As the new year ushers in another year of hope and exciting possibilities, an often ignored part of our lives is our spiritual goals for the year. There are many reasons for this. The most common among them is that there are too many facets in our lives, all needing some sort of focus and planning as each new year begins. At other times, we feel excited about doing something new and changing our lives. So we make changes to our lives voluntarily.

It’s hard to revisit our spiritual state with complete honesty and prioritize an improvement this year. That’s because the self-assessment of our subtler spiritual state can be challenging. Spirituality is an ocean and the deepest of them all. Since we cannot know its depths, we cannot also know our position relative to the most profound state possible.

That’s where Sahaja comes in. Through many of our tools, approaches and guidance, we can help make a big difference in your spiritual journey this year.

If you have been struggling to get started or become a regular meditator, you’re not alone. A lot of people and those who have been practitioners for many years struggle with this problem too. Initially, meditation sounds great, has proven benefits and everyone who practices it typically has at least one benefit that convinces them of its value.

Yet, things get in the way, circumstances keep changing and complacency can creep in. We know that we have to get back on track, but it feels like heavy lifting to get back to the once-exhilarating meditation schedule that gave us so many benefits. Those constant negative voices tell us it’s okay to be irregular or make meditation look daunting – yes, think of it, something that’s meant to relax you and make you completely peaceful and calm feels rather difficult. Doubts begin to creep in or meditation gets on your action items or New Year Resolutions list pretty quickly. Or it has been a bookmark in your life for many years, but you can’t just get yourself to pull the trigger.

And then there’s the quality of meditation, an even bigger challenge. The majority of meditators hit a plateau in their progress at some point and it feels like they have peaked out on their benefits and positive experiences. While they’ve established their routine and follow it diligently, there just isn’t enough depth in their sessions. Regular meditation, therefore, isn’t just about being regular; it is about consistent, high-quality meditation over the longer term.

Familiar feelings and thoughts? It’s not always your lack of self-discipline, desire to improve or put in the effort; there are other hidden forces at work that we need to understand.

Have you ever noticed how we spend so much attention on feeding our bodies and our tastes? Rarely do we miss a meal. But it’s well beyond that. We pay a lot of attention to enjoying our food and getting the best dining experiences. Sometimes, food is the ultimate epitome of a celebration in our lives.

And there’s nothing wrong with it; great experiences and comfort, to a degree, are part of a wholesome and fulfilling life, no matter which aspect of our lives they are related to. But our attention is not proportionately spent in enriching our lives equally in all of its facets. Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs says that our attention is centered around what our body needs most of all and safety, i.e., the base of Maslow’s pyramid. After those needs are satisfied, it moves higher to fulfill our emotional and esteem-related needs. Finally, our spiritual needs or higher purpose sit at the peak of the pyramid. It’s not hard to see that the higher tiers of the pyramid require greater effort and energy, in part because they come much later in the hierarchy and are harder to get to. The other reason is that searching and seeking out the best and quickest ways to satisfy our spiritual needs are not easy to find.

The good news is that you’re in good hands now. In Sahaja, there’s a lot of experience and methods in giving equal, if not greater, emphasis on feeding our soul with rich experiences. In our busy lives and amidst all the challenges, nourishing our spiritual being requires careful planning and insights into how experienced meditators do it.

Drawing comparisons between how we feed our body and our soul can help us understand this in greater detail.

Meditation is a holistic solution to many of our life’s challenges and problems. It’s not just about stress relief. In our 50 years of the Sahaja practice, we’ve seen some dramatic turnarounds for meditators in their professional lives. If your job or career, in general, takes up the larger part of your day, as it does for most of us, then you’ll be surprised at how your meditation practice can transform it in different ways. The anecdotal experiences of thousands of Sahaja practitioners confirm this type of transformation.

Now, more than ever, we face one of the most challenging periods in our lives. Many people are having or fear facing a period when many things can go wrong quite quickly and easily.

Unfortunately, these are also when spiritual self-improvement can take a back seat as we can get overwhelmed with too many things. Sure, some of us will use this opportunity to go deeper spiritually, but the chaos and challenging times usually take too much of a toll on our attention.

And so, more often than not, things begin to deteriorate on many fronts. We start getting into a downward spiral, a vicious cycle where things start getting worse progressively.

Not all downward spirals need to be severe or earth-shattering. Some or even most can be the slow degradation variety and can also be in a particular facet or aspect of our lives. 

The problem is that we don’t realize we’re in a downward spiral until things have gotten terrible. We are unlikely to take corrective action until we see severe outcomes.

For instance….we may find we’ve been eating unhealthy and skipping exercise over many months. Our relationships may be strained for a long time and at the point of breaking. Our finances may be slowly deteriorating as the savings begin to go down. Our jobs may feel stale and not motivating enough. None of these have to necessarily happen simultaneously, but they certainly can in isolation.

Or, the most popular one for those pursuing self-improvement – our interest, motivation and progress on spirituality and higher pursuits is waning continuously, and we’re hitting new lows every now and then.

So, how do we break out of such periods of downward spirals in our lives?

A healthy and special dose of spirituality is the only real way to motivate our physical, mental and emotional selves to get out of the rut.