The Concept of Spiritual Development

​Recently when I told someone about my upcoming book “Am I Spiritual Yet?” Hearing the title they replied “I think we are spiritual all the time.”

That gave me pause for thought.

Yes, of course, we are spiritual beings, so in one sense we are always spiritual. But the title of the book is meant to beg that question. What does it mean to be spiritual? And, is it possible to be more spiritual, or to develop spiritually? And if so, how do you do that?​
​In the last post I wrote about the spiritual evolution of the soul. As we have gradually evolved through more than 8 million species to finally achieve the human form our consciousness evolves. Now, in the human form, we have free will. Not dictated by instinct like the animals we can choose how we are going to act, and as we all know, the actions of some people make animals look spiritually elevated.

Samsara is the Sanskrit word for birth and death in the material world. The word samsara actually means ‘wheel.’ As the wheel turns any point on the rim of the wheel is sometimes at the top, but soon it rolls around to be at the bottom. It’s a fitting metaphor for rebirth because often one may have the good fortune for a high birth of wealth and health, but the next life is one of poverty, misery and sickness.

We’ve all heard stories of the ruthless and arrogant despot who, although having a high position and great power, does abominable things. That person is heading for a fall from grace, and the karma from their heinous acts will yield the destiny of a very unfortunate person in the next life. Pride goeth before the fall, as the saying goes, and it follows that many people in high positions become proud and arrogant, abandoning moral and religious principles. In the next life what they have done to others will be done to them. Universal laws are iron clad and cannot be violated without reaction.

The concept of spiritual development thus means that after many, many lifetimes of lessons and mistakes, we learn how to behave properly and do so on our own volition, because it is the right thing to do, and not out of concern for being caught and punished.

So spiritual progress is possible. But what constitutes progress is different for each one of us, because each of us is at a different stage of spiritual evolution, just as grades 1 through 5 have progressively difficult subject matter. We are each on the next lesson of our life’s journey and have our own unique lessons to learn. What is proper for one may not be the proper choice for another. If we get it wrong we regress and we get to learn the lesson again. There is no hurry as there is infinite time. We can take as long as we want.

What is spiritual progress and regress? Spiritual progress means freeing ourselves from the material conception of life. Regress means that we increasingly identify with the body and the material conception of life, thus our consciousness becomes more covered, or we become more un-conscious.

We have help with this. Moral laws are present to help us understand the difference between proper behavior and improper behavior. By following moral principles we make progress spiritually, expanding and freeing our consciousness. But acting whimsically or in defiance of morality covers our consciousness causing us to become more materialistic.

I will develop the concept of morality and sin further in the next post.