Your life is an expression of your attitudes

SPIRITUAL PRACTICES AND
ATTITUDES FOR MODERN LIVING

DAAJI has often said, “In real estate, 95% of everything is location, location, location, while in spirituality 95% of everything is attitude, attitude, attitude!” This month he expands upon why attitude matters so much, and how we can optimize our attitude toward our own growth.

When you want self-transformation, meditation is not everything. Even the most effective method, combined with the most disciplined approach, can only account for about 5% of success. The other 95% is attitude. What you do is important, but it’s not as important as the attitude with which you do it.

This doesn’t only apply to meditation. In any aspect of daily life, it’s our attitude that defines us and our attitude that determines its success. If you meditate in a negative mood it is completely counterproductive, because your negativity becomes the object of your meditation. Your eyes may be closed, you may look as if you’re in meditation, but actually you’re just brooding over your negative thoughts and feelings. That becomes your focus. And what happens if you meditate on your bad mood? It intensifies. Conversely, in spiritual practice, you will move to another dimension if you bring about regularity, cheerfulness, and restlessness to achieve the best.

Imagine a worker on the farm, earning his daily wage doing strenuous physical labor, but feeling burdened and  downtrodden by his work constantly. He may toil the whole day, but he won’t build the same muscle mass as another man who goes to the gym for less than an hour a day. It is all a matter of attitude.

If your meditation practice is purely mechanical, if you think “Oh no! I have to wake up and meditate,” or if you are doing it to satisfy someone else, there is no need to do it at all because you’ll be wasting your time. Heartfulness provides a simple scientific approach to meditation, but what we need to experience it properly is interest, enthusiasm, and willingness. You will see for yourself how your entire life transforms when you approach everything with the proper attitude.

Meditating with joy

Let us say you have made it a habit to do all four Heartfulness practices every day—Relaxation, Meditation, Cleaning, and Prayer. Even for the best of us, doing any set of practices day after day can become a repetitive process, be it swimming, playing an instrument, or meditating. The mechanics are always the same. So what makes it stay alive and maintain vibrancy? It is attitude and interest. I have found that the attitudes of love, humility, and prayerfulness have helped me a lot in my practice.

The purpose of meditation is to enter into the finest states of consciousness. Will that be possible if you bring heaviness, discord, and torment along with you?

There are also other attitudes that hinder us in subtler ways. Expectation is one of them. Many people approach meditation with the expectation of a certain result. Suppose that one day you have such a phenomenal experience in meditation that you want to relive it the next time you sit. In so doing, you apply a condition to your meditation, “I must feel peaceful today!” Something better might be waiting for you, yet you only want peace. So you miss out. Always be willing to go beyond, to go further.

Also, it is better to avoid the opposite extreme, namely, impatience for the next stage to come. Just let the process unfold naturally, with total openness and without conditions. Don’t insist on anything and don’t demand anything. Meditation is best when you have no expectations, when you demand nothing. It is really a form of waiting, which works out for the best because everything happens in its own time. For example, you cannot cut open a butterfly’s cocoon before it’s fully matured—that would kill the butterfly. Similarly, don’t expect spiritual states to bloom before their time. They will come!

Some days, there will be no depth, or your meditative experience will be too mundane for your liking. But every experience is ultimately good because each one has a purpose—even if you don’t understand what it is. Just take your experiences lightly and move on. This attitude is also in your hands.

Meditation is best when you have no expectations, 
when you demand nothing. 
It is really a form of waiting,
which works out for the best because
everything happens in its own time.

If your meditation practice is done solely for the sake of routine, think of this: Remember back to your teenage years, when you were in love, and you asked your beloved to go on a date with you to the cinema. You were so keen to meet them that you showed up early, with so much inner excitement that you felt restless until the moment they appeared. Do you have that level of impatience and enthusiasm for meditation? Do you feel so inspired to meet your inner Self? That is the attitude which brings life to meditation. Before you sleep, anticipate the morning’s meeting with your higher Self that is to come.

So the key is to take interest in how you conduct your life, because that is what destiny is all about. When you meditate, do it with love, do it with interest. Poise, focus, and enthusiasm go a long way in creating the right vibratory field for you to design your destiny and change the trajectory of your life.

Acceptance in relationships

If you ask most young people today about what is on their mind, relationships will feature highly. It’s probably the same for those of all ages, actually, although the nature of the relationships change. Yet how many of us know how to cultivate healthy, happy relationships? I have witnessed in my own life that respect and acceptance, even more than tolerance (which is not true acceptance from the heart), are two of the most crucial factors.

Respect for others is actually the epitome of love for yourself. If you do not love yourself, this very fine quality will never develop within you. And respect for others can be expressed in many ways: for example, if you were invited to visit a dignitary, would you wear shorts and flip flops? No. Here, it is not that you want to look good, but that you want to make an extra effort because it is a common courtesy to show respect to a person of stature. When you wear a tie to the office because guests are visiting, you do it as a mark of respect for them. Similarly, the way we speak, the way we sit, and the way we hold our head conveys something about our attitudes to the people around us. If we slouch in front of guests, even if we don’t say a word, our behavior says it all. The same is true when we speak and act without sincerity or feeling.

