There is normally a gap between how we desire to live and how we actually spend our days, weeks, months, and years. The Tantric practitioner yearns to feel their Divine purpose and live a meaningful life. And yet, they live immersed in the world amongst other people, entertainment, and endless distractions that can potentially take them away from their spiritual practice. Creating a schedule that balances our day-to-day program (such as work, rest, and the need for love and connection), with a committed spiritual practice, can be a big challenge. We can feel torn between living a “normal life” and living the “spiritual life”.
It is important for us to understand the relationship that we have with time. Time can be taken for granted. Without much consciousness of time passing, it flows on, and at the end of each day we either feel satisfied or disappointed with what unfolded during our waking hours. To avoid feeling disappointment at the end of the day, it is often suggested to plan our day in advance and then to strictly adhere to the schedule. A Tantric, however, wants to live from the heart, and not be limited and determined by rigid frameworks constructed by the mind.
Consider Your Relationship With Time
The great Tantric Buddhist Milarepa once said: “If I start to cook a meal and die afterwards, I would be sad because I had spent that hour cooking instead of meditating”. The way that we use time ultimately defines our life. We can become caught up in all sorts of circumstances, believing them to be very important, and yet we could die at any moment.
What can we do? We can enter a state of lucidity and observe what we are doing from moment to moment. Are we using the moments of our life in a conscious way? Are we living wisely, or are we frittering our time away on meaningless junk?
How to Lead a Spiritual Life?
Living a spiritual life means using as many moments of the day as possible for intentional growth and transformation. It means prioritizing our purpose, as well as true love and connection. Conscious investment in any of these aspects of our life will help to create a bounteous inner feeling of living with meaning.
We need to grow in awareness and assume full responsibility for what we are choosing to do with every moment of this precious life. Even if life circumstances are not favourable, there is always an opportunity to turn the situation into something that is transformative and meaningful. The Tantric practitioner embraces both pleasure and pain as gateways to growing in consciousness.
Spiritual Growth
Our level of investment in our daily practice will determine how brightly our spiritual path is burning. One hour of conscious spiritual practice a day will mean that we are surviving spiritually. Two hours of conscious spiritual practice a day will mean that we are maintaining our level and that we will see some sparks of transformation.
Three hours of spiritual practice a day will bring steady transformation. Four hours of spiritual practice will give signs of clear transformation and five hours will put us on the fast track. Investing seven hours of time or more will provide exponential spiritual growth.
Conclusion
In order to live a meaningful life we need to use our time in a meaningful way. This means focusing on growth, transformation, purpose, and love, in as many moments as possible. We should take full responsibility for how we choose to invest our time.
We can check in with ourselves regularly and ask if we could be spending our time more wisely. We can ask ourselves, “How can I experience a life that is vivid, bright, full of enthusiasm and happiness, blissful, peaceful, and with an ever growing consciousness?”.
Transcribed and edited by Andreja from: