The Real Reason You Don’t Progress in Your Spiritual Life

And what to do about it.

Last week, someone frustratingly shared,

“If I didn’t know better, I’d have forgiven myself. But when I know that spirituality is the way, then I feel baffled. Why am I not giving my 100%?”

It reminded me of similar questions that plague many.

Do you wonder what is the purpose of this life? Do you also wonder why you are wasting time doing not-so-important things? Why don’t you give your 100% to your spiritual endeavors?

You might want to know your true self. You might even know how and have planned things out.

The problem arises when you think you are stuck in your life and can’t go all in. You might feel like a fool for not giving complete attention to your spiritual progress.

If you also feel like this, you don’t know one obvious thing about spirituality.

It is that life is itself spiritual. You don’t have to do anything extraordinary to lead a spiritual life.

First, a reality check.

Let's get something cleared up.

You’d love to think you’d spend this weekend in meditation or alone. You’d love to picture doing all the right things required in the spiritual path. You’d love to paint that bigger picture of you getting ‘liberated.’

That’s not the case. Not even close enough.

Being willing to do the right things and charting mental plans doesn’t always turn out practical. Your mind thinks it has found the answer — leave the job, go somewhere in solace, and meditate.

But spirituality is not a project.

It doesn’t have an end line. You can’t even point out the right path for you.

When, after six years of living a life of intense ascetic, Gautam Buddha returned to his kingdom, his wife, Yaśodharā, asked, “What did you find in the jungle? Couldn’t you find it here?”

Gautama replied, “I could have.”

All plans of meditating in solace, reading spiritual books, and doing penance are imaginary sky cascades. Wishful thinking.

You might think that this will teach you the highest truth of life. Maybe it will. But the chance for an average person is very slim.

Why?

Because life is intelligence. It knows what you need for your progress. The mind may like to run away and find an excuse for it. But the life given to you is tailor-made for your progress only.

The mind will not easily let go.

Once, Osho told a story of an ascetic who left his everything and went to the Himalayas. That ascetic became popular after some time.

After several decades, he got the news of the demise of his wife. He said, “Now, finally, she left.”

Osho hilariously pointed out that even after living an ascetic life for decades, he could not leave the thought of his wife.

The mind is a clever entity.

It wants to escape from the present moment, to be in the idealistic future, or to worry about something. It’d do anything to stay away from this ‘present moment.’

Because if it stays in this ‘now,’ it becomes irrelevant.

The mind wants to be relevant every time. It wants to prove its identity and worth. Whereas resting in ‘now’ means it no longer has control, not even mental or psychological control.

How?

Because when you’re completely in this present moment, you become silent. You then let go of imaginations or stories and sink into silence.

Your life is your ‘tapas’ (spiritual path).

Nothing that life does is a waste. Not even your poop.

The truth is life is a gift for spiritual seekers.

Some might argue they would not be here to find its meaning if they were not born. Some might say life brings hurt and hardships.

I agree no one is immune to hurt. A human is bound to get hurt because of expectations or unfulfilled desires.

But spirituality takes you beyond any problem. It does not solve your problems directly. It dissolves the cause of your problem.

And the way to reach there is through your daily life.

Your circumstances and situations are happening for some reason. You might want to ignore or overrule them with your logic. But that won’t make the situation any different for you.

When I faced the darkest phases of my life, I also cried, “Why?”

Luckily, I never ran away from it. I allowed the deepest, darkest thing to fully come out so that I could really understand it from its core.

But most people are escaping their life.

Thinking it's not as they would like it, they fantasize about living it another way. Wasting time in imagination that could otherwise be used in going deeper.

Be aware

The real reason you find it difficult to advance in your spiritual progress is that you are trying to escape your life.

You think you know better and life happening right now is illogical. Trying too hard to make sense keeps you away from your actual progress.

Instead, let the life sink in. Instead of running away, embrace it with full consciousness. Instead of screaming to find its purpose, dissolve in its silence.

Your mind will try to drag you away from the real path of silence. It will question and doubt.

But if you are dedicated, you will stay true to your life. Being aware of whatever it brings. And embracing what is.

Stop beating yourself up. Stop pushing too much. Instead, relax in this now. Then you’ll find what you seek is right here and now, not in someplace in the future.