People often think that being spiritual requires some extraordinary activity or some prescribed activity, when it’s not really the activity, it’s more about your consciousness, not just while you’re doing something, but even if you’re “doing nothing”. You can be sitting in your chair in front of the TV set or you can be on a missionary trip in Africa. The secret is your perspective, not just “the way things are”, but the way they can be, the way you use your thought.

Creation expands as things are produced and differentiate. The totality of Creation, including both pure potential and potential manifest, is constantly expanding as things happen. The accumulation of what has happened, what has been created, is growing moment by moment.  Part of that creation is the mental climate/environment of mankind, the combination of all thoughts of mankind.  We contribute to that climate/environment with each thought. With that in mind, the more you love, the more love there is “in the world”, and you don’t need to be in any particular place or be doing do any particular thing to think a loving thought.

Simply, “spiritual” progress is choosing to enhance or make something “better”, to add value to what is.  One of the beauties of Hindu perspectives is seeing or being reminded of God all day long, because every type of thing, culturally, relates to some aspect of God. So there can be a spiritual significance to any experience. This perspective enhances an ordinary experience.

Take, for instance, washing the dishes. Let’s put it in a context.  Are you doing it because it’s a chore and you “have to”, or is it because having clean dishes and a clean kitchen enhances your life and that of your family.  It can be an act of love. You can enhance it further by being joyful, being at peace, and sending blessings.

So to make your life more spiritual, enhance the mental environment. Put the otherwise ordinary things you do in a spiritual context. Look at them in a different way. Do them for love.  Love as you do them.  Laugh. Be joyful. Appreciate those who have helped you. Appreciate what you have learned from each experience. Be aware. Step outside yourself. Observe yourself doing what you’re doing, how you’re doing it, what you’re thinking. Watch for insights.

It enhances your life, doesn’t it?

-Seymour Lovejoy