Spiritual Development – It’s Not What You Do… But How You Do It.
What can you do to develop spiritually ?
Sometimes in life we can feel like we are doing the wrong thing or with the wrong person. The work that we are doing is not good enough or the person that we are in relationship with is not who we aspire to be with. Today I am going to be talking about spiritual development with men (and women) and in particular how it is not about what you do so much as how you do it.
It can be easy to look at Facebook, and at the media in general and somewhat feel discontented with our lot. It can seem that everyone else is doing better than us. The adverts on social media tell us that we need to be earning 6 figures while sat on a beach. And yet as we look at our surroundings that is not our reality. The pictures show happy, beautiful couples and yet we don’t feel happy in our relationships.
So what is the solution? What can we do when we are in a job, or any life situation that is not pleasing to us? What can you do to develop spiritually in this instance?
1. Where Are Your Projecting Your Unconscious Onto Others?
Firstly, it is good for you to see where you are projecting your unconscious onto others or onto what you are doing. So what does that mean? It means that so often people are grumpy in their present jobs or relationships and yet when they get a new job or partner, within a short space of time they are just as grumpy in that. It is not so much the job or life situation but the person that is carrying the grumpiness.
I remember a story from the Thai Forest tradition in the early days with Ajahn Chah. There was an English monk who came to visit Wat Pah Pong, the monastery where Ajahn Chah was training Western disciples. This monk started telling Ajahn Chah of all the great monasteries that he had stayed in in Asia, and then went on to talk about all their faults.
And within a few weeks this Western monk started to criticize and complain about Ajahn Chah and how badly he was running his own monastery. Ajahn Chah in response gave a teaching to say that sometimes people carry poo around in their bags. They move from one monastery to the next, and everywhere they go they start to smell poo. So they leave saying that the monastery smells of poo. They continue to move from place to place complaining of the same thing. But the reality is that they are the ones carrying the poo. Not the monastery.
So the work is to clean out the poo, to do the inner work so that you stop carrying your poo from place to place.
So notice in your own life where are you saying, “It smells!” when in fact it is you carrying the poo. If you find you are annoyed by the same type of person – angry, messy, rude, aggressive etc, know that this is probably a trait you have, “your poo”, that you do not see.
If this is you (it is most of us) then consciously choose to become aware of when you are starting to complain or project your habits and behaviors onto others. And restrain yourself.
2. Be Grateful For What You Do Have
So most of us have amazing lives, and yet we have trained ourselves not to notice this. It might be your job, your relationship, your life that you feel sucks. But does it really? What can you notice and focus upon within your job, or your relationship that is great?
The truth is that we have been trained to notice what is not working, but once you start to look at your life and your challenges you will see that there are many things to be grateful for.
Most of us say, “Oh, I’ll be grateful when I move jobs. Or I’ll be grateful when I change relationships.” And yet it doesn’t work like this. If you have trained yourself to focus on what is not working now, you will find more of what is not working in the next job, relationship, life experience and so on.
So your work is now. Focus on the great now. Change how you are feeling about your job now. Change how you feel about your partner now. And you do that by focusing on the good that is hidden. Take some time to find it and it will appear like gold. And suddenly you will start to see gold everywhere. This is spiritual development – finding the good in all.
3. It’s Not What You Do But How You Do It
Once you have really opened to gratitude and you have taken full responsibility for your life and stopped projecting it onto others, then the magic happens. You start to see that it is not so much what you are doing – for you can find the good in all things – but how you are doing it. It is not so much who you are with but how you are with them.
You start to be in relationship with kindness and with love. You start to work in your job with enthusiasm and compassion. You start to treat others like brothers and sisters with real presence and gratitude. And as you do your life flourishes and so does everyone you come into contact with.
Your life becomes a blessing and it no longer matters if you have the worst job in others eyes – you will embrace and love it. It will no longer matter if your husband or your wife is lazy you will adore them.
You will become the change that you have been looking for. And you will inspire those around you, and maybe they will change, but you know now that your job is you.
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