I want to become better, more connected, a more "spiritual" me. Im working on my downsides, but i would like to know what other activities do you recomend, like tai chi, meditation etc to help me in the things i lack information about.

Thank you.

People will have lots to say about this. But, my advice is simply meditate, a subject that you can find lots of information on here and on other sites, and beyond that, keep the intention to evolve spiritually foremost in your life. Over time, you will have instincts - "I should give up smoking," "I should be kinder to my parents," etc., etc.

When these intuitions occur, follow them. Spirituality is transformation, and has that in common with magick, however, it is the path that is most important in this case, and your dedication to follow it. "Truth is a pathless land" so it was said by one of my favorite philosophers. There is no perfect path beyond following your own heart, which if your intention is sincere, will lead you from A to Z perfectly. Do not worry so much about what there is to gain from a practice, or from an instinct to take some action. If you feel the need to fast for three days, fast. If you feel the urge to be silent for some time, then be silent. If you feel the urge to pray every night, then do so fervently, every night. By doing the things that your heart and spirit urge you to do, you change, bit by bit, until you are a different person all together.

If you have an instinct to study a particular culture or religion, then study it until you have an 'Aha' moment, when you have found what you are looking for. Contemplate the person you wish to become when you have fully matured, and constantly strive to be that person here and now.

Follow this prescription as a core plan to evolution, and your life will change immeasurably. The intention of the Divine is absolute, and you are but an extension of the divine - therefore, if your intention is sincere, you have only to maintain it and you cannot help but evolve.

Peace

I would caution against equating tai chi with meditation exactly. each person's path is unique, but no matter who you are meditation helps calm and center the self, and ultimately allows the mind chatter to quiet down so that the true self can be heard through the din of everything separating you from yourself.

Tai chi can be a meditation, but does not have to be. Tai chi, in itself, will not make you more spiritual. Meditation, however, when done earnestly, has the specific effect of connecting you to your spirit, regardless of the tradition one follows, and moreover it is a skill that afterwards can be applied to any area of life, to make any aspect of life a spiritual endeavor. There is a reason every spiritual tradition, ever, involves some form of meditation.

no big deal, but for anyone who is totally unfamiliar, that should be said. Meditation, in itself, simply the desire to order one's thoughts and become centered, and not even that, simply following some techniques (the most basic, others require some idea of what you're doing and why) to the letter, will in fact open up the opportunity for spiritual growth, even if you're not looking for it. It's largely superficial at such a stage, having to do specifically with the brain alone, but it's true none the less.

peace

First i want to thank you for your fast responding, i really didnt expect it.

But the fact remains that what i wish is to "advance" from this material view i have, there is a feeling of (i dont know what word to say it, it would be a mixture of emptyness, boredoom, frustration, in other words something greater than this materialistic closed existence i am taught to live in). I want to open my spiritual side becouse i think that i can make my life more than just studying, getting a job, getting married, having kids and then die.

In other words i would like to get more in touch with my spiritual being.

Thanks

it has been the goal of all connected to the 'spiritual' to advance or evolve or ultimately to ascend into being as the gods themselves

religion tries to help, but they get bogged down in the physical worship and sometimes miss the spiritual connection

even the gods (and the universe itself) evolve and if the connection isn't there the view can be off considerably

there are so many paths, but the kind of all stem from the same source and end up at the same point - like chinese finger cuffs (grin)

if it was me, i'd choose a method of some sort of meditation that was interesting so i coukd keep it up, and even run to it (one ex of mine did the 'slant board' and that was way too whacky for me, but another interested me in oobe shifting meditation where you don't go all the way out, just very slightly - way cooler than the slant board)

check into red ochre and the things the ancients used to do - they are pretty interesting too - especially spiritual jewelry

we are all here to evolve (or hold others back from it - you know who you are, ya bastar...), and i applaud your desire!

see you on the other side!

e.

im pretty sure some form of meditation is required, altough some how everyone created this meditations for what i should posses in my inner being all i ever need to evolve.

two things, what do you know about "shadow work" and whats the purpouse of "fasting" and is it not eating food or also drinking water?

Thanks to all for your help

"...learn first what is Work! and THE GREAT WORK is not so far beyond!"
-The Book of Lies, Ch. 52

Where did you get the idea that spirituality is somehow independent or transcendent of work, family, children, and the rest of your "material" life?

If you can be excited to go to work each day, and return home with a sense of fulfillment, is that not the veritable Argent Elixir? If you have a wife with whom you can share your life, and children in whom you feel pride, is it not the Red Stone?

Selfish spirituality can be far more destructive than any amount of materialism. This is not to call you selfish, but to say that you do not need to escape the mundane and retreat into your internal world,. You might find it more fulfilling and beneficial to adapt your personal genius toward making the most of what you already possess and what you can gain through that.

Genuine spiritual progress can be observed by real change in your life and outlook, and there is no special technique to do that. It is all too often that people seeking spirituality become socially distant, withdrawn from reason, and generally less-effective in all their choices, as a result of mistaking visionary or mystical experience for legitmate spiritual rewards.

i feel that path has been taking previously and i must find a different one. dont know why, just do.

thanks anyway

While there are probably few devout monastics who would shy away from responsibility in the material world, it is true that some people do not feel the call to have family, to live in the material world, etc. There is such a thing as monastic calling. While it is not to be taken up lightly, and it certainly is not an easy path, perhaps maybe even more difficult than simply living a 'mundane' life, if any life can be called mundane.

However, Imperial is right to say that there is a difference between spiritual calling and escapism. In some traditions, one does not become monastic until the age of forty, as one must be grounded in the world we are born into for a purpose before reaching up into the higher spiritual world.

Everyone's path is individual, ultimately. Some possess the intention in life to work in the world, to spread positive energy to those they work with, to family members, etc.; others possess the intention to release the material world all together and move on. Still others are somewhere inbetween, and for those it is often clarifying to spend some months, even years, away from the world and in meditation, only to realize that their path does indeed include a material life, whatever that then entails.

It is all about perspective and attitude, and whatever path you choose, just agreeing with yourself that you wish to have a positive outlook on all experience, that you wish to evolve spiritually, that you accept yourself and your situation as it is, will have a profound impact on who you are and allow you to become detached from the beliefs and assumptions about who or what you must become in order to have happiness in life. Then instead of being pulled in one direction or another because of those attachments, you can move yourself however you want - true freedom to evolve in the direction that your Intention is already gearing you towards.

peace

to include the spiritual development in the mundane, especially in one such as ours that looks askance at anything other than physical manifestation of religious ideals, it may be more effective to go with hidden (occult methods)

and don't forget about magickal methods to connect with the spiritual

like drawing sigils on certain parts of the body (hidden by the clothes) - most likely the original concept behind tatooing

drawing a pentagram on the skull under the hair, and wearing spiritual jewelry like a pendant against the skin (under the clothes)

using aromatherapy oils in hidden places

you get the idea, enjoy

e.

Now im looking to become more in contact with the "self" inside of me, and im wandering what practices could help me, i think meditation is the best but should i learn it on the web, or take a course etc.

I feel the urge to hurry for 2012, just a hunch.

Any method is appropriate. Some chant, some dance, some simply sit and contemplate their navels. If you look, you will find something that is good for you. Many people start with focusing on being aware of the breath, in and out, but really, meditation is about observation. Observing the self, until thought is understood.

Jiddu Krishnamurti said, "You can sit in the right posture with your back straight, breathing correctly, doing pranayama and all the rest of it for the next ten thousand years, and you will be nowhere near perceiving what truth is, because you have not understood yourself at all, the way you think, the way you live."

