Spiritual Awakening
Finding Spiritual Enlightenment in a world defined by power, money, and influence is a mammoth task. Modern comforts such as electronic equipment, gadgets, and tools as well as entertainment via TV, magazines and the web have caused us to confine our attention largely to physical needs and wants.
As a result, our ideas of self-worth and self-meaning are muddled. How can we maintain a balance between the material and spiritual aspects of our lives?
To grow spiritually is to take a look within ourselves.
Self-contemplation goes beyond remembering the things that happened in a day, week, or month. You need to look closely and reflect on your thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and motivations. examining your experiences, the decisions you make, the relationships you have and the things you do will give useful perceptions on your life goals, on the good attributes you must prolong and the bad traits you have to discard. Moreover, it gives you clues on how to act, react, and conduct yourself in the midst of any situation. Like any skill, self-examination can be learned; all it takes is the courage and willingness to seek the truths that lie within you. Here are some indicators when you self-examine: be objective, be tolerant of yourself, and focus on your areas for betterment.
To grow spiritually is to evolve your potential.
Religion and science have differing outlooks on things concerning the human spirit. Religions view people as spiritual beings temporarily living on Earth, while science views the spirit as just one dimension of a person. Command of the self is a continual theme in both Christian (Western) and Islamic (Eastern) teachings. The needs of the body are recognized but placed beneath the needs of the spirit. Beliefs, values, morality, rules, experiences and good works provide the way to ensure the growth of the spiritual being. In Psychology, realizing our full potential is to self-actualize. Abraham Maslow, the famous psychologist, identified several human needs: physiological, security, belongingness, esteem, cognitive, aesthetic, self-actualization, and self-transcendence. We can further categorize these needs into three: material, emotional, and spiritual. When we have satisfied the basic physiological and emotional needs, spiritual or existential needs come next. Accomplishing each need leads to the total development of the individual. Perhaps the variance between these two religions and psychology is the end of self-development: Christianity and Islam see that self-development is a means toward serving God, while psychology view that self-development is an end by itself.
To grow spiritually is to seek meaning.
Religions that believe in the existence of God such as Christianity Judaism and Islam suppose that the purpose of the human life is to serve the creator of all things. Quite a few theories in psychology propose that we finally give meaning to our lives. Whether we believe that life’s meaning is already worked out for us or self-directed, to grow in spirit is to realize that we do not merely exist. We do not know the meaning of our lives at birth; but we gain knowledge and wisdom from our interactions with people and from our actions and reactions to the situations we are in. As we understand this meaning, there are certain beliefs and values that we decline and affirm. Our lives have purpose. This purpose puts all our physical, emotional, and intellectual possibilities into use; sustains us during trying times; and gives us something to look forward to, a goal to achieve, a destination to reach. Someone without purpose or meaning is like a drifting ship at sea.
To awaken spiritually is to recognize connectedness.
Various religions stress the concept of our relatedness to all creation, live and inanimate. Thus we call other people “brothers and sisters” even if there are no direct blood relations. Moreover, deity-centered religions such as Christianity and Islam, speak of the relationship between humans and a higher being. On the other hand, science expounds on our connection to other living things through the evolution theory. This connection is clearly seen in the concept of ecology, the interaction between living and non-living things. In psychology, connectedness is a characteristic of self-transcendence, the highest human need according to Abraham Maslow. Understanding your connection to all things causes you to be more humble and respectful of people, animals, plants, and things in nature. It makes you appreciate everything around you. It moves you to go beyond your comfort zone and reach out to other people and become custodians of all other things around you.
Spiritual Practice is a process. Therefore to grow in spirit is a day-to-day experience. We win some, we lose some, but the important thing is that we learn and from this knowledge, further spiritual awakening is made possible.
Namaste.
Treasure the gift of life..
Get timely tips in the sphere of lose 10 pounds per week - welcome to your individual knowledge pack.
