spiritual discipline. With time our perception of this experience of spirit is refined, little by little over the years of our practice and discipline, refined and honed, explored, and deepened. There is no faith in the equation.

Furthermore, the fact that it is repeatable, that saints, sages, and spiritual teachers throughout the ages all proclaim the same fundamental revelations once they reach a certain level of awakening, all points towards the conclusion that this is an underlying reality which is constant. As opposed to some ill-understood figments of neural chemistry, a hallucination of some sort, as certain scientists and scholars will no doubt say.

On the one hand this experience is a matter of interpretation, because while I shall do my best to apply words in a context they are fundamentally unsuited for, mistakes and misunderstandings will certainly ensue in spite of my best efforts. However our beliefs on the subject do not change the thing itself. My potentially incorrect descriptions do not change the nature of spirit. The Sun has been undergoing nuclear fusion before we had the understanding or words to describe the process. It’s reality did not change in the slightest with our discovery of it. The Earth is a sphere no matter what people may believe about it. Therefore it is our task to probe the depths of ourselves and collectively come to describe this deeper level of reality, this deeper dimension of reality and human experience that is unveiled within an experience of pure awareness, with greater precision.

This experience is difficult to describe, difficult to achieve, and difficult to clarify, literally taking years of practice and repeated visits. (Not to mention a large degree of emotional processing.) Yet it is as essential for our development as a species, and for our understanding of reality, on equal footing with science. Ironically this process of spiritual discipline is equivalent in mentality, rigor and procedure with the modern scientific method. At least in the way that I believe the practice should be approached, because it is fundamentally a practice of personal mastery and discipline where we consciously overcome each day our lower tendencies, leading us towards heightened awareness, liberation, and accumulative bliss. It is the one part of my day not up for debate, under any circumstances.

The Process of Spiritual Discipline

Spirit is always there. The capricious and vengeful god featured in multiple religions is a fiction (one which we will trace the historical roots for in order to unveil it’s surprising source). For this Infinite Awareness is not personal. It is not male or female. It is an infinite awareness beyond comprehension which is holding all things in its attention equally at all times, and yet at the exact same time it is the ultimate essence of what we actually are.

It is “beyond comprehension” not because it is mystical or magical, nor for any dogmatic reason, just due to the simple fact of its perceived immensity. An awareness of spirit is not the same as ordinary awareness, and these experiences of spiritual awareness are cumulative and result in dramatic changes in perception and awareness over the long-term (with consistent practice) which are definite, and yet amorphous because they are not easy to describe with words. However, they unveil a Universe, Reality and Self that is incredible, drastically different than that which the majority appear to adhere to. Furthermore, with each progression in the “extent” of our experience of Spirit, we find it to always be more, to apparently be unlimited, and to be difficult to describe or rationalize, thus I say it is “beyond comprehension”. Which might be more appropriate to say is “beyond total comprehension” because if this awareness is indeed infinite, there will be no end to our exploration and discovery of it.

It is our perception of Spirit which wavers this way and that, connecting and divorcing ourselves from an awareness of Spirit on the whims of our turbulently oscillating thought processes, emotional state, and orientation of our perception. It is not Spirit which plays in the drama of human life on whim – we do that just fine without any assistance, and are superficial enough to perpetuate this drama.

Thus spiritual discipline is about taking responsibility for our thoughts and emotions by beginning to consciously turn our attention towards spirit and so undergo spiritual awakening, literally an awakening to spiritual awareness, to that awareness which is above and beyond any preconception you may have of the experience. It is not an event, but a process throughout our lives.

With the practice of meditation, we learn to process our experiences, thoughts, and emotions through our internally directed attention. This awareness gradually resolves, cleanses and clarifies the quality of our internal reality, thereby raising the baseline of our emotional experience. While at the same time increasing mindfulness, and cultivating an awareness of ourselves not as a chaotic convolution of thought, emotion, and unprocessed experience – which is the state of being (that is of the ego) which most people exist in – but instead detaching ourselves from that cycle and beginning to reveal a distinct identity found within an experience of ourselves as pure awareness. The observer, the conscious creator, the infinite spirit, as opposed to the limited and distorted ego.

Secondly, the practice of yoga (and an argument can be made for the efficacy of a variety of other physical arts) is the conscious path of removing pain, tension, and stress stored within the body through the conscious exploration and fluid transition of movement in yoga. This releases deeply stored emotion and stress, increases the function of our nervous system and thus raises our capacity to think, feel, and remember on higher levels, increasing the flow of blood through the body, the delivery of oxygen to our entire system, and the efficiency and relaxation in the body. This practice also activates, charges, and cleanses our energy system, and promotes not only flexibility and fluidity in the body, but in the mind and emotions as well, and in our whole engagement with and experience of life.

These practices together, once they are deeply established, and practiced every day, lead to gradual and profound transformation that grows deeper and more radiant with each successive month and year of practice, resulting in changes, levels of consciousness and emotion, quality and sheer ability, that I cannot begin to describe. But I can show you.

A Lifetime of Internal Discovery

I cannot convince you of any of this. Nor am I particularly inclined to try, as my successive failures have taught me that it is not an issue to be forced. There are probably no words I can say to make someone understand. All I can do is refer to these changes, and give you the practices, and whatever small knowledge and understanding I possess which may help you need to reach these experiences for yourself.

What I would like to impress upon you, however, is just how much we collectively do not understand about Reality, Spirit, and Consciousness. I also want to make it as clear as possible just how dramatically we can transform and grow with the right practices, the right approach, the right understanding, and the right spiritual discipline and long-term commitment. I want nothing more or less than for as many people as possible to experience and attain the same transformations and internal discovery that I have gone through and that I continue to go through, for themselves, yet with far less of the pitfalls and sheer difficulty born of a lack of proper guidance.

None of us will ever ‘finish’ this process of evolution and unveiling no matter how many lifetimes we go through. This process is eternal. In light of this my paltry concept of one’s true nature is silly, because it is an ever deepening experience, changing and expanding with each stage dramatically. Yet I have no better alternative. Our true nature is the opposition of our ego, both of which we must come to terms with through an experience of our unlimited spiritual nature through the process of spiritual discipline. As a result we will gradually begin to embody that unlimited awareness and sense of self in each action of our lives.

Through spiritual discipline our awareness of spirit, of ourselves as consciousness, thus a comprehension of our true nature, builds over the years. In one way it rises gradually as a slowly elevating mood that begins to infuse us and transform our lives. Our awareness seems to expand, with the boundaries around our mind falling away, crumbling into silence. This is what I call an experience of consciousness. Not Universal Consciousness, not yet. Just an experience of our own consciousness as it actually is. This is the first stage.