Last Updated on August 5, 2015
For the ordinary person the necessity of spiritual practice is rarely, if ever, obvious. For instance, I’ve often heard people question why meditation is important and then justify to themselves that it’s not. Similarly, to many people the importance of getting physical exercise seems unimportant, and they too justify to themselves why they are just fine without it (we’ll take a look at that second example, for it will make both scenarios clearer). What is the importance of spiritual practice? Is spiritual practice important?
Our culture has changed to such a degree over the past centuries, most especially in the past decades, that it is perfectly normal for people to live a relatively sedentary life from birth to death. Being sedentary—getting little, if any, real exercise—day after day is now the norm for most people. Most people have heard that physical exercise is “good” for them and is a wise thing to participate in, yet in reality most ignore this recommendation most of the time. Sometimes we get some extra motivation, perhaps after receiving a poor cardiovascular health report from the doctor. Suddenly we feel motivated to exercise. For a few weeks, perhaps even some months, one is out walking, running, going to the gym, and so forth. Yet all too often once the initial shock and emotional impact of the health crisis diagnosed by the doctor has waned, so too does the motivation to exercise.
Exercising more—or at least in some physical way improving one’s fitness and health—is one of the most common New Year’s resolutions made as our culture leaves December and moves into January. It is also perhaps the most common resolution that is never followed through beyond the hangover experienced by many on January 1st or at least dissolves into non-existence by mid-February or March. So most people recognise the importance of physical exercise, and yet it is not something we are inherently motivated to do. Perhaps this motivation is lacking because it is not one of our basic human drivers in the way that consuming food (particularly fatty, salty, and sugary foods) is a basic human driver. The need for food and the drive to acquire something good to eat is something Man has contended with since the beginning, so our body has well-established mechanisms in place that make us want to eat. We’re all familiar with what it feels like to be hungry. Yet under ordinary circumstances, we don’t hunger for a run around the neighbourhood, a set of 50 press-ups each day, or sweating it out in an exercise class. Granted, once a person has done these sorts of exercises regularly for a long enough period, his or her body does begin to crave more of it, and they will, in effect, hunger for it each day. But this is something they have to condition themselves into.
We don’t have an inbuilt motivation to exercise because the need to exercise is such a new phenomenon in the human scheme of things. It is a rather unique situation (within the animal kingdom) that has come about through our invention of machines and technology. Gone are the days of running to the next village to verbally deliver a message or to catch up with Aunt Mary, or, for many, even walking to the nearest Postal Box to dispatch a letter. Now I can sit at home and send an email, a txt (text) message, or God forbid, pick up the phone and talk to someone in person. With the appropriate technologies on hand, I can do all of these things without ever leaving the sofa. These days we don’t even have to lug our body around a mall to go shopping, which was perhaps one of the last forms of exercise the average American still participated in on a regular basis. I know when I am in America I typically buy all but my groceries and fresh produce through the Internet. It’s easy, a lot cheaper, and fast. The groceries and produce could also be added to my e-shopping list if I didn’t place as much importance on actually seeing my groceries before I buy them, to browsing around the health food store, and to having some kind of personal contact with that whole environment.
Even if one still does venture out to the mall, we have cars to move our body from the house to the mall; elevators and escalators to move our body up and down the multiple levels of the mall; trolleys to wheel our groceries around in; cell phones to track down our children if we lose sight of them; and a chair and table to sit at when we feel the need for a coffee and donut. This is quite obviously a far cry from the days of hunter/gatherer hiking miles into the wilderness, chasing down wild animals, climbing trees to pick fruits or to get a visual vantage, and then lugging a few hundred pounds of dead meat to the village on our backs. What we now refer to as getting exercise simply did not exist even as a concept in the not-too-distant human past. Our body was kept in fit-and-healthy physical condition as a consequence of living, not in addition to living.
So we know the importance of exercise. We can see how the need to exercise is a consequence of our high-tech lifestyle. We have at least some idea of the ills of not exercising. We feel motivated from time to time to actually do some exercise, and yet for most people most of the time, they simply don’t bother. Their health declines, and they become dependent on a money-driven medical system to patch up and manage their ever-increasing list of disease symptoms.
