Finding The River by Sally Topham

Chapter 7

A Part of Something Greater: The Practice of Spirituality

People often get confused about the word “spirituality”, thinking it means believing in a specific religion. That’s not true. There are some folk who don’t follow any religion at all but who are deeply spiritual nevertheless. Such people have found their own way of expressing their beliefs, often through a blend of understandings drawn from various sources and personal experience.

Some people also make the mistake of thinking that becoming “spiritual” means they don’t have to deal with the darker sides of their nature. A number of spiritual teachings encourage an intense focus on our higher aspects at the expense of ignoring the more basic levels of our being. Any problems relating to hang ups, negative attitudes, money, sex and relationships, etc., don’t magically disappear when you start exploring your spirituality!

You see, any kind of spiritual unfolding is a process that is rather like building a house. The foundation has to be dug and laid before the construction can rise up out of the dust. And how do we get to have firm foundations? By becoming aware of our problems and difficulties and being prepared to work on them as required. That way, they’re less likely to jump out and push us off balance!

It’s a strange paradox, but the more we aspire to higher consciousness, the more we may encounter what is known as our “shadow” (a term describing the murkier side of ourselves which isn’t all sweetness and light)! Maybe you have come across instances of this already? For example, it shows up when people appear highly spiritual or deeply religious on the surface, but underneath they’re actually very critical and judgemental, or pompous, arrogant and “holier than thou”. This kind of attitude sneaks up on people and takes them unawares. It comes about through not being conscious of faults and projecting personal imperfections onto others.

Working on ourselves is therefore even more important if we want to explore our spiritual nature. If we only focus on our higher aspects and pay no attention to the lower ones, we’re de-stabilising the structure of “the building”. It’s hard to see this happening when we’re in the middle of the process, but it usually shows up through our attitudes and behaviour to others.

Everything we’ve covered so far in this book has been about basic understandings of body, mind and emotions, beginning to work with these levels, and learning ways to deal with stress and challenges. All this paves the way to exploring your spirituality—if you want to.

You’ve seen how your mind, body and emotions are interlinked and have begun to learn ways to keep them in balance. This helps towards gaining physical, mental and emotional well-being, which in turn supports your spiritual practise. As you develop your higher consciousness, it brings yourself and everything around you into a sense of connection and oneness. Increasing that level of consciousness helps you to live more in the present moment, and being in the here and now means there’s less worry and anxiety. With this comes a greater sense of well-being which helps you to be more grounded and centred. Round and round. No part of you functions in isolation because everything is connected to everything else. Nothing is separate. It’s all part of one whole thing!

But if you’re seeking a way into spirituality and don’t seem to be getting anywhere, where do you start?

Well, you may have already begun without knowing it.

Have you ever experienced a moment or time in your life where you found yourself doing something or being somewhere—perhaps out in Nature—and in that moment, everything seemed to be in flow? When out of the blue you suddenly felt the most incredible sense of peace and tranquillity? When you felt completely aligned with the Universe and that all was well in your world?

These blissful sensations are the very same feelings which have been described in just about every spiritual tradition as mystical or religious experiences. For thousands of years we’ve been told that these states are encounters with God/the Divine/the Supreme Consciousness/the One/the Universe—or whichever term you might choose to describe the essence or centre of existence.

Any experience of this nature is in fact yet another totally natural occurrence and most of us have had one at some point in our lives. These events don’t necessarily have any connection to traditional religions. They can happen to people from all walks of life, race, colour, creed or persuasion. And you don’t have to belong to a particular faith or religion to experience them. They can even happen to people who don’t have any spiritual leanings at all!

The commencement of one’s spiritual journey often begins this way. Mystical or meaningful events don’t tend to come in the form of some great bolt of lightning blasting down from the sky. They appear more frequently from a sudden opening of the heart, or a sense of stillness, peace and belonging.

These blissful sensations are openings or gateways into our spirituality and they can be triggered by all manner of things. They can arise through anything from music, dancing, and drumming to enjoying a peak sexual experience. They can come from being inside the awesome majesty of some great building or admiring the staggering beauty of a natural landscape. They can arise from extraordinary psychic or telepathic happenings or noticing synchronicities and co-incidences. They can occur during or after tragic situations, suffering and distress. They can also come through a sense of contact with some beloved person who has passed on or through channelling an inner guide. And they can, of course, also arise through earnest prayer and deep meditation.

Recognising these “gateways to bliss” is important, for if you’re not already aligned to some spiritual practise, they’re a very good starting point for you. Calling them to mind as often as possible can be very helpful.

If you’ve ever had one of those blissful moments of awe and wonder, Exercise 17 will help you build on the experience.

Exercise 17: Gateway Meditation

Spend a few moments following your breath and coming into your body.

Choose a special moment you recall that you identify as a “gateway to bliss”. Bring it back to mind with all the intensity you can muster. Really see the colours and the light. Hear the sounds. Feel the feelings. Remember the experience of connection and oneness it brought to you.

