Continued from the article What is Spiritual Evolution - Part 1

Dissolving the Mental Clouds of Illusion

To enhance your understanding of spiritual evolution, envision a sky filled with clouds. In the midst of the swirling clouds there is a little patch of blue, a fragment of sky, so to speak, that gives the impression that the sky has become small and miserable, and is ever unstable and changing because of the movement of the swirling clouds. As the clouds begin to dissipate, the patch of blue expands and you may be tempted to say, "Now that patch of blue is evolving." And if all the clouds have gone - and you look at THE sky in its wholeness - you may feel the patch of blue has attained its highest evolution. All the while, however, nothing has really happened to the sky. From the point of view of the sky, it is always the same.

Similarly, mind is like the swirling clouds and the Eternal Spirit within, the Divine Self, is like the sky. Human instability, limitation and bondage exist because of the mind. Evolution is merely a clearing away of the mental clouds of ignorance so that the essential Self - ever eternal, immutable - is gradually revealed.

What Is Mind?

In Yoga philosophy, mind is considered different from the brain and nervous system. The brain and nervous system are the media through which mind operates. Mind is subtler. So therefore, even when your body dies, mind is there, ready to draw matter, ready to create another embodiment through which it can operate.

When you begin to understand that mind is different from your brain and nervous system, you no longer tell yourself, "Oh, I'm in my forties; therefore, it is natural for me to start forgetting things. Soon I'll be fifty; naturally the brain cells are degenerating and my hands will shake, and my feet will move awkwardly."

Rather, you must understand that mind has endless powers. If you know and live by that philosophy, your mind goes on advancing. Look at great men like Mahatma Gandhi. As time passed, his mind became more and more brilliant. Similarly, if you are evolving spiritually, as time passes the mind becomes stronger and stronger, and the spirit shines brighter and brighter.

As a spiritual aspirant, you must constantly remind yourself that your task is to learn how to tackle the mind. Body you are not; so do not worry about bodily needs beyond what is practical. The body must be kept healthy and strong through nutritious food and exercise - all that is important. But body is not all. The focus of your attention should be the mind.

Opening the Window Within Your Heart

Suppose you are living in a house that is built on a scenic height overlooking the ocean. However, due to some personal reason, you have kept all windows closed and surrounded yourself with paintings of flowers and mountains and the beautiful ocean. If, one day, you decided to draw aside the curtain, open one of the windows and look out, you would experience a tremendous sense of joy and expansion. Much in the same manner, when you start practicing Yoga, and you learn to calm your mind through meditation and reflection, it is like opening the window to a great view of expansion that was long overlooked, but was always there to be enjoyed.

Most people normally have a highly distracted mind, and trying to calm that mind doesn't seem like a tangible project Rather, everything else seems tangible: thinking about social life or the foods you want to eat or the many I chores you must perform. But that most important need of learning how to calm the mind is ignored.

Use the Present Moment Well

If you are sincerely interested in controlling and calming your mind, do not develop a sense of contradiction with the conditions and situations that come to you in life. Whatever situation you find yourself in now has come to you on the basis of a Divine Plan - and it is best suited for your evolution. If you were to start to promote spirituality within yourself in day-to-day life without developing a sense of contradiction with the world around you, that self effort puts you on the right footing for spiritual advancement

Do not think, "Only when I have more time will I learn to meditate. Right now my situation is not good. So let me wait." Rather, right now is the best time to begin your self-effort. Everything about the present moment has been well-planned for your evolution.

You may say, "Well, I can understand how happy situations and positive things are wonderful for me. But how can adversity, misery, trouble help me to evolve?" The fact is that all conditions are part of the Divine Plan for you - even your troubles. It is through trouble and adversity that you summon up the greatest resources of your heart by entering deep within yourself. The growth of a rosebush is assisted by its thorns. If you take away the thorns from the rosebush, there will be no rose. Take away adversities from your life and there will be no rose of spiritual advancement.

Therefore, it is important never to develop a sense of contradiction with your life. Every situation has a meaning; so wait and watch. In adversity do not let your mind sink in gloom. Ego may find a situation extremely painful - but turn to the spirit within yourself and you will find it smiling.

With this understanding, begin to adapt and adjust yourself to life's daily situations and you will find you have abundant time for the spiritual practices which will lead you to Self-realization.