Every practice of meditation is just to still the mind, which facilitates spiritual growth in the most superficial sense. Beyond this, only observing awareness, understanding what you think and why, how you react to the world, etc., will give you substantial and lasting growth. Only when you know yourself thoroughly will you know what you are transcending.

Without meditation, however, the mind is too cluttered and busy to accurately gauge it's own anatomy - without meditation, making lists of one's positive and negative qualities is just pointless self-organization.

From there, you are the only authority. Anyone else you ask can only turn your eyes in the right direction, and perhaps give you good shoes for walking.

Until you can revel in stillness, no other explanation about the purposes or uses of meditation means anything, it's impotent knowledge.

peace

try this:

well, i don't know how good your visualization skills are, so i'll stick with the purely physical and most simple methods (and cut a few corners)

the biggest problem that we all face is that we harbor guilt and mixed feelings about ourselves, and things, and even the world, and where its going and why am i here, etc

you may get lost or interrupted during the work (for it is work), but don't get pissed or angry, just try to hold what you've got and go again later

meditation method #429,864,573,961(you get the idea there are many, many, many ways to do this) - here we go:

assume a position comfortable for you, and make sure its one that won't cause blood clots if you sit there for 3 hours straight - some (like me) have to sit up so we won't fall asleep!

try to have it quiet or at least just ambient (cause you need to concentrate)

don't cross your legs or your arms unless you have mastered yoga already (blood clots, also called deep vein thrombosis, is the danger here - good blood flow is a must and crossing legs and arms for a lengthy time can shut off blood flow)

close your eyes and generate 'peace' (shanti), which is an altered state of consciousness, through deep breathing or intentional calming of the mind - going from everyday speed to a 'suspended for the moment' stopped speed, or as close to stopped as you can get it and hold it - if it flares back up, just slow it back down and continue

the trick is to recombine the mind/body split, and accept the body as it is, but first you have to accept the subconscious, then the mind itself, then the body (the trinity - you can thank the ancient greeks for the splitting of the whole into a bunch of parts)

adopt the attitude of a great robed and powerful priest, in which you are instructed to always forgive all things, regardless, including even guilt and blood and all the bad things (and sometimes even the good things)

then toll a great bell for them to come - your subconscious mind, dripping with all sorts of nasty stuff comes - it remembers everything and never forgets anything and inflates the slightest bad thing you ever did into a huge mountain of evil - you forgive it and all the acts it represents (you can throw the holy water, and use the incense, etc), and once it is forgiven and cleaned up, it will recombine with your mind (you'll start to remember stuff and you can explore but don't forget we are on a mission here), so press on

sound the great bell again, and the mind itself will come (now the part of you that's thinking this is also of the mind, but the freudians have used the axe very freely, and the mind itself is considered split into left and right, and animal and human, and lobes, and all sorts of crap), so as the priest you welcome back in the straggling bits of the mind (i see them as like small creatures), who, once they are forgiven, rejoin you (you'll want to explore, but we're on a mission here), so press on

sound the great bell for the third and final time, and the body will come, limping and whimpering and dripping great pools of blood, sweat and tears - forgive it and clean it up until it is comforted and smiles, then it will rejoin with you (explore your body, but from the insides outward - feeling every cell and cycle and organ and heartbeat, but we're on a mission here), so press on

you are now whole, and now you can look beyond yourself, and forgive the world and rejoin with it, then the planets and the sun, then the stars, and the heavens, and then the universe, and all the multiple universes like soap bubbles - you are as big as them, but you are still the tiny you on the earth

you hear happy laughter and turn around, and there is some sort of intelligence behind you. and it forgives you, and you forgive as well, and you continue to the logical conclusion

at some point you must return to the earth and continue your mission (if you don't know what it is then ask - you are whole with everything now) - you will probably hear and see things completely differently, hear vioces, etc

if you have to, you may ground yourself out by going to dirt somewhere (connected to the center of the earth, not just a planter) and placing your hands on it and feeling the incredible energy flowing out of you into the great sponge of the earth

enjoy,

e.