Spiritual growth has always been integral to an individual’s sense of well being, even before mankind has conceptualized the term and digested it in a multitude of ways that it eventually sprung up different methodologies on how one can build upon it. You name it – yoga, karma, or maybe reincarnation. There are so many that they range from the most mystical to the most practical. But whether you are already treading your own “spiritual path”, or in deep need of spiritual fulfillment, a deep understanding of what spirituality is can be very helpful in more ways than one.

In order for us to fully comprehend what spirituality means, perhaps it is essential that we discuss the meaning of the root word itself, which is spirit. Spirit is an intangible property, one that alludes to something incorporeal, something mysterious and not bound by the material world. The most hailed scholar and physicist, Albert Einstein, alluded to spirituality through these words: “The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious – the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science.” This brings us to the two things that he mentioned – art and science. These two indulgences have dominated human’s consciousness in the process of achieving answers to the mysteries that have confounded us about the universe. These two distinct establishments, polar opposites they may be, have paved the way to advancement in the realm of technology and human awareness.

The search for answers is deeply rooted to our innate need to gain knowledge about ourselves, and how we are connected to everything around us. Mundane activities like fixing a car engine or observing an ant farm are unconscious manifestations of that need, and in consequence, related to spirituality. You only have to read Robert M. Pirsig’s magnum opus, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, to understand what I’m talking about. While this contradicts the idea of spirituality as something not bound in the material world, these physical avenues are helpful channels that allow us to achieve that transcendence, and in turn present to us a peek into the mysterious.

Some individuals achieve spiritual sustenance through the means of meditation. Meditation is a process of serious contemplation, or turning inward to reach a profound state of peacefulness, focus and awareness. The practice of meditation has originated from the Eastern cultures, and has been adapted by the West in the form of prayer. Buddhist monks are astute in their belief that meditation is the way to Enlightenment, which explains the sanguine temperament by which they deal with other people.

A common misconception most individuals make is having the notion that spirituality is exclusive to religion. While it’s true that religion has helped a lot of people to lead spiritual lives, it only represents a few facets that constitute the full meaning of spirituality. Spirituality is a confluence, a heightened understanding of what we are and how we are connected to the whole spectrum of existence, and the discernment that every little thing is equally essential and dependent on each other.

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The basic goal when people undertake spiritual practice is enlightenment. The culminating point marked in the practices is when one already attains the spiritual enlightenment therefore they feel the unity of soul, leaving behind all physical and mental engagements and everything else. It is possessing highly evolved souls, and to share the kind of enlightenment that these spiritual masters experience they propagate it through the world.

For practical purposes, attaining spiritual enlightenment comes into levels. The spiritual masters evolve from the first to the third levels.

The first one is the animality levels to which many individuals have a tendency to degrade themselves. In this stage, you experience and live the reality as any individuals would. You may continuously engage in ordinary activities like talking, gossiping, planning the future, analyzing everything about us, and so on and so forth. You are the normal, ordinary individual walking around just like everybody else.

You are experiencing just like everybody else is experiencing, although in this stage, you are already taking the cue to uplift the enlightenment of your soul towards a more meaningful existence. When spiritual enlightenment is considered, you are at a stage when you are taking just everything as presented but you are also undergoing an effort to detach worldly things from your existence.

In the second levels, you rise into humanity, to which now constitutes the very nature of the human individuals. In this stage, the individual experiences a connection to every individual around them and even to every object surrounding them. The experience makes them like losing their own individuality; however, the culmination is already taking its mark signaling that a merge is happening between their own with the Supreme soul.

As you feel you are no longer the individual that you are and instead one with everything around your environment, you are closing in with the Supreme Soul as everything comes from Him. This is a great experience that anyone can undergo because enlightening of the soul is starting to dawn with more promises to be a lot better later on with the succeeding stage.

In the third levels is the divinity, to which now spiritual masters convene back and unite with the very source where humans came from. In this stage, you don’t feel connected with everything around you anymore. And this is not a sense of disconnection, instead you are already realizing that you are that everything. It means the spiritual enlightenment is taking its course up to give you the experience where oneness with God is already culminating.

So after experiencing the humanity, the divinity makes you feel you are everything. Meaning, you are no longer your own body, mind, senses, and your intellect faculty. And in this stage, you are directly undertaking the divine experience, the attainment of God, which is the highest level that spiritual masters undergo.

When an individual undergoes spiritual enlightenment, all luck is in them for it is that fruit that sets them free from the material wants, wishes, and desires. It does not only make you feel the complete bliss of being free but gives you the experience that rarely is being undertaken by everybody else.

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A famous billionaire once said that even ordinary streets are paved with gold if only one will spend the time to see why. Everyone could make wealth but the problem often is that a person is too preoccupied with negativity that the eye fails to see.