Transforming the Unconscious

Spiritual advancement requires an overhauling of your unconscious. Consciously you may say, "All right, I heard all this and I like the whole idea and from tomorrow I'm going to advance spiritually. And I will not go back to my old attitudes ever again." But that idea is a sentimental idea; it is not practical - because you are not handled by your conscious mind. A conscious resolve is wonderful, but you have to wait until your unconscious understands it. And that process requires repeated effort.

A short duration of time is all that is needed to begin meditation. And even though you may not know the techniques of meditation, learn to relax yourself. Think of God in any way you wish. Open your heart in prayer.

In Yogic practice there is a special way of helping to calm your mind and transform your unconscious which is called Japa, or repetition of Mantra. You adopt a Divine Name, according to your religious or personal preference, and repeat it with feeling and growing understanding of its deeper implications.

You can adopt a Sanskrit Mantra like OM, or one of the Mantras hallowing the name of Rama, Krishna, Jesus, or any other representation of God that has special meaning for you. Having adopted a Mantra, you repeat it for fifteen minutes or half an hour everyday.

While repeating the Divine Name, try to feel that it is like a psychic sugar candy, sweetening your mind. With each repetition, feel you are touching God within you and affirm: "God is with me. God is the innermost me." Even though your repetition of Mantra may seem mechanical in the beginning, as you begin to advance, it will give you increasing joy and peace.

So each time you do a little prayer, a little Japa, a little meditation you are creating impressions that enter your unconscious and begin to transform it. The unconscious that has been constantly receiving impressions of distraction and agitation now receives impressions of harmony, peace, silence, Satsanga (good association). And that creates a tremendous change.

That change, however, is not always easily visible externally. If you try to evaluate your spiritual progress by observing externals, you may become fooled at times.

Suppose you start practising Yoga and meditation and externally things seem to become worse instead of better. Do not be frightened; things are not what they seem to be. What happens is your sensitivity increases. If you lack good eyesight, when you look around your house to inspect it, you will find your house perfectly clean and free of dust. But suppose one day a doctor comes and starts improving your vision. Now when you inspect your house, you see all the dust around-and you begin to shout in anger at the doctor!

A serious aspirant on the path to liberation must never go after a "smooth ride." Never think, "Now that I have been initiated into meditation, everyday I am going to be better and better. Today I am flying high; tomorrow I will fly a little higher. Today I have a rosy color before my eyes; tomorrow I will see brilliant colors. And many more wonderful things are coming without interruption."

If you have that type of expectation you have not understood the real nature of spiritual movement and you will be frustrated. Spiritual movement will make you more sensitive, and sensitivity brings its own problems. But don't be afraid. God brings you problems, but He also gives you the strength to move through them and dissolve them. You begin to discover an inner strength that you never knew you had. No matter what problems may arise, you have a Divine Hand guiding you through. You do not have to worry.

In the old days, when simple, unsophisticated villagers entered a train, they kept the baggage right on their heads. Only sometime later did they realize that the baggage could also be carried by the train. Similarly, in this world everyone carries the baggage of problems and worries right on their head, without realizing that the Divine Plan is taking care of everything.

You do not have to carry the load. During the night, hours pass by and you are not carrying any load-and nothing really suffers. But consciously, in the waking state, you cannot set the load down. That is the tremendous paradox in human life.

Practising Integral Yoga

Allowing yourself to evolve spiritually, with a sense of security that the Divine Hand is sustaining you, requires a  patient and balanced form of persistent self-effort. It is not necessary to do gigantic or miraculous things. That concept, stops many people from taking up the spiritual path. They begin to think, "In order to be spiritual I must be like Christ. But Christ was crucified. Am I ready for it? No! Or I should be like Mahatma Gandhi. Well he fasted for forty days. Can I fast? No." If you think in this way, you have not understood , the essence of spiritual evolution.

Rather, you must evolve a daily pattern of harmoniously blended spiritual discipline. Do not go to extremes. If your meditation seems joyous, do not close up your office and stay meditating the whole day. But keep up your meditation, Japa, and prayer little by little, day by day.

And while doing your duties, do not think that your work in the world is something outside the realm of spirituality. Every work you do no matter what it is or where you do it - is all related to the Divine creator. In every work you are worshiping or loving God. This attitude converts action into Karma Yoga: action performed with a sense of worship, a sense of purifying selflessness. Your actions should not be governed by the thought, "What am I going to get out of it? How quickly can I do it so that I can just sit down in an easy chair and enjoy comfort?" Rather, enjoy doing what you have to do and consider every work that comes as an opportunity to serve God.

