The importance of Daily Spiritual Routines

Again this weekend, I have had several deep insights that I feel compelled to share.

The deepest follows on from my visit to India in February 2008, and attending a conference, and resonating with one particular paper that was presented.

My professional work, since 1993, has been in the area of knowledge management, and I have always kept my professional writings and my spiritual writings separate.

At the conference, the speaker from India eloquently linked yoga and meditation, and the traditional values of the Indic culture and ancient knowledge systems, to knowledge management, as a personal tool to accelerate learning and give greater acces to subconscious, or even superconscious, knowledge and wisdom.

It blew me away, because it 'legitimised' and united the two streams of professional and spiritual in ways I had always intuited myself, but never quite verbalised in the same way.

It enabled me to see my daily spiritual routine and daily professional routine in a much better way.

But it did much more than that!

It made me realise the importance of 'daily' spiritual routines.

In particular, I realised again, that if you don't meditate daily, it's like wearing the same clothes without washing them. Eventually, they become dirtier and heavier. This is what happens to the Mind. Meditation is like washing. Each time we put the garment in the water it becomes cleaner, as the dirt is washed away.

If we wash regularly enough, the garment is always clean.

The Mind is like this. If we meditate, it is a cleansing and purifying of the Mind.
There are always rogue thoughts and events that can affect our natural state of tranquility, but if we meditate, we can deal with them properly. If we do not, these thoughts may get hold and our mind becomes less pure, less clean.

I guess I like the metaphor of continually needing to 'weed the garden'.
Stop regular weeding routines and see what happens when the weeds take over.

A pure Mind is naturally and unconditionally loving and compassionate and healthy. So are our resulting attitudes, thoughts and actions. An unpure Mind can become fearful and unloving. It's the same with our attitudes and actions.

I must wash my clothes regularly. I must clean my house regularly. I must weed my garden regularly.

I must purify and clean my Mind regularly.

A regular daily spiritual routine that, includes meditation, does that for me.

Ron Young

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