The Path of Spiritual Development

How often have you considered the purpose for your being here? What do you want to accomplish in your life, and for what purpose? From a spiritual perspective, everyone has a unique life purpose. At the same time, we also all have a common life purpose, which is spiritual growth and the inner realization of our true divine nature. Spiritual development is the process by which souls mature into their full power and greatness through the experiences of many lifetimes. Some spiritual traditions state that each soul is created perfect, and that we simply need to rid ourselves of the ego in order to uncover our underlying perfection. In my opinion, the path is not quite so simple. If we consider a human being, we can see that a person starts life as an infant who must grow and mature through many stages of life before becoming an adult. Similarly, a soul is born with inherent potential, but must develop itself through many different stages of growth and understanding in order to reach its full potential. For this reason, we as souls are given many opportunities to experience different realities and planes of existence in our quest to develop knowledge, courage, strength, faith, power, wisdom, love, peacefulness, cooperation, compassion, perseverance, spiritual sight and creativity. The physical dimension of existence gives us the ability to experience life from a unique perspective not available in the spiritual realm. This is why we come here—to test ourselves, to learn about ourselves and to discover what we are capable of achieving. There are three main pillars that support the process of spiritual development: the first is spiritual awareness, the second is spiritual intelligence and the third is spiritual integration. We first need to develop an awareness of the spiritual realm, including an understanding of ourselves as spiritual beings living in a physical reality. Secondly, we must cultivate our spiritual intelligence, or the ability to understand and experience life from the perspective of our soul. Thirdly, we need to practice integrating our spiritual awareness and understanding into our lives as lived in this physical reality. Gaining spiritual knowledge is meaningless if we do not learn how to apply it in everyday life on an individual, national and global level. Fortunately, life gives us many opportunities to cultivate our gifts, to overcome our weaknesses, and to grow and mature as souls. In this way, spirituality can be seen as the foundation on which you build your life to grow and prosper on all levels. The more you can embrace the truth of your spiritual nature, the faster you progress toward your life goals. Authentic spirituality has little to do with rigid belief systems or rules of conduct, and more to do with providing you with the framework and resources to become the best that you can be, and to express who you are in truth. I hope that you agree with me that this is a noble and worthy purpose, a most beautiful gift to us from our Creator.