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In a world, which is ruled by a material lifestyle, offering and wanting you to get your hands on all kind of conveniences like electronic devices and gadgets, focusing your entire interest on the media controlled hype and illusions, it is almost impossible growing up spiritually. Also the world wide web is full of distractions of what you must have in this physical world. The result is a fear based life, where our incarnation concept of self-realization is buried under the soil of material desires. So how can we then balance the material and spiritual aspects of our lives?

Growing up spiritually results in looking inward

Introspection goes beyond recalling the things that happened in a day, week, or month. You need to look closely and reflect on your thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and motivations. Periodically examining your experiences, the decisions you make, the relationships you have, and the things you engage in provide useful insights on your life goals, on the good traits you must sustain and the bad traits you have to discard. Moreover, it gives you clues on how to act, react, and conduct yourself in the midst of any situation. Like any skill, introspection can be learned; all it takes is the courage and willingness to seek the truths that lie within you. Here are some pointers when you introspect: be objective, be forgiving of yourself, and focus on your areas for improvement.

Growing up spiritually is to develop your potentials

Traditionally, religion and science share differing views on matters of the human spirit. In the view of religion, people are spiritual beings temporarily living on Earth, while science reduces the spirit as just one dimension of an individual. Self Mastery is a essential theme in both Christian (Western) and Islamic (Eastern) teachings. The needs of the body are recognized but placed under the needs of the spirit. Deeds, Beliefs, values, morality, rules, experiences, and good works are the blueprint to ensure the growth of the spiritual being. For Psychology, self-actualization is to realize ones full potential. Basically we can identify several human needs: physiological, security, belonging, esteem, cognitive, aesthetic, self-actualization, and self-transcendence. These needs can include the main three: material, emotional, and spiritual. Nature dictates, when you have satisfied the basic physiological and emotional needs, spiritual or existential needs come next. Accomplishing each need leads to the total development of the individual. The main difference between religions and psychology is the end of self-development: Christianity and Islam see that self-development is a means toward reaching back to God, while psychology view that self-development is an end by itself.

Growing up spiritually is to search for meaning

There are religions that believe in the existence of God and see the purpose of the human life as to serve the God. In contrary, there theories among psychology that propose we ultimately give meaning to our lives by ourselves. I doesn’t matter if we believe that lifes meaning is pre-determined or self-directed. The main reason to grow in spirit is to realize that we do not merely exist. There is more to it. Even we do not know the meaning of our lives at birth, but over the course of our development we gain knowledge and wisdom from our interactions with people. Development comes through our actions and reactions to the situations we are in. As we discover this meaning, there are certain beliefs and values that we reject and affirm. So we realize that our lives have purpose. That puts all our physical, emotional, and intellectual potentials into use and sustains us during trying times. Ultimately it and gives us something to look forward to achieve, a goal and a destination to reach. A person without purpose or meaning is like a drifting ship at ocean.

Growing up spiritually is to realize interconnections

Religions mostly have the concept that we are related to all creation, live and inanimate. Thus we call other people in believe brothers and sisters even if there are no direct blood relations. Also, religions such as Christianity and Islam, which are deity-centered, mention the relationship between humans and a higher being. Science, on the other hand expounds on our link, to other living things through the evolution theory. Obviously, this relatedness is clearly seen in the concept of ecology, the interaction between living and non-living things. In psychology, the highest human need is connectedness, which is a characteristic of self-transcendence. Clearly, if you recognize your connection with all things makes you more humble and respectful of people, animals, plants, and things in nature. As a result, you appreciate everything around you and moves you to go beyond your comfort zone and reach out to other people,animals and plants. In this higher purpose you become stewards of all other things around you.

Personal development and growing up spiritually is a process of expanding spiritual consciousness on a day-to-day basis. We are here in this world to learn from experiences, bad and good, and to build it in our Being as a whole. Only through this inner awareness, spiritual growth will occur and more important, further growth will be possible.

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