Actually, there is no such thing as grudging acceptance. You are either grudging or accepting, not both! The attitude with which you accept circumstances makes all the difference—you cannot force yourself to accept a situation that your heart is rejecting. Real acceptance is joyful. Even if the girl or boy you love says no, you are still happy. Love does not exist for the sake of receiving anything in return. Rather, it exists for its own sake. That is unconditional love, which is the only kind of love there truly is. Love demands nothing. In love, there is no place for expectation, only for gratitude. That is why love is the real pinnacle of human nobility.

Love demands nothing. 
In love, there is no place for expectation, 
only for gratitude. That is why love is the
real pinnacle of human nobility.

But life throws us curveballs, and our relationships with our loved ones inevitably go through their share of upheavals. The question is, how do we handle such situations and how do we come out of them? If we go through difficulties peacefully, with a bold heart and a lot of courage, then we will emerge stronger, whereas if we don’t accept them, we will not learn anything. When we accept situations joyfully and cheerfully, we see the beauty emerge. Every situation is in our hands, and if we want to go further, we will understand that all acceptance is cheerful acceptance.

And we can go beyond that—where there is no need to consciously accept with cheerfulness and gratitude, as we have already moved on, no response is needed. That is absolute acceptance, total surrender, and in that state of surrender we are always in the present. We are not expecting anything different from the reality. When we can accept what life throws at us, we happily move on.

Our responses to life are very complex, and they become all the more obvious when we ask ourselves two questions: “How well do I accept my own faults?” and “How well do I accept the faults of others and the circumstances around me?” Take some time to deeply ponder over your responses, for if you are practicing acceptance out of habit, or in an enforced way, then you are performing another ritual. Instead, accept situations in life with full alertness and full awareness; not because someone else says so.

Being aware

And what happens when difficult emotions do surface and you do react to circumstances, for example, when you are angry? Ask yourself, “Am I alert to what is happening inside me, or am I simply reacting out of habit from subconscious patterns?” Often, the absence of awareness leads to a reactive response being triggered. Now, how can you develop awareness? Once again, through meditation. You will learn to expand your awareness, so that you are better able to manage reactions and emotional outbursts, like anger.

When you do get angry, notice how it is flowing as energy through your whole system. The midbrain has evolved to produce survival responses in situations of threat or danger, so it all depends on how we perceive the world around us, and what our subconscious mind thinks is dangerous. Don’t repress it; let it be there without it getting out of hand, and become aware. The very act of noticing shines a light in the darkness so that peace can descend. The energy that fueled your anger will now fuel peace and problem-solving.

It is impossible to get angry if you are centered. Inner peace dissolves the very impulses of violence. In a peaceful environment creativity finds true meaning, mothers can nurture their children, and you will enjoy happiness and so many wonderful things. Meditating will develop your ability to be aware and present, reducing the wait between an angry reaction and the U-turn of responding with empathy and serenity.

Also, ask yourself why you want to curb your anger. Do you think it is sinful, or that it will create stress and damage your system? That approach may be a step higher than getting angry all the time, but it is only because of a desire to avoid negative consequences. Instead, can you imagine an attitude of genuine compassion? Remember, it is the attitude that will change your future. Do you want to avoid injuring others, or are you only interested to protect yourself? It is always better to opt for kindness and compassion.

And we can go beyond that—where there is no need to consciously
accept with cheerfulness and gratitude, as we have already
moved on, no response is needed. That is absolute acceptance, total
surrender, and in that state of surrender we are always in the present.
We are not expecting anything different from the reality. 
When we can accept what life throws at us, we happily move on.

It is only when your heart become small that acceptance bids goodbye. It is easy to accept people and their idiosyncrasies when they are your own. When they are not your own, it’s a different matter. But spirituality gives us a new world of possibilities.

So please think about this. Whenever any situation in your family, your work environment, or your social circles demands a certain level of acceptance, take it as a welcome challenge and see how far you can go.

Change your attitude to change your self

As you progress, your outer nature will slowly evolve to match the changeless, innermost nature. And until you become identical with that changeless state, you will have to undergo constant change. You will move through so many conditions of being before reaching that state of stillness. All the while, you will have experiences that reflect the inner changes, and they can be tumultuous, because even though these changes are positive and reflect more overall balance in our personality, they still take some getting used to. A certain amount of restlessness will continue to remain within you until you reach the changeless state.

Somewhere along the way, in the midst of all your experiences, you will stumble across the source of all these experiences, the inner cause of your transformation. That moment is important. Your heart will melt in gratitude; you are so moved. You will fall in love with the inner Being, and now your focus will shift. Experiences no longer matter. Peace, happiness, or any passing condition no longer matter. Why do you need peace when you can have the Peace-Giver? Transformation no longer matters either. Meditation is now an act of love, pure and simple. It’s not about getting anything or experiencing anything, only love.

No one can be changed unwillingly—only willingly and joyfully. Ask yourself deep down: Do I really want to change? There must be a desire for it. It is our attitude toward working on ourselves that has the most effect, since we design our own destiny by regulating our thoughts, working on our patterns and fears, our desires and emotional reactions, our generosity of heart, and our strength of will.

Leo Tolstoy once said, “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.” That desire to change yourself can only come from creating the right attitude within. To change the world, you must change yourself first, and then expand your radius to include others. A day will surely come when together we will transform the direction humanity is taking.

To change the world, you must change yourself
first, and then expand your radius to include others.
A day will surely come when together we will
transform the direction humanity is taking.