Personal-Development

What is this illusive thing that people go looking for called Spirituality? Spirit is 1/3 of the individualized entity; the body or ego that we know ourselves as being alive. By our very nature we are already spiritual and everything that we do is spiritual; we do not have to go looking for it.

Many people spend a lifetime looking for spirituality and they never find it; you cannot find what is not lost or already is. What they are really looking for is spiritual awareness, an awareness of that which gives us life and mobility; an awareness of self.

Many people confuse religion for spirituality, but religion is man’s attempt to explain spirituality and is a part of being spiritual as all things are. You will hear people say, “This or that person is very spiritual” but that is not really accurate. There are people who are more spiritually aware than others. But you are also spiritual, so there is no need to feel left out or less spiritual. Your spirituality can be developed consciously as awareness, but your spirit is already complete as is.

You will not find your spirituality in Tibet or high on the mountain or in the hut of some spiritual guru. There is no place to look for it, because you are already there. The awareness of spirituality comes with the desire to be spiritually aware. Once you have decided that it is what you want, the opportunities will come to you automatically. The people who will best serve you will be drawn to you, and you will begin to notice them. You will begin to notice subtle changes in your environment and your life’s circumstances.

You more than likely will begin to move away from your current friends and even relationships as they no longer serve your purpose. As cold as that may seem, it is because you have begun to learn a new language and they can no longer understand or relate to you. Many will try and discourage you because they don’t want to be left behind. As you begin to develop this other part of self, you will start to notice things around you that eluded you before. Your senses will become more acute, you will begin to care more about your body and your health. You will understand and have great empathy for how your ego struggles to survive in what sometimes seems to be a harsh world. You will also draw like minded people to you, to replace the ones left behind who are there to support you in your creations.

Your newly developed spirituality will open doors you never knew existed. It will be as though you have discovered a whole new set of tools you never knew you had. Your life will have new meaning and you will no longer feel like a victim, but as a creator of your own circumstances and destiny. You will begin to see your intimate connection to all others and all things. Your newly found awareness does not excuse you from your physical journey but it does give it new meaning. You will never be the same, nor will you want to go back.

You will not only use your five senses more completely but you will begin to discover or maybe even develop your other psychic senses. Can you image adding on five or more senses to the ones you are already aware of and using? The possibilities for new experiences are infinite as you now begin to see yourself differently. You will also develop the ability to remove yourself from your body and view yourself from a distance as the silent observer of your own life; silent, patient and empathetic - your very own spiritual guide. You will begin to truly understand, appreciate and embrace the term “outside the box” because that is where your attention and experience will be.

I can’t image a greater sense of security in knowing that you can never be judged spiritually, never be punished and that you have absolute unconditional freedom to do anything you can imagine and that it is you only purpose. Judgment and punishment are physical attributes of this life that you will not experience in the afterlife. Unconditional love and freedom is what you are spiritually and it has no limitations. The essence of who you are individually will always be, and cannot be destroyed. It is also the nature of all things to move to a higher state of being; to improve one’s experience.

Your new spiritual awareness begins when you decide it does, and because you are reading this now; it has already started. Remember also that spiritual awareness is not an end unto itself; it is the trip that brings the greatest rewards and pleasures.

All thoughts are valid in the spiritual world, read as much as you can from many different writers and authors. Never allow yourself to be boxed in by someone else’s thoughts or even your own. As you reach out you will begin to formulate a thought process that is uniquely yours and changes.

Author: Roy Klienwachter http://www.klienwachter.com

Understanding Ourselves

The three marks of existence are crucial to the Buddhist understanding of ourselves and the world around us. The first of  these ‘marks’ or ‘characteristics’ is anicca or impermanence. The second of these Read more

The discipline can help to blossom new loves and strengthen existing ones.

Clarifying wrongly relationship

Years ago, for an interview, I asked the Buddhist teacher Namkhai Norbu why, according to him, in the West many couples end up with divorce, why is it so difficult to have a serene life as couple. I expect, from this important Lama reincarnate from the tradition Bon, a response highly spiritual, which had to do with values and ideals. He, however, wise, replied: “Because the people arrive at evening as if they were cards curled up, so stressed from work, by economics, from management of the many commitments that they have no more availability to listen to the other “.

Remove stress, facilitate the dialogue

The first way in which yoga can help the lives of couples is just that, because the practice has the ability to alleviate the burden of excessive stress, to put fatigue and irritation away, bringing calm and listening skills. “When my wife went to the gym - tells a manager for 40 years - she returned tired and irritable. Now, she frequents a yoga course, comes back more serene and our everyday life benefits it. “The sharing of the practice - says Andrea, a Venetian teacher of yoga boyfriend of a student he met during a spiritual retire - has created immediate strong meeting points.
Even our moments of conflict become a moment to put into practice yoga. When we have some confrontation, she tells me: “calm, let’s get into a higher plane.” Referring to the five “plans” (kosha) of the “Upanishads”, she suggests: “let us set into vijna kosha (the cover of conscience-consciousness).” Then we work a little ‘on the breath, we reconcile and then we can talk calmly. I think it is an added value to have a companion who practices yoga.

