What Do You Really Want From Spiritual Practice?
The Way of Śrīvidyā with Kavitha Chinnaiyan
One of the most important aspects of spiritual practice is being clear about our objective.
Now, I will say that our objective, our goal for sādhana, keeps changing. It evolves.
Many of us come to the spiritual path because we could not find the answers we were looking for anywhere else. We faced difficulties, searched for solutions, and eventually turned towards spirituality.
Others may come to spirituality as a way of escaping the world. Whatever our reasons, it is important that we are honest about them from the beginning.
Why are we here? What is it that we actually want?
I have seen, and been through this myself, that many people arrive on the path declaring that they want liberation.
But what even is liberation? What do you think happens after liberation?
You’re still going to have to live your life and deal with all those things you don’t want to deal with. There is no free lunch.
Paradoxically, being clear about what we truly want can actually accelerate the process of practice.
In the Śaiva traditions, this is sometimes described as the path of yoga and bhoga—spiritual practice and worldly experience. There is nothing wrong with approaching practice because we want our lives to improve. There is nothing wrong with saying, honestly, “I want a better job,” or “I want a relationship,” or “I want things to get better.”
There is nothing the matter with that.
But if you come to it with, "I only want liberation," there's a huge possibility of bypassing—not even knowing what we are doing—and then having all kinds of ideas about liberation which are not right.
For this reason, understanding why we are on a path may be one of the most important things we can do.
Thank you for reading!
We hope you enjoyed this article, taken from a recent workshop on The Way of Śrīvidyā with Dr Kavitha Chinnaiyan
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