Why There Is No Balancing The Material And Spiritual

Everyone is seeking the way to balance their material life with their spiritual aspirations and practices. I believe there is no way to balance the two because they are not in fact separate.

For two things to balance against each other, they must be separate and different, but if there is only one thing, then you cannot value one thing against itself, hence why I say it is not possible to balance the two sides of life.

Spiritual practices are commonly thought of as meditation or thinking of things on a divine or higher level and then working in whatever way you feel is right for you, to reach an awareness or consciousness of that realm, enlightenment.

The problem is that to do any of these practices effectively, our mind must be in the proper state. Too many people meditate yet never still their mind for a moment. This is a very unproductive practice. To gain the benefit of meditation or any practice, the mind must be calm and peaceful enough to stay focused on the practice.

This is why I have found that the true preparation for spiritual practice is actually living in the material world. As with most things, to reach higher and more advanced levels, we need to go through some preparatory training.

The goal of spiritual training is to conquer the lesser ego and negative emotions so that the mind attains a state of quiet and equanimity. This allows one to separate themselves from the attachment and fears associated with a normal life and thus become more conscious of the eternal aspect of their being.

Meditation and such practices are to get your mind to stop being in negative emotions and imagination, or as more commonly known, to be present. If your mind is too attached to the material world, it will never calm down enough to effectively meditate and gain the benefits of the practice.

Being in the world and not allowing the ego to control you is the best spiritual practice by offering you the tremendous opportunity to overcome the negative emotions and lesser ego. Once you have attained a level of detachment, or rather, objective view of the reality of the situation, your mind will attain a state of peace and calm that meditation promises.

The irony is that with the attitude that the material normal life is the spiritual practice to attain the higher states promised by meditation, we may be able to attain those states by simply living in this understanding without meditation. This alone will give you a calm and peaceful heart. With that inner balance and calm, you may then take up meditation and find a far greater benefit from that or other spiritual practices.

The problem is that people love the exciting things, the fun and fanciful exotic and mystical. It is exactly this excitement that prevents one from attaining the desired experiences and mental or emotional states. It is the search for other than what already is in your possession.

By living with the attitude that what you do in the day is not what it appears. Although most definitely going to work and earning money to buy your food and pay the rent is what you are doing, that is only on the surface. We must live with the understanding that everything we do serves an obvious purpose, but that is only the surface.

Taking the deeper value that all the causes of frustration are actually opportunities to conquer your lesser ego and that part of you which throws you off balance and separates you from your spiritual side, makes all things in life a positive chance for progress rather than the appearance of a setback. Yes, it may be a material setback, but it can also be a spiritual leap forward if you take every situation in that way.

There is no balancing the material and spiritual worlds because they are one and the same. Our material life is our spiritual training. By ceasing to live in the illusion that one is two and see two as one, your mind and entire life will change. Frustration and pain will be a thing of the past and your life will turn into a glowing example of happiness to guide others as well as attain the benefits that spiritual practices offer and promise.