Normally, when you learn about Spirituality, you are told that you should meditate and then something will happen, but you don’t really understand what or why. So you become bored with meditation and would rather listen to your rock and roll music. That’s a reasonable enough choice because you don’t understand what incredible benefits you are receiving through meditation.

I have been teaching for many years in different countries, and very often the new people cannot understand why they should live the Spiritual Life. It is a natural question: “What do I get out of it?” It is important to understand what you will get out of it, because if you follow through with the Path you’re going to get a lot out of it.

What is the First Step on the Spiritual Path?

The first step on the Spiritual Path is bright, alert openness — openness to higher Wisdom, higher Teachings, higher Knowledge, higher Reality, higher possibilities. You have to be intelligent and awake inside. You have to recognize inside yourself that you have a higher possibility, that this planet has a higher possibility, that this Universe has a higher possibility, that Life has a higher possibility. And upon that you base your intelligent, purposeful, systematic, deliberate practice of transforming yourself, day in and day out, through the battle of your life.

In our system we say that you do this through your life struggle, not outside of it. This is very important. You don’t put yourself outside of life, but in life. “Be in the world but not of the world.” There is an amazing beauty in this Path, for it takes place right in the midst of the struggle of everyday life!

Is It Necessary to Renounce Everything to be Spiritual?

In many of the old Eastern systems you are required to abandon life and become a sannyasin, a monk or a sadhu. You renounce everything and have no responsibility towards any part of Creation. You might just sit quietly in a cave and meditate, responsible only for yourself. This was a model — an imperfect model. It worked for some people but it does not work for us. You cannot expect twentieth century Westerners to follow that model.

We have another model, the model which Jesus taught, and Moses and Mohammed. These three Teachers, who represent the Western kind of consciousness and spirituality, were active, dynamic people in life. Look at their stories! They didn’t just sit there all day, cross-legged and cross-eyed, meditating; they were doing things! Their whole lives they were transforming their environments, transforming people, transforming civilization. Mohammed transformed hundred of millions of people. Jesus transformed hundreds of millions of people. These people had a tremendous practical impact on civilization. Why? Because they themselves did not renounce life.

They could have sat quietly in the Sinai desert and contemplated all their lives, but then what would have happened? Western civilization would have been very different. Rather, they created civilizations by their sheer activity, and their activity came from the inner Fire. It wasn’t just a haphazard activity; it was very purposeful. Read their words; they weren’t just floundering around making up theories and ideas. Everything they said was always for a purpose, to a point, to transform people, to transform civilization.

Simple Teachings of the Great Western Teachers: Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed

Mohammed, Jesus and Moses always talked about the Law, about how things are. They perceived the Law. They understood how the Solar System works, how the planet Earth works, how Intelligence in the Cosmos works, how the Cosmic Mind works. They said: “Look, here is the Law. If you break the Law, you will suffer; if you go along with it, everything will be fine for you.” It is a very simple teaching, common to each of these great Western Teachers.

We say that the Eastern idea that you quit the world and spend your time in inner contemplation is fine if that’s what a person wants to do. But there is another way, the Western way, which is dynamic, active, full of Fire and Energy. You attain the same inner goal, but you transcribe it into outer activity. You attain the inner Fire and bring it right into your environment and change your environment for the good of all.

Western Spirituality: Living for the Good of All

This is the point: you are not living for yourself, but for the good of all, the good of your country, the good of the planet, the good of the Universe.

In our system, therefore, we do a lot of meditation, but we are not stuck there. We come back into the world as dynamically active people, changing our environments, changing the world consciousness. That is the natural way for the Western consciousness: we meditate, we come out of meditation, and we do.

Reprinted with permission of the publisher:
Sounding-Light Publishing Ltd.
©2005. www.soundinglight.com

Article Source

The Sedona Talks: Creation, Evolution & Planetary Awakening
by Imre Vallyon.

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About the Author

Imre Vallyon was born in Budapest, Hungary, in 1940. At the age of fifteen, he emigrated first to Austria and then to New Zealand. From an early age, Imre immersed himself in many spiritual streams of the Western and Eastern teachings. In the early 1980s, he began writing and lecturing full-time. He continues to teach at spiritual retreats and workshops around the world. The Foundation for Higher Learning was formed to help provide people with the opportunity to practise their spiritual work within the support of a group environment. There are centres in several countries around the world and retreat facilities in New Zealand. For more info, visit http://www.planetary-transformation.org/