Sincere Practice Is the Heart of Spiritual Life

Why practice is more important than talking about spirituality, collecting techniques, or mantras.

To answer this, it is important to understand what constitutes a genuine sadhaka.

The spiritual life usually starts for a person when he gets into trouble or something unforeseen happens to oneself and one wants to understand why this happens. People without any issues or problems hardly get into spirituality, except for a few. There would be a few people who really want to understand things and get over the misery of life permanently and choose spirituality over others.

Some people see a market in this segment, and now in India it has become a 20,000 crore market. These people sell spirituality for profit, and it is these people who twist the teachings and make us do things which are unnecessary and expensive.

The problem with these types of teachings is that they are flooded everywhere, and it first confuses sincere aspirants, promises illogical results, and finally traps them into doing multiple things to resolve or progress, which is totally wrong in most cases.

Then it caters to pseudo-spiritual seekers who enjoy talking about spirituality rather than doing anything about it. These people are even more dangerous, as their knowledge is half-baked, and for them talking about spirituality is more of a feel-good and ego-boosting activity than actual progress or helping others. They are harmful, as they usually do not like sincere sadhakas, since sincere sadhakas can easily undermine them.

Next come people who are the know-it-all type. Their knowledge is sometimes vast on scriptures, may or may not have any practical experience, and they do practice, but at this stage they are more egoistic about their practice and try to dominate their teachings and discredit others. This is a tricky stage in spiritual practice and if this is not checked, there will be spiritual downfall rather than any progress. Ego is the ultimate test for spiritual realization.

The sadhaka is lucky if he finds a true Guru at the beginning of his journey and gets guided properly from day one, but this is rare. For most of us, finding a Guru is like winning a lottery, as most of us would have come across the various types of people mentioned above and would have been misled, financially drained, and wasted a few to many years of their precious lives in the scams mentioned above.

It is when we meet a true Guru that we realise that all the things we see on TV or other media are more or less completely false, and our notion about our belief system, which is built over lies, starts to crumble. This is a very difficult situation, as a Guru dismantles the ego of the student and his beliefs before imparting spiritual knowledge. It is at this stage that most non-sincere aspirants run away, as they usually belong to other groups who are happy to talk about spirituality and have no interest in changing their life or do not have the courage to accept that their belief system was wrong. The Guru actually breaks down the personality of the student to mould him into a serious seeker, given that the student is sincere. The sincere ones undergo changes in their gross and subtle life at this stage, and it is a painful process as they have to face their accelerated karmas.

When a Guru starts his teachings, he first says to stop shopping for spiritual products, techniques, mantras, and Gurus. His advice is very simple: follow one philosophy, one mantra, one deity, and one Guru for any meaningful progress in life.

One thing that I have understood from my personal experience is that a genuine Guru does not expect anything from us in any manner, except that he wants his students to be sincere in sadhana. They are most happy when you progress and achieve realisation and even hope you surpass them. This is a quality of a real Guru. They do not expect money or favours from you; rather, your dakshina is your sincere practice.

One thing that needs to be understood is that we do not have to chant multiple mantras or search for the most powerful one for spiritual progression. A simple mantra like Ashtakshari or Panchakshari will give the same result within a year if practiced with 3 hours a day of chanting and 1 hour of meditation.

The key here is practice and not shopping for spirituality. This website has all the teachings that are needed for one to progress in spirituality. Utilise it and achieve your goals

Given below is a simple yet powerful method for spiritual progress

• Do sadhana of the deity that you like the most, how to know which one you like is very simple. Just ask a question to yourself to which deity you are ready to pray even if you will not get any benefit from the sadhana of the said deity, it’s just because you love that deity and you want to do it.
• Spend 3 to 4 hours chanting mantra of that deity daily, meaning you chant throughout the day and at all times wherever possible.
• After 3 months of this, start meditation for 30 minutes a day and gradually increase it to 1 hour a day.
• Acquire knowledge on the philosophy you like, e.g. Advaita, tantra etc and understand the nature of reality.

This is more than enough to see miracles happening in your life within a year and deep karmic cleansing sometimes painful, but you will turn out to be a better person.

This article is written by Shri Jayanth Chandramouli who can be contacted at jayanth@manbluder.com