More and more people today are curious about yoga. They try a few classes here and there and it feels great! They become more enthusiastic and commit to weekly classes, but what comes after that? There is a schism between the reality of daily life and the way that we feel in the yoga class.
Participating in more classes and occasional retreats we find the contrast is increasing even more. How can we pour yoga into all the spaces in our consciousness? Into all the moments “in-between” so that there are no more gaps and the state of yoga becomes continuous in all our activities.
Stages of Engagement on the Spiritual Path
There are several stages of our involvement in spiritual practice. We will name the first 4 and focus on the “How?” regarding the transition between the 4th and 5th stages.
1 – seldom spiritual (fake spiritual, social spiritual)
3 – spiritual tourist (wants to find the path, but hasn’t found one yet)
4 – devotee (devote themselves to a path, they’ve chosen the path, but still the worldly life is the center and the spiritual path is in second place)
5 – spiritual disciple (the struggling sadhaka as it’s called in the Indian tradition)
Transition from the Devotee to the Disciple Stage
In the devotee stage, we are in relationship with the spiritual path, but we are married to the worldly life; to family, society, money… We eventually move from there to the stage of a disciple where spirituality is the core of our life. It comes to a point when we are going to a monastery or to an ashram, somewhere away from the world.
On the tantric path where we aim to conquer our daily life and to make it spiritual, the journey might look a little bit different. You can go to a monastery for some years and you can be a full-on tantric also in a monastery. There were and still are today many tantric monasteries including ashrams. Even life in that ashram would be more vivid. If it is a left-hand tantric ashram it means that there would be a love life, there would be romantic couples.
So it can be done in that way by living in an ashram and then devoting yourself and working as a karma yogi, or it can be done by living in the world and having a regular job with an income, paying your bills, and returning to your apartment at the end of the day. But that would mean moving into the state of full-time yoga in which you learn to do spiritual practice while you are engaged in your daily life.
How can I Keep Living My Ordinary Life and Still Give my Spiritual Growth First Place?
There are techniques that are given in our weekly tantra course in which we begin to turn every conversation, every act, into a spiritual practice.
There are “micro techniques” in which, for example, you can do all sorts of meditations when you drive. There are particular meditations when you walk, when you speak to people, or when you work. The Vijnana Bhairava Tantra and the teachings of Gurdjieff are full of such techniques.
In the early stages of becoming a spiritual disciple there is a struggle, you really have to make an effort to bring spirituality into your daily life, into everything:
- When you speak to your mother on the phone you bring an immense love as a spiritual practice.
- When you go to the shop you really connect heart-to-heart with the shopkeeper.
- When you are having an argument you find profound silence inside the argument. Deep deep silence. You get angry – you find silence in the anger – and you still are angry. This is the tantric path. The anger is alchemized, and in this way, we can spread the spiritual practice until it enters every segment of our waking life.
Delivering Newspapers as a Spiritual Practice
In the first few years when I was practising tantra yoga somebody close to me was in need of financial support. So I went back to Israel and had many jobs in order to make a lot of money. In that situation, I needed to start work at 3:30 am. From about 3:30 in the morning until 6:00 when I would finish I would do a very soft breathing exercise, continuously.
After two and a half hours of delivering newspapers, I would sit and close my eyes and just be. I would enter a state of utter bliss. I would walk a little slowly up the stairs because I had to breathe in a certain way. Just going and doing everything with a state of real spiritual practice. Having the attention constantly directed inside and my work became a wonderful spiritual practice. An ecstatic spiritual practice.
You can repeat mantras and in this way, or do many other practices. In this way work can become a wonderful spiritual practice. This is what Tantra is about and this is what texts like the Vijnana Bhairava Tantra and others are about.
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What has helped you to make a quantum leap on the spiritual path? Share with us your favourite technique that can be applied during daily activities or in idle moments (waiting at the bus stop or traffic lights, queuing at the cashier etc). We also welcome your questions and look forward to meeting you at one of our many workshops, retreats and courses.
This article was transcribed and edited by Adriana from the following video: