Spiritual practice should always be undertaken under the guidance of an authority in the field such as a Guru. A guideline to the steps in spiritual practice according to the Path of the Guru’s Grace is as follows:

Chanting the Lord’s Name

Simple repetition of the Lord’s Name as per your religion is the easiest way to begin one’s spiritual practice. It acts like a divine tonic for one’s spiritual well-being and is a powerful tool to grow spiritually.

>> What Name should one chant?

The following table gives details as to what Name one should chant depending on one’s religion. All major religions have been listed below. If you have any further questions please e-mail weekly@sanatan.org.

For more detailed information please read Sanatan Sanstha’s Publication Volume 21: Introduction to Spirituality and Sanatan Publication Volume 6: Path of Chanting the Lord’s Name.

Remaining in satsang

Satsang is a Sanskrit word, which means 'divine company'.

Lord Jesus makes reference to the importance of this in the Holy Bible Matthew 18:20 where He says - " For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them."

Remaining in the company of like-minded people is helpful to persevere in any endeavour. So also to assist in our spiritual path, it is important to remain in satsang, the company of seekers of God. Satsang also includes reading of spiritual texts and listening or singing of devotional songs. More importantly during satsang seekers get divine energy from God.

Sanatan Sanstha holds regular satsangs where information on the Science of Spirituality is imparted and questions are answered. We encourage you to attend - please do contact the Sanatan Sanstha centre in your region.

Serving God

Any endeavour finally has to culminate in action. An important aspect of spiritual practice is serving God. Service to God includes activities such as:

• Cleaning a Holy place and its vicinity.
• Rendering the service that a Saint or a Guru asks you to do.
• Running errands in a Saint’s ashram. For example, cleaning food grains, nursing the sick in the ashram, etc.
• Helping to educate society on Spirituality is however the best form of service to God.

Sacrifice

As we grow spiritually, we benefit in so many ways that we become truly indebted to God. Due to our spiritual growth, we benefit with the following realisations:

• That every thing we possess is given by God Himself.
• Due to the feeling of indebtedness we begin to sacrifice everything we have been given for fulfilling our duty of participation in propagating spirituality in society.
• We begin to sacrifice our mind (things we used to like before, such as going to parties, watching television and other mundane things becomes less) as we get more and more involved in God’s work.
• We use our body for the service to God such as cleaning the satsang venue or organising things in the venue.
• Sacrificing our wealth for the propagation of spirituality as our focus on importance of spirituality increases as compared to other aspect of our lives.

Sacrifice means, not giving away all of ones belongings, rather getting rid of one’s attachments to them.

The picture below shows what actually happens when we sacrifice for God, we do not lose but instead are uplifted by Him.

Unconditional spiritual love (Priti)

We are all familiar with the word “love”. It has captivated us and is widely used as a theme in our movies and songs. However when we use the word love in a spiritual context, love has a deeper meaning. It is unconditional and with out expectation.

Unlike worldly love, which is conditional and arises out of attachment, spiritual or divine love is unconditional. As one perseveres on the spiritual path, one’s attitude starts expanding. One starts developing unconditional spiritual love for other spiritual aspirants on the same path, then for spiritual aspirants on other paths, then for all people, and later still, for all Creation. The diagram below shows the difference between worldly love and spiritual love.

Efforts essential to augment the above steps

As one makes such regular efforts towards attaining divine grace, it becomes more and more clear that the main obstacle in progressing on the path is one’s own mistakes caused by one’s personality shortcomings and ego. Due to these, one makes many mistakes daily, like getting irritated, being late, forgetting an important detail, etc. This takes up energy unnecessarily and prevents one from achieving the most out of one’s efforts. It becomes equally essential then to augment one’s spiritual pursuit with conscious efforts towards removal of one's personality defects and reduction of one's ego. Along with this one needs to develop spiritual emotion or an intense awareness of God’s presence in their lives. Thus, these aspects become an inseparable part of steps of spiritual practice on the Path of Guru’s Grace:

• Personality Defect Removal
• Ego destruction
• Developing spiritual emotion

(Refer to the Sanatan organization’s volumes devoted specifically to these topics, for practical suggestions on inculcating these aspects in daily spiritual practice.)