The following are misplaced belief systems that are firmly established in the human psyche that blinds the eye hindering the possibility of creating wealth.

The creation of wealth is directly proportional to the amount of hard work that a person is willing to take.
At the start yes, there is no substitute for that. After all, the person that desires to create more wealth will have to conceptualize, experiment, study and will, on many occasions be willing to make mistakes to learn more. Once the hard part is over, (for the most part it takes only a while) the person could hire hands to do the working for him. There is no one person on earth who is a depository of all knowledge after all. When that happens all that the entrepreneur has to do is provide directions based on lessons learned.

To amass wealth, you have to be in the right business.
But truly, what is right business and what is not? This principle drives people crazy. When the internet caf for example was just starting, everyone scrambled to dip their fingers to have one. The result is to slice the pie thinner every time that ultimately results into weakened earning potentials for everyone concerned. Instead, start a business from things that you love most doing. The interest will be sustained that will be needed when encountering rough times. Even when a craze is started because of that, no one will do it better than the person who started it.

You cannot start a business without enough capital.
Again what is enough capital? There are businesses, lots of them that started from nothing. Capital is needed whenever available but when the idea is there, the enthusiasm and the energy is capital enough. No successful businessman today started with large capital. In fact most of them started with almost nothing. Big businesses are mostly inherited but they too started from almost nothing.

The idea has to be right.
Agreed, but if someone keeps on looking for it, a good idea will start somehow somewhere. The best person to be looking for ideas is the self. The things that the person loved doing or the make believe that the person enjoys when still a child is sufficient material for an idea.

Education is needed to start a business.
Wrong. Education is needed when seeking employment. When starting a business, goodwill is good enough. All successful businessmen for the last two hundred years were dropouts, have little education, or are simple sturdy people who refused to be satisfied with whatever chance and fortune came their way.

I am too old is again another fallacy.
Many businesses have been established and made successful from retirement money. Age though has obvious limitations. The person may not be able to enjoy most of the fruits of the labor but who cares. When there is the desire to succeed, success it will be.

More than any of these, there should be a desire to do well. Successful businesses that lasted are anchored on that. It is the desire to make a change for the better. To spot a need and to fill that need is easy; to create wealth from filling the need is easier too. To maintain goodwill that aligns us all with every ideal that is best in us is not.

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Go look at an Indian guru or a Buddhist monk, and you’ll observe that there’s a dreamy look in their eyes, or a state of bliss that emanates from their countenance. Since most people, especially those living in the city, are pervaded by stress in an environment where deadlines, expectations, and goals are at the forefront of their thoughts, the urge to disentangle oneself from worldly worries and insipid thoughts can take its hold every once in a while. Some resort to travel, and some depend on the company of friends. But after the weeding out of negative thoughts, an individual will most likely find himself in the midst of stress again once he goes back in the strangle of the real world. So what’s the best cure after initial attempts to find solace has failed? It can be summed up in two words: spiritual awakening.

WHAT IS SPIRITUAL AWAKENING? Spiritual awakening is a process that takes place in an individual’s being. It involves heightened consciousness, enlightenment, and transcendence. How do we exactly reach this state? Does it involve secluding ourselves in one solitary room and concentrating as hardly as we can? Maybe so, but the act of achieving spiritual awakening is a much more sophisticated process.

SPIRITUAL AWAKENING THROUGH MEDITATION
A full understanding of how our mind works is instrumental in this endeavor. Everything around us – tangible and intangible – are all products of the mind and its processes. Human perception is limited, and what we sense in our surroundings are its mere products. Take color for instance. Color is just a quality assigned by the brain in accordance to different degrees of wavelengths.

So color in itself is just an illusion, and we can’t really tell that red or blue is an absolute truth when describing specific objects. And knowing that our mind is limited by the interpretations of the human brain, we will need to do away with the mind while trying to attempt this exercise. You need to look at the mind like a casual observer, and treat it as something that is separate from our selves. Try to relax and concentrate, and ensure that you are in a location secluded from outside interference.

Imagine that you are in an invisible dome, and that the mind is outside, wherein thoughts and fancies are unable to penetrate. If you achieve this, profound silence will ensue, and you will feel that you are free of the mind. You’ll feel vaster, bigger, and encompassing. And in the state of heightened consciousness, you will have a glimpse of reality, as opposed to the false reality that our mind perceives. You will feel peaceful, and a sense of connection with everything will be felt in a more profound manner.

PRACTICE IS FUNDAMENTAL
This takes a lot of practice and discipline. And it is inherent that you give yourself the opportunity to be alone and in a place where nothing can disturb you. Through constant practice, achieving spiritual awakening will be second nature to you and this heightened consciousness will last longer. Most important of all, this practice can help you improve the quality of your life.

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