The situation is much the same for spiritual practice. The difference, however, is that our disconnection from the spiritual dimensions of Life is further removed in the mind and memory of most people than our disconnection from physical activity as a way of life. What’s more, the need to exercise our spiritual muscles is not nearly so apparent as the need to exercise our heart. We don’t have doctors diagnosing spiritual crises nearly so often as a cholesterol crisis. When was the last time your doctor told you to dissolve your rigid sense of illusionary self into the Void of pure consciousness? Historically, many of those who have felt the impending crisis of their spiritual disconnection have turned not to their own capacity for resolution, but instead to a money-driven religious system that has monopolised on the spiritual discipline of one particular man who expounded the virtues of spiritual practice a couple of thousand years ago, once again to manage and patch up their ever-increasing symptoms of dis-ease.
Just as my muscles will atrophy and my physical health will diminish with a lack of physical activity, so too my spiritual or meta-physical faculties and capacities will shrivel away if I don’t use them on a regular basis. There is another important point that should be made about both physical and spiritual exercise.
The more I exercise my body the more likely I will respond to life in a physically pro-active way. A certain momentum toward physical activity builds up. For instance, if I have been a couch potato for the past 20 years, I am unlikely to enthusiastically leap at the opportunity to go kite surfing or rollerblading when my friendly new neighbour invites me to do so. To leap at such an opportunity would go against a high degree of physical and psychological inertia. Similarly, if I have done little or no spiritual practice in the past few decades (or lifetimes), I am unlikely to leap at the opportunity to openly explore and resolve my unconscious and destructive approach to life when my I find my circumstances difficult. For instance, when my partner is verbally attacking me and trying to provoke me into an argument and eventual fight, or when I am hit with a health crisis such as cancer, or when I lose my life-savings and wind up bankrupt. Without the momentum of spiritual practice behind me, I am unlikely to have the power necessary to face these difficult circumstances from a spiritual perspective.
Yet in every possible way, life is constantly challenging Man to wake up, to become more conscious, more luminous, and more aware. Every hardship or challenging situation you have ever faced was Life itself challenging you to incarnate your spirit more fully into Being, to be a more conscious and loving expression of Life, and ultimately to step into and actualise your potential for spiritual enlightenment. Yet without the momentum toward spiritual awakening, toward non-reaction, toward metaphysical insight, toward intelligent heart-centered action in the world generated through regular spiritual practice, when the next challenge comes along, we typically respond like a spiritual couch potato. It’s all about energetic momentum.
Something else to consider is that physical exercise can’t grant us anything we don’t already have the potential for. In the same way spiritual exercise won’t bestow upon us anything we don’t already have within us. If I exercise a muscle, it gets stronger because I am activating its innate potential through greater participation in its natural function. Similarly, if I exercise my spiritual capacities, I am activating my innate spiritual potential through greater participation in what it means to be Man. So whilst spiritual practice is important, I recommend approaching such practice with the understanding it is not going to fix you or change you into something greater than what you already are. Rather, spiritual practice will bring into your experience a greater expression of your true nature.
It might also assist you to know that you already have what you need to engage in a spiritual practice. Just as you don’t need to rely on a doctor or a gym to strengthen your biceps, you don’t need to rely on a spiritual institution, church, or priest to strengthen your connection to God, to Life, to your own Spirit. Of course access to a suitably qualified personal trainer, or to a suitably qualified spiritual teacher, can be a great help along the way. Just keep in mind they are only helping you in so far as their focus is on you actualising your innate potential.
Is spiritual practice important? The answer to this will depend on what you want out of life, and the quality of life you wish to experience. My own observation—within my life and that of many other people—is that without regular spiritual practice my life levels out and eventually goes around in repetitive circles. Consequently inner peace diminishes, happiness becomes increasingly rare, and the evolution of my awareness comes to a near standstill. Ultimately life becomes meaningless. So if you wish to live a meaningful life and experience greater peace, health, mental clarity, and deeper awareness, I would say that spiritual practice not only is important but is fundamentally so. What would you say?
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