A DEEPER LOOK INTO THE PROCESS OF SPIRITUAL FORMATION

People will always try to understand their environment, however not all individuals will seek a deeper understanding of their lives. The spiritually inclined person looks for something more, something that lies beneath the apparent. These individuals find themselves seeking and engaging with the process of Revelation as it discloses meaning hidden, embedded in their everyday experience.

Our spiritual formation, informed by the physical, mental and emotional environment, is a continuous inner movement taking place in the mind and body shaping meaning as it builds upon previous meaning. It is a personal and unique process of discovery. Spiritual development, perhaps fed by religious training, accompanied with fellowship or service to others, disciplined with a practice of prayer and meditation, guided with teachings is very important. However, it is everyday living in the moment and the common experience with its presence of Revelation that ground us in our growing awareness.

Are we aware of the revealing moment? Do we participate in the process of discovery? Or are we like a leaf being carried through the current of Life, tossed about, passive victims of our circumstances? There are two basic human attitudes regarding being alive and these can be found in every culture, in all parts of the world, in all times in history. The active, open, curious, seeking mind that is willing to take responsibility for its attitudes and its search for Knowledge, and the resistant or helpless attitude that is perhaps unhappy, angry or disinterested but certainly unwilling to assume any responsibility for its own reality.

Human experience flows like water in a river. Everything – events both external and internal and their interpretations, circumstances with their reactions and responses, feelings, thoughts, physical pleasures and pains, the intellect, social involvement, intimate relationships, all past and present experiences of a life history intermingle and exist together, all parts of a life history flow as one, like a river.

This stream of experience is met with standard spiritual challenges. Only one will be mentioned here: the basic conflict between surrender and resistance.

The human condition is living in the context of fear, as well as the embrace of Unconditional Love. This conflicting situation is the core of our reality, the dilemma of our existence. Framed within such a difficult paradigm, our personal development – spiritual, psychological, emotional, physical and intellectual – is a continuous striving to reconcile the two opposite realms of experience: fear and Love, Love and fear. This duality is a current moving through our life carrying with it the course of our spiritual formation. Minute to minute we face these two realities. The spiritual path is easiest for those who have no preference, who move with the flow of experience, who do not allow fear to rule. Will we surrender to the moment or resist it? For those who seek something more, something that lies beneath the surface of what apparently seems to be, attitude and choice determine the depth and distance of the inner journey.