Following “Spiritual Outlook” and adopting an alternative path towards life.
My life has been an incredible journey of extremes having experienced moments of highs and sheer exhilaration, as well as lows of the dark nights of the soul.
As I once read in a quote “There is nothing as certain as silence, stillnes, and solitude to introduce you to the secrets of yourself”
It can be “Uplifting”! 😇 … One can say that at times I realised and felt “God/Divinity”.
I believe that Universe responds in various ways once you “surrender”. And in my case, I surrendered, and Universe did respond!
“Pain comes as a blessing in life to help elevate our soul!”
I believe that all painful situations come as a blessing to elevate our soul and an opportunity for us to rise as human beings.
The pain which I received, has indeed been a huge blessing, and it has led to my soul rising to levels which I otherwise could not have achieved in multiple births!
I have followed Spirituality and related practices, and subsequently adopting an alternative path towards life, as avenues to come out of my own pain, and in the process, help others to do the same.
Spiritual Perspectives
These are some of the key spiritual perspectives I imbibed, and which have helped me in my own life.
- Unconditional Acceptance and Surrender as Everything is as God Wills it to be!
- Do not have any Expectations in Life. But if you have any Expectations, please be prepared to Accept any Outcome of your Expectations.
- There are no Coincidences or Accidents in life. Everything happens according to the Divine Will.
- Our Efforts and Endeavours are important, but the Accomplishments cannot be achieved without Divine Grace.
- Never lose Faith! There cannot be proportion to Faith, it is either there in its entirety with everything that happens in life, or it is not there; it is either 100% or 0%.
- Practice Gratitude and Forgiveness
- Selflessly spread Love and Happiness
- Everything in Life has been given as a Loan to us which is meant to be “Distributed” back to the world, our knowledge, experiences, intellect, and material wealth and so on.
- Nature is a big teacher of leading a Good and Soulful Life.
- Be a Friend to everyone in Life, just as God is a Friend to us in our Lives.
Spiritual Qualities
We often mistake Spirituality as about going into isolation, being away from life etc.
Life is going to play out as it is intended to do so, and that can mean whether life has intended one to be in isolation or live a normal daily life.
As I learnt, Spirituality is not about “leaving anything, but it is about weaving” the positive aspects within our daily lives, day to day, hour to hour, moment to moment.
Simply put, it is about ensuring that we adopt the positive qualities in every act and thought of life and leave out the negative qualities. I have listed some of those below.
| Positive Qualities | Negative Qualities |
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Obviously while it reads and sounds easy and simple, one can imagine it can be quite difficult to practice remaining positive and leave out all negatives from every act and thought in life. 😊
Spiritual Practices
But there are spiritual practices which can help us in doing so; I have listed some of them and which I particularly found useful and have classified those into 3 categories.
These practices help us in bringing about a change in our consciousnesses for us to then become more aware and adopt such positive qualities, basically making our soul consciousnesses more active than our mind, body and intellect.
Even if one were not Spiritual or Religious in nature, it would be just natural to accept that adopting such positive qualities can lead to a blissful life.
But in the rigmarole of daily life we often forget, and hence these practices can aid and help us in ensuring that we remain and become even better human beings than we were yesterday.
- Smaran (स्मरण) or Simran (सिमरन) – Remembrance of the Divine
- Chanting – This by far has been my biggest spiritual practice. Whether with concentration or otherwise, I try and ensure I chant or remember the Divine as much as possible during my daily life.
- Reading Spiritual Books and Literature
- Sewa (सेवा) – Selfless Service
- Providing “selfless” service to the needy, particularly those souls who are not in a position to help themselves.
- Satsang (सत्संग) – Association with true people / souls
- Group Chanting or reading of Spiritual books.
- Group Spiritual Discourses
- Reading Soulful Material
- Being part of Good Vibrational Environments
Spiritual Impact
My wife, Devika had always guided me to lead a life from a spiritual perspective, and she lived much more a spiritual life than me.
I believe that she was far ahead in terms of her soul journey. She is a beautiful and an enlightened soul. I am not merely saying this because she is my wife, but I have not come across many individuals, who have carried her views on aspects about life as she did.
She had introduced me to that side of life and also introduced me to a Spiritual Centre in Gondal (Gujarat, India) with which we have always been associated. I am still connected to that place as also my wife’s family which is settled in that town. Devika and my ethnicity is from Gujarat in India and we are Gujarati’s.
This centre is institutionalised by a Saint, Shri Nathalal Joshi. I consider him to be my Spiritual Guide, Guru, Mentor and more importantly an individual who treated everyone and me like a Friend.
Everyone referred to him as “Bhai”, which is a common reference in Gujarati for a Friend or a Brother. So, we always referred to him as “Pujya Bhai” meaning “Revered or Venerable Friend / Brother”. Unfortunately for all of his devotees, he passed on in May 2013.
The impact which his teachings and writings had on me, cannot be described in words. These teachings were imparted both via personal one-on-one “Darshans” (moments of connection / insight with the Divine) which we had with him, and also through some of his close associates.
Amongst his very close associate was also Devika’s paternal uncle, whose influence on my spiritual upliftment in life is significant.
It will be foolhardy for me to even to attempt to write about all of the teachings and learnings emanating out of that Divine place; except I will try and attempt to share some of my own experiences, many of which are uplifting and quite unbelievable.
So, in summary, I try and weave as much of a spiritual perceptive as possible into my daily living. However, I am definitely not an ascetic or a hermit or a complete recluse 😀. I very much live a normal day to day life as most do, albeit in a little more solitude than many.
I will gradually share many of these learnings, and what I have previously selectively shared with different individuals, in the blogs on this website.
Hope you find them useful and are able to use it in positive ways within your life.
Thank you and God bless you! 🙏