Reciprocal respect, Giorgio and Elizabeth, fellow yoga and life companions since 40 years, found (November’69) the Yoga Academy in Rome, where they teach still. “Yoga - explains Giorgio - offers the couples high benefits. In the spiritual journey, is said: “if you want to change the world begin by yourself.” In a couple who practice in mutual respect, everyone can see in the other their master. This creates a situation of greater consciousness that awaken the proper capacity. This proceeding together creates enormous benefits and multiplies the individual forces, together one is much stronger. Yoga is also a form of energetically enrichment for the couple, through the rituals of sexual union Tantra (maithuna) and the recitation of mantra. Thanks to these techniques can the partners enter the same spiritual wavelength. A family founded on these bases will be blessed by harmony, joy, beauty and happiness at all levels, and the children will be bearer of vibrations of very high love. For yoga we are not consist solely of physical body, we have many bodies, also a body made of happiness: ananda Mayan kosha. “After so many years of Wedding - confided a teacher married for thirty years could occur a fair wear of the gestures of love, but the emotional, spiritual and physical opening that yoga gives to sexuality permits to live it with renewed creativity, in an almost mystical dimension. 

Assist the Eros

 
The Hatha Yoga improves the erotic life, because it increases the sensitivity of the body, and the ability to perceive and give pleasure. This is the second major advantage that Yoga can give a couple. Years ago, Carla the Turin teacher, writer and journalist, a person of deep sensitivity, told me the case of a pair of her students that however estimate and love one the other were unhappy because unsatisfied sexually. However, with the constancy to practice, gradually alleviate from the frustration. Their bodies became less rigid, more secure, more open, and lighter and with the passing of months increased the small gestures of mutual affection until, one evening, and she saw them leave hand in hand with a smile in the face so open as not to leave no doubt that their old problems had been overcome.

Common Aspirations

 
There is also third aspect that is very important for the life of the couples: the sharing of spiritual values. “If none of us two would practice - says Roberta, 30 years of Piedmont, a student of yoga who is in love of his teacher and married him - I am convinced that we would have meet the same and that our relationship would work equally well. It’s not just yoga that unites us, but especially the love for each other. Thanks to the practice of this ancient discipline, however, we live in a larger size, more airy, we feel to be part of something bigger of us, to share values that support us and give us strength. Renate and Moiz, founders of the Raja Yoga association of Milan, have just published the first part of their remarks to “Yoga Sutras” of Patañjali, as testimony of thirty years of teaching in common. As couple, they have been together for forty years. We are approached to yoga through a parallel path. The same basic sensitivity brought them, individually and together, to recognize in the same masters. “For us was it critical - they say - that in yoga they has been able to express themselves and flourish an aspiration, a research for both.
When it becomes obstacle Roberto, a doctor specialized in neurology and psychiatry, teacher in yoga training courses for teachers of the school of Yoga Ratna of Gabriella, asked the students, most already yoga teachers, to bring their experience. “It emerged - he told - that if only one member of the couple is dedicated to yoga arise difficulties. During practice, one of the two isolates and this can create doubts and apprehensions in the partners.
In addition, yoga involves different ways to consider the time, which may create misunderstandings. When, instead, yoga is shared all is good ‘. In Indian culture a married woman cannot receive a personal mantra by a teacher, because the spiritual bonds that are created between teacher and student can engrave fairly subtle on the psyche, causing changes that could bring away from her husband and shared common values. “Yoga will change you, it’s an evolutionary path” said to us students Gabriella, reminding us how sometimes to go forward one must leave what he has passed. Yoga as a means of knowledge helps and strengthens the couples with a good basic affinity, based on love, trust and confidence, while putting in question the wrong reports, not evolutionary. Brings to recognize where can manifest and deploy our profound nature, our kind of love.

In the myth

The first couple: Shiva and Parvati
In Indian mythology, even the highest icon of yoga, Shiva, the mighty god, the great ascetic, the perfect yogi, does not resist to love, particularly in courting the beautiful Parvati, the daughter of the mountain. He, covered with ash on the slopes of the Himalaya, spent his days immersed in deepest meditation, not even noticed that wonderful girl who was crazy for him. Therefore, she, but to make him fall in love, devoted to austere practices of yoga and transforms the fire of passion into the fire of spiritual research. Shiva, admired and seduced, assigns, grants and even they bride.

Now that you know about the enormous benefits, you probably feel alike to get into it. For more information to help your yoga practice get this 7 Minute Yoga Program.