So, I've been experimenting with Morning rituals and routines for several years now. It's been perhaps the single biggest positive influence on my life, but that's kind of unfair, because lumped into it are basically all the best things I do, from meditation to journaling to exercise to walks in nature.
Regardless, it's been a huge boon to my life. I'm continually updating it, tweaking it to make it even better. I've just started adding a more vigorous morning working, adding in a jog and some chanting to accompany sun salutes, and it's fantastic. Spirituality is not about spending all day meditating, it is about balance. All elements of like can be spiritualized and should be spiritualized. To avoid some of them as "non-spiritual" like avoiding taking care of your body, is spiritual laziness. Making convenient excuses to avoid doing things that you don't want to do. You will never achieve high levels of success that way. You will piddle around in meritocracy, until you decide to face the areas of your life that you've been avoiding/neglecting. True spirituality is a balanced life, not lazy, not overly rigid and forceful. Not joyless, not hedonistic.
The things you most vehemently avoid facing are the areas that will offer you the most genuine growth. I'm working on making a habit out of going into those areas, rather than avoiding them. I know, like all reasonable (and many unreasonable) things that I set my mind to, I will eventually succeed in this endeavor, and I'm excited for that time, because the habit of going directly towards your uncomfortable spots is an incredible superpower that will turbo-charge one's growth and ability to make things happen. In addition to this "reversal of desire" as some of my teachers have called it, I am working on a second element, that is kind of the banana to the first elements peanut butter. (that is, they go together really well.):
Not trying. This is not at all laziness. It is more like absolute focus and determination and dynamic, massive action, but with zero attachment to the result. No fretting or striving, no forcing or self flagellating. You do the thing because it is right to do, and leave the results completely up to a higher power. This is the Superior way to practice any spiritual discipline, (the satvik path, as apposed to the rajasic or tamasik path) but also to practice any activity at all, in life. It's difficult and more subtle than just getting really fired up and attached to the outcome, which you could say is the rajasic or fiery way, but it yields better results, both in outcome and in state of being while in process.
Anyhoo, that's what I'm working on for the nonce:
Reversal of Desire
Renunciation of the Fruits of Action
How about you?
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