If that type of attitude were to develop, performing your duties would help your mind to relax and become joyous. But if you are constantly thinking, "How boring! There are people who have better work than I. They simply sit in their chairs and move their fingers around. But I have to do all this labor, and push the dirt around." If you continue thinking in this direction, your life becomes filled with misery. But when you realize the true dignity and meaning of action, your life becomes filled with joy and inner fulfillment.

No action you perform should be done for securing anything external. External things are incidental. Perform, actions because they allow your life to flow and not be stagnant. A stagnant river becomes muddy. Stagnation is death to the river. Similarly, stagnation is death to human life. Begin to understand the beauty of action, and to relate the action to a Divine purpose-purification of your mind. Embellished by this sublime attitude, your action becomes ! Karma Yoga.

As your actions are transformed in this manner, gradually feelings of devotion begin to develop. You begin to love God while performing actions, no matter where you are. A mother loves her child no matter where she is or what she is doing. She does not have to set aside a special time to love him. Similarly, when God becomes a source of great joy, within your heart, automatically your mind flows towards God at all times. That aspect of spiritual movement is called Bhakti Yoga, the Yoga of devotion.

As your mind begins to advance still more, you learn the art of making the mind calm and tranquil through the practice of meditation, and your reason begins to shine brighter. You begin to understand that the real you is not the body, and eventually you become rooted in the knowledge that you are spirit.

When this knowledge dawns, you are no longer pressured by the constant suggestion that has been poured into your mind since birth that you are the body. People always point to your body, suggesting that the physical entity is you. And that creates a terrible type of hypnosis. But, through reflection, you de-hypnotize yourself to understand "  I am not the body. I am essentially one with the Divine Self."

If, in your daily life, you learn these four secrets - how to perform your duties with a right attitude (Karma Yoga), how to love God while performing all your duties (Bhakti Yoga), how to keep the mind meditative and relaxed (Raja Yoga), and how to understand "who am I?" (Jnana Yoga) - then you are practising Integral Yoga in an excellent manner. As you successfully blend these four Yogas - action, devotion, meditation and reflection - your daily life becomes a forceful process of spiritual advancement.

To be helped in this direction you need Satsanga - people coming together to listen to teachings which ignite in their mind the fire of aspiration, which awaken spiritual energies that are already there within you waiting to be awakened. Armed with spiritual aspiration born of Satsanga, and fortified by your increasing ability to practise Integral Yoga in a harmonious way, you begin to promote a dynamic spiritual evolution.

Measuring Spiritual Progress

As spiritual evolution advances, Divine qualities such as contentment, serenity of mind, and fearlessness develop. If you find these qualities increasing in you, that means you are advancing spiritually. But if you find insecurity and fear increasing, there is some error in your movement.

Spiritual evolution is not measured by the development of psychic powers or the appearance of psychic phenomena. It is measured by the development of Divine qualities within your personality. If someone were to call you names - a donkey, for instance! - and if you are not upset, if you are able to keep your mind balanced, that is a mark of spiritual evolution. If an adversity threatens you and you are able to keep your patience better than you were able to do before, then that is a mark of spiritual evolution. Five years ago, every little thing may have agitated your mind and each time you were agitated your agitation lasted for three days. Today your agitation lasts only for a day. That is remarkable evolution!

So, when you finish meditating, do not look around you for something amazing, such as an aura suddenly surrounding you or a light coming out of your head. These things exist in their own way, but do not go after them. In evaluating your spiritual movement, the important points to consider are the development of Divine qualities, ability to master the mind and control your moods, and the discovery of more patience and faith within your heart. If these are being developed you are steadily advancing - and you will find that the whole world becomes your temple.

The highest state of spiritual evolution is reached when you realize, not intellectually, but intuitionally, that you are one with God. You are like the sun, shining in every heart. You are the Universal Self, and your heart in that state pulsates with compassion for all. You become a saint, a sage, a Divinely realized person. In that state Karma stops.

A sage lives his daily life on the basis of Prarabhdha Karma - the Karmic process which was already in motion when he attained enlightenment, and which must exhaust itself. But after death, his spirit will not come back in a new embodiment, because it has become universalized. That is called Liberation.

That state of Liberation - attaining universality within your heart, attaining Oneness with God - is the goal of every individual and the destiny of all. It may not be attained in one birth, it may not be attained in many births - but that is your destiny and you will attain it. Just as every river must enter the ocean, every individual must attain liberation, and that is how the world flows on.

May God bless you with Liberation!