How can I search for spiritual answers?

QUESTION - First off, it's awesome that you offer this. I just graduated from college and I'm looking for a job. I was just rejected from the one I really want, but I'm hoping a good offer comes my way soon. I've been poor my whole life and I'm ready to get a steady pay check. :) Could you send some good luck vibes my way? 

More importantly, though... I've been really searching for some spiritual answers lately. I'm not sure what you could do to help. Is there some way to help me find some clarity? 

ANSWER – Good luck vibes no problem! I will light a basil candle for you at 21.00 GMT Sunday 29th June when I do my weekly ritual. But you sound to have the right attitude, keep trying, keep applying, keep slogging away and it will yield results. Getting a job is probably 90% effort, 10% good luck. Great to do all you can to influence the 10% but don’t forget that the real success will depend on your ability to put the effort in to deliver the 90%.

Finding spiritual answers is a complex but rewarding undertaking. I think there are two very clear definitions of this though. It’s crucial to decide in your own mind whether you want to look for an academic path to a universal truth or whether what you actually desire is to find your own way to muddle through the world. I think you mean the latter or you’d be asking me to recommend courses on philosophy…

The first step to embracing your own spirituality is to make time for it in your life, it’s a fallacy that anyone is too busy to lead a spiritual life and anyone who says they are is most definitely lying to themselves. But in your case, by taking the step to determine that you want to think and feel more than your immediate world can provide you with, you have already progressed further than those who refuse to seek.

The first thing to do is to adopt some basic spiritual exercises, these will have the benefit of confirming to yourself that you are doing something practical to embrace your spirituality but they will also make you more receptive to taking on new concepts outside your normal worldly view.

Here’s a couple of basic ideas to get started. Before you go to bed, think of a question that you would like to focus your mind on in the morning, something a bit deep, the kind of thing you wouldn’t like to ask a stranger on the bus. Maybe: “What does the idea of a God/Goddess mean to me?” or: “How would it feel to experience total peace?” Set your alarm clock ten minutes earlier in the morning, get out of bed, sit on the floor and really focus on the question you have set yourself. You’re not meditating, not trying to clear your mind but nor are you looking for an actual answer. What you are doing is allowing your mind to wander through different ideas, thoughts and visualizations. You are taking your mind beyond the mundane and lifting it up into the clouds. Stay still and feel the different thoughts and feelings pour into your mind and trickle in and out of your brain. Don’t force a conclusion, just enjoy taking that small part of the day for unhurried simple thought. Over time you can build up to ask different questions, possibly even raising your thinking time to 15 or 20 mins as you become more proficient at considering the deeper matters. As your mind becomes accustomed to plumbing the depths of its own limits you will find your own spirituality awakening and becoming more conscious of the truths within you.

The other thing you can try is keeping a spiritual journal. Write down your thoughts, experiences, dreams and moments of progressive epiphany as they happen. Don't show it to anyone and don't try to edit it into a work of art, see it as a living breathing stream of consciousness that helps to shape your thoughts into some sort of cohesive jumble. Use it to explore your own beliefs.

Finally, I'd have a good go at meditation. Meditation can lift the conscious mind to a higher spiritual plane. And all those things you've ever seen in Hollywood films when people meditate work pretty well. Low lights, new age music, candles, incense....it all helps get you into a state of mind when you can concentrate on what it is to be you for a short while. See meditation as your chance to put down the doubts and uncertainties of the mundane world and let the spirit world flow about you, even if only for a short while.

Image http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1406619 (African_fi)

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