Three pillars of spiritual practice

It happens so that I may be reckoned among those who at the initial stage of self-development make no headway for a long time, vainly trying to enter the Spiritual World by means of consciousness. To make it as clear as possible (hopefully, regular visitors of this website have already learnt to distinguish a real pear of that made of papier-mâché) I was trying to force my way into the Spiritual World by means of mind or Devil, just like the absolute majority of believers on the planet. Yes! I was making my way to God with Devil’s help! Probably, it’s the most shocking paradox by which our civilization has punished itself, having lost the Primordial Knowledge and plunged into the swamp of lifeless mental dogmata and distortions.

Yet, this article is not about Devil the tempter, but about how one can start moving when movement seems to be almost impossible and the accumulated disappointment roots the remains of faith to the bottom like an anchor coated with doubts. Thus, let’s recall once again the marvellous tool given to all of us – spiritual practices, and let’s note for ourselves that these practices were given to us, firstly – completely publicly and free of charge (no payments, contributions, tithes or special initiations), secondly – in an accessible and clear form (much is written and in detail) and finally and thirdly – the practices were given with unprecedented and boundless love nothing similar to which I have ever encountered in my life, despite my entire substantial experience in religious and esoteric searching.

Don’t trust those who say that spiritual practices don’t work – this is a lie. Don’t believe those who assert that such practices are unnecessary and you can manage without them. This point may surely emotionally affect many people, for time insufficiency and diverse life circumstances seem to deprive us of a chance to get in touch with the Spiritual World. However we should admit it’s totally up to us whether we choose some circumstances in the material illusion or the chance to leave for the Eternity. Some people hear a voice in their head every day, whispering they may combine spiritual practices and material routine. Perhaps, such combination is possible, but I somehow failed to maintain it in my own life, and so I made my choice in favour of the practical aspect. Moreover, in view of the aforesaid, I would like to make a statement that might seem coarse and too straightforward, but is definitely very easy to understand:

One who knows that spiritual practices represent an efficient tool and does not perform them is a mere fool.

I foresee indignation arising and counterarguments emerging, but wait a minute: if you are really “going to God”, while God is a deep inner feeling of Love, how do you intend to get deeper into that feeling if not through spiritual practice? Simply living your everyday life in a positive mood? Thank God if anybody manages it this way, but if you don’t this is a wonderful occasion to think about the reasons.

At that, “moralizing about spirituality” is a senseless thing. It’s much better and more useful to share experience, and this is exactly what I intended to do when I planned to write the article, while all the above text appeared unwittingly. Generally speaking, once I decided to get in tune for meditation in advance and obtained a marvellous result. The whole point of tuning was as follows:

First of all, I put myself in an elevated mood by imagining the New Year Eve or another inspirational holiday to come that day or night. It’s a ruse that enabled me to distract my attention from tiredness felt at the end of a working day or from boredom of the chain of humdrum existence days.

Now, let’s name the three pillars:

• I imagined this was the very last meditation in my life (thus motivating myself to concentrate attention as strongly as possible),

• I made my every effort to come off consciousness (persistent thoughts), owing to which I got a stronger feeling of the “here and now” moment,
• And, finally, I did my utmost to plunge into practice deeper than last time...

Such three motivational “crutches” can tear off any anchor, even if it has strongly stuck to bottom snags. I have checked this through my own experience. And there is another additional method which I will easily and happily share with you as well: “If you make no progress in a certain meditation and this really dispirits you, forget about time and try (at least once) to get in tune, sit down and perform it as well as you can, even if you need 30-40 minutes or a whole hour for that. Trust me the thing is worth the effort. It’s much better to perform a single meditation at the utmost than a dozen of techniques carelessly.”

These wonderful rules are described in the famous book, I haven’t invented them myself. Just try them. At a certain point they helped me a great deal, and maybe they’ll help you as well. Weigh all the earthly anchors and drive your beautiful high-speed frigate to the Eternity! Wish you a favourable wind!

Prepared by VN