Credit: Elephantjournal.com
I’ve written a lot about the benefits of getting out and being active, and an active lifestyle is recommended for anyone who wants to raise their vibration or get the most out of life.
Keeping active is a great way to keep the spirit moving through us, and a lot of creative people rely on exercise to help them reach the clear state of mind that helps them flow.
While we’re encouraged to routinely enter into the silence and nothingness of the sacred self, which meditation (along with other things) helps us do, we don’t have to avoid being active just to spiritually evolve.
In fact, we might hold ourselves back if we try so hard to embody nothingness that we keep ourselves from doing things that lighten our vibration. I’m learning that being passionate about our work is important, and exercise can be a great way to ignite the fire and rekindle the passionate spark we sometimes lose.
It’s easy to lose the spark that helps us feel passionate, but rekindling it doesn’t have to be as difficult as we sometimes make it out to be in our minds. All we have to do is get excited about the things we have to do each day, and an active, impassioned lifestyle can help.
I’m starting to think passionate creativity is one of the most potent avenues into a higher state of consciousness, and the more passionate we are about our work, the more we can creatively flow.
“Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can’t help them, at least don’t hurt them.”
― Dalai Lama XIV (1)
Similarly, the more passionate we are about our meditations or anything else we do to explore our consciousness, the more we’ll perceive – as long as we’re willing to quiet the mind. I don’t know if there’s a grey area between quieting the mind and being passionate, but if there is, we might want to find it.
It helps to get out to nature and let the earth’s natural beauty relight our spark, and the interesting thing about nature is that it can excite us while simultaneously helping us quiet the mind and anchor the spirit.
I think there is some way to be quiet in the mind yet passionate about our work or whatever task we have to do, and maybe passion itself is a route to a quieted mind or ego. If you think about it, the mind and ego aren’t active in the traditional sense when we’re passionate about something.
Credit: Mindbodygreen.com
They’re active in a more constructive, progressive sense, and their destructive aspects are relatively quiet. Maybe cultivating passion for our work is a great way to quiet the mind or, at the very least, reroute its constant need for activity in a way that’s progressive and can help others along their path.
Either way, exercise helps us rekindle our spark. It’s a great way to become passionate about our work, our meditations, and everything else we do in our short time on this world, and for this reason alone, I think we’d benefit from embracing it.
There’s so much we can achieve in the name of spirit and raising humanity’s consciousness, but beyond the necessity to empty the mind and ‘become nothing’, we’ll have to have some passion if we want to do anything real or significant.
I know I’ve said this a lot, and it’s because it’s a very relevant theme in my life. I notice that if I don’t exercise before I sit down to write or if I’m not very enthusiastic about writing, the words and expressions don’t flow as smoothly as when my mind’s open and I’m excited to write out whatever I’m feeling at that moment.
I usually write articles based on how I’m feeling about any given subject at any given time, and I’m realizing that passion and activity are important to sustaining the creative flow or helping others in a selfless, enthusiastic way.
“It’s that wonderful old-fashioned idea that others come first and you come second. This was the whole ethic by which I was brought up. Others matter more than you do, so ‘don’t fuss, dear; get on with it’.”
― Audrey Hepburn (2)
I’ve been learning about karma yoga lately, which is known as the ‘yoga of action’. According to a few spiritual teachers and texts, staying creatively and spiritually active can be a potent form of meditation that helps us connect with the spirit (and subsequently Source) and use that connection to help others along their journey.
Wikipedia describes karma yoga, and their description makes me even more excited about it.
“Karma yoga or the ‘discipline of action’ is a form of yoga based on the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita, a sacred Sanskrit scripture of Hinduism. Of the three paths to realization, karma yoga is the process of achieving perfection in action.
“Karma yoga is said to be the most effective way to progress in spiritual life.
“Found in the Bhagavad Gita, karma yoga is a part of nature. Karma yoga is taught by teachers of zen who promote tranquility. Karma yoga is an intrinsic part of many derivative types of yoga, such as Natya Yoga. Karma yoga is often understood as a yoga of selfless (altruistic) service.” (3)
I highlighted what I think is the most important part of the description, which tells us that Karma Yoga is actually the most effective way to spiritually evolve. Everyone’s obviously different, however, and what works for some might not work for others.
Some people will find that karma yoga is the best path they could take, while others benefit from paths that are less active.
I don’t know about any of you, but karma yoga is definitely my path. In fact, I feel a lot more passionate about it than I do sitting and meditating for hours on end or relentlessly emptying my consciousness so the Godly aspects can take over.
We’re encouraged to empty ourselves and sit in silence and nothingness so we can discover our true essence, but it isn’t the only way to explore our consciousness.
Credit: Oraclesoftruth.org
We can also use creativity and activity, and while we want to be careful not to lose ourselves in our activity or forget to integrate our conscious awareness into it, it’s liberating to think that action isn’t the monster it’s made out to be by some enlightened teachers.
I’ve always struggled with the idea that we have to completely stop what we’re doing and become nothing before we can raise our consciousness, because I feel like activity in all of its forms – creativity (writing, music, etc.), exercise, even getting chores done – wouldn’t exist in the first place if we weren’t meant to explore it.
We’re learning that things like music and writing can actually reconnect us with our essence depending on how much dedication we show, and I’m excited to keep writing, playing music, blogging and doing everything else that fills me with the spirit and hopefully helps all of you along your journey.
My next article might be about karma yoga and the idea that totally renouncing action isn’t required to enlighten ourselves, because I feel like this is an important topic that’s worthy of some discussion. I’ll also continue to encourage us to get out, exercise and get our blood pumping and our spirit flowing.
In this new paradigm, we need as many active, enthusiastic, empowered, passionate spiritual seekers as we can get. I know I’ll continue to be as active and passionate as I can. Who’s with me?
“The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that [he] wants to live humbly for one.”
― Wilhelm Stekel (4)
Footnotes:
Goodreads: “Quotes About Selflessness” at – http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/selflessness
Loc. cit.
Wikipedia: “Karma Yoga” at – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karma_yoga
Goodreads: “Quotes About Selflessness” Ibid.
By Wes Annac, The Culture of Awareness, March 13, 2015 – http://tinyurl.com/pt5kzba
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I’m a twenty-one year old writer, blogger, musician and channel for the creative expression of the Universe, and I created The Culture of Awareness daily news site. The Culture of Awareness features daily spiritual and alternative news, articles I’ve written, and more. Its purpose is to awaken and uplift by providing material about the fall of the planetary elite and a new paradigm of unity and spirituality.
I’ve contributed to a few different spiritual websites including The Master Shift, Waking Times, Golden Age of Gaia, Wake Up World and Expanded Consciousness. I can also be found on Facebook (Wes Annac and The Culture of Awareness) and Twitter, and I write a paid weekly newsletter that you can subscribe to for $11.11 a month here.
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