The Spiritual Life Is Practical
The spiritual life is a practical life. If you're not practical, you're never going to realize God—that is, union with Me. You must be practical. People like to read books and listen to tapes. They enjoy it all the time. But that's not practical enough. You must live the truth. And it's no good saying you don't know what the truth is, that that's what you're looking for—because that's an abstraction. You're looking for an abstraction. And the Spirit is not abstract. The Spirit begins with what is practical.
How do you do this? If you are reading my books, or coming to be with me, or listening to my tapes—you have to find something that is said that is true in your experience. Then you have to live it. And I suggest the best way to start is to see whether your life is right now. That's one of the pillars of my teaching. To ask you: Is your life right?
It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been with me—I’ll keep asking the same question. Because the situation changes, and sometimes we put up with things when our life is not right. We make excuses for it. But if your life is not right, you’ve got to identify where it’s not right. And that will be where you have an emotional involvement. You should have no emotions about any part of your life.
Look inside yourself. Do I have an emotional reaction to anything or about anything in my life now? There’s a knowledge in you, if you look honestly across your experience. That’s why you have what’s called a reflective mind—to look over your life. You’ll see where you are emotional. Where you have emotional involvement. That’s where you’re not straight. That’s where you’re not being true.
Here’s another part of it: Are you fighting? Are you in a situation you’re fighting instead of taking right action? Are you fighting the situation you’re in? Are you fighting yourself? Because if you fight, you cannot win.
You have to give up the fighting. And yet fighting is so deeply conditioned in us—by our parents, our teachers, and our society—that we fight without even knowing we’re fighting. But in the spiritual life, if you fight, you cannot win. So what do you do? You surrender. That’s the practical action. If you can’t take intelligent action to get out of a situation, then you must surrender. That’s the practical way.
So if you're with a partner and always arguing, what do you do about that? First, stop fighting. Stop arguing. Even if it kills you inside, close your mouth. Don't have the last word. Don’t say it. Just don’t say it. Then you might be able to see straight about what to do next. But if you keep fighting, you won’t see straight. The situation will likely go on and on and on.
You are responsible for your life. Me—the intelligence inside—is the cause of your life. And you’ve got to handle what I’m saying. Are you fighting? Are you in conflict? Give up the fighting. That’s the beginning of energy. That’s the beginning of change.
Don’t say, “I don’t know what’s wrong with my life.” You do. The only thing is—you’re not being honest. You’re not looking. Or you’re looking and still fighting. But if you were practical, you’d stop. You’d see what’s happening. And maybe, just maybe, your surrender would change the whole situation.
That’s why I say the spiritual life is practical. It’s not about ideas. It’s not about getting emotional over beautiful truths. It’s not about holding onto your personal suffering and calling it spiritual. It’s about doing something. It's about letting go. It's about living rightly—clearly, cleanly, without emotional entanglement.
That’s how you come to Me. That’s how you come to the truth. That’s how you begin to Be. And that’s what this life is for.
Soul