Having a spiritual or religious practice

Some of us may have a spiritual or religious practice that we perform daily, weekly, or on auspicious days. These practices vary, and it could include practices such as prayer, meditation, yoga, singing, doing pujas, performing prostrations, or even a combination of these.

On the surface, these actions may appear to be holy or spiritual, but are they really? Are we performing these actions, because we feel great love and devotion towards our Guru, God, or the Universe? Are we expressing love and gratitude when we perform these practices?

Let's use this article as an opportunity to check up!

Having clear motivations and intentions

Without knowing it, we may actually be trying to set up a kind of spiritual-transaction between ourselves and God or the Guru, feeling that we shall do the meditation and prayers and pujas, but we want something in return. Does this sound familiar? 

We pray because we want something or need something. When life goes smoothly, we forget our devotion towards The Divine, but when times get hard, we bend our heads and knees and ask for assistance or forgiveness. 

Another reason we may be doing these practices is out of fear. The fear of being sent to an 'eternal hell' after death. How many of us go to church on Sundays or do pujas and offerings on holy days, just 'in case'? Feeling that, if we are judged one day, at least we have these facts to back up our motivation for going to heaven! This may sound funny, yes, but is this not what some of us do? We pray or worship just out of fear of suffering in an eternal hell after death, or something similar.

Upon further internal investigation, we may recall that from time to time we get bored or discouraged with our spiritual practices. If this is the case, then we seriously have to check our intentions.

Let's consider the following...

If prayer truly comes from love and devotion, how can we get bored with it or see it as 'work' or time-consuming? Think of how it feels when we are in the presence of a loved one, especially when we are in love. We maintain eye contact all the time, our concentration is fully focused on this person and we give our undivided attention. We do not see this as 'effort', so why do we sometimes see it as 'effort' to dedicate a little bit of time towards God or our Gurus?

Our practices may also be driven by attachment. Due to the fact that we may have had some spiritual realization in the past or experienced some blissful energy, we tend to chase this experience. 

We start to chase a memory of a previous experience and end up being unfulfilled with our practice because we are not attaining the same 'results' as in the past. This happens to many of us once we had some kind of mystical experience. We want this experience again and again. Sometimes, we even get angry or frustrated that this experience does not repeat itself. Out of frustration or impatience, we start to demand the experience or the presence of God.

Lastly, we tend to get 'bored' with our prayers or practice because of our motivations. We have expectations of gaining something materialistic or even something spiritual such as a Kundalini experience, Moksha, or whatever it is.

We get impatient with God, and when we do not see immediate results, we get disappointed, discouraged, and completely stop our prayers or practices.

See, no patience at all...

A story of patience

Speaking about patience, a friend of the author shared a beautiful story. It goes something like this:

A small boy and his father went to a shop, and by the cashier was a big basket filled with chocolates. Of course, the boy placed his small hand into the basket and took some of the chocolates, but his father advised him to put the chocolates down. The boy was upset and did not obey his father. Again, the father told him to put the chocolates down. The boy did not understand why his father would not allow him to take the chocolates, and reluctantly put the chocolates back.

Then, before they left, his father placed his own hand into the basket and took a big handful of chocolates, and handed it to the boy. The boy was so happy and finally understood why his father told him to wait. His little hand could only take a few chocolates, but his father's hand could take much more. His patience was well rewarded.

So, with all that has been said above, we can now use this to apply some introspection into our own spiritual lives. If our intentions are pure and clear, our spiritual practice is sure to be one of love and devotion. Instead of having expectations, we can express our unconditional gratitude, love and devotion towards God or our Gurus!

A photo taken of a monk performing his spiritual practice.
Photo taken in Bodhgaya, 2018.