Notice the sensations you feel. Open your heart to them. Appreciate them and give thanks for this experience. Allow it to penetrate and melt into every part of your being—bones, muscles, cells, organs, brain. Breathe it in.

Let yourself float in it. Bathe in it. Be with it. Spend time in it. Soak it up! You may find that for brief moments, all thoughts disappear.

Stay with this for about 15 to 20 minutes, or as long as you can.

Then slowly bring your attention back into the room and feel the connection between your body and where you are sitting. Become aware of the sounds in the room. Open your eyes gently and stay sitting for a short while afterwards, reflecting on what you’ve just experienced.

Exercise 17 is by William Bloom.

This is a good way of anchoring these feelings. Do it often. Use other similar experiences in the same way.

If you haven’t had any blissful experiences, just take yourself back to “Exercise 1: The Magic of Memory and Imagination” or to “Exercise 2: Creating a Safe Place Within Yourself”. Choose whichever feels most powerful and practise it often. Don’t have any preconceived ideas about where it might take you. Just let it unfold and, above all, enjoy it!

That feeling of connection and belonging is enormously comforting and gives us a sense of being part of something else. It can provide welcome inner support and much comfort. In times of crisis, it’s a well-researched fact that people with spiritual beliefs often tend to cope better with challenges than those without any. When logic doesn’t provide any answers, spiritual beliefs and understandings can bring solace and meaning to difficult times.

Exercise 18: Uplifting and Unburdening the Heart is a meditation to help in times of trouble, whether it be trauma or crisis or lesser problems. It immediately links you with those blissful moments we’ve already encountered, and helps you to find strength and uplift. It’s adapted from a very ancient practise that comes from Tibet.

Exercise 18: Uplifting and Unburdening the Heart

Begin by going back in your mind to the gateway that gave you the greatest sense of connection to bliss. Imagine yourself there, quiet and peaceful. Allow yourself to feel the full experience of uplift and oneness it gave you. As best you can, according to your emotional state at the time, allow those blissful feelings to soak into you.

Now imagine a brilliant blue summer sky above the scene you’re remembering. Bring into it a representation of the Divine or the Universe or anything which you feel embodies the essence of that connection. This could be a religious figure like Jesus, Mary, the Buddha or Krishna, etc. If this doesn’t feel right for whatever reason, don’t worry. Instead, bring to mind an image of the sun or a star or a cloud of light, or some other powerful image that feels appropriate.

Whatever you choose, know that you’ve invoked an image which is totally benevolent, compassionate, loving and healing. Open your heart to it and tell it all your troubles. Describe everything that’s giving you pain, anxiety and distress. Pour out your heart to it. Don’t hold back. You won’t be judged for anything you might say.

As you start speaking or praying to this image, visualise it giving out a stream of radiant white light. Know that this light is both transforming and healing. Know that its power is immense and can heal and purify you from any kind of block, difficulty, trauma, or crisis.

Imagine this radiant light becoming brighter and more brilliant the more you unburden yourself.

Imagine this light pouring into the crown of your head and streaming down inside, filling up every part of you with its brilliance. Imagine it washing out all your troubles and pain. As you keep asking for help and guidance, the blazing light may eventually cascade over you like a great waterfall.

Continue telling it all your woes until you begin to feel a sense of peace descending upon you. As this happens, allow yourself to relax and feel the bliss of this great love and healing you’re receiving.

Allow yourself to melt into the embrace of this love. Then imagine you’re able to lift yourself effortlessly off the ground and float up into that great blue summer sky and meet that image you chose. Imagine yourself embracing that image. If it’s a figure, see yourself curled up in its lap, head against its shoulder, enfolded in its arms. If you chose the sun or a beautiful star, imagine yourself curled up comfortably and safely in its centre, enfolded in its loving and gentle light. Stay there for as long as you need.

Come back slowly and gently into your body. Sit for a while and take stock of how you’re feeling. Notice how it feels in your head. Notice how it feels in your heart. Notice how it feels in your belly. Don’t be in a hurry to get back into everyday things.

Exercise 18 is derived from a meditation described by Andrew Harvey in his book The Direct Path.

Use this exercise whenever you need it. The more you practise it, the easier it becomes. After you’ve established how much it can help, and you can access it quite easily, you can develop a shortened version of it for lesser problems. In this case, take yourself directly to the image you chose and allow its light to pour into you as you tell it your problems. Then, as soon as you’ve finished unburdening yourself, rise up towards it and become enfolded within its healing presence. This meditation can teach you trust in a higher power. It can help you find solace and relief from all difficulties and sorrows whenever you wish.

The longer version is particularly powerful and helpful in times of great distress.

If you’ve already established a spiritual practise and have been meditating for some time, you may have found that every now and again thoughts disappear for a moment or two and you slip into a kind of gap in your consciousness. In these small spaces, there’s no sense of the passage of time. Twenty minutes may feel like only five. You may also find you’re experiencing something subtly different about yourself.

At these points, you could have a sense of what Deepak Chopra describes as the place, “…where ‘me’ and ‘not me’ peacefully co-exist within the same mind.” We sometimes get a sense of this in ordinary life. It usually happens quite out of the blue. You might be engaged in doing something when quite suddenly there’s a part of you that’s like a fly on the wall, watching yourself. Have you ever had that happen to you?

Well, this is an occurrence that is found much more frequently in meditation practises. And it’s a valuable inborn ability that is well worth developing. It’s the part of us that is naturally able to be quiet, still, detached, observant and utterly NOW. This aspect of ourselves is known as “The Witness”.

Exercise 19 is a meditation technique which helps you to develop that “witness” ability.

Exercise 19: Moon, Lake, Reflection Meditation

Close your eyes and follow your breath for long enough to quiet yourself and become centred and in your body.

Now imagine that it is night time, and you’re sitting beside a calm, peaceful lake in the moonlight. See the lake in your mind’s eye.

See a bright silver crescent moon shining above the lake in the night sky.

Now turn your attention to the reflection of the moon in the water, and put all your focus into looking at that for about 5 minutes.

Imagine you are watching yourself doing this. You’re watching yourself beside the lake looking at the reflection of the moon in the water. Give this all your focus and attention. Stay with this for about 5 minutes.

Now, ask yourself this question, “Who is watching and who is meditating? Is it the meditator who watches? Is it the watcher who meditates?”

Contemplate these questions.

As you do this, switch back and forth between the meditator and the watcher and spend around 3 to 5 minutes with each of them. Keep doing this for a little until you naturally find your focus settling down to either your contemplation of the question or watching yourself watching the reflection of the moon. Stay with this until your meditation time is up (around 15 to 20 minutes—or longer if it happens that way).

Slowly come back into the room and into your body. Breathe and stretch and wiggle you hands, fingers, toes and feet. Note how you’re feeling in mind and body and don’t be in a hurry to move.

Keep repeating this exercise every few days for about a month. It’s helping you learn how to become reflective, still and contemplative. It also increases your self-awareness. Go back to it whenever these qualities need strengthening.

You can take this meditation out into your everyday life in pleasant, easy ways. For example, watch the reflection of a sunset on the waves, or light dancing on the waters of a pond in your local park. Ask yourself: Who is watching you doing this? Alternatively, when you wake up after remembering a dream, ask yourself who was watching the dreamer dream?

Spirituality is a vast subject and I can only brush the surface of it here. In the space available, all I can provide is a brief overview, a few guidelines and meditations, and a glimpse of how this level of our being completes the overall picture of our human potential.

I hope the following suggestions will also be useful for helping you on your way:

• Be guided by your instinct. If you’re drawn to something, investigate it. If you find someone who sounds like an interesting teacher, go along and hear what they have to say. Take your time before you make a commitment to anyone or anything.

• Don’t forget to look around at other things as well. Try to develop an overview.

• Be prepared for the fact that spiritual matters may not always give you the clear answers you’re expecting. Giving yourself permission to not know sometimes can help you remain open.

• Remember that personal and spiritual growth happens on lots of different levels. Sometimes it may feel as though it’s all happening at once and sometimes you may think it isn’t happening at all! But I promise you, something is always happening on some level. Remember, for each person, it’s an utterly unique and individual process. Don’t compare yourself with others!

• Don’t forget how important it is to deal with the nitty-gritty of your emotions. As William Bloom says, “If you don’t consciously manage your emotions then your emotions will manage you!”

Spirituality doesn’t have to be “other-worldly.” Any spiritual practises you choose to do can become part of your daily life. Even meditation can turn into a routine as normal as cleaning your teeth!

Watch out for any teachers who give you the impression they have all the answers. Believe me, no one has all the answers! Some spiritual teachers tend to set themselves above ordinary folk. And whilst they may have a lot of knowledge and be very wise, please remember they are human beings just like you and me!

Teachers who are able to display transparency about their own shortcomings and challenges are a real plus!

There’s a difference between wanting to become deeply embedded in your spirituality and just being interested in it. You have the choice! If you’re really serious, then you need to practise daily until it becomes part of your everyday life and rhythm. It’s like learning to use a computer! You’ll never get the hang of it unless you sit down and work with it and learn all the commands and techniques! You don’t have to live in a cave, but you do have to be prepared to make a commitment.

Let your spiritual practise be part of your life. I don’t mean that you have to become obsessive, monk-like or evangelical. It’s perfectly possible to express your spirituality in a calm, open-hearted and gentle way. It can help you to access inner peace, trust a higher power, develop a compassionate attitude towards yourself and others, and feel connected, grounded and part of something greater.

OM SHANTI, SHANTI, SHANTI

Peace